The HARD path to your purpose

Find your passion and you will never work a day in your life…or so they say. But how can you best find your purpose? It seems every time we find what we think it is, others seek to downplay our efforts and tell us that dream is too risky or that we are crazy. Can you relate?

In this week’s Hebrew Bible / Old Testament reading called Bo (Exodus 10:1 – 13:16) we get some insight into how we are designed and what we are up against to uncover our true purpose. To set the stage, this story on the surface is about Moses and the Pharaoh negotiating it out again to finally let the people of Israel go out of the land of Egypt. This story shows us the final devastating three plagues: the worst of them all…locusts so thick the sun is blotted out, darkness so thick the people can’t even stand up or move, and the killing of every first born including man and animal.

Many believe this story is simply about G-d displaying his miracles in the land for all to see through the plagues. For today though, imagine we are just talking about YOU…as an individual. Think for a moment on how every single day you have to negotiate with outside and inside forces to do what you feel is right for you. Every single day we are up against the voices and opinions of our friends, families and even acquaintances buzzing about telling us what is appropriate or not. Every single day we buzz about as well doing the same to others and demonstrating our highlight reel on Facebook for all to see. All is well. All is good.

But as we go deeper underneath that outer shell that we show everyone else…do we listen to what is inside that shell? What fruit are we growing inside? And with what seed? Every single day we are also constantly listening to our own internal voice – either the voice of the Pharaoh hardening our heart with arrogance or our inner soul and light encouraging us on to fulfill what is our unique purpose.

Are you really alone?

In our story this week, Moses is incredibly fearful to do what is asked of him by G-d…go to the heart of Pharaoh’s arrogance to deliver these last three plagues. He will be removing Pharaoh’s outer shell to reveal the truly evil fruit and seed inside. So what do we learn from this? The title of the reading is Bo which in Hebrew means ‘come’. G-d is telling Moses not to GO to see Pharaoh to deliver these last three plagues, but rather he says ‘come’ which implies ‘come with me’. So basically this means – “you are not alone to go into this dark evil place, I will be with you.”

Isn’t it always the case that when we embark on something different that it seems radical to everyone around us? I can remember when I first started this blog, Homemade Mommy, I got push back from many, including my own family. I didn’t yet know where it would lead but I felt compelled to push ahead. I put on a good face but we found friends didn’t invite us over for dinner anymore because they didn’t eat the way we did and felt we would judge them. This made us feel isolated and alone. This is the 8th plague: the locusts – literally the buzz we create around us to cover up our true pain and struggles as we seek to fulfill our true purpose. What this story tells me now is that I didn’t need to feel alone back then. G-d is with us every step of the way. A great oil to use when feeling alone during this type of period is Purification blend while saying “Be all here”.

Do you like yourself?

It is in this state of aloneness that we go to next as we get the 9th plague: darkness. The darkness was said to be so thick that people couldn’t move and could not speak to anyone else. Each Egyptian was truly alone in the thick darkness for 3 days. Can you imagine what that must have felt like? When we step out further into our purpose we start to bear the fruit of our labors. We feel completely bound, however, to everyone else’s opinion and also our perceived limitations or excuses. Excuses such as not being able to afford to do what we need to do or not having the time to do what we most desire to fulfill our mission. We are literally boxed in by the darkness even though we can see freedom on the other side. A great oil to use during this time is Eucalyptus globulus. Eucalyptus oil is fantastic at opening up the chest and allowing us to breathe. As many yoga practicing folks know, to open the chest means to open the heart. It is during this time that we need to start to like and love ourselves. We have to ignore the inner voices that limit our potential!

Is your own arrogance limiting what you can achieve?

Now it comes to the time when we have to go to the heart of the issue: our own arrogance. This was the deepest seed of evil in Pharaoh’s heart. He felt he was a god and that everything he did and everything that was around him was because of him. But the real G-d was there to show him otherwise with all of these plagues. All too often we let our own ego get in the way of really succeeding. How? We can’t scale. We feel we are the only ones who can do anything and we can’t delegate anything. So we quickly become overwhelmed by the fact that we only have 24 hours in a day and we can’t work all 24 of them. We can’t grow if we can’t replicate ourselves. You can be a leader with many followers but you are never truly a leader until you grow other leaders empowered to do what you do *with* you. Our arrogance and ego keeps this from happening.

The final way to grow up as a leader is to crush this Pharaoh within. To slay the first born so to speak in the final 10th plague. Obliterate our arrogance and allow us to learn some humility that we are not the end all be all in our own little world! In this Exodus story we get the Passover story. The Israelites are told to make a Passover offering of roasted lamb. The plant and bitter herb they are told to roast with the lamb is Hyssop. You can just imagine a large pit of fire with a lamb roasting on top (this is making me hungry by the way) with hyssop branches on top. We all know what happens when we burn something fragrant…we get the scent and the properties of that plant. Hyssop is used over and over again in the Bible to open the chest and heart and purify against evil forces. Hyssop here is used to literally create movement and raise awareness of inner being. It was used to prepare the Israelites to be ready to MOVE out of Egypt and to freedom when all they had ever known was slavery. You might not know this but some Jews did not make it out of Egypt and some Egyptians became Jewish at this time. The Jews that didn’t make the Passover offering and take up the covenant with G-d died in Egypt during this time. Only those that were ready to MOVE got out.

Isn’t it the same for us now today? We say we are free but we aren’t we always enslaving ourselves by our lack of commitment to finding and living our true purpose? We have so many ways to distract ourselves from our true purpose. It is easy to ignore our inner voice and to numb ourselves out with TV and social media. We can easily ignore what we are put here to do…because to do all of the above: be alone, stretch out of our comfort zone going against the opinions of others, and grow as a leader is HARD. In this week’s story we are also given the gift of time from G-d. We are told how to sanctify time by ensuring we see it as holy. This means we aren’t to fritter our time away. That each second is literally a gift to us and it is up to us to ensure we use it wisely lest it disappear.

And yet – this is what we do every day. We negotiate this same path every single day. How are you using your time today? What seeds are you growing inside?

Oils Recap

All oil references to emotions are from this book. I use this book in a variety of ways and explain how in this video.

• Purification for Being Alone. The other side of being alone is being United. Say “Be all here” while applying a drop of Purification to the spot just under your jaw and ears.
• Eucalyptus globulus for Fear of Bondage. The other side is Freedom. Say “I like who I am” while applying Eucalyptus to the top of the throat just at the jaw line.
• Hyssop for Swallowed Emotions. The other side is Movement. Say “I raise my awareness” while applying Hyssop to the epiglottis (the middle of the throat).