Kidz on the Coast – January 2019
Over the summer break I read the brick sized autobiography of Keith Richards, lead guitarist of the Rolling Stones and the original rock’n’roll outlaw. What a great read! What an unexpected thoughtful and endearing character and personality he turned out to be. What I liked about it, part from a ripping yarn of an outrageous life, was the complete passion and love he has for his music and his pure musician’s quest to learn and create new sounds, new expression and to connect with people.
Having a passion is an essential element to a happy and fulfilling life. A passion can fuel a lifetime love of learning; it can connect you with people who share your passion…..kindred spirits so to speak; and it can open up from within you a vein of creativity and sense of self expression.
In Keith Richards’ case, his passion for music ultimately became his saviour out of the turmoil of his well documented descent into rock’n’roll’s darkside. Music was his anchor to reality, to work and commitments; and through performance and his desire to continually improve his musicianship, music was his path to recovery and to his sense of self worth.
For many of us, a passion can be simply a hobby or leisure, and brings a lifetime of great pleasure and satisfaction. For many successful entrepreneurs by following their passion they have found success and doing what they love has enabled them to shine and make their mark on the world.
However large it features in your life, your passion can become a pathway to finding one’s soul purpose and the map for one’s life journey. Listening to your heart’s true desire and surrendering to the pull of your passion is a truly empowering and transformative experience in life. It can lift the fog, clear the dark clouds and reveal the road ahead. The decisions and choices to be made are suddenly clear, easy and effortless when they are aligned with your deep values and needs.
So why is it that for some of us, finding or following our passions remains elusive? I have had many coaching clients confess they don’t know what their soul purpose is, that they feel adrift and lost, or even more heart wrenching, they do actually know what they truly desire yet feel held back from truly being, doing or having what they want. Such a way is a life living in the shadows with the sound turned down! Is this perhaps what we feel when we stay in a ‘soul destroying’ job, or engage in ‘soul destroying’ habits and behaviours? .
Finding what makes your heart sing and then tapping into that beat is really what life is all about. It is what we are all seeking. We can make lists and lists of goals for all areas of our life – (this is a great thing to do and I do this with great zeal every New Year) – but underlying them all should be a sense of how all of those goals support your true soul’s desire. Finding that out is really not so hard. It is found in between the beats…..in the stillness. This can be done through meditation, contemplation, and visualisation. When we act with self knowledge and with volition towards our goals this is the way of illumination and expansion.
It doesn’t have to be grand or complicated. Ask yourself, what makes you happy? How can it also contribute to making others happy? How can it contribute to a better community, a better world? Find your own beat. Make it loud and strong. Find the harmony with others’ individual beats, allow them to join and play together……now you’re making beautiful music!
