How Do I Find My Passion And Purpose? 4 Steps To The Art Of Asking And Receiving.

Updated: Sep 24, 2021

"How do I find my passion and purpose?"

I was asked this question during my webinar and I could feel all the antennas lifted up from the participants. Apparently, the question had struck a chord with everyone's heart.

We were going through the discussion of the chronic emotional patterns of depression when this question came in.

I was explaining the subtle difference between Stress, Anxiety and Depression (S.A.D).

While Stress comes from being overwhelmed and Anxiety is usually triggered by non-stop worrying, Depression is often a signal of emptiness.

If the behaviour of Stress is tension, Anxiety is chaos, then Depression is simply hollowness. Someone who goes into Depression mode often stems from the lack of true passion and purpose in life. The absence of joy is the reason of feeling unmotivated and sorrowful about living.

It is this observation of the nature of depression that I often advocate the need to restore passion and purpose as a gateway for those who wants to free themselves out of the rabbit hole.

It was at this moment that the participant asked, but when you are in such a bad place, where and how does one even begin to find passion and purpose?

I was intrigued by his fully valid question; I paused for a while and gave him a short answer on the spot - "Take action. You got to just get yourself up and go and find it."

The question lingered in my heart long after the online seminar had ended. As I began to ponder deeper, I found more answers that I could have shared with him and perhaps all of you who are also interested in this question.

Through my personal journey in finding my passion in healing works and my observations through my coaching, here are four key learnings I will like to share with you.

They are:

1. The Art Of Asking

2. Taking Conscious Actions

3. Finding Clues In Your Life Lessons

4. Be Courageous And Say Yes!

#1: THE ART OF ASKING

"BUT FIRST CHANGE YOUR FEELINGS TOWARDS ASKING"

Whatever you are going to ask in life, the very first step is to change your emotional resistance towards asking.

Perhaps it is embedded in our culture or upbringing that made us subconsciously reluctant and even clumsy to ask for help or ask for what we want.

We do not have to look too far. If you are in the working space, some of you may feel resistance to ask for help, fearing that you maybe judged as weak or dependent. You may also be embarrassed to ask for a promotion, pay rise or even just to clear some annual leaves because it may be interpreted as greed and ungrateful.

These unhealthy and poisonous mentalities that we carry out in our everyday life, blind us from realising that it is okay to ask.

Asking for what you want in your life is a powerful form of sending your signals out to the universe to collaborate with your seeking. By articulating your desires, you also reinforce your intention.

Can you imagine a salesperson who knocked on your door and simply stared at you with an awkward face while stammering through his sales pitch? What will you do? You will probably be irritated that he was wasting your time and slammed the door right at him.

Now imagine that salesperson is you, who is trying to explain and ask for what you need to your universe. Well, your loving universe will not slam the door at your face but it will be clearly confused about what you want.

So, if you ever want to find your passion and purpose, the very first step is to ask for guidance to find it. Even if you are in a stuck mode, you can still shout for help because it is a natural reaction that does not take effort.

"ASK BECAUSE YOU OWN YOUR LIFE, NOT BECAUSE YOUR LIFE OWES YOU"

A lot of us are frustrated and angry when we are stuck in our problems and our wishes do not come true, as if "our life" owe us. Who exactly is "our life" that we are being angry with? Is this "our life" outside of us like a third party?

That is one of the strangest connotations when we are doing the asking. We treat it as if there is a superior something, someone or organisation up there whose main job is to give us what we want.

No matter what state of being or circumstances we are stuck in, one truth does not change - that we are the TRUE OWNER OF OUR LIFE.

When we take accountability and own our life, we empower ourselves to realising our wantings and solutions.

"KNOWING WHY YOU ARE ASKING"

When you are asking for wealth and abundance to come into your life, do you really have a good and meaningful reason for asking?

When you want to have passion and purpose in life, do you truly know why you wanted them?

If you fail to answer these questions with clear substantiation, your asking becomes weakened. If your answer is superficial, you will have to dig deeper and ask again.

Sometimes, you may wonder “is it not obvious for the things I ask for – love, health, money, wealth? Everybody naturally want these things, no?”

Well, if you think this way, you are exactly giving the example of answering your ask in a superficial way – just because everybody ask for it, therefore you deem you need it.

If you have a deep desire in your heart right now, think deeper to answer why you want it. The clearer you understand your request, the quicker you manifest.

'ASK FROM THE PLACE OF LOVE NOT FEAR"

Your utmost desire should not come from the ego-centric head but downright from the deepest point of your love-centric heart and even through the bones.

Are you asking for passion and purpose out of anger, fear, worries, envy or resentment? Or are you asking out of the true feelings of self-love and willingness to change your life for good?

When our asking carries a negative emotional intent, we create blockers and chaos to our signals of intent, slowing down the process of manifestation.

There is an inner child in all of us that needs our attention and tender, loving care. Even when we are entrapped in a depressive state of mind, there is always still a spot within us that is capable of love. Because this is our primary source and soul nature.

Asking for passion and purpose, even from a place of mental darkness, can still be evoked by the pure desire to take care of one’s body and mind. Asking from this place of love will empower the asking to attract the opportunities to come your way.

