Does Your Life Lack Meaning And Purpose? You’re Not Alone!

You’re not alone if you feel your life lacks meaning and purpose! I hear from awakening souls worldwide experiencing what I believe is a spiritual health crisis.

This picture was taken of my husband and me several years ago at the top of Mount Kilimanjaro, one of the highest mountains in the world.

Ironically, I was standing literally on top of the world, yet I had never felt emptier on the inside. My life lacked meaning and purpose.

I was 50 and travelling all over the world after a long, fulfilling career as a nurse. I had two grown children who were successfully launched, a great husband, family, and friends.

When my husband retired and wanted to start travelling more, it seemed the right decision to leave my career and explore the next chapter of my life.

Everybody who knew me was envious of my life, thought I had it all and was living the dream.

I lived the dream until I developed what I call soul hunger. A deep longing for a more meaningful and purposeful life that aligns our inner gifts with our outer purpose. The article Soul Hunger: The Silent Epidemic Of The 21st Century explores this little-talked-about mysterious yet common phenomenon in further detail.

I found myself becoming increasingly unhappy with my life. I was busy but not doing things that felt meaningful to me.

In the book The Upside Of Stress: Why Stress Is Good For You, and How To Get Good At It, Kelly McGonigal, Ph.D., shared research findings that a lack of meaningful stress may even be bad for your health.

Ironically, a life that looked like I was living the dream was causing anxiety, and a withdrawal of my life force energy left me wondering if I was depressed. I later discovered that my soul had withdrawn energy from my life because I wasn’t following a path that was right for me. I explore this further in What If Your Depression Is A Summons From The Soul For Awakening?

I wasn’t being true to myself, and I came to learn that I was living my husband’s dream and my soul had other plans for me. This disconnect impacted my emotional and physical health, as indicated by my stress hormone, cortisol, which resulted in a ripple of health issues.

This lived experience clearly demonstrated to me that we are holistic beings and can’t separate our body, mind, soul or spirit. Years later, it inspired me to create a holistic framework for transforming our relationship with stress for inner peace, well-being, authentic happiness and fulfillment. When I was going through it, I didn’t understand what this soul hunger was all about. I tried many different things to find meaning in the life I had created. I travelled, golfed, socialized, painted, volunteered, did triathlons, and took courses in interior design.

That sounds great, but feeling like something was missing and wrong with my perfect life left me feeling lost, confused, and stuck. The article, What Does It Mean If You Feel Something Is Missing In Your Life? identifies that there are 3 main reasons that many folks feel like something is missing.

I got to the point where my soul hunger had turned into soul pain, and I knew I needed to make some changes. I had no idea what, I just knew I needed to change.

I had experienced low points in my life, but this was different. I now know what I was going through, what has been described as the dark night of the soul, even though, at the time, I didn’t consider myself spiritual or religious. Such a powerful reminder that nature decides when it’s our time to cocoon and transform into a new way of being. In the article, What Is The Purpose Of The Dark Night Of The Soul I explain that this time of transition goes back a long way and has been described by Eckhart Tolle as “what one could call a collapse of a perceived meaning in life…an eruption into your life of a deep sense of meaninglessness.”

During this confusing time, I intuitively knew that the answers were not out there somewhere but that they were inside of me. That was the beginning of the shift, and learning to navigate my life in a new way- from the inside out with my soul as the north star.

I began learning about the power of meditation and decided to try it. As I established a regular practice, a shift and transformation began. In the post, With So Many Choices, What Is The Best Type Of Meditation For Me? I shared a guided meditation and some suggestions on where to begin if you’re curious about setting up a core meditation practice.

My meditation practice lets me quiet my mind so that I can hear my soul and the little voice inside me.

I had profound insights, recognizing that I’d lived my life to meet the needs of others and that my decision to retire was made for my husband and not for myself. I was so used to going with the flow that I had lost touch with my own flow.

I realized that the dark night of the soul was the bridge between the first half of my life and the second half. The first half was where I fulfilled all my roles, and the second half was where my soul guided me.

When I connected with my soul, I knew I had not finished serving and sharing my gifts with the world. I experienced what Eckhart Tolle described as a “kind of rebirth. The dark night of the soul is a kind of death that you die. What dies is the egoic sense of self.”

As I emerged from the dark night of the soul, I made changes to reconnect with my soul’s purpose; I needed to navigate my life in a new way and be guided from the inside out. I found this both challenging and exhilarating. I intuitively knew I was on the right track, although I experienced some resistance. I explored this more deeply in the article, The Biggest Reason We Get Stuck When Seeking A More Meaningful Life.

My journey through the dark night of the soul was ultimately about a midlife awakening; however, I hear from younger folks worldwide who are awakening to a more profound sense of meaning and purpose as young adults.

They’re questioning the material values that emphasize the ego’s needs, and their souls are stirring at younger ages. In Uncovering Meaning And Purpose Through Struggles, I share about one young man who found his purpose through pain.

Seeking meaning and purpose are signs of spiritual awakening, and we have a younger generation of budding mystics who are confused and asking the big questions – Who am I? What’s the meaning and purpose of my life? Why can’t I be happy? We have a spiritual health crisis.

We also have a tremendous opportunity to nurture and honour the awakening soul beckoning us to heal, evolve, and fully become our true selves.

As we become more fully who we’re meant to become, our lives blossom, and we feel at home within ourselves and find our place in the world.