We usually ask clients about their goals at the beginning of a session. Typical responses unfurl a list of symptoms to relieve, broken bones (or hearts) to recover from, and nearly unlimited other desires for improvement. However great or small the healing objective, it will be much easier to accomplish these goals if the client can become aware of an even bigger mission—their life purpose.
What do you think of when you hear life purpose? Maybe an immediate response pops into your mind. You might focus on anything from raising your children to running a business. Your thoughts might run more fundamentally (like getting your bills paid on time) or philosophically (like embracing love). There isn’t a wrong answer, but it can be important to figure out whether your client has a genuine sense of purpose or not, for one vital reason.

Your Life’s Purpose: Being Clear is Healthful

Studies have proven that people with a strong sense of purpose are less likely to develop sleep problems, have a heart attack, or die prematurely.1 They also have less chance of getting Alzheimer’s disease and are able to handle pain better and live longer. In fact, a study of over 73,000 Japanese men and women found that people who have a strong connection to their sense of purpose, called ikigai, tend to live longer than those who don’t.2 As a subtle energy expert, I believe these statistics are even more compelling when viewed through the understanding of energy.

Subtle Energy

Subtle energy, often considered invisible and immeasurable, is largely comprised of quanta, the tiny particles that determine what appears or disappears in everyday reality. Though tiny, quanta are extremely powerful in that they organize physical energy.
What does subtle energy have to do with a sense of our life purpose? There are actually three subtle concepts—or pillars of purpose—that feed into a meaningful life: feelings, thoughts, and perceptions. Though each of these pillars of purpose are partially formed from somewhat quantifiable energies, such as our genetics, biochemistry, and memories, they are more immeasurable than measurable. If you want to help a client uncover and relate to their life purpose, you have to find practical ways to address these three subtle characteristics.
For instance, I worked with identical twins a few years ago. They had just celebrated their 40th birthdays and were both employed as accountants. Both lived in the suburbs, were married, and had two children. The twins came in because Betty was concerned about her sister, Beth.
“Beth has everything she could ever want,” pointed out Betty, who was sitting next to her haggard-looking sister. “But she’s always unhappy.” Beth was so dismal she could barely nod. Betty continued, “As you can see, she’s too thin and can hardly take care of her job and kids. Honestly, can’t you show her how happy she could be?”
Beth admitted to having lost her appetite and being sad most of the time. She also felt aching and sickly, though doctors had ruled out a variety of diseases. Already on her third set of antidepressants, Beth hadn’t “perked up,” as her sister put it.
Beth was experiencing an existential crisis. Her feelings, thoughts, and perceptions were telling her that her life lacked meaning, hence her psychological and physical downturn. Although the external factors of her life matched those of her genetically identical twin, Beth’s soul was formed from different ingredients than Betty’s.
Besides being made of our physicality, we have—and are—a soul. On the most fundamental level, our soul seeks love. Moreover, it longs to receive, send, and create love. My soul is different from your soul. And Betty’s and Beth’s souls were distinct from each other’s souls. What ensured love to Betty differed from Beth’s perceptions about love. Hence, Beth’s feelings, thoughts, and perceptions were showing Beth that her life wasn’t aligned with her soul’s concept of love.
Ironically, most of the people in Beth’s world were insisting that her feelings, thoughts, and perceptions were off base. She was taking pills to feel differently and told to alter her thoughts so she could perceive her life through the “correct” lens. From a subtle energy point of view, however, Beth’s feelings, thoughts, and perceptions were exactly right on. As messages from her soul, these pillars of purpose were calling her to make life changes so she could express her soul in a more complete and loving way. That doesn’t mean she needed to end her marriage or stop taking care of her children. Nor did it mean she should stop taking prescription medications. Rather, she needed to connect with her soul to identify her “true self” and make decisions from that place.
Our life purpose isn’t clear at birth. Our elementary teachers don’t instruct us in it, nor can we look it up on a smartphone. We can’t borrow meaning from someone else or unearth it from the words of a long-ago philosopher. That doesn’t mean our searching can’t provide us clues whereby we can figure out our life—or soul’s—sense of love and meaning.

The Three Pillars of Purpose

Each of the three pillars of purpose (feelings, thoughts, and perceptions) provides the soul clues in different ways. Through these three vessels of communication, our soul reaches into our everyday lives and assists us in creating choices and composing decisions and actions.

