Welcome, this is Sananda. What a beautiful question! Begin by accepting yourself. Give yourself time in your life, as you go along, to rediscover who you are. You are not a fixed thing. You are changing all the time, and so what was true for you yesterday may not be true today. So allow that you are a being who is growing and that, therefore, whatever understanding you have of your purpose right now, that’s going to grow and change too. Accept your humanity too. You are a beautiful, wonderful being and you are human. 

00:53

So find for yourself a balance between ambition, a belief in yourself, a belief that you can achieve much in your life, and a gentleness, an easiness with yourself, a recognition that you have limitations as a human. You don’t need to name those limitations. Indeed, it may be more helpful not to, but simply to know that there are limits, that right now you can’t wave your arms and fly, and that that is all right. Therefore, when you find frailties or what you see within yourself as failures, accept them, but do not judge them. You do not need to label them. You are always a beginner, and that’s healthy. You are born anew in each fresh moment. And so, as part of that gentleness, be sure not to lock yourself in to a stance or position and attitude, a belief system. Let your beliefs be beliefs that support you, that encourage you, that give you plenty of scope for growing and discovering. We might summarise all of this as: be kind to yourself. Be an enthusiast for the being that you are. Believe in yourself without turning that into a rod for your back. Believe in yourself, but don’t be a bully to yourself. Encourage, don’t condemn. 

03:03

You have a purpose. Long before you entered this life, you chose, with much help, a purpose. Whatever your purpose is, it can’t be summarised in a single sentence or a few words, a few ideas. Your purpose is beautiful. It’s also complex, it’s subtle. For some, you find that your purpose can be expressed as a choice of career, quite effectively. A career will never cover all of your purpose, but it may express quite a lot of your purpose. For others your purposes are the different nature. It doesn’t necessarily match any given career at all. It maybe much broader or simply different from the kinds of work paths that you might discover as yet in this world. So as you look out your purpose, your sense of it, do your best not to compare yourself with any other. Though your purpose may have much in common with the purpose of others, it will never be identical and even where it is very similar, your way of expressing your purpose may be very different from someone whose purpose is quite similar to yours. So do your best not to compare. 

04:44

For some of you, the sense of a purpose is very strong within you, clearly marked from an early age. You may discover that you have particular skills when young and it is your delight to develop those skills and that they become in large measure your life path. But for many of you it may not be like that at all, that as you listen to these words you may be wondering, ‘What is my purpose? I don’t really know. I certainly can’t put it into words’. If that is the case, be comfortable with that. 

05:30

Know that you have a purpose and give yourself time, quiet time, when you can just be with yourself, not doing anything, simply being and gently, gradually, and ask inwardly for help as well with this, if you wish. Come to know your purpose as a feeling. Find it deep within. You can be sure that it is beautiful. It comes from the Source. It comes from the essence of your being. Therefore, you will find, even if it seems to you that you don’t really know what your purpose is, that your life gives you many clues every day as to its nature. Whatever lifts your spirit, whatever lifts your heart, whatever gives you joy, is telling you about your purpose. It is the wish of your soul that your life be joyful, and so, in a way, you could say that the feeling of joy is given to you is a way of knowing why you are here, what your purpose is. Understand this, too, about your purpose. It has many aspects, but these are two important aspects. Your purpose is for you and it is for the world, for others. So your purpose is to grow, for sure. You’re growing, you’re growing beautifully, but it’s also for the world. 

07:36

Your presence contributes to the world. That’s the way it is, and so you may discover that, as you consider what is joyful to you, that within that there is an indication of some way in which your presence contributes to the world. This is important, especially for some of you, for it’s very easy to underrate yourself, to feel that you don’t really make a difference. You’re just one person in a large and confusing world. What difference could you possibly make? Your presence is a unique contribution. No other being can contribute to the world what you do. And you contribute most to the world when you give yourself permission to live a life that is joyful to you, partly because your joy shows you that you are in alignment with your purpose and partly because your joy is infectious. You help others to find their joy. 

09:06

Now, whether you are able to name, or approximately name, your purpose, whether you are able to recognise it in yourself or not, whether it feels elusive or right there in front of you or indeed right there inside you, it maybe doesn’t matter as much as you thought. You can discover your purpose new in every moment. This is a skill. Be patient. It doesn’t come immediately, give it time, but you can find your purpose moment by moment, by, at least in some moments, pausing, even if only for a fraction of a moment, to notice what is joyful for you in this moment that is opening up. And, perhaps only after you have done this many times, you might then be able to turn around, so to speak, and look over your shoulder and see the path you followed. It doesn’t matter whether that path looks to you straight or whether it looks to you as though it’s wiggled all over the place. If there is joy, if that path has been made of moments of joy, this is you expressing your purpose, fulfilling your purpose. 

