There’s nothing to figure out, only paths to follow

How to overcome the fear you're not where you're meant to be

Photo by Vlad Gedroics on Unsplash

The pressure to figure out your life will kill your potential if you’re not careful.

People suffocate their lives with the fear they’re not where they’re meant to be, the fear fulfilling a prophecy instead of illuminating a fated direction.

Ironically, the more pressure you put on yourself to figure things out, the further away answers hide.

I remember feeling like I was failing at life because I hadn’t found my purpose.

I used to feel like I was supposed to be somewhere else, doing something else very important, and worried I’d waste my entire life if I didn’t figure it out.

I blamed myself, feeling like I was falling behind, somehow simultaneously unworthy of my dreams while also responsible for some great fate I couldn’t find no matter how hard I tried.

Even while working as a journalist, which did briefly feel like a purpose, all my energy funneled into plotting my path to the The New York Times. I thought making it big would make me happy. Every moment was spent working to get somewhere else, never appreciating the here and now.

Oh, the pressure.

By my early 30s, my personal life was peaceful although my career was at a frustrating crossroads. I was happily married, but lived in a place I didn’t like without any job opportunities in my field. My husband had a great job. That’s why we stayed.

I felt backed into a corner, but it turned out to be the greatest blessing of my life.

One day, I made a choice that changed my life.

Temporarily, I released the need to figure it out. I committed to finding happiness here and now. 

I committed to a 30-day gratitude practice, which led to a 40-day yoga practice, which led to unrooting and healing decades of repressed emotional pain that caused me to suffocate the life out of my life.

The choice may seem small, but it triggered a spiritual awakening. The chain of events that followed set my life into an entirely new direction, directly toward my purpose.

Because this is the truth: Finding your purpose, figuring out the thing you are meant to do, is less about thinking and more about aligning with the pure energy of your soul, and moving from that place.

Over the years, I’ve realized life isn’t something to figure out. It’s a process of aligning to your unique path and following it wherever it goes.

You have unique gifts and talents, a fate carved into your soul. Exploring your soul’s potential requires connecting to your core, expanding fully into the present chapter of your life, which leads you naturally into the next.

There’s nothing to figure out, only things to express. Trying to figure things out creates tension, separating you from your soul. Instead, relax into who you really are and move from that place.

During my spiritual awakening, releasing ideas of who I thought I needed to be and what I thought I needed to achieve created space. In that space, the path forward became clear.

Read until the end for a collection of powerful journal prompts for releasing resistance blocking you from soul connection.

First, let’s explore why it’s hard to release the need to figure things out.

1. Many of us have unhealed wounds causing us to chase greatness, thinking it will make us feel loved or whole.
   Our greatest desires often come from our greatest wounds. If you grew up in a home where you needed to achieve to receive love, that push for recognition will continue to propel you until healed and integrated in a healthy way.

   
   Or perhaps you didn’t receive much attention at all. Maybe you struggled to find love or friendship or connection. You may crave fame or other types of recognition to fill that hole and find love.
   
   Whatever the wound, past pains create a feverish attachment to achieving some great purpose. That sense of force blocks you from the answers you seek, elevating the fever. It can cause you to chase the wrong things, desires that come from your mind, not your heart.
   

2. Many of us overemphasize mental power while underestimating spiritual power.
   Society promotes planning, logic and pushing to achieve goals, but often the best, most effective ideas come in spontaneous flashes of insight during play or rest.

   
   Alternatively, spirit-led ideas may emerge over time. They take hold even though they don’t make sense, pose risk, or offer uncertain reward. Over-planning dims intuition and other spiritual guidance leading to true, soul-aligned success.
   
   The more we rely on our minds to guide our path forward, the more we drown out the noise of the heart, which holds the guidance we seek.
   

3. Many of us know we have a fate or destiny, but feel overly responsible for realizing that fate.
   We feel pressure when we don’t trust. If you believe you have a fate or purpose to figure out, then you must also believe something, God or the Universe, assigned you that purpose.
   
   Pressure builds when you focus more on your assignment and less on the energy doing the assigning. 

Here’s how to find the answers you’re looking for:

1. Heal your past

   Aligning to your true path in life requires first becoming aware of how past pains steer you away from your true self, and then processing those pains so they no longer influence you. 

   
   Past pain covers your soul like a storm cloud. Just as a storm cloud blocks the sun, so too does past pain block your connection to the light of your soul. 

   
   How to heal your past:
   Feel your feelings in meditation to release them. New subscribers to my email list receive a guided Feeling Awareness meditation, a powerful technique I was guided to that quickly dissolves emotional pain. As you feel your feelings, you will also hear their messages.

   
   After meditating, write about the messages from your emotions in your journal. Work to understand your negative thought and behavioral patterns. Connect to new, more peaceful, positive and affirming thoughts. If you want support, you will love my best-selling Self-Love guided journal. (You can also upgrade to a paid subscription and receive it as a welcome gift.)
   
   Journaling and meditation are the tools you need to walk your unique path in life.
   

2. Accept the present 
   Resistance to current life circumstances separates us from our true selves. We tell ourselves the lie that because of where we are or who we are, we can’t get where we want to be.

