When Your Life’s Purpose is Currently the Laundry
Dear Ones,
Our lives have a purpose: to love, to be happy, to serve others, and make the world a better place. But, what if that purpose is swallowed up by life’s little tasks? What if housework and our jobs make us so busy we can barely make it to the grocery store, much less the ashram, church or temple? What if our purpose was once glimpsed on a yoga mat, but we can’t seem to get back to yoga class because we’re so busy working and…working? I love Arianna’s book THRIVE, but when midnight email catch ups are all we have time for, who can sleep? Well, the answer is a change of perception, because EVERYTHING IS YOGA. And EVERYTHING IS YOUR PURPOSE.
A little background on how I’ve concluded this:
Last night, I opted to help my 4-year old brush her teeth instead of letting her do it as she usually insists. As she widened her cute little mouth, I peered in to find a pile of goldfish flakes cemented onto each of her molars. Not Goldfish crackers, but goldfish FOOD. Suddenly the past week of sleep-hell flashed before my eyes, she had been eating goldfish food before bed, which is full of red dye, and that’s why she hasn’t been sleeping and has been waking all night with nightmares. Mystery solved. When I asked her why, she simply replied, “Goldfish foooooood is deliiiiiiiiicioussssssss!” Gross.
Then, I opened my teenager’s door to be hit by a wall of laundry, again. I mean, this kid needs to hang up a towel. So, I went about doing another load. And then I saw the list of school supplies he would need on his desk–it was oh, I don’t know, like as long as a list of supplies needed to launch a Fortune 50 company in a day. Oh, and he needed it by morning. We live 30 miles from the nearest school supply store.
Early this morning, I awoke before anyone and headed to the kettle, I thought, “ahhhhh an extra long meditation…” I walked out to the living room to sit with my perfect cup of tea, only to find our dog, Willow, had chewed up at least 1,000 legos and left them littered like sharp plastic bits of shrapnel covering every single square inch of the living room floor. Had she eaten a pound of espresso beans, I mean how on earth had she been so thorough in one night?! It took an hour to clean them all up. By that time, the family needed to be woken up and gotten ready for school, and it was time to make breakfast. Once Mia was at kindergarten and Sage was at high school, realized I could meditate…only to find my husband had unpacked and there was, you guessed it, a few more loads of laundry. My calendar appointments started pinging on my iPhone, and I wasn’t showered yet. Oh, and the cats had overeaten again and tossed their kibble all over my office floor. Yuck.
I’m boring you with all of this, I know, but I’m sharing it because I am in the midst of writing a curriculum for my publisher about how to find your purpose. The course was picked up by Linkedin and they are sending a film crew out next week to shoot a commercial about it. It’s based on my book: Life by the Cup. In that book, I found my purpose and built a business around it. But, look at me now. I’m writing a curriculum about purpose while my obvious purpose is laundry. Is it laundry, really? Or is it buried underneath the soiled linens?
How do you find your purpose when you are so damn busy? How do you pursue your dreams when there’s so much freaking demand on your time to manage the mundane?
“If I don’t do laundry today, I’m gonna have to buy new clothes,” -Anna Paquin
As I was asking these questions into the incense-filled air (admission time–when I don’t have time to meditate, I burn incense and listen to Snatam Kaur Khalsa chants to feel like I did), I heard a simple phrase. “Everything is yoga.” Everything is yoga? I asked…”Yes, everything is yoga. And everything is your purpose…” Without giving too much away about finding your life’s purpose, because my course is going to light that up in your mind and heart, I want you to ponder, consider and breath through these thoughts and ideas as you wade through your list of to-do’s this week. Perhaps your to do list is the action needed on the material plane, your fully present mindset is your purpose in the moment, and your intention to experience it as yoga is your spiritual path.
I can’t remember where I heard the story of the stone workers, but this may help.
A man walked by three workers shaping stones into bricks. He asked the first one, “What are you doing?” and the worker replied, “Making a brick.” He asked the second one, and he replied, “Building a wall.” He asked the third worker and she replied, “Building a cathedral.”
So, let’s think again about the laundry. My unaware self sees it as laundry. My industrious self sees it as keeping the house clean. My higher self sees it as yoga. The yoga of living is awareness and awareness creates moments of rapture and joy, and perspective. All of which are noble life purposes.
Laundry is tangible, but life’s purpose isn’t. Applying your life’s purpose to your tangible tasks means being in your purpose.
If you are busy being busy, is that yoga? Yes.
Laundry is yoga? Yes.
Cooking dinner is especially yoga. Yes.
Comforting a sick child is BIG yoga. Yes.
Appreciating your mate amid a crazy schedule is yoga. Yes.
Commuting is yoga? Yes.
Everything is yoga, and experiencing everything is your purpose. Here, now. Yes.
How will you experience your purpose today? I love conversing with you, a decade ago it would have been impossible, but now with the internet we can chat. I bet the architects of tech have to do a LOT of coding to get this line of communication going for the rest of us. That’s a lot of zeros and ones over and over again. Or, I guess it’s laundry of a different color.
