FEP69 Finding Your Purpose
Show Notes:
In this episode we dive into the concept of life purpose, what that means, and how to uncover and pursue it with support from Nature and the flower essences.
We talk about the Japanese concept of Ikigai to look at the different pieces that come together to inform an overall sense of purpose, how to center ourselves, listen to our inner wisdom, and embody the guidance coming in from higher realms. We bring in essences to help with that, to give us the strength to forge ahead and permission to spark our creativity in this process.
Audio:
Video:
Flower Essences discussed during the show:
- Hornbeam – Bach
- Rosemary – FES
- Sapphire Ruby – Alaskan
- Blue Corydalis – Flora of Asia
- Wild Oat – Bach
- Buttercup – FES
- Shooting Star – FES
- Cerato – Bach
- Sage – FES
- Diamond – Alaskan
- Iris – FES
Show Transcript
Rochana Felde: [00:00:40] Hi everybody. Welcome back to the podcast. Today, Kathleen and I are diving into the concept of life purpose, what that means, how to uncover it, and how to pursue it with support from nature, from our friends the flower essences. And I love this topic. It’s something that I think about all the time and I can’t wait to dive in.
But before we do that, I’d love to check in with you, Kathleen, and see what you’ve been up to and tell people what we’ve been up to at the School for Flower Essence Studies.
Kathleen Aspenns: [00:01:17] Yeah, I’m really delighted because this last month I really enjoyed being a guest on The Plant Spirit Podcast with Sara Artemisia, and I was sharing how flower essences help our animal companions. This is one of my favorite topics. You might even hear in the background, I have two new little birds in my office, and so they’re peep-peeping away. I love animals and love sharing my life with them, and I love helping people share more harmonious lives with their animals as well. So we’ve also put up a promotion on the Canine Care: Bach Flowers for Dogs course on Flower Essence Studies. 20% off with the code WOOF20 until September 1st. Check it out. I hope you enjoy it. It is a delight to share some really simple, easy ways to help your dog. And you, Ro, I know you’ve been very busy. We’ve both been busy getting ready for the Flower Essence Practitioner Training.
Rochana Felde: [00:02:17] Yeah, we are having another cohort this year. We had one earlier in January and February, and there is so much interest from people wanting to go through this program that we have added another one for 2024. And live sessions begin on September 13th, and there’s some self-study modules that will open in late August, so it’s coming up. We currently have an early bird discount, so we wanted to make sure that you knew about that because it ends on August 2nd. And if you register by then, you can save $300. So that’s a great discount. And it is a big program. It’s led by Ruth Toledo Altschuler, our partner at the school. And then Kathleen and I also are part of that. And it’s just such a rich program. So you check out. You can learn more about it on our website, floweressencestudies.com, and yeah, give it a whirl. Look at the information about it and see if that’s something that you might be interested in.
And that leads us to our topic today because is flower essence therapy something that you might want to pursue as a practice, as a vocation, as something that you might want to even just do for yourself and others? Is there a passion? If you’re listening to this podcast, you might have some passion around flower essences and learning more about them. And when I think about life purpose, this is one of the reasons it’s so interesting to me and my life is because I used to think, gosh, what’s wrong with me that I don’t know it? And what’s different about all these people who know from a young age that they want to grow up to be a doctor or a lawyer or a firefighter? And I just tried a lot of things, and that is a really good way to figure out what your purpose is. But what does that even mean? What is purpose? In the healing and spiritual and say new age or self-development community, I feel like there’s this idea that we have to find this higher calling, this altruistic calling, or we’re not good to do for our living or we’re not a good person, right? And so there’s this weird kind of pressure to find something that you can present that way. And I have learned and I fell into that trap for a while as well and felt like, well, maybe I’m not as good of a person since I don’t have that. And this journey that I’ve been on has led me through this garden of vocations and experiences and choices and knowledge that now I feel I have a lot of thoughts on it, and the term life purpose seems to even just fall short.
