Engaging your Role with Benevolence
When you are choosing to live life mindfully, which is remembering that you have a choice to live life being more self-loving, you naturally develop compassion. Compassion for your self that naturally expands to also be compassion for others. At the foundation to all of this is awareness. Without expanded knowledge and understanding, which is awareness, then the rest would not exist. That is the reason the Enhances Awareness Program (EAP) is called what it is.
Getting back to compassion. This expanded state of love (which is what compassion really is) results in benevolence, which more simply put is being kind. When we talk of purpose at EAP, we are referring to your unique expression of kindness. Your purpose is the way you are inspired to be kind in the world. You will notice that I said inspired and not choose. In the place of stillness, which is the result of singleness of heart and the silence of worldly desires, another voice surfaces in our range of hearing that is sometimes called the Still Small Voice.
Its name describes its nature. It’s ‘still’ because the first thing you will experience when you hear this voice is stillness in your being, best described as all encompassing inner-peace. In my experience, typically I have been in the middle of extreme emotional turmoil and mental anxiety when the most freeing feeling of peace arose from the sense that ‘all was well’. It’s ‘small’ because the voice isn’t a roaring ocean of power and authority, but more like a single drop of unconditional love and peace.
The ‘voice’ infers speaking and hearing, but this is hearing that is not done with the ears. It is a voice that is felt throughout your whole being, as some say, through every fibre of your being. When you experience the Still Small Voice two things are evident, the sense that all is well, which brings the feeling of peace, and the sense that you are loved just as you are (this is unconditional love), which generates a feeling of great relief. If you can truly savour that last element, you will never question your worth ever again. You will never look for love, approval or acceptance from anyone else ever again. You will mostly certainly experience the love of another, but you won’t desire or seek the love of another.
In this indelible instant of being enveloped by the Still Small Voice, there is often an inner revelation of your unique purpose, the way you are to turn up being kind in the world. It’s an inner knowing that is without confusion. It’s like an inner compass has been set and that all you have to do is follow the compass. So your purpose isn’t something you choose, but rather it’s revealed.
Evidence of this purpose is that you become increasingly kind. You are more kind to yourself, kind to others and kind to planet earth and its critters. It’s not driven by any need for perfection, but the desire to sustain that sense of inner peace and unconditional love.
The skills required to fulfil your purpose emerge from the programming of your childhood. At EAP we call this programming your story. Your story is the gift you were given to fulfil your greatest purpose. Many of you will be familiar with the handicap of your story (typically referred to as the wounded child) and some of you may have had years of counselling and psychotherapy in an attempt to heal your wounded child. Many of you are unfamiliar with the alchemy of mindfulness that reveals skills and abilities that your story fostered. Once it’s appreciated and used in fulfilling your purpose the beast is magically transformed into the handsome prince, the ugly duckling into the beautiful swan, and Cinderella into the princess.
In human terms, a nun become Mother Teresa, a politician becomes Mahatma Gandhi and a doctor becomes Patch Adams. A teacher inspires and builds confidence and self-esteem, a nurse has empathy and touches kindly with both their hands and understanding. An employer encourages initiative and acknowledges contribution. Those entrusted with the care of the disabled and aged, see the true worth of each individual and work with respect and kindness in ways that honour that worth. So on and so on.
Purpose isn’t about changing roles, its about developing the compassion that enables you to engage your role with lasting kindness.
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