Maybe Purpose Isn’t Something We Find
For the last year, I’ve been asking a lot of questions.
And lately, one question has started rising above all the others:
What is my purpose now?
Not my job. Not my responsibilities. Not who I am to my children, my partner, my friends, or the people I work with.
Something deeper.
What am I here for?
A few days ago, I went into a Spiritual Response Therapy session with that question sitting somewhere quietly inside me.
The first half of the session wasn't even specifically about purpose. We started with clearing.
Old programs. Old beliefs. Energies. Patterns. Things being carried unconsciously.
And one theme kept resurfacing:
I am.
We talked about how easily we define ourselves by everything attached to us.
I am Natali. I am a mother. I am a partner. I am an HR professional. I am this age. I was born here. I've experienced these things. I believe these things.
But if you keep stripping those identities away, eventually you reach something underneath all of them.
Not the story. Not even the voice inside your head telling the story.
Just:
I am.
The timing felt almost ridiculous because I had just started reading The Untethered Soul, which asks essentially the same question:
If you can hear the voice inside your head… who is the one hearing it?
That question has been sitting with me.
Who am I when I stop defining myself? Who am I before the explanation? Who am I before the thought?
And then, toward the end of the session, we finally moved into the question I had really come with.
What is my purpose now?
The first card pulled was:
The message wasn't, Here is your purpose.
It was more like: You're standing at a threshold.
The card spoke about moving between worlds, asking difficult questions, facing fear, developing a practice, and taking small, structured steps forward. Not having the entire path mapped out. Just taking the next step.
And then I pulled:
Cleansing.
Of course. Because maybe becoming isn't always about adding something. Sometimes becoming is removing. Removing the noise. Removing old stories. Removing expectations. Removing identities we've outgrown. Removing the belief that we need to know exactly where we're going before we're allowed to move.
Then came one of the cards that stopped me.
31 - Intuition.
Knowing.
The guidebook began:
There it was again.
I am.
The same words that had come through earlier in the session. The same question I had been reading about. The same place I've been slowly learning to return to. Not thought. Not analysis. Not figuring everything out.
Knowing.
The card talked about intuition living in the body 😳the tightening, expanding, alarms, quiet knowing ... and how intuition doesn't always provide a logical explanation first.
Sometimes we act from the feeling and allow time to reveal the why. That is uncomfortable for someone who likes to understand. I want the whole map. I want to see how everything connects. I want the meaning before I take the step. But maybe that isn't how this part works.
Maybe sometimes you know first.
And understand later.
What caught my attention even more was the numbering.
31 - Intuition. Then: 32 - The Path.
Knowing. Then walking. Not knowing everything. Just knowing enough to move.
The next card said:
The first step is taken ✓ you have asked for help. And suddenly the whole question felt different. I had been approaching purpose as though I needed to discover some hidden answer. Maybe asking the question was already movement. Maybe I didn't need the full answer yet.
Then came:
20 — Ovulation. Which sounds completely unrelated until you read the message. It was about being seen. Being fully expressed. Allowing yourself to show up as the person you actually are. The question attached to the card was essentially:
What do I most desire to share about myself that I usually keep hidden?
And that hit a nerve. Because I do want to share more. I write. I reflect. I study. I pull cards. I have these conversations with friends. I talk about awareness and choices and presence and healing. I've shared pieces of this journey. But there is still a part of me that hesitates.
How much do I show?
Will people understand?
Will they think I'm weird?
Is some of this supposed to stay private?
And during the reading, we talked about a gathering I recently hosted for around twenty women. It wasn't something I had considered spiritual or profound.
It was friends.
Food.
Drinks.
Crafts.
Conversation.
And I had brought out an oracle deck so everyone could pull cards and reflect on what they were calling into their lives and what message the universe was trying to tell them.
Some pulls were lighthearted. But some turned into really meaningful conversations. And during my session, she kept returning to those moments. Maybe that's part of it. Not standing on a stage telling people what their answers are. Not becoming some spiritual authority. Just creating spaces where people can slow down long enough to hear themselves.
Asking a question. Holding space. Offering another perspective. Helping someone notice something they may not have noticed before.
And then another card came:
Buddha — Heightened Awareness
Make peace with your thoughts and your world.
I almost laughed. Because if there has been one word underneath everything I've learned this year, it has been:
Awareness.
Awareness changed everything for me. Before awareness, there is reaction. Someone says something. Something happens. An emotion rises. We respond. And sometimes we don't even know why. But awareness creates a tiny space.
A pause.
And inside that pause lives choice.
Maybe I don't have to respond the way I always have. Maybe I can notice the emotion without becoming it. Maybe I can see another person's reaction without immediately absorbing it. Maybe I can recognize what's happening inside me before I hand it to someone else. That tiny pause has changed so much.
And maybe that's part of what I have to share. Not answers.
Awareness.
Because awareness allows someone to find their own answer. And then, right when I could have taken all of this and turned it into another enormous project, another card came out.
13 — Overworked. 😂
Out of balance.
I laughed again. Because of course. Rest has been chasing me through this entire journey.
Slow down. Pause. Rest. There is enough time.
I know the lesson. I'm just still practicing it. During the session I talked about why I tend to overwork. Part of it comes from growing up feeling like there wasn't enough. I want independence. I want security. I never want to feel trapped because I need to depend on someone else. And work has often been one of the ways I've created that safety.
But the message of the card was clear:
Self-care, family, fun, rest and boundaries aren't things you earn after doing enough work. They're part of the life you're trying to create in the first place. And then, almost hilariously, another card drove it home:
Proper rest helps me feel and look my best. 💆
Okay.
I hear you.
And I think that's actually one of the most important pieces of this entire reading. Because I can already see how easy it would be to discover something meaningful and immediately turn it into another assignment.
Create the deck.
Write the blog.
Read another book.
Learn another practice.
Host another gathering.
Help another person.
Post more.
Study more.
Do more.
But maybe purpose doesn't have to become another thing I exhaust myself trying to accomplish. Maybe purpose is not something I need to produce. Maybe it's something I practice.
Awareness.
Presence.
Listening.
Connection.
Helping people see themselves more clearly.
Creating spaces for reflection.
Trusting what I know.
Sharing a little more of myself.
And then going home. Resting. Being with my family. Living my actual life. Because somewhere during the reading, the simplest answer came up too:
The purpose of life is to live it.
Maybe that's why I haven't received one giant answer to the question:
What is my purpose?
Maybe purpose isn’t one thing waiting for me at the end of a path.
Maybe it is the way I walk it.
Maybe it is noticing. Pausing. Choosing. Connecting. Learning. Sharing. Resting. Becoming.
Maybe the purpose to life really is much simpler than I’ve been making it.
The purpose to life is to live it.
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