So I love the Japanese term, Ikigai and the whole concept of that because if you haven’t heard of it, it combines these terms, Iki, which means alive or life, and Gai, which means benefit or worth. And I even have an alternative. I look at it even a little bit different from what the diagrams show, but if you Google it, you’ll see the diagram. And the diagram is four circles overlapping, which take what you love, what you’re good at, what you can be paid for, and what the world needs. And in each of those, the center of that is supposedly your Ikigai, your purpose, your reason to get up in the morning, what your purpose for life is. And the intersection of what you love and what you’re good at is your passion. The intersection of what you’re good at and what you can be paid for is your vocation. The intersection of what you love and what the world needs is your mission. And what the world needs intersected with what you can be paid for is your vocation. I might have said one of those things wrong, so I’ll put the diagram and a link to it in the show notes.
But what does the world need? That’s a huge question, and I mean, what are we doing here? And I like to bring it down. And when I work with some of my business clients, I bring it down into, what does your client need? And that can help you develop your business offerings. But when you’re looking at your purpose, you can narrow that focus even more because what does your family need? What do you need? What do the people around you need? I like to bring it down into that focus and go from there. And that’s where we can start to use the flower essences to center yourself into identifying what’s inside of us that we can bring forward because of this life purpose, it’s not something out there in the ether that we have to go find. It’s within us already. And I feel like the whole journey of finding it is the journey of finding yourself. So that’s why it’s such a deep concept to me.
Kathleen Aspenns: [00:08:49] I’m listening and resonating with pieces of that. The one that I’m seeing the most because I’m looking at it more from the aspect of somebody coming to for flower essence assistance on this topic. And there can be a lot of reasons why we don’t have a connection to the purpose, like this sense of why I’m here, why am I even here? I get up in the morning and why am I even here, I did a little research because the Ikigai concept was not one that I have– I haven’t read a book on it or I don’t know much about it. So I was doing a little research ahead of time because I know you like to bring this in and just looking at one of the origins of the research was looking at these folks in Okinawa who have long lives, but they engage in their hobbies, they engage in the world, in their community for a very long, extended life. They don’t just retire and sit and watch TV.
And that concept of, what are you drawn to? It doesn’t even necessarily need to be something that is going to shake the world. It’s like, do you like knitting? That’s pretty great, and that can give you some joy. And that may or may not be what you do for a living. But the origin is of connecting to these parts and these places of your life that are bringing you some joy and some delight and some reason for living. So there’s a long path to go down, and not everybody’s path leads to this kind of imaginary dream job. Most people don’t have that imaginary dream job which all their needs are fulfilled and they live happily ever after. Most of the time we’re following these little tracks one footstep at a time. And for me, that’s the process of uncovering the purpose is to just follow that little breadcrumb trail of, I mean, this is your purpose is to get up this morning and reach out to do something that draws you, something that attracts you, something that brings you life and joy. Am I getting your concept as well?
Rochana Felde: [00:11:05] Yeah, I think that’s exactly it. I think that the idea is that it might not be your vocation, and that’s fine, but you do want to find what helps motivate you to get out of bed in the morning. I mean, that is the first step really. And once you get past that and you do want to embark on, say, a vocation or a profession or a business or a practice, what I see is, and this comes from having the sort of mindset of having a lot of good– I have a lot of good ideas for businesses. I could quickly go in a million different directions or think that something is what I should be doing because maybe I did it well or I was good at it. And so that is not necessarily true. Just because you’re good at something, it doesn’t mean that it’s what you should be doing. And conversely, some people think that if it’s a challenge for them, it’s something that they should do because there’s this sort of, oh, that means I’m here in this incarnation, in this lifetime to work on this because it’s awful for me, and that is not necessarily true either. But having something that drives you internally through the challenges, that’s it. That to me is that thing that keeps us going and that thing that is our purpose, that drives our mission, that we have enough passion to do the hard things that we don’t like because we love it, because we love the overall thing. I’ve heard the analogy of surfers who love surfing but swimming out there is a real drag. And so you have to love it more than the challenging part will stop you.
