Feeling Lost? Stop Thinking and Do This Instead

Your purpose in life is to discover who you really are

“At times you have to leave the city of your comfort and go into the wilderness of your intuition. What you’ll discover will be wonderful. What you’ll discover is yourself.” ― Alan Alda

I believe there’s a real you, deep inside, past all the layers of social conditioning, expectation and fear, there is a you that’s always existed and you must shed those layers built up over the years to rediscover who you are.

This is your purpose in life.

I understand this may sound whacky, but I ask you this, have you ever heard a song or a quote, read a paragraph of text, or seen a beautiful painting and for a divine moment, everything becomes clear?

You see a glimpse of the truth, you feel a direct link to your soul for a few divine seconds, before your mind falls back to obfuscation.

That’s what we’re all trying to get back to, the truth of who we really are.

I’m not religious, but I’m not an atheist either. I believe the greatest thing we can do as human beings is trust our intuition, it is a connection to something greater, it is our calling to remember, it is that which we need to align ourselves with, nothing more.

‪A large part of your suffering is that you’re not everything you should be and you know it. ‬

The “should” in that quote isn’t a command or social pressure, it's the “should” of an internal yearning, a need to be met.

We all have a different answer to how that alignment looks, your intuition will tell you what yours is.

Why We Are All Pre-Conditioned

You might think you’re a free spirit, and if you are, good for you. You’re doing better than most as we are all products of our upbringing, our friends, family and society. These external factors mould and influence us directly and indirectly, their standards become our standards, their success becomes our yardstick, their limits become our own.

Show me your friends and I’ll show you your future.

Think this isn’t you? Ask yourself, if you were born into a different family, in a different era, or a different culture, would you be the same person?

As Paulo Coelho said: “We always know which is the best road to follow, but we follow only the road that we have become accustomed to.” Or to put it another way, the road we’re shown.

We are the product of our environment. At least, that’s how we start.

Then there is a moment, like a baby bird taking its first flight, where we must take a leap of faith and bet on ourselves.

If you don’t back yourself, other people will tell you how to live, think and feel for the rest of your life.

That is a life wasted, and that is a tragedy. Intuition, the real you, is the antidote.

“Trusting our intuition often saves us from disaster.” — Anne Wilson Schaef

You’ll never discover who you really are unless you become your own champion. Only by putting all your chips on you is when you start truly listening to the voice inside. When we have no other guide, we can only rely on intuition.

Walking the Walk

Think this is all bluster? I have a wife and 4 children, I’ve recently lost my job and I’m not going back to the corporate world because everything inside of me says “choose differently”.

I’ve already turned down several well-paid jobs, roles I know I could land if I just applied, but I don’t because if I ended up back behind the desk, it would be spiritually devastating and I’d be returning to a lie.

I’m walking the walk. I’m practising what I preach.

I lived up to the standards of others for two decades and it made me miserable.

I married the wrong person and went through a divorce. I clung onto office jobs I loathed, I stayed in bands I didn’t like, playing guitar out of needy desperation as I thought I had no other creative options, I drank too much and felt like shit for days afterwards because I didn’t want to seem boring.

I’ve remarried. I’ve left the office. I’ve quit the band. I’ve stopped drinking. I’m shedding the layers, but I’m not there yet.

Part of the process is unbecoming everything that isn’t you.

This, in religious terms, is what is called kenosis.

Still, who cares about my opinion? Take the words of some others who have reached their potential, those who bet on themselves and their intuition, those who walked the walk:

Oprah Winfrey:

“When the universe compels me toward the best path to take, it never leaves me with ‘Maybe,’ ‘Should I?’ or even ‘Perhaps.’ I always know for sure when it’s telling me to proceed — because everything inside me rises up to reverberate ‘Yes!’”

Steve Jobs:

“Intuition is a very powerful thing, more powerful than intellect, in my opinion.”

Albert Einstein:

“The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honours the servant and has forgotten the gift.”

Jane Austen:

“We have all a better guide in ourselves, if we would attend to it, than any other person can be.”

Richard Branson:

“I rely far more on gut instinct than researching huge amounts of statistics.” ― Richard Branson

Paulo Coelho:

“Intuition is really a sudden immersion of the soul into the universal current of life.”

Should I go on? Ultimately, it doesn’t matter about what others think, only what you feel, I simply offer up their words as a form of encouragement to taking your leap of faith, the leap of faith where you shut out the noise and bet on yourself.

Intuition is a gut feeling, a visceral connection to the real you. Call it what you will, it cannot lead you astray, for it is you. Claiming your intuition is not really you is like claiming a bird cannot really fly as it darts from tree to tree and swoops through the skies.

Action as Enlightenment

A few years ago, I had an epiphany sitting outside the gym. I’d just finished a workout and felt calm and cleansed and was staring at the red brick of the building beside me. I was suddenly overcome with a feeling the gym was a gift, manifested into reality for me to demonstrate who I was. It was a tool with which I could carve and shape myself, not just my body but my mind and spirit also. It was a way to experience who I really was.

Listening to your intuition doesn’t mean hours of meditation and chanting (though it might if that’s the real you), it means acting in alignment to who you are, whatever that may be.

The world is your way to express who you really are. You have a choice in every moment to be aligned with yourself or to be out of alignment.

So choose today, in the next moment. Ask, “Is this me, isn’t this me?”

You’ll have thousands of these decisions, so start with a few. Keep choosing you and become more aligned. You’ll become clearer, your intuition will become louder.

This is your life’s work. It doesn’t end, but it will lead you to your potential, it will lead you out of your fear, it will lead you to connection and love, and it will lead you to yourself.

It’s not easy, it’s standing guard and your thoughts and actions each day, but I ask you, is there any higher cause for which you dedicate your time and resources?