12 Jun Living with Aliveness

Don’t ask what the world needs.
Ask what makes you come alive and
go do it. Because what the world
needs is people who have come alive.

The above quote by Dr. Howard Thurman, one of my all-time favorites, appeared last week in one of Richard Rohr’s daily meditation emails. It was part of a weekly theme focusing on ‘vocation’ – which might be thought of as our soul’s true mission in our human journey. This larger definition of vocation broadens our understanding of how we live our waking hours, the majority of which is spent at work pursuing careers, earning a livelihood, or attending to other duties required for keeping our household and life in order.

Often we think that to pursue our soul’s higher calling we might need to change jobs or careers or make major structural changes in our lives. Sometimes this might be the case, however oftentimes the needed change is an internal one that transforms how we relate to everything and everyone in our lives. When we come truly alive inside, when we expand our capacities to be with whatever is happening moment by moment – without trying to avoid, control or manipulate our own experience or the world around us – we discover a new more powerful way of living.

Whether we’re an organizational leader, a professional coach, or a change-maker of any sort in any environment, we have a choice in how we show up and participate in our lives. We can do our inner work and gain the freedom and capacity to operate from that which makes us truly come alive – or we can stay asleep and engage from our automatic constricted self. Choosing the path of aliveness takes a certain kind of work for which the rewards are plentiful. Not necessarily the external rewards we’re taught to seek, but the inner rewards of a rich and joyous life that enables us to more fully experience our world and contribute to it from our most unique and authentic selves.

by Ipek Serifsoy