And I think that is a perfect analogy for being in your own business because there’s always going to be things, or even working for anyone else, I mean, there’s always going to be the parts of the job that you don’t love, and yet, there’s something about the rest of it, or there’s something about the mission of it, or there’s something about the way it helps other people that drives you and keeps you going. And so I think that’s a really interesting thing to keep in mind.
And I want to mention too, the other part about what you’re good at, you’re not going to be good at anything right away. So you have to try things. You have to get out there and just try things. And it takes a while. It takes a couple of years to get really good at something. You’re never going to start out that way even if you have– well, I mean, you might have natural talent, but to really become an expert, you still have to do it for a while. And that will tell you.
So how do we navigate this? Let’s say somebody is trying to go inside or connect to their higher purpose and what flower essences can help in that direction keeping in mind all of the context that we just talked about? You might have an experience where you do get direction from a higher consciousness. I mean, that could happen. But really, it’s about turning inside. So let’s talk about some essences for that, for getting grounded and just looking within.
Kathleen Aspenns: [00:15:50] Can I tap in on one of the pieces that I heard you saying that is very much part of the dynamic of this question, which I heard a couple times you saying, and you weren’t saying you saying this, but what people hear is that you should do this, is that you should do that. And the word should when it comes up in a conversation, get your little flag popping up for that because any time you hear either yourself talk saying, I should be doing this, or I should be doing that, that sounds like almost all the time that you’re pushing yourself to be contrary to your own nature, that you’re trying to do something that somebody told you was the way to do something or the path that you’re supposed to be on that doesn’t sound like anything your heart wants to do. And when you bring that in, that concept of the Bach essence of Hornbeam comes up for me really strongly because the Hornbeam state is 100% resistance to the should. And I see so many people fighting themselves to a standstill, that’s what Hornbeam is, is you have got so much should going in your head that I should be doing this and I should be doing that, and they’re beating themselves up and they’re exhausted. They can’t even think about getting out of bed. They’re so tired and depressed and funk, and it’s, I think, a lot of times because there’s so much should going on that they’ve lost track of what their natural spark is, that natural like, hey, let’s go do this today. And I know that you wanted to talk about Hornbeam too, Ro.
Rochana Felde: [00:17:47] Well, I was thinking more in terms of– I totally agree with what you’re saying on that. I always think of Hornbeam as shining a flashlight on things so that you can– and it’s just that word Hornbeam. The word beam is in there, and so it just puts this mental picture. I’m obviously a visual, thinker, and so I’m always putting together what image does that conjure up? And to me it conjures up that flashlight, that beam of shining a light on things and shining a light to help with the clarity, but it’s also for that purpose of forging ahead to the beat of your own drum. And I love that.
I really like Rosemary in terms of it bringing in this life force. So it’s stimulating the life force. And it is such a strong– if you’re familiar with the herb of Rosemary, it has such a strong presence, such a strong smell, and tastes spicy. If you’ve grown it in your garden, there’s two versions, the upright, and the other one that doesn’t stand straight upright. But the one that stands straight upright, I mean it’s got such a presence to– this vertical presence of bringing in this life force. And I think it’s an overlooked flower essence that’s not used very often. I mean, I honestly forget about it myself a lot of the time, but when I think about the energy, it’s just this beautiful, strong empowerment that brings through the life force into our body and brings out the warmth. And that is something to tap into when we’re thinking about this topic because we have to connect with our body and we have to connect with that life force to have the energy to go down this path and to think about this but to also physically do it in a centered, grounded way. So, yeah, what do you think about Rosemary? Do you use it often?
