The Way of Knowingness. Kim O'Neill

if you are currently doing your life’s work.

       Key indications that you have found your life’s purpose:

      You are currently happy and fulfilled by the work you are doing.

      You feel excited about getting back to work on Monday or after taking time off because of illness or a vacation.

      You’re recharged and energized after you finish work each day.

      You have some control over your structure and can make decisions about your schedule.

      You are fueled to inspire, motivate, and encourage the professional success and spiritual growth of the people around you.

      Frequent verbal and financial recognition is bestowed upon you for your hard work.

      You’re consistently stimulated by the work you do and the goals you have established.

      Each day is a little different from the day before.

      You feel an ongoing sense of freedom, accomplishment, confidence, and positive self-worth.

      You are utilizing your strongest talents and abilities on the job.

      There is the opportunity to develop greater professional skills through handling new challenges.

      You are inspired by a passion that continually widens the scope of your professional horizons.

      You have written goals that represent what you plan to achieve in the coming days, weeks, and months.

      You know, on a soul level, that you have found your true calling.

       Key indications that you are not conducting your life’s purpose:

      You are unhappy and unfulfilled by the work you are doing.

      In your heart, you dream of doing something else, possibly a type of work you fantasized about as a child.

      Family, friends, acquaintances, and even strangers comment, “Have you ever thought about changing your job and doing such-and-such? You’d be so good at it!”

      You feel depressed at the thought of starting the workweek or returning from vacation.

      When you get sick, you’re actually relieved that you don’t have to go to work.

      You’re drained and demoralized after finishing work each day, and you find it harder and harder to recharge your batteries to feel better.

      You find yourself becoming dependent on sabotaging behaviors to emotionally comfort yourself.

      You check your watch consistently throughout the workday, longing for breaks, lunch, quitting time, and the weekend.

      You feel frustrated because you have no control over your lockstep daily routine. Your boss dictates when, where, and how you work.

      You’re tired of working for a demanding boss who isn’t as productive, creative, talented, or intelligent as you are.

      You’re resentful for not being verbally or financially recognized for your hard work.

      You feel an overwhelming sense of insecurity about losing your job.

      You’re angry at being overlooked for promotions and raises or bonuses that you’ve actually earned.

      When you’re at work, you find yourself looking around and wondering, “What am I doing here? Why don’t I feel comfortable or connected with anyone?”

      You are bored by handling the very same tasks day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year.

      You have significant talents and abilities that you are not utilizing.

      You feel a profound sense of having outgrown your job. You feel there is nothing to look forward to in terms of transferring or being promoted within the company.

      You are not being suitably compensated for the time, commitment, and experience you contribute daily.

      The thought of being in the same job a year from now makes you want to throw yourself off the top of a very high building.

       Principle Two: Issues to Resolve

      Issues represent all of the different forms of human experience on the earthly plane. An issue is best described as a necessary learning experience that helps an individual evolve emotionally and spiritually.

      Simply put, resolving your outstanding issues is paramount in allowing you to improve the quality of your life. You can easily recognize the issues you are currently working through by examining the apparent problems or patterns of turmoil in your life. There are some issues that remain so painful for us that we carry them from lifetime to lifetime, attempting repeatedly to resolve them. Other issues can be easily worked through without much anxiety or suffering.

      From lifetime to lifetime, the way in which you plan to address certain issues will vary dramatically because the opportunities for spiritual growth shift and change according to what is happening on the planet historically.

      Consider how periods in history have affected exactly when you’ve decided to return to the earthly plane, and also think about what you were hoping to accomplish in terms of your life’s purpose and resolving outstanding issues.

      Perhaps in a past lifetime you were a holistic healer on the lost continent of Atlantis, a celebrated performer in Shakespearean England, a victim of the bubonic plague, an artist during the Renaissance, a slave in nineteenth-century America, an American president, a member of European royalty, an “untouchable” living in a Calcutta slum, one of Custer’s soldiers at Little Bighorn, a shipping magnate during the Industrial Revolution, a passenger on the Titanic, a skilled flyer during World War I, a physician who developed a life-saving vaccine, or a Jewish mother of six young children living in Poland at the time of the Holocaust.

      Unlike the delayed timing so often involved in accomplishing life’s purpose, working on one’s issues usually begins quite early in life. You may relate to the fact that many people who are on the earthly plane right now have chosen to start tackling distressing issues stemming from very early childhood.

      Being exposed to trauma at such a young age often has a shattering, scarring effect on children because they are completely vulnerable to the adults in their household, helpless to make the transition out of a painful living environment. Children are defenseless participants in the hard work of dealing with issues, and the resulting problems they carry with them are sometimes not seen, heard, or considered until many years later when the problems resurface to create havoc in their adult lives.

      If your childhood was traumatic, remember you purposely planned that situation as part of your destiny in order to evolve to a higher level of enlightenment. It might be said that those people who exposed you to their toxic dysfunction when you were a child have been your very best teachers.

      You deliberately picked those troubled people because you expected them to behave just as they did at their existing levels of enlightenment. Keep in mind that although you most likely suffered many wounds, it was a very strong and courageous decision on your part to plan something so distressing, especially knowing that in your most formative years you would be utterly dependent on those from whom you would experience the greatest adversity. Think for a moment about all of the spiritual wisdom and maturity you gained from those impossible relationships and how you learned what not to do from them. And if you’ve already learned everything you had intended, you’ll blessedly never be exposed to those issues again!

      After I had been dating my husband, Britt, for several months, we started to talk about our respective histories, which included some painful memories of past relationships and the fact that both of us came from troubled families. I described how my alcoholic father had brutalized my mother verbally and physically throughout my childhood. Britt’s eyes filled with tears as he warmly embraced me, and then he murmured, “What a wonderful teacher he must have been. I can see why you chose him as a father. You were very fortunate.”

      Very