Feelings

Each of the five basic feeling families or constellations shares a specific soul message:
• Anger: You don’t have helpful boundaries. Figure out which ones are needed and build them.
• Disgust: An event, situation, person, food, or the like doesn’t suit you. Stop participating.
• Fear: You are experiencing a lack of safety
and security. It’s time to change direction.
• Joy: Whatever is happening is great! Do more of it.
• Sadness: You are failing to find love. It’s time to figure out more ways to receive, send, or create from love.

Thoughts

Thoughts are merely opinions we decide to believe in or not. Ultimately, thoughts arise—even negative thoughts—because they need to be evaluated. It is our right to determine whether we want to consider a thought a minor or major player in our lives. In other words, we only want to accept the thoughts that are true to our inner soul and reject the others.

Perceptions

Perceptions are lenses through which we view situations. We have free will. We can employ any lens we want, but most are constructed from attitudes. If we perceive a situation through the lens of “being boring,” we get to decide what to do about it. We can remain bored, or we can decide that we are boring and make changes to entice our soul further into our daily existence.

Viktor Frankl: Meaning Matters

Viktor Frankl was a neurologist and psychiatrist who lost most of his family to the concentration camps in Germany in the 1940s. He emerged from the camps with a philosophy of life that has become famous throughout the world.
Namely, Frankl discovered that by clinging to the idea of life being meaningful, despite his abysmal circumstances, he could endure the torture. He also observed the same with other prisoners. Those who concentrated on something to live for could withstand the agonizing circumstances far easier than could those who had lost all hope and sense of purpose. It didn’t matter what one’s core focus was. It could involve serving others or surviving to meet up with family again, but the goal had to be personally important to the self.3
After I talked about Frankl, Beth immediately felt guilty. “I have a good life,” she admitted. “How could I be so ungrateful when someone like Viktor Frankl, when undergoing horror, was able to feel grateful to be alive?”

Relevance is the Key

The key to uncovering one’s purpose is relevance. We find meaning in that which is relevant to us. In fact, as soon as Beth began to perceive her dark attitudes and feelings as signed letters from her own soul, she began to feel more hopeful. She wasn’t just breaking down; she was seeking a breakthrough. She was striving for love, and her sadness was giving her indications about where to look.
Beth’s life didn’t improve overnight. She has remained on one particular prescription medication indefinitely; as noted, feelings, thoughts, and perceptions are based in our physical, not only subtle, being. But she started to listen to her thoughts and decided to only accept as true those that were loving toward herself. Then, she undertook a quest.
She used perception to view her life through the eyes of a pilgrim, a journeyer searching for higher truths and meaning in the world within and around her. She started a journal and wrote down what she loved doing, as well as what she was neutral or negative about. This activity was key to relieving about half of her bodily pain. Much of the rest disappeared after she acted on an observation that she was embarrassed to share at first.
It turned out that Beth felt the most joyous when making her kids’ lunches for school. She said that knowing she was creating healthy food, sprinkled with love, gave her a “high.” I suggested that her soul might want her making more lunches, and for more people! Beth laughed and shook her head. During our next session, however, she returned with an idea. She wanted to start a “love lunch” program for families that couldn’t afford lunches for their kids. Within a year, she was running a nonprofit. She and other volunteers were dropping lunches off in the morning at the homes of families who needed lunches for their kids.
Ultimately, we write our own narrative. Our soul wants to be a hero in our own story, but only if the process and end result is loving. By assisting your client with finding and developing meaning in their lives, your bodywork can be more effective on every level.

Ideas for Becoming a Soul Advisor

Feelings

Ask your client to relay the feelings causing them the most pain. Categorize them into the five feeling constellations noted in this article: anger, disgust, fear, joy, and sadness. No matter their feeling—or how negative it seems—applaud it. Suggest that it is an inner message and help them interpret what that feeling is pointing out with regard to their soul’s search for meaning.

Thoughts

If a client can pinpoint the main thought they have in relation to their complaint or pain, gently suggest they evaluate this thought for how true they want it to be. Perhaps there is a different thought that would serve them better?

Perceptions

Somewhere in everyone’s life is an activity, event, desire, person, or another factor that they perceive favorably. This is the place to start in the search for meaning. How can that positive function be developed and expanded? If you feel comfortable, ask why their inner self or soul likes that function.

Notes

1. Linda Wasmer Andrews, “How a Sense of Purpose in Life Improves Your Health,” Psychology Today, July 14, 2017, www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/minding-the-body/201707/how-sense-purpose-in-life-improves-your-health.
2. University of Minnesota, “Why Is Life Purpose Important?,” accessed January 2020, www.takingcharge.csh.umn.edu/why-life-purpose-important.
3. Viktor Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning (New York: Touchstone Books, 1984).