Kathleen Aspenns: [00:20:47] Oh, yeah, all the time. For this topic specifically, bringing in a member of the Mint family, the Lamiaceae, and Rosemary is one of them, is helping to create more awareness or more enlivening in our center. I see the Mint family as being very much in the center, in the gut, in the solar plexus, helping us to bring our lives into the everyday existence. And that’s really where this family is so strong. These are plants that we kind of overlook as flower essences because they’re not super sexy. They’re Mint and Rosemary and Sage and ordinary plants that we’re familiar with in our kitchens, in our kitchen gardens, everywhere, you overlook it. But the center is such an important area to cultivate because it helps us to interact with the world. Our life purpose is not probably to be all by ourselves sitting on a mountain doing the guru thing. Our purpose is almost entirely likely to be interacting with other humans, other living person beings in the world around us. Not usually something, these great dramatic one-in-a-million kinds of purposes. Most of us cultivating our relationships at home, in our communities, and that’s where this quality of center is because it’s breaking bread together, eating together, feeding others, taking care of others, taking care of ourselves.
This quality of self-nourishment and self-cultivation is really where Rosemary shines because it can bring a warmth to our center that so many of us who’ve come through spiritual traditions or New Age traditions, the focus is always higher chakras up and out like we’re getting information from angels. That’s super awesome, but we also have to be in our bodies and in order for our lives to operate correctly. I mean, even just if your gut isn’t operating correctly, it’s very hard to enjoy your day-to-day existence. And I know that you are familiar with Rosemary. What are some other ones that you like to use for this character helping to connect people to this quality of centeredness and purpose?
Rochana Felde: [00:23:25] Well, I like bringing in gemstones for a lot of these. And the Sapphire Ruby comes to mind because it is facilitating. It talks about getting in touch with that higher purpose, but bringing it down into the physical body. So it’s very much about in that connection to feel the support, to feel the support of the spiritual realm, but grounded in your day-to-day reality as you’re talking about, and to build the new support structures that you need to move forward. So if there’s old survival strategies that are blocking you, this would be a great one to build new ones in order to move forward and to clear any kind of limitations in your thinking, in your mind, and really strengthen that body-soul connection so that then you can start to do that work.
Kathleen Aspenns: [00:24:38] What you’re bringing in in this aspect of stepping forward, I pretty regularly have this conversation with clients of how guidance works, of how this whole concept of life purpose. It’s kind of like we have this illusion that we’re all of a sudden going to get this revelation, and it’s just, “ponk” going to drop right in our laps and we’ll know exactly what our path, what our purpose looks like forever. Like, okay, that’s where I’m going. Here it is. This is what I have to do.
And what I experience, guidance and life purpose much more is it’s one little piece of information at a time. I think of it a lot more like following GPS rather than having every turn by turn laid out for you all in one piece. So you trust it. You get the direction, go this way. And you’re like, okay, I’m going to go this way until I hear otherwise, until something’s very clear that I’m supposed to go in a different direction. But sometimes we have a hard time remembering that we’re not constantly going to have– I mean, imagine how annoying it would be if the GPS were constantly telling you, keep going forward, keep going forward. You would tune it out. It’s so annoying. So our spiritual GPS is going to be giving us directions when we need them and not before. And this quality of building this characteristic of trusting in the path like, yes, I feel really strongly this is the thing to do. Even though today I’m kind of like, ugh, I’m not sure, just you keep doing.
The Blue Corydalis is one that I use for this a lot because it has this ability to help you trust, help you trust in this unfolding. The image that the plant has given me is of driving down a curvy road in the fog. You just follow the line. You just keep going, you keep going forward, and you can’t see where you’re going, but you’ll get there if you just keep going forward and following the path.
Rochana Felde: [00:26:55] This might be a great segue into Wild Oat because that’s the classic Bach flower remedy for finding your direction. When you don’t know what to do, when you don’t know where to go, when you don’t know what flower essence to take, Wild Oat is the one, and they call it the direction-finder. And you can think of it in a similar way as this compass. To me, Wild Oat is really about what’s your next step. So it’s maybe not the bigger picture, but it will keep you on that path with the next step.
