When women are racing around attending to everyone’s needs but their own, sometimes they lose sight of their soul purpose or the hunger pains of their soul, which are either screaming out loud, staying dormant in silent rage within their bodies or are such feint whispers that the woman doesn’t even know what’s going to feed her soul anymore. She has lost her “happy place”.
Speaking to a mum yesterday – a beautiful, capable woman of a young daughter who has been through numbers of hospital visits, chemo, lumbar punctures, radiation, casts and a long list of difficult things in her short four years of life – her mum’s words were “I’m not sure where I fit anymore.”
Our conversation headed in the direction of hubby receiving all of the praise for juggling work and such family testing times. But where does this capable woman “fit” and where does her identity lie, not to mention how does she feeling validated and know where her “place” is in the whole scheme of things. Put simply, I think her soul purpose may be hard for her to recognize, and her own needs have been put on the back burner.
Having had long years of being told how marvelous she was in her corporate job, no-one is banging their tambourine acknowledging what an incredible woman she is now. Her current experience is felt as “fitting outside” the norm of how people define success or feel validated. Sometimes it’s difficult to accept that your soul purpose is not necessarily in the corporate world. Your soul lessons may also not be in that arena – like this woman’s and my own experience, because I have also been down the path of intensive mothering of 6 kids, including one with special needs/abilities. And I know that there are other soul reasons for us to be doing what we are doing – day in and day out – humbly, patiently, sacrificing self and also often not being seen. It is not a mission cast upon everyone but perhaps it is not everyone’s soul purpose. And when we fight against our soul purpose, we can grow our seeds of discontentment into wilting flowers – and we end up feeling zapped, worthless and saying “What the hell?”
This feeling of “lost in space or feeling out of place” not only reveals itself in the trials of parenting kids with interesting needs. How about when our children fly from the nest and suddenly your role and identity diminishes and fades into a long lost memory and pining perhaps. It occurs when someone close to us dies. It happens when we leave the marriage or partnership. It occurs often as we ebb and flow through our womanly life fluctuations and curve-balls.
So how can we be more soul-content even when the world and people around us are not “praising us from the hilltops” or when when we feel like we’re in a foreign and perhaps “undesirable” land?
- Discover the freedom that this soul assignment is giving you. It is not all about constraints. Perhaps it is freedom from a strict 9-5 working schedule. Perhaps it is freedom in the type of people you are meeting. Perhaps it is the freedom of alone-time or a new area of learning.
- Learn the art of self-validation. It is only when we lose our expectation that others should love us, adorn us with thanks or even notice us in their own busyness and struggles in life, that we are set free. It is our unmet expectations that often disappoint us and lead us down the path of discontentment.
- Learn that feeding your own soul hungers is also important and is actually YOUR responsibility. If your soul’s longings are not being met, then you are to blame! Take some valuable time to actually re-listen to your soul crying out for what it needs and find a way to feed the need.
If you love this wisdom, why not share with a friend? And how about leaving a comment on how you find your “happy place.”
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