What Is My Purpose? How to Find Meaning in a Changing World
- Christine Walter
- Oct 17
- 5 min read
The Question Every Soul Eventually Asks
At some point—often after success, heartbreak, or burnout—each of us pauses and whispers, “What is my purpose?” It’s the oldest question in human history, yet also the newest every morning we wake and wonder why we’re doing what we’re doing.
The longing for purpose isn’t weakness; it’s intelligence. It’s your inner compass signaling that life wants to evolve through you in a new way. As Viktor Frankl wrote, “Those who have a ‘why’ to live can bear almost any ‘how.’”
Why Purpose Feels So Hard to Hear Today
Modern life overwhelms the senses and scrambles intuition. We scroll more than we listen, compare more than we reflect. Our nervous systems are flooded with stimulation, yet deprived of stillness—the exact conditions under which purpose becomes inaudible.
From a psychological standpoint, constant dopamine hits from social media and productivity culture train the brain to seek short-term validation rather than long-term coherence. We confuse achievement with meaning.
From a consciousness perspective (David Hawkins, Power vs. Force), this is what happens when collective energy sits below the level of Courage (200): fear, pride, and desire run the show. In these lower fields, survival masquerades as purpose. We chase success, status, or safety instead of truth.
What Purpose Really Is (and Isn’t)
Purpose isn’t a job title, role, or mission statement. It isn’t something you “find” once and keep forever. Purpose is a frequency of alignment—the felt sense that your energy, actions, and awareness are moving in the same direction as life itself.
At higher calibrations of consciousness, purpose ceases to be personal. It becomes the way the universe expresses itself through you.
“You are not here to create purpose. You are here to remember that your being is purposeful.”
Purpose Through the Lens of Consciousness
Hawkins mapped human awareness from 0 to 1 000, each level expressing a different perception of life. Purpose evolves with these levels:
The higher your consciousness, the simpler your sense of purpose becomes. You stop searching for a role and start embodying a state.
The Myth of the Single Grand Purpose
Culturally we’re taught that everyone has one big “calling.” Find it or fail. That belief keeps millions stuck in existential anxiety—because purpose isn’t static.
A tree doesn’t question its purpose in spring versus winter. It simply responds to the conditions of growth. Likewise, your purpose is seasonal. What felt true at 25 may feel constrictive at 45. Evolution is purpose.
When you stop demanding one permanent answer, you free yourself to live many authentic ones.
Neuroscience: Meaning as Medicine
Purpose isn’t only metaphysical; it’s measurable. Functional MRI studies show that people who report strong meaning in life have greater activity in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex—the brain’s coherence hub that links emotion with long-term planning.
Harvard’s “Study of Adult Development,” the longest ongoing happiness study, found that purpose and relationships—not wealth—predict longevity.
Meaning organizes the nervous system; chaos disorganizes it.
When you align with purpose, cortisol drops, heart-rate variability improves, and immune markers strengthen. Purpose literally heals.
Five Ways to Discover (or Remember) Your Purpose
1️⃣ Listen to Your Energy, Not Your Ego
The ego asks, “What will impress?”
Energy asks, “What feels alive?”
Notice which activities expand your body rather than tighten it. The body’s sensations are the nervous system translating intuition.
2️⃣ Notice What Brings Peace, Not Just Pleasure
Pleasure excites the system; peace regulates it.
When you feel calm yet engaged, you’ve entered the frequency of authentic purpose.
3️⃣ Observe What Life Keeps Asking of You
Patterns reveal calling. What problems keep landing on your doorstep? What do people naturally seek from you? The universe repeats messages until we say yes.
4️⃣ Serve Where You Feel Most Alive
At consciousness 500 (Love), purpose becomes service—not martyrdom, but joyful contribution.
When you give from abundance rather than need, life replenishes you faster than you can deplete.
5️⃣ Surrender the Timeline
Purpose unfolds in divine sequencing. The more you chase, the more it hides.
Let go of urgency; presence magnetizes clarity.
How Purpose Changes with Growth
In early adulthood, purpose often equals identity: career, education, proving capability.
In midlife, purpose becomes integration: aligning outer success with inner peace.
In later life, purpose becomes transmission: sharing wisdom simply by presence.
Each stage is sacred. Each reflects consciousness discovering itself.
The Role of Service: Purpose as Field Effect
Hawkins’ research shows that higher consciousness fields entrain lower ones—similar to tuning forks resonating in harmony. When you operate from integrity and love, you unconsciously help others calibrate upward.
Your purpose, then, isn’t what you do but the field you broadcast. A teacher, therapist, artist, or parent at 500 (Love) influences humanity more than a thousand activists operating from anger.
“When one person reaches peace, the entire world becomes slightly lighter.”
The Purpose Trap: Over-Identification
Beware of turning purpose into another performance metric. If you start to think, “I must live my purpose perfectly,” you’ve re-centered the ego.
Purpose isn’t an identity; it’s participation. Even rest, laughter, and silence can fulfill it when aligned with truth.
When Purpose Feels Lost
Sometimes purpose disappears so a deeper one can surface. Psychologists call it meaning moratorium; mystics call it the dark night of the soul.
Rather than panic, treat the silence as incubation. In Hawkins terms, you’re moving from the level of will to surrender. Purpose isn’t gone; it’s being purified of agenda.
How to Align with Purpose Each Day
Begin in Stillness. Before action, connect inward—five minutes of breath or prayer.
Tell the Truth. Integrity calibrates above 200; even small honesty upgrades energy.
Do One Thing from Love, Not Fear. Choose the conversation, task, or gesture that feels generous.
Reflect Nightly. Ask, “Where was I most alive today?” Repeat that tomorrow.
Thank Life for Using You. Gratitude (540) amplifies meaning and invites more alignment.
The Paradox: You Already Are Your Purpose
The ultimate realization is disarmingly simple: You are the purpose seeking itself.
When consciousness looks through your eyes, speaks through your voice, loves through your heart—it fulfills its cosmic function. Nothing is missing; only recognition lags behind.
So the question “What is my purpose?” evolves into a gentler one:
“How can I let the purpose that already is, express through me today?”
Stop trying to find your purpose as if it were lost in the world. Turn inward and feel the quiet pulse that has guided you since birth—the one that rejoices when you tell the truth, rest when you’re tired, and give when you have extra light to share.
Purpose is not a destination; it is the vibration of alignment. When you live truthfully, love naturally, and serve willingly, you are doing exactly what you came here to do.
Your being is the purpose. Your awareness is the gift. Your presence is the proof.
To explore practical tools for living with clarity and consciousness, visit ChristineWalterCoaching.com for resources, sessions, and upcoming workshops on purpose and alignment.
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