Living your purpose isn’t about doing or achieving. It’s not about living up to some ideal. Living your purpose is about being yourself, the fullest essence of who you are, you at your most authentic when you strip away the conditioning and programming that has led you to pretend to be someone you’re not.
We try to fit purpose into a specific career, job, business, or a certain level of perceived success, but that’s not what it’s about. And yet, when you’re embodying your truth, you may well find yourself working a job or building a career or business that aligns with your purpose, because when you’re embodying your truth, everything inevitably falls into alignment. When you prioritise authenticity, you’re not willing to spend your time doing something that doesn’t feel right. But purpose is so much more than a job title or your work in the world.
Purpose is deep. Whilst we might summarise our purpose in one paragraph or one word or one aspect of our Human Design, each of those single elements has a ocean of meaning for us to dive into and explore. And ultimately, no one else can tell us our purpose; we can only be guided towards where we will discover and learn to embody it for ourselves. This is what Human Design offers us; a blueprint of our energy, a map that serves as a guide to embodying our inherent truth and expressing the gift frequency of who we came here to be. Our Human Design points us towards our purpose through our Type, Strategy, Authority, Profile, Definition, Defined Centres, Undefined Centres, Incarnation Cross, Nodes, Gates, Channels, Variable … it’s incredibly nuanced, intricate, and unique. The challenge is to remember that purpose is not something to achieve, or improve or fix within ourselves; it’s who we inherently are.
I’ve spent the past month embarking on the Venus Sequence, within The Gene Keys Golden Path; another avenue for exploring purpose. This is a journey of exploring relationships, emotional wounding, and opening your heart. The Gene Keys is a system that stems from Human Design. I see it as a more yin, feminine approach, that for me is supported by the more yang, masculine approach and foundation I have established through my process with Human Design. I already incorporate The Gene Keys into my work, but I’m looking forward to expanding how I integrate it to further enrich the ways in which I serve.
The Venus Sequence begins with a contemplation of our purpose in relationships. Something I didn’t anticipate was that this contemplation would bring insights into the emotional pain I’ve experienced during the past 3 years; my Gene Key here is 7.5, which holds themes of division, guidance, virtue, victimhood and self-pity, and leadership. Contemplating division within my relationships has brought many tears, as well as the recognition that of course, there is purpose in my experience. My mind has grappled with how to transform this shadow, to realise my purpose of guidance and leadership. I can see how I’ve allowed division to keep me hiding in so many ways, trapped in my mind’s illusions of perceiving myself as a victim of division & what that means for who I can be in the world – I’ve been scared to own my gift of guidance, scared to own my clarity and how that clarity can be of service to others.
What I am beginning to recognise is that even within the division of the past 3 years, even amidst the wallowing in victimhood and self-pity, there have been glimpses of beginning to embody guidance and leadership. Even when it was sacrilege to do so, I owned my unpopular opinions. Even when it divided family, friends, community and strangers, I stuck to my deeply considered values and convictions, with the clarity that I was doing so for reasons that felt ethical, virtuous, right, and good. In the face of vilification and condemnation, I was demonstrating what it means to be true to yourself.
I didn’t realise it at the time, but throughout the height of the division, I was living an aspect of my purpose; perhaps not my higher purpose, but beginning to head in a positive direction. This is but a surface level of one example of how my purpose has shown up in my life. The point is, amidst our greatest challenges, lies our purpose. “Your purpose is designed to be unlocked by life. It calls upon you to evolve through your challenges and it emerges progressively over the course of your life as you move through breakthrough and transformation.” (Richard Rudd)
There’s a subtle distinction between trying to improve or fix or achieve our higher purpose, and embodying the higher purpose that is already within us. The shadow expression of our purpose is not something to try and eliminate, but rather to forgive and accept, such that we can unlock the gift expression. This brings us back to where we began: honouring the truth of who we are at our deepest essence.
If you’re ready to explore the depth of your purpose through the lens of Human Design (with a sprinkling of Gene Keys), I’d love to be your guide. Learn more here.
Photo by Carlos de Miguel on Unsplash