LIVING THE GIFT THAT YOU ARE
As we step more deeply into the question of why we are here—both on this page, and in the world at large—I am deeply interested in the gifts that each of us carries. Although many believe that there is value in living an ‘ordinary life’, I don’t believe that is truly possible given all that we are and all that we carry. It is fundamental to my view of the human experience that we are all carriers of sacred purpose. And that our sacred purpose includes—among a variety of things—the gifts that we were born with. These gifts are not simply presents that we give to others (we will discuss those ‘offerings’ soon)—they are also presents that we give to ourselves, tools for our own self-actualization, portals to our own ‘presence’ that bring us into contact with the treasure that we are. When we can unpack them, and allow them to be explored and expressed, we find ourselves coming to life. Because our gifts—and this is true for every element of our sacred purpose—are intrinsic to our unique constitution. They reside at the heart of our aliveness, and when they get to come out and play, we do too. Because we are that, too. We are the gift, and expressing it is a sure-fire way to embody the treasure that we are.
In the armored and shaming world that I grew up in, it was not okay to acknowledge your gifts, or to acknowledge that you are a gift. In that sociological landscape, it was important to not draw too much attention to yourself, or to take up too much space. As a result, gifts had to be put away, or carefully handled, so that they didn’t explode into too much aliveness and threaten the managed system that many of us grew up in. I can clearly remember being told that I shouldn’t be “egotistical”, when I dared to suggest that I had something special inside of me. And so, I put certain gifts away, and only brought them back to life years later. Perhaps you can relate?
The thing about gifts—in other words, the thing about the gift that you are—is that they never really go away. They may get buried, but they’re still in there, sparkling with life, awaiting their opportunity to express themselves. Of course, they don’t rise to the surface all on their own. We have to do some work to bring them to the surface. We have to fight for our right to the light, or the gift remains unactualized, longing to be opened but never truly seeing the light of day. And at this stage of human development, that’s the work that we are here to do.
I have been doing that challenging work for years. And I see the struggle to clarify and embody our sacred purpose—and the gifts at its heart—as intrinsic to the ReHumaning journey that I embarked on so very long ago. I didn’t know exactly what it meant to be a whole, embodied human, but it was evident to me that my cultural and familial conditioning were not that. Some gifts were obvious, others were seen and then put away, still others were entirely unrevealed. I could sense them, but I had never seen them, and I was determined to bring them to the surface one way or the other.
Let’s embark on a gift-finding mission, this month. I define gifts-as-sacred purpose below, and offer a variety of exercises that can help you to both clarify your gifts and to bring them to life. And for anyone interested in a sacred purpose primer, check out Pillar One of my personal Humanifesto here: Humanifesto