Kathleen Aspenns: [00:27:37] It’s such an important essence. It’s something that should be in so many more formulas than it goes into. It’s sort of an overlooked, but boy, it’s really good at, and like you say, the long-term use of Wild Oat really helps you to stay on track, to stay on target in the direction that you’re going. I completely, completely agree.
And one element that I think of in this characteristic of finding your purpose, finding your path, is that it doesn’t look like everyone else’s. Your path is your path. There are some people who their karma or astrological chart or whatever, they follow the path of their family. Maybe you’ve got a family who’s always done this and everybody jumps into this career, and that might fit you well, but most people aren’t in that sort of circumstance now, and they have to figure out what their flavor is on the world. And I like to bring in the Ranunculaceae, the Buttercup family for this because Buttercup is so great and such a sweet essence for helping you uncover or even appreciate your uniqueness. You’re not like everybody else, and you shouldn’t be. And who you are is pretty great and is required, it’s needed in the world. Do you like to use Buttercup too?
Rochana Felde: [00:29:11] I do. It’s wonderful for all those things, but also boosting that self-confidence, which is part of this process as well.
Another one I feel called to talk about is Shooting Star. That one, it helps to connect especially– I mean, typically we’ll use it in formulas when people don’t feel like they belong here on Earth, and it will help connect people so that they feel more a part of Earth, more embodied and feel more supported here on Earth. And I mean, I’ve always really loved this essence and very much related to that aspect of it, that aspect of feeling like, do I really belong here on this planet and feeling even homesick for another place? I’ve had that feeling a lot of my life, and the Shooting Star addresses that. But there is another aspect to that essence, and that is to help develop and attune to your connection for your soul guidance, your spiritual guidance. And that over time, it helps you in this journey, in this path in feeling that there is support and to help you find your purpose here on this planet as we are, as we are incarnated here.
Kathleen Aspenns: [00:31:00] That’s an interesting use. I don’t think I’ve ever used Shooting Star in context with this type of conversation, but it is important because it helps you land in yourself so that you can then hear clearly.
I do think that a lot of times, people who are very spiritual, who don’t really want to be here in the body on Earth, they are open to a lot of input from other realms. And sometimes that input is really useful and clear and in alignment, and sometimes it’s kind of just like picking up every channel on the planet. You’re just getting a lot of noise, and it’s not really relevant to you and it’s maybe not really very useful. I use Cerato a lot in this context because Cerato help to not shut down the noise, but gives you more awareness what is noise and what isn’t noise? It helps you clarify and sink into yourself more rather than wanting to always be up and out. This is where the Chinese medicine concept of the wisdom of the heart comes in. The heart needs to be spacious and calm and protected from outside influences in order to hear the voice of heaven. So it’s something that’s in the center of you. It’s that still small voice, which is pretty hard to hear when you’ve got a lot of chitter-chatter going on. And Cerato gives you that ability to clear in and let go of all these voices and all these other people telling you what you should do, or who you should be, or what other people are doing that works for them. Cerato helps you come into yourself and be able to connect into, this is what’s right for me.
Rochana Felde: [00:33:18] Yeah, that is a really good one that I hadn’t thought about initially, but it’s so perfect for this. And I could see in that realm, Sage might be one that is helping to see your own wisdom and connect with your own wisdom inside and to even more so embody the wisdom that you’ve gained so far, and that helps with finding clarity. Of course, the Diamond Gem essence really can boost that process of finding clarity and that harmonization of basically what they say, this divine will and personal will, like harmonizing the divine and the personal is how Alaskan Essences describes it, so however you want to think of that, but there is that integration of this wisdom and then your will, and bringing that into a higher alignment.
