in 
for Kindle 
In this time of great turmoil, with the pandemic, with looming economic
problems in every country, increasing hunger, and difficulties in having access
to clean water and education, refugees living in desperation and squalor
because we of the first world are not doing what is right, not to mention other
minor matters such as the ludicrous process of Brexit, the humiliatingly
preposterous US election (Supreme Court included), despots in rather too many
nations who cling to power, social media that does not generally seem to do the
right thing, given the power it holds, conspiracy theory activists who rarely
seem to have any real knowledge about what they denounce ipso facto in
the nano-second they see a headline, etc. etc., I have found that what most
maintains my sanity is to keep holding on to a sense of purpose. In other
words, to live a purpose-driven life.
This works if you feel
you have a purpose. Do you? Does purpose figure in your life at this time?
If you don’t have a
purpose, have you noticed how easy it is for something to derail your sense of
inner peace, should you still have one? Have you noticed how easy it is for the
condition of the world, your country, your city, your neighbourhood, your
building, your friends, or your family, to cause you great inner mayhem?
If you are binging on
Netflix or thrillers and romance novels, it may have taken you longer to reach
this point, but we are many months into our time of Covid-19, and so
I’m going to assume you have noticed a lack of something in your life.
I believe that something
is a purpose. A meaning. Something that gives your life a sense of
significance. Something that makes you want to get up in the morning in order
to move forward just a bit more on whatever it is that gives you that sense of
purpose.
Today’s post is not
so much to help you find that sense of purpose. I’ve written about that in the
past:
·
Reaching
Towards What You Still Might Become
·
Walking a Bit
Further Every Day
·
Finding a
Meaning for Your Life
·
Don’t Allow
Them to Take Your Dream From You
Rather, this post is about the realization that living a purpose-driven life means that you
always have a safe harbour. You always have a place to go to that shelters you
from the outer turmoil I described above – not because you make yourself blind
to it – but because you are able to live a life of peace despite it.
I used to wonder how
on earth Anne Frank was able to live all that time in a small room, hiding from
the Nazis, knowing that if they found her, she would surely be sent to a death
camp. In the same fashion, I wondered how Nelson Mandela managed all those
years doing hard labour on Robben Island, knowing he had been sentenced to
life. Christopher Reeve, our first cinematic Superman, once he became a
paraplegic, also caught my attention. How did he deal with his situation?
Finally, Sabriye Tenberken, a German girl who lost her sight as a teen, has
become another individual to observe, in her determination to deal with her
situation in a very unusual way.
What these four rather
remarkable individuals did in order to deal with their respective predicaments,
became their purpose. It allowed them to live a purpose-driven life. Said in
another way, it allowed them - or so I believe - a great measure of inner peace
thanks to this purpose that gave meaning to their lives. It meant that they
could deal with their everyday issues, dramas, difficulties, pain, sorrow,
despair, and so much more, simply because they had a purpose.
Let’s return to our
situation in 2020 and 2021. And to our own lives, where most of us don’t live the kind
of situations Anne Frank, Nelson Mandela, Christopher Reeve, and Sabriye
Tenberken went through. But we have the turmoil I described at the beginning.
We have headlines screaming at us on a daily basis. Simply turning off the news
and going on a total media black-out won’t do it either because we do need to
keep ourselves informed.
So here is what I am
trying to emphatically underline for you here. Living a purpose-driven life can
make absolutely all the difference. If you are not living a life of purpose,
you owe it to yourself to figure out what that purpose could be (some of the
articles referenced above might give you a few ideas about how to discover that
purpose). And once you have even an inkling, start moving in that direction.
Who could have thought that writing a diary in Nazi-occupied Holland could give
succour, perhaps even relief? Who could have thought that deeply thinking about
the future of his nation, while chipping away at stones under the hot sun,
could offer succour, perhaps even relief? Working towards stem-cell research
from the confines of a wheel chair gave another kind of relief and peace. And
devising Tibetan braille, setting up schools and teaching the Tibetan blind how
to read, and then starting afresh in India with a university to mentor
change-makers - while challenging - must be stimulating to say the very least.
Your purpose and mine may not be as grand as that which kept the four examples I described so very invested in their lives. But whatever it is, if the purpose we give to our life fulfills us, it can do all those things I’ve mentioned here, and more - and ultimately - it can lead us to inner peace and joy, even in the midst of chaos.
VIDEO COURSES IN ENGLISH
See the preview (click the title below) to my online video course:
"Fatherless Women & Motherless Men"
***************
See the preview (click on the title below) to my online video course:
"Freedom From the Torture of Your Thoughts"
**************************************************
See the preview (click on the title below) to my online video course
CHARLAS EN ESPAÑOL EN YOUTUBE
Los enlaces a continuacion no sirven, dado que el canal de YouTube de Mindalia ha sido eliminado. Por tanto, las conferencia mias se pueden ver en mi propio canal de Youtube pinchando en este enlace
Vampiros energéticos: Su efecto destructivo en tu vida
*******************************
"Límites malsanos y autoestima: Tu felicidad y el amor hacia ti mismo"
"Basta con la tortura de tus pensamientos"
"Soluciones para personas emocionalmente inaccesibles
y con dependencia emocional"
****************************
Narcisismo y Psicopatía: Vivir sin Empatía
****************************
Relación espiritual y sexo en pareja
****************************
Elige hábitos para llevar una vida de bienestar
****************************
Morir: Un enfoque espiritual
****************************
Amor sano o disfuncional: ¿Cuál es la diferencia?
Also visit my book website: www.gabriellakortsch.com where you may download excerpts or read quotations from any of my books (also in Spanish & German). My latest book Emotional Unavailability & Neediness: Two Sides of the Same Coin is available globally on Amazon in print & Kindle. You can also obtain it (or any of my other books) via Barnes & Noble.
My blog posts are also featured on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, Pinterest & you can find me on Instagram
