Welcome to Dharmanic Boutique's blog, where I explore topics related to life purpose, fulfillment, personal growth and spirituality. Today's post contains an excerpt from my book, "Thriving Through Purpose." If you find the ideas intriguing and want to delve deeper into the concepts discussed, consider purchasing the full e-book from the online store or the Hardcover or Softcover from Amazon.
The Pursuit of Purpose
“The meaning of life is to find your gift. The purpose of life is to give it away.” - Pablo Picasso
I was not surprised to read that the pursuit of purpose was featured as the #1 trend to look out for in 2022 by GlobalWebIndex (GWI), a company that specializes in providing consumer insights into the global marketing industry. The pandemic we suffered collectively at the beginning of 2020 gave us plenty of time to reflect, reassess our priorities, and realize that life is too precious to keep wasting on meaningless pursuits.
This was evidenced by the phenomenon of the Great Resignation, where a record number of people left their jobs after the toughest period of the COVID-19 pandemic ended and life started to return to normal.
This was the first time in years that many of us could take a pause from our daily routines. It was like a forced braking; a disconnection from the auto-pilot mode we had activated a long time ago, which had kept us immersed in time-consuming jobs, living paycheck to paycheck and waiting for the weekend. This abrupt change left everybody shocked, confused, and afraid. Many things we took for granted, like social interaction and freedom of movement, were taken away unexpectedly. We had to face our fear of dying, losing our loved ones, losing our income, and everything we had built through personal sacrifice and effort up to that point.
We were compelled to adapt to new and uncertain circumstances while figuring out how to navigate them in the best possible way. It was almost impossible to avoid pondering whether we were satisfied with our lives. When we asked ourselves this question, many of us answered, “not really”. But what was missing? What would we change or do differently, if given the chance? Is there such a thing as a fulfilling and meaningful life? Or is it better to learn to be content with what we have and accept that we cannot have it all?
In my case, when COVID-19 hit, I was lucky to be happy in my personal life. After being in a long-distance relationship, I was engaged to the love of my life and living in a charming small city in Sweden by a beautiful lake and surrounded by nature. I was warmly welcomed into my fiance’s family, and felt like a part of them straight away. We had found the perfect home for us, which had a beautiful view, and a sweet cat called Esther, who adopted us and became part of our family.
My professional life was another story.
From the outside, it seemed like I was doing pretty well professionally. Just a few months after moving to Sweden, I found a good job as a sales engineer in a small and successful company. My previous experience was the right fit for it, and the company saw an advantage in having someone in the team who spoke Spanish since their products were exported all around the world, and the Spanish-speaking market was growing fast. It was the perfect way to start my professional life in my new country: the work conditions were as good as they could be and the job was stimulating enough. I had a stable income, my colleagues were kind and supportive, I enjoyed dealing with the clients around the world and I had a good balance with my personal life. So, what was the problem?
Something felt off. I felt out of place for no reason I could establish, as if I was meant to be somewhere else doing something else. I tried hard to ignore this feeling and focus on all the positive aspects of my career, but the feelings refused to go away.
To be fair, this feeling of being in the wrong place had started several years earlier, when I was working for a multinational oilfield services company in Mexico. I was single at the time, living in a strange city, far from my family and friends, and sacrificing my personal life for an income and a job I hardly enjoyed anymore. By then, I had been doing that for over ten years. I had lived in four different places, encountered long periods of loneliness, and had focused completely upon building a career and financial stability. These were worthwhile goals, but I knew it was time for a change. I missed my family very much, and I wanted to form my own family.
So, I made a decision.
Without fully realizing it, I was taking the first steps to finding my true purpose in life. I resigned and took a year off to figure out what I wanted to do with the years I had left. I know I was extremely privileged to be able to do this because of the financial security I had created, and the stability of my family life, but it is also my absolute belief that any of us can pause—even internally—and begin the work of transformation, whatever your circumstances, whatever your difficulties or doubts. That is what this book is for, to guide you through the process that could ultimately bring you to your highest purpose, the work your soul is urging you to do.
