If you pause, and really hear and think about the question… it is so powerful. Imagine hearing the question and then the silence that follows while you are given time to really hear the weight of that question and receive the answer.

In my journey, my inner self, my true self, gave me clues and inclinations towards mine, however I wasn’t clear enough or centered enough to see it or understand.

Have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become.

Steve Jobs

Growing up, I developed a very unique perspective around the female experience. I realized that my interpretations about society seemed to be on the outside of many social perspectives when it came to women/girls. I always thought that I was a little weird or different for feeling and knowing internally how strongly this resonated within me. I felt that I had clear insight into the reality that most or at least many girls and women experience in the course of their lifetime. I didn’t have a specific reason why I felt this way or why I was drawn to investigating the female experience, beyond the fact that I was in fact, myself, a woman. And furthermore, knowing that, although it was perfectly clear and obvious to me the differences between how women and men had to go through life and society, the topic was not a mainstream narrative consistently.

THEN… over the past few years everything has changed. The #ME TOO movement, the increase in women publicly naming their abusive husbands, sexual violators, rapists and general sexual harassment.  The incredible speed at which the increase in discourse around these issues played out, combined with the social reception was shocking yet amazing. While there may not have been a equally fast consequence for these perpetrators in a legal sense, there did start to become at least social consequences for these men, albeit slowly.

It was amazing to see women speaking up, refusing to be silenced anymore. Seeing the courage that it took to tell their story. I was amazed by their strength and their power, feeling that I somehow had lacked this strength and power, given that while I had an inner voice had prompted me around these topics in the past, I had never spoken up or tried to act on the injustice. Never thinking that I could actively using my perspective and experience to help others or make a difference on a grand scale. While I had held certain beliefs and perspectives about women’s right to equality, I hadn’t exhibited the same strength as these women now were. I had limited myself and constrained myself by restrictions of my own creation.

However…

What has happened now, is that this perspective that I always thought was such an isolating and unacceptable one is the exact thing that I have to offer the world!! Insanely… this had never occurred to me in the past. I thought I could use it for the work I would engage in, but never imagined it would be a such a dominant thing that I could focus on.

The exact thing I had thought was a burden was in fact my gift I could bring to the world…

Sometimes the longest journey we make is the sixteen inches from our heads to our hearts.

Elena Avila

So my question is… what is your gift? Where is your passion? Your unique perspective on the world? Do you feel free to express it? If not, then why not? How can you change a sense of burden, being an anomaly or non-conformist into an offering for the world?

In a grander sense… if you could do anything with your life, with no worries for money or supporting yourself… what would you do? How would you spend your life? Towards what purpose? Engaged in what work would you do?

The meaning of life is to find your purpose, the purpose of life is to give it away.

Pablo picasso

Embracing this idea has given my life new purpose and new direction. Seeing that it was my own limiting beliefs and fears holding me back from sharing this. Allowing myself to imagine the possibilities of my life enjoy and envision that without convincing myself why it is not possible.

How do you imagine what you want your life to be? Now believe that it can be.

Hear the question, sit in the silence… and ask…

What is my purpose?