Life Mandala Writing Journey: Week Three
The Who, What, Where, Why, When and How of your story.
Last time in our writing journey, we examined the existential dance of being and becoming. Our being - the steady, ever-present essence of who we are often goes on grand adventures of becoming. There’s an epic evolution through life as we carefully gather our values, beliefs, intentions, priorities, attitudes, and behaviors. We live these out in every experience.
We’re compelled forward with a unique desire to thrive - to be seen, heard, accepted in the full expression of ourselves. These desires are our motivating force. We all want our life to be of greater purpose. However, there’s no need to search outside yourself for any meaning of life.
You ARE the meaning of life.
The greatest mission is in learning to be who you are and engaging a fearlessness that lets it all come through. Then, your living becomes a legacy and all your contributions to the world are the golden outcome of how you lived.
Intro Video: Life Mandala What are you seeking?
If you are just diving into the process, you can always go back to week one or two to watch the replay. Maybe you spend a rainy Sunday writing through each prompt or perhaps take each inquiry a day at a time? It’s your journey. Enjoy it. Go through the next few weeks with writing explorations to clarify these five questions:
Where are you coming from now? (replay and prompts)
Who are you becoming? (replay and prompts)
What are you seeking?
Why is this important?
When is the right time?
How do you feel?
There are Pdfs of all of these writing prompts at the bottom of the post. Grab a pen, journal, or the printable pdfs and cozy up for a few minutes…
What are you seeking?
Read through on your own or be guided through each prompt with this video.
The question of what you are seeking isn’t always about what you want in terms of goals, dreams, and desires. It might be eventually, but initially it’s more about coming to a deeper recognition of your special brand of magic. This is your particular spark of creativity through which you contribute to the world.
Dharma serves as a guiding principle, leading you back to your extraordinary self. It’s a commitment to live in accordance with the depth of your heart and breadth of your soul. You live into your capacities for self-expression and self-realization, being whole-heartedly who you are and courageously stepping into what you’re here to do.
“ If you know this secret, you will know that you are what you seek.” - Rumi
Strength Assessment
Your strengths are how you co-create with the world. Some strengths come naturally, some come hard-earned through experience. Either way it’s important to name and claim them as creative assets.
We exhaust ourselves endlessly trying to improve our perceived weaknesses. Let go of the need to become good at everything. Instead refine your strengths. Through your own unique passions, skills, talents, and wisdom - master what psychologist Gay Hendricks calls your “Zone of Genius.”
Take this assessment to help name and claim your strengths. As you go through, if you feel unsure of what your strengths are - ask a friend to tell you. It’s hard to get a clear perspective on your own specialized assets.
It’s natural to want to downplay them and sometimes easier to rate the strengths we know we don’t have. But don’t waste time on your struggles, focus on your strengths. Mark 5 only where you have an immediate “yes” gut response. Go through twice to refine, as you need to.
Look through and compare your top 4 values from last week and your strengths. Make notes. Where do they align? Where do they differ? Hint: Your special brand of magic lies in the alignment.
Remember your values are a currency that fund how you invest your time, money, talents, and life learnings. Your strengths, an energetic current, are the electricity that power what you share and how you serve the world. Both intersect to drive your dharma and feed your passion. In becoming both the inspiration and the inspired, it calls for you to understand what you are destined for.
Dharma Download
In our desire to survive and thrive, we each discover a unique balance that creates the rhythm of our life. Balance is not a static state. It requires considerable readjusting to our inner alignment. In surviving, we discover or recover the strengths needed to make it through the struggle. As we thrive, we put into practice all we’ve learned or tap into strengths we’ve always known. It’s in the dance of surviving and thriving, being and becoming; we claim our superpower.
Now more than ever, the world needs you to step into this power. To live out loud. To play big. To own who you are and contribute how you can.
Go through these inquiries to help you further assimilate who you are becoming and what you are seeking. You will get more clarity on your medium. What you are destined to share with the world. Who or what you are here to contribute to?
What medium naturally flows through you? How do you co-create with the world?
What problem/conflict are you here to solve?
What does your presence deliver?
What is your superpower?
The philosophy of dharma gives way to the flow of the universe with each of us contributing to the nature of the whole. It relates to a virtue and behavior that keeps us in alignment with a greater truth that we are all part of something bigger.
In becoming the embodiment of the higher ideals of humanity, we animate and breathe life into the world around us. It comes from actually living into - love, peace, joy, and creativity- all strands of our spiritual DNA. It’s in the expression of your superpowers that the universe conspires to support you.
THIS is your life legacy.