So, I packed my bags, said goodbye to my colleagues and moved back to Monterrey, Mexico, where my family lived. I enjoyed spending time with them, traveled a bit, and became a life and health insurance agent in the meantime. None of it was planned, but I was attracted to the idea of having my own business on my own terms, and I wanted to stay busy, learn something new, and keep generating income so I did not have to touch my savings. It is part of my nature to be prepared for the unexpected! I like to have a Plan B and C at least! The thought of making a difference to many families by helping them keep their financial stability during difficult times was appealing. I had heard many stories of people losing everything because of illness, or of women struggling to support their children and make ends meet after losing their husbands unexpectedly, and this felt like a way I could contribute while learning new skills and pushing my life forward in an unexpected direction.
I was just starting to savor my freedom, and what felt like the beginning of a new life, when I got the call we all dread while I was traveling through Europe. I received the news that my dad had a heart attack and passed away. My entire world crumbled right there. How could this happen? A few days ago, he was fine. He had always been a healthy man, had never been to a hospital, and hardly got sick. He was only 64 years old. I was devastated and shocked, but I managed to change my flight back home the next morning. Besides dealing with my beloved father’s death and funeral, my mom, my sister, and I were suddenly responsible for the family business, which comprised three mechanical shops located in two different cities and over twenty employees. My father had been the general manager since we were small girls, whilst my mother took care of us. None of us had been involved in it, and my mom’s livelihood and the livelihood of more than twenty families depended on it. My dream of finding my purpose had to be put on hold while we focused on solving the situation in the best way we could. Looking back, I’m convinced the Universe needed me to learn lessons around certainty—and learning to trust—before I could resume the search for my soul’s purpose in this lifetime.
At first, I was terrified. How could we pay the salaries of twenty staff, some of whom were retiring, with all the costs associated with that? How could we look at closing this company and paying people off when we did not have enough money to do it? Yet we did. We somehow found the money to pay everyone what they were due. I gained trust in the Universe and how it always works with us and provides what we need when we need it most.
Miraculously, some weeks before Dad passed away, I had been contacted via LinkedIn by the recruiter of an international company, offering a perfect job for me. I did not apply for anything, they found me among thousands of professionals. Even though I was not ready to go back to the corporate world, I agreed to be interviewed, and a few weeks after my dad passed away, they offered me the position. This meant going back to the same type of job that I had left, but it also gave me a safe income in a difficult time. They asked me to work in Mexico City, and so I explained it was not a good time because my family and I had a lot to take care of, including figuring out what to do with the family business. To my surprise, the company was very understanding, and said that I could work from home. It felt like a gift from the Universe and I was extremely grateful. It turned out to be one of the best decisions I have made because I received another gift after two years of working there: I met my future husband. Karl and I met at a company party on the last night of the yearly sales conference in Denver, thanks to a mutual acquaintance. He had flown in from Sweden to attend the event, and I had flown in from Mexico. We felt comfortable with each other straight away. We talked for hours, so we exchanged contact details. The next day, I woke up earlier and thought of him, knowing I wanted to see him again before he returned home. I suggested having breakfast, and we did. We stayed in touch. He visited me in Mexico a few months later, then I visited him in Sweden, and we have been together ever since.
During our long-distance relationship, I focused primarily on us and building a good partnership. When we decided to be together, we planned on Karl moving to Mexico, but things did not flow as we expected. I lost my job, as it often happens in the oil and gas industry, and it was not a good time for him to jeopardize his position. It was then we realized that our future was in Sweden, and this was my giant leap of faith—leaning on the trust in the Universe I had developed by then. I followed my heart and my soul and agreed to move to Sweden.
When we were finally together, and everything else was taken care of, I knew it was time to resume the pursuit of my soul’s purpose. It was not planned. It all began when Karl found a hobby he truly enjoyed and I thought it was a good idea for me to find one as well! I love learning and have always been interested in topics related to personal growth, the evolution of consciousness, the Universe, spirituality, astrology, healing, energy, natural remedies and creating financial freedom. So, I started listening to interesting videos and enrolled in a few courses online.
In one of these courses in particular, related to entrepreneurship, there was an exercise in which we had to think about our “secret sauce”, or unique value. I was surprised to see how difficult it was for me and for many others to define it. We usually have no problems with pinpointing our flaws, but we have a really hard time to do the same with our skills, gifts and talents. I started to dig down into this topic. I went back to my astrological chart to find answers and reflected for many weeks. This reawakened my dream of living a purpose-driven life on my own terms, but back then I was oblivious to the fact that this would require continuous self-discovery—and deep healing.