“BE PATIENT"

Finally, part of the art of asking is the art of waiting.

Because things are not happening yet or not happening according to what you expected, does not mean that it is not happening.

Let me share with you a personal experience.

The first time I tried to launch my online workshop, I was carrying a lot of love and excitement. Practising the “art of asking” I prayed sincerely with my heart that I would like to have fifty signups for the workshop.

The end result? The total number of signups I received was - TWO!

I was utterly disappointed and shocked. What went wrong with my manifestation?

Humbly, I went ahead to conduct the workshop for the only two participants. When I finished the workshop, I was totally blown away by my learnings and the honest feedback that I received. My contents were great but they were too overwhelming.

As I reflected on the lesson learned, I was glad that it was not fifty participants who signed up. I cannot imagine the discouragement I will have to recover from if it was fifty disgruntled paid audiences who did not benefitted much from the session.

I went back to my deck with great motivation and determination to improve on my contents. One month later, I received a corporate call and was offered the opportunity to present the same contents to their employees. Guess what? Sixty people turned up for that session.

It dawned on me that my ask was actually being given. However, there was a necessary process to unfold to prepare me for readiness. In fact, I realised that my universe was actually protecting me. What I wanted was not what I needed at that moment. It would have crushed me if I was shaken by the failure and stopped moving ahead. How amazing everything turned out in such divinity.

From then onwards, I always ask and I learned to embrace all forms of outcome as they are always divine arrangement for my greatest success.

#2 TAKING CONSCIOUS ACTIONS

“Taking action.” was the short answer I gave to the participant at the webinar. I realised now that this was the first answer that jumped into my head because it had been the biggest driver of finding my passion and purpose.

The seeking of my true passion and purpose took eight long years to unfold. In fact, now that I looked back, it took me a lifetime to prepare for it.

I will always remember the date 17 March 2013; I was still living in Hong Kong. That night, I was crying hysterically alone at the beach, battling (again) with my depression attack. It was full moon. I will always remember the scene where I lifted my head and said aloud to the mother moon that I just want to be happy, please show me the way and I will do whatever it takes, I promise!

That open-hearted, brutally honest outcry for help pushed open my gateway to the ultimate joy in my life.

After that fateful night, a voice started in my head that kept asking me to go find a passion - something that will spark joy in my life, that will get me away from the darkness.

Following these voices, I began to TAKE CONSCIOUS ACTIONS. I tried everything from acrylic painting, silver metal-smithing, story-writing, rock climbing, water surfing, volunteering in Cambodia helping children in poverty, to joining a Zen center, became a full-time vegetarian, attended a 7-day silent retreat in the monastery and became a volunteer teacher for children's mindfulness class.

Like a mad horse, I was literally running around, exploring everything I can find under the Sun. Eventually, I FOUND IT! I finally found my passion in the alternative healing works of mind-body and magically, my passion went on to become my life purpose and calling.

If I would have been non-active and passive after I ASKED, I would probably still be sitting in that rabbit hole, whining for help and waiting for a rope ladder to drop from the sky and rescue me.

My dear friends, no matter how demotivated you are right now about your life, sit up and take baby actions. When you do your best, your life will take care of the rest.

#3 FINDING CLUES IN YOUR LIFE LESSONS

In one of my Healing Emotional Pain video episodes, I spoke about the hidden secrets of our life pain and struggles. One of them is that every life lesson carries the secret clue to our life purpose.

I found my life purpose of serving in the healing space through my personal struggles and self-healing from toxic relationships, family dramas and mental wellbeing.

I have a client who found her life purpose in being an advocate with her passion to write, for women empowerment through her own ordeal of finding her selfworth again in a society and family that degrades women.

Another client found her purpose in helping children to restore self-confidence through inner works as she found liberation out of her own abusive childhood experience.

Everything happens for a reason, especially painful experiences.

When we heal our wounds and realise the hidden life lessons, we progress to the tip of the pyramid in self-actualisation.

#4 BE COURAGEOUS AND SAY YES!

My client told me in one of my healing sessions that she is afraid to ask for joy and happiness because she does not believe it will ever happen for her.

My heart ached when I heard those words and felt the despair behind them.

I can fully understand where she was coming from. Sometimes when we had been hurt for so long and so deep, we no longer believe that anything good will come into our life. Even if anything good come into us, something bad will happen to it and we will lose it anyway.

That is how we start closing all doors and build an enormous greatwall around our heart, rejecting all joy, love, abundance and happiness that are visiting us.

It is an irony to think that we even need courage to say YES to happiness. Yet, it reflects deeply on our wounded heart.

A mindfulness teacher ever said in her book, our heart comes to a HALT when we are Hungry, Angry, Lonely and Tired. Hunger is easy to solve…but the rest takes healing.

Then heal if you need to be!

Get heal, so that you are strong and well again to begin your soul-searching journey with joy.

I believe that every human being has three fundamental emotional needs - SECURITY, LOVE AND PURPOSE.

When one or more of these three emotional needs are unfulfilled, that is where our body, mind and life go out of balance.

Finding a passion that sparks joy and a life purpose that creates authentic value to the planet earth, is not just an express ticket out of depression but the ultimate path to a fulfilling life.

Have you found yours yet? If not, start ASKING today.