10:44

So in some ways, not being able to name your purpose might be more helpful than being able to name it. You might find it easier to notice where the joy lies in each moment, if there is a degree of uncertainty. If you have great certainty about your purpose, this too is a gift, but be a little careful that it doesn’t make you driven, that you don’t ride roughshod over your own subtle inner flows of energy, your own changes of mood, your own changes of awareness, your own growing. Keep renewing that sense of purpose. Find it again in each fresh moment. It’s safe to do that. It won’t be taken from you, just renewed. 

12:01

As well as looking at your purpose and finding its fulfilment in each moment, you can also find yourself, as you move through life, coming to times that feel like crossroads: times of important decisions, a change of job or career, a change in relationship, moving to a different part of the country or the world, and so on. There can be many such crossroads moments in your life, and at these moments too, when you recognise them, it can be useful to pause, to let your own wisdom come to you, to do your best to let go of any need to figure it all out, to have all the answers, to calculate the best path. The future is not fixed. It is not given to you to know exactly what the future holds for you. You can’t calculate it in that way, but you can feel your way, you can sense it. There is an inner knowing within all of you that guides you. 

13:25

In some ways you could think of your purpose as being like a compass. But in that you’re also like a sailor. If you are to follow a course, your purpose, if you were to head for the north, you will still find that you are adjusting your sails to encounter the currents, the weather, the wind. You will move the rudder often, maybe all of the time, to keep true to that inner path. And so at such moments of decision, such times where you feel, rightly or wrongly, that the choice you make is going to have a powerful influence on your life for a number of years, maybe all of the rest of your life, give yourself time to let your wisdom rise to the surface, to hear that quiet inner voice that guides you, to trust it, to recognise that your personality self, smart though it is, doesn’t have all of the answers. And sometimes that quiet inner voice will be exactly aligned with what your personality is saying to you. Other times, you may find that that quiet inner voice is prompting you to override or to seem to ignore what your personality is saying. This is a subtle process. Be reassured, there are no right or wrong answers. 

15:25

When you come to a crossroads, whichever way you turn, you will grow, you will learn, but in this age joy guides you best. Your joy deepens as you fulfil your purpose, so that you have a wonderful way of giving yourself feedback on how well you are following that path of joy. Let me make a distinction here between joy and happiness. Often they will be the same thing you are joyful, you are happy. But sometimes you may find that you are going through a difficult time, a challenging time, a time in which, sometimes at least, you are really not feeling all that happy and yet something within, some quiet light in the heart of your heart says, ‘All is well. This is the way’. 

16:40

If, right now, you feel as if you are off your path, not fulfilling your purpose, what are you to do? Again, pause. Begin by being kind to yourself. Understand that you are never truly off your path, for you are here on Earth to grow and to contribute. Whatever you do, you will grow through it and others will learn from you through your actions and choices, so you never really lose your way. But if it feels as if you have, give yourself time, be kind. Don’t blame yourself or anybody else. It is as it is. And then look around your life as it is at the moment. What in your life at the moment brings you joy? It doesn’t need to be, indeed, it may well not be something big. Often, the clue to joy is in the small things, the little moments of joy, the respite from an arduous day or week or year. And let those little clues guide you from little moments of joy to longer periods of joy. Recognise, too, that joy is not simply about feeling joyful over a period of time. Joy deepens. Allow your joy to become more and more layered or deeper for you, as if every part of you, from the crown of your head to the tips of your toes and your fingertips, can feel joy, the joy of being alive, the joy of this amazing opportunity of being human. 

19:18

Purpose is not about success in terms of the world, it’s success in terms of your inner world, how you are inside yourself. Your success might mean nothing to others, it doesn’t matter. It’s you, your purpose. So allow joy to grow within you. Nurture it as you might grow a beautiful flower. If sometimes it feels to you that you’ve wasted time, that you look back at your life and think, ‘How could I have been so blind, so foolish, so lazy, so this, so that?’ Don’t judge. If you can see more now than you did then, you’ve grown, and growing is your purpose. 

20:44

Understand too that purpose is not identical with achievement, not in any obvious way. Someone can live their purpose beautifully, very fully, and yet pass unrecognised. Others may look at that person and say, ‘What has she achieved? He’s done nothing much with his life’. They cannot know. Only you can know within yourself. And so it can be helpful for you, as you look at fulfilling your purpose, to recognise this; to recognise that, though the approval of others is lovely to receive, it means nothing, if you are not able to approve of yourself. 

21:50

Be humble, but not too humble. You really do make a difference, and whatever name you give your purpose, whatever your state or condition right now, you can fulfil that purpose right now, too, You are living that purpose. As you hear these words, in some ways we could say that you are your purpose. The being that you are, clothes itself in a human body, a costume. You act upon this stage. You are the actor, the director, the playwright, the audience. You are inventing it all as you go along. You are wonderfully creative. You cannot accomplish everything in this life. Be at ease, enjoy being you. 

Good. Thank you for listening. Enjoy your purpose. And with our love go well.