This pursuit has taken me to this point. In retrospective, I can see now how all the pieces have come together in unexpected ways. I feel now that I am where I’m supposed to be, following the path that I’m meant to be following. It is said that introverts do not say much until they do. I guess my time to share has arrived and here I am, writing an entire book. The book I would have loved to have read some years ago—and one I am hoping will help you on your journey.
The pursuit of purpose has taken me on a path of self-discovery, where I am uncovering my true self, connecting to my soul and expressing my full potential in so many ways through writing this book, through life coaching and in being a contribution to humanity. In doing so, I have discovered meaning and fulfillment. I have gained clarity about my overall path, purpose and values, and even when I know that this will continue to evolve and that the road is long and winding, at least I have a GPS that will guide me throughout my life. This path is what I will share with you in this book. Follow it, and you may find amazing—and miraculous — things begin to happen.
I have realized that the need to align with our purpose does not disappear over time. In fact, the longer we ignore it, the stronger it gets and the feelings of emptiness, incompleteness and dissatisfaction will become difficult to ignore. These feelings are what will prompt us to search for what is missing, and realign with our true selves and path. When we have reached this point, we are going to want answers right away, but the answers will come gradually, in unexpected ways. Sometimes, we will not even be aware that we are receiving an answer until time passes. We look back and see how all the pieces of the puzzle came together. If you are starting your pursuit of purpose, be patient and enjoy the process.
My approach to writing this book is to bring together concepts and information from different scientific, metaphysical, esoteric and spiritual disciplines, ancient wisdom and my own experience. The ideas presented in this book are a result of a “reverse engineering” process, in which I started at the point where I connected consciously to my life purpose and worked backwards to reveal the steps that I had to go through in order to do it. These steps took me several years to cover because I had to figure many things out on my own, go through different life experiences, and gain knowledge in different disciplines.
This work is intended to help you re-create your life as a masterpiece, and to that end, I have divided the book into three parts and included activations, visualizations, journaling prompts, and practical exercises meant to support you during your journey.
Part One presents the ideas and concepts that will be relevant in your journey:
- What is purpose, and what are the different levels of purpose
- The power of being aligned to your life purpose
- The ongoing ego-soul conflict
- The evolution of the ego consciousness and the soul consciousness
- The consciousness shift that humanity is currently going through
- Universal Laws that shape your reality
- Life purpose and your energy field
- Social conditioning and why it is difficult to break away from it
- The importance of values to live a purpose-driven life
- The genius that you already are
Part Two explores the different areas that need to be addressed to uncover your life purpose:
- The different stages of the hero’s journey you must conquer to live a purpose-driven life
- Reconnecting to six aspects of yourself that were disconnected while you were operating from your ego consciousness
- Healing family wounds as part of your life purpose
- Healing your inner child to recover your innate abilities and purpose
Part Three covers the inner resources that you can harness immediately to assist you in your pursuit of purpose, and how purpose impacts different areas of your life:
- The power of unconditional love
- The power of certainty
- The power of desire
- The power of forgiveness
- Purpose and relationships
- Purpose and profession
- Purpose and well-being
- The art of building a life of purpose
The quest for purpose can be a long journey, but it will be one of the most rewarding of your life. Know that the Universe is working with you and for you. Take what resonates with you at this moment, leave what does not, and let your evolutionary process continue to unfold. As you progress naturally in the different levels of consciousness and stages of psychological development, some areas will become more relevant than others, and this book will continue guiding you.
It is time to create your own masterpiece out of life, to connect with your soul calling and bring forth your unique and precious gifts into the world. Everyone is special. We all came here, to this planet, at this time, for a reason. This is a special time of awakening in humanity and an exciting time to be alive. I believe this is not just another incarnation. It is a time for people to activate their souls and do what they are supposed to be doing. Everybody is an important piece of the puzzle. This book will help you uncover and align with your purpose. Expect synchronicities and miracles along the way!
Ready for More?
If this excerpt resonated with you and you're eager to explore further, the complete version of "Thriving Through Purpose" is available for purchase in our online store. Dive deeper into the principles outlined in this post and discover additional insights to help you unlock your true potential.