Kathleen Aspenns: [00:34:42] And once you have, once you’ve connected to that, I think sometimes a good way of connecting to that joyous life force is to engage in creative acts, and the Iris essence is such an important part of connecting to that spark of creativity. And it doesn’t matter if you’re good at it or not. It doesn’t matter if you’re making capital ART. It’s whether you’re connecting to your creativity, and in whatever way that is, in whatever is creative for you. But that helps to get the ball rolling, especially when you’ve internalized so many messages that you’re not good at this and you’re not good at anything, and you should just do what people tell you to do and just be content with that. I love to encourage art, and it could be journaling. Any sort of creative act is a good thing to do. And I know that Iris is one that you’re very fond of as well, Ro.
[/ppp_patron_only]Rochana Felde: [00:35:58] I love it so much because there is such a deeper aspect of it in helping us to become the creative act, so not just do something creative but become creativity and release that innate creativity that is within us because we grow up our entire lives blocking it. We are taught in this society, and I have so many examples. And one was even just being told, you can’t make a living with that, and even if you weren’t told that specifically, I remember my dad making not-so-subtle jibes about my mother who graduated with an art degree and look what good did that do basically was kind of the not-so-nice cut with that, but that really, it made such a big impact on my mind. And when I was quite young, I think I had a professional astrology reading, and I have all of these indicators in my chart about creativity and my sun being in that house and all of this. And I’ve been asked multiple times by different astrologers, why aren’t you creating art? This is really important for you, this is really important in your life, you need to be doing this. But then again, there is that need.
And what I learned by sitting with Iris is that it’s bringing creativity into every moment of your life, everything that you do. It’s not about creating a painting. It’s about tapping into creation. It’s difficult to articulate. But I felt such a strong depth to this plant, which I hadn’t before as a flower– I thought, oh, I’m just so creative, I don’t need Iris. I think that there’s little thought– when we learn about flower essences, there’s little thoughts like that that will pass through our minds, and I’ll admit that. And there’s things that we might overlook because the one- or two-sentence description of them doesn’t quite hit, or it’s more superficial than what it really is. And I really encourage anyone, everyone, to try Iris for a little while and see how that changes things in their life. It’s like, what did you do when you were cooking dinner? Did you throw an extra spice in there and see what that was like? I mean, creativity is part of our DNA, all of us as human beings, and we could do so well to explore that and bring it back into our lives. It doesn’t matter what you do and what you’re doing. You could be programming in code, and there’s still creativity. There’s still an element of creativity in there. You don’t have to relegate it to this left brain, right brain, artistic versus logical, whatever. Just try Iris and see where that brings you.
Kathleen Aspenns: [00:40:10] That’s a beautiful note. Thank you for sharing your story with Iris. I didn’t know that you had such a strong personal connection to that plant/essence.
So, dear listeners, what essences come to your mind for this topic? What essences have helped you connect to your life purpose? Where are you at in your process? We would really like to hear. Feel free to reach out to us in all the places. You can put comments on YouTube. You can write us hello at floweressencestudies.com. We really want to hear from you. We really enjoy sharing this time with us together that we all gather to share our love of flower essences and really appreciate your interaction and engagement. It’s really fun for us to know what you’re up to and where you’re at in the world of flower essence therapy. So hopefully, you’ll join us again soon. If you’re ever so kind, you’ll scroll to wherever you are in your podcast app and throw a few stars our way. A review would be super sweet, and then think about sending this podcast to somebody that you know who’s wrestling with their life purpose. We look forward to seeing you again really, really soon. Take good care.
Rochana Felde: [00:41:38] Bye-bye now.
Kathleen Aspenns: [00:41:44] This podcast is meant for educational and entertainment purposes only. We are not physicians and do not diagnose, prescribe, or treat medical conditions. Please consult with your own physician or healthcare practitioner regarding the suggestions and recommendations made by the hosts and guests of The Flower Essence Podcast.
