Finding One’s Passion in Life

I’ve been interested in the idea of helping people find their passion in life ever since a relative of mine mentioned to me that at 50 years old she still didn’t know what she wanted to do in life, and this was coming from someone successful by standard means.  Talking to her further revealed that what she was talking about was that she wasn’t doing something she felt invested and connected to on a deep level.  She was lacking purpose in life.  It reminded me of something I had heard in an undergrad psychology class years before, that children learn motivation through eating delicious food.  At that time, I thought what an interesting idea that how a person interacts with their environment can influence one’s future disposition.

As a homeopath, I understand that illness comes in many forms, not just the physical.  As well, illness deepens as vitality is dampened.  In the homeopathic view, illness is an imbalance in vitality.  That sounds simplistic and indeed homeopathy views the mechanism that maintains health as simple.  This mechanism is like a light switch: it’s either turned on or off.  Not to undermine the difficulties that one experiences in illness; when the switch is turned off, it takes an enormous rally of energy to get it to flip on again.  When vitality is dampened and illness sets in on the different levels of wellbeing, it takes time to vitalize the body once again.  It takes a medicine with a rigorous holistic perspective and a method honed to knowing the direction of cure.  Homeopathy is one such medicine.  In homeopathic theory, there are four levels of wellbeing and they are physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual.  In my form of treatment, I’m not just looking at what illness is on the physical level.  Instead, I look for illness, and health, on the four levels of wellbeing and I gauge and follow how someone is experiencing life on all these levels. 

Lacking purpose in life is illness on the spiritual level.  I’m not talking about spirit as in religion, however it can be that too, but spirit as in the supra-intellectual understanding of being in the world: connection, purpose, meaning, ideals/values, faith, comfort in the past and future, interest, and motivation.  One could say this is emotional wellbeing, but I don’t want to side step around the word “spirit.”  Many people impart a woo-woo connotation to the word, “spirit,” due to new age emphasis on feelings.  But these words do not describe emotions.  Let’s look at what spirit is more practically.  These words are broader terms that give one a sense of placement in the world; or rather, emotions lead one to having a belief about the world around them and therefore a connection with that world.  For example, while depression has the emotions of sadness, it leaves one with a sense of isolation and discontinuity.  Depression is an emotional and spiritual illness. 

While there are many areas to work with someone on finding passion in life, I want to mention an article I recently read in Experience Life, a magazine commonly found in doctor’s offices.  It highlighted a book called Mindset: the New Psychology of Success by Carol Dweck.  Dweck suggests a valuable perspective on the mindset that a person chooses.  She states that having a “growth mindset” keeps someone learning and developing new skills that builds onto their natural born potential, while a “fixed mindset” leaves someone feeling stalled in life.  From a fixed mindset, Dweck says, one believes that they have all the characteristics that they will ever have and so everything is a test on those characteristics; avoiding failure becomes the focus in order to avoid feeling unworthy.  Dweck believes that growth minded people rise to the top of their pursuits as a byproduct of their enthusiasm and love for the activity.  The fixed minded person focuses everything on failure or success; while they may have successes, failure is only being held at bay.

To find passion in life, start exploring what it is you enjoy in life; if you can’t think of something, think back to childhood.  What did you enjoy then?  What are your natural born skills?  Be honest with yourself and brainstorm.  Then, look for activities that combine what you’re naturally skilled at and that you enjoy.  Susan Davis-Ali, PhD, a researcher who developed a fitness-interest profile test that I also read about in Experience Life magazine says, “Research suggests that people who engage in personality-appropriate activities stick with those activities longer…”  Also, become engaged with learning as you adopt a growth mindset.  For someone experiencing lack of passion, these steps can sound very daunting.  Make an appointment with me so that I can help you start the process of building your desire for life’s many interests.

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