   
   The truth is, you’re exactly where you’re meant to be. If you were meant to be someplace else, you would be.
   
   As you gratefully accept where you are, you’ll see new openings and opportunities where before there were only walls.

   
   I thought living in Arizona meant I would never realize my dreams of writing. But once I accepted my circumstances, I realized I had the gift of starting a blog, which led to my purpose of helping soulful free spirits understand themselves to create happiness, health and success in the unique way they’re meant to.
   
   The seed of everything I was meant to become rested inside the exact situation I didn’t want to be in.
   
   How to accept your present:

   Cultivate gratitude. Every time you find yourself focusing on what’s wrong, find something to be grateful for. I don’t preach relentless positivity, but if you’re in a negative space, jumpstarting your brain in a new direction through gratitude will change things fast.

   
   Journal to understand your fears about letting go. Keep reading for journal prompts to release resistance at the end of this blog.
   

3. Follow your inner guidance forward 

   The most powerful antidote to pressure or force is a spirit of curiosity.

   
   Before starting my blog, I did all kinds of random things like take a jewelry-making class, tennis lessons and even yoga teacher training.

   
   Most of these things didn’t go anywhere, but my yoga obsession led to posting yoga photos on Instagram accompanied by anonymous captions, which led to my blog, which led to creating courses and coaching programs, which led to self-publishing guided journals.
   
   Over time, I realized the form doesn’t matter as much as sharing my unique gift of helping people understand themselves as an overflow of my own inner work.
   
   The spirit of experimentation helped me release the pressure and move forward from a place of alignment with my true self.

   
   How to follow your inner guidance:

   As you clear your past and come more fully into the present, you’ll hear messages from your intuition.
   
   These messages may start small, like what to eat or outfits to wear, especially if you don’t have a strong relationship with your inner wisdom. They may also seem irrelevant, like they won’t lead anywhere, or matter. You must still follow them.
   
   It’s a matter of building trust and a deeper relationship with your inner guidance.

   
   As you fall in the natural groove of who you really are, you will see there was never anything to figure out, only soul-aligned paths to follow.

Purpose is followed not found. 

Your purpose is to be who you really are, not only as a creative or in a career, but also to cultivate your natural qualities, ways of being and energetic essence.

The need to figure things out is based in fear. When we’re afraid, we don’t trust ourselves, our gifts, our instincts, or a higher power. 

Yet any moment, we can return to faith. Faith in our paths, our potential, and our inner knowing to guide us along that path. 

Finding your purpose or true path in life requires letting go because being who you really are requires getting out of your own way, releasing everything in between you and your natural flow of expression.

Free yourself to act in the most natural way possible, free from conditioning or attempts to control. Free from fear, past pain and the need to prove yourself.

Free from everything that blocks you from your true self until you are just -

Free.

Guided inner work is free today! Each week is mini self-coaching session.

Journal prompts to release the resistance blocking your path forward:

1. What are you resisting? What is the story around the resistance? What do you fear will happen? What are you afraid to release or let go of? If you accepted the thing you're resisting, what do you fear that says about who you are or how your life will turn out?

2. What core wounds are involved with this resistance? Are ideas of what you deserve or what you must do to be worthy causing you to resist? Are they preventing you from taking action towards expansion? Are they preventing you from speaking your truth and asking for what you need? Are your wounds causing fear that leads to resistance?

3. What habits are perpetuating your resistance? This could include complaining, obsessing over things you can't control, surrounding yourself with negativity, or reading, watching or listening to certain things that encourage you to keep resisting. That make it seem virtuous, even.

4. Is this object of resistance something you can change or can't change? What factors can you change? What factors are not changeable and must you accept? What unconventional solutions is your resistance blinding you to?

5. What is your intuition/heart telling you to do? Trust that there’s an opening in this wall, and that you have everything you need to realize your purpose. Try meditating or free writing, just writing whatever comes into your head and keeping the pen flowing. This is a magical method of drawing answers out from deep within your soul.

6. What untapped opportunities are you leaving on the table? Are there ways in which you're planning for a worst-case scenario and not using all available resources to create a better future?

7. In what ways are you giving up your power? Are you communicating your needs honestly? Are there compromises you could ask for? Ask from a place of compassion, acceptance and surrender, not resistance or anger.

8. What is one thing you can do today to create something new, start a new chapter, or make peace with the current situation? (It could be look for a new job, meditate, enroll in school, find a fulfilling hobby, start exercising. Have a heartfelt conversation. Anything!)

9. What are you grateful for? Be realistic and identify things you're actually grateful for and not things you think you *should* be grateful for. This could also help you identify untapped opportunities.

In your journal, write down a plan of action and refer to it as often as necessary.

Write: This is what I will do. These are the habits I will let go of. This is the conversation I will have. This is the action I will take. This is what I will accept and breathe into and release. This is what I will focus on moving forward. 

You got this! You will grow from this. You have everything you need to become who you’re meant to be and fulfill your purpose.

Thank you for reading!

Can’t wait to chat with you guys in the comments. Leave a note with your thoughts or experiences. Our conversations are the heart of this community, and you never know who you may inspire, or who will have words of wisdom to help you create a breakthrough.

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Love you all so much,

Suzanne