passion

Soul gifts–does the Stork bring them?

~ nicole
At 50, I began to know who I was. It was like I was waking up to myself. – Maya Angelou

So, just where do our soul gifts come from? And are they the same as our purpose or our passion? Both are great questions I’m often asked and well worth exploring.

I believe that we’re born into the world with our soul gifts; so, yes, in a way, the stork brings them :). In the indigenous culture of the Maya, those gifts are divined, acknowledged and honored at birth as the local shaman meets with the parents to determine how best to support their child, so she can live into her gifts and path. What a beautiful gift to give your child: the promise and a plan to nurture his gifts as he grows.

Unfortunately, in the western world, we aren’t given this kind of support at our birth, and so often our gifts are diminished, ignored or unsupported, and we lose our connection to them. Without proper nourishment and care, they simply can’t grow and thrive.

What is fortunate is that we can reclaim those gifts and accelerate their evolution (I know because that’s exactly what I did)…. So, all is not lost, dear soul warrior.

Reclaim your soul gifts

The beauty and richness of knowing our soul gifts is why I start my soul path coaching and courses with Mayan Day Sign readings, the ancient practice that Mayan shamans use in their divination work. These readings guide you through the evolving stages of your life; support you in finding your gifts, purpose and path; and show you what will allow you to achieve those goals and live into your destiny. They are an advanced system for understanding the energies that support and awaken your inner knowledge.

In the west, many believe we are a tabula rasa, a blank slate that we can mold into anything we want to be. Undoubtedly, free will and willpower are extremely powerful. However, we tend to use them a bit blindly: we set our sights on getting or being something and we go for it, but what we achieve doesn’t often acknowledge, nurture or cultivate our soul gifts.

When we forget or ignore those gifts, we feel unfulfilled even when we attain our goal. When we leave our soul bereft; it will cry out in anguish at some point–showing up as anger, frustration, depression, and even addiction or dependency–and we ignore its messages at our peril.

When we wisely use our free will and willpower and choose to fully embody and live into our soul gifts and path, we find our voice and our soul power, and we live a life full of meaning, purpose, and joy.

Share your soul gifts and shine.

So where does that leave purpose and passion? Soul gifts lead you to your purpose. Soul gifts are an energetic life force within you made up of specific characteristics, aspects and energies that are seeking realization. To truly understand your life purpose, you must know your soul gifts first.

We’ve all heard inspirational spokespeople say, “Follow your bliss,” or “Follow your passion,” and while that is a beautiful thing, it will not fully satisfy your soul. Your soul desires more. While passion projects may bring you joy, the joy of your soul gifts is deeper. Its joy connects you to your deepest self, the one that seeks meaning, the one that is your highest potential, the one that wants you to be of service to something much larger than yourself. Passions can be a little bit myopic; sometimes we want to keep them all to ourselves. Soul gifts must be shared.

Once you reclaim and start living into your soul gifts, you share your gifts by just being you, who you truly are, not the construct you’ve been trying to live into. Your self realization is their realization. And when you reach this point, and as you release the energy of your soul gifts into the world, your “work” becomes your joy. It’s an unbelievable feeling.

Feel into what it would mean to reclaim and live into your soul gifts. What would become possible for you?

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Copyright ©2017 Soulscape Coaching LLC.

Accept or decline the mission

~ Nicole Gnutzman
You may think you have no resistance to finding your purpose, but if that were true you would probably already know it. – Tim Kelley

IMG_1545Finding our purpose in life can be terrifying and sometimes perplexing. I know. As I was first exploring mine, I received a guided message saying I should make a documentary about ceremonial cacao. It came as a total surprise.

While I know a little something about cacao ceremony and am fascinated by the history of cacao, I know absolutely nothing about making a documentary. I, being the “doer” that I am, starting wondering how I could fulfill this “mission.”

My sister has an MFA, has taught film production and now heads the Media Studies program at a community college, and made a documentary film (a very long time ago), so I thought, she can help me! I even took the step of approaching her and she was mildly enthusiastic (she’s Canadian and still lives in Canada, so maybe I should have taken that mild enthusiasm more seriously :)).

Anyway, I soon realized that I actually didn’t want the responsibility of making a documentary. There are far better, more qualified people who could do it, and I had an inkling that my path lay elsewhere. It would have been a fun diversion, but documentaries need to be passion projects, they can take forever to be realized, and I just didn’t have quite enough passion or time.

Plus, to be honest, the thought of traipsing through the rain forest looking for indigenous shamans; the depth of relationship needed to gain their trust, so they would allow us to film them; and the time required to do this away from home and my husband, scared me. It was so far away from my current experience and I felt it put things I valued at risk.

I know now, and I even knew then, that what our soul wants for us is not always on the easy path. Could I actually say, “no,” to this?

So, I asked myself, why did Spirit give this to me? And then I just happened upon Elizabeth Gilbert’s Big Magic, in which she reveals that “inspiration will always try its best to work with you–but if you are not ready or available, it may indeed choose to leave you and to search for a different human collaborator.” So, I was off the hook…. I could leave this for someone else to take on as their mission and continue to look for my soul’s true purpose. Which is exactly what I did.

Just recently, not that I was looking for further confirmation, I read Tim Kelley’s True Purpose: 12 Strategies for Discovering the Difference You Are Meant to Make, in which he shares that “you can accept [your mission] or decline it” and “your soul can give you a new instruction that is at a higher level.” That’s what keeps happening to Tim, and that’s exactly what happened to me. I declined one mission only to have another one be revealed to me, one that fully supported what he calls my “blessing,” or what I like to refer to as my gifts, the things for which I am a “catalyst, a facilitator of some process.”

The reason that I like to talk about being on your “soul’s path” is that, while our purpose and gifts are foundational, our mission or “highest level instruction” continues to evolve and grow, building on that foundation. Our soul’s path is an unfolding, one which is revealed to us as we walk forward with trust.

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Copyright ©2016 Soulscape Coaching.