For you who want something different from your life: an open letter
“It’s like I’ve spent life on a path other people made for me. I want to get in touch with a deeper sense of purpose, but I don’t know if I’ll even recognize it.”
“I feel defined by my work. I want to be valued for who I am, beyond what I can produce.”
“I want to stop numbing out at night and on the weekends. I’m really craving the beauty and fullness of life, but I’m not finding it in any of the places I go looking.”
“At some point I locked my true self away. Now I want to know who I am at the core and how to be vulnerable enough to share myself with others.”
“It’s been a year of nonstop existential crisis. I want to find solid ground and authentic connection I can count on.”
To you we say:
Trust the longing.
These desires come from a very real place inside of you. They are fundamentally trustworthy and good. But if the outside world doesn’t give credence to your inner knowing, you can end up spiraling into doubt. Eventually, you might find yourself asking questions like:
Why am I never satisfied? What’s wrong with me? Why do I feel so lost, anxious, and alone?
And then, after awhile,
What is the point? Do I even matter? Why should I live?
As devastating as this last question may sound — and feel — it is actually perfectly reasonable. The fact that you’re asking is the surest sign that you really want to know. So let’s start there.
Why should I live?
We can break down your question into three component parts:
Who am I? What is living? Why should I do it?
First things first.
Who am I?
You. You!
YOU are a child of Spirit.
You come from the living, loving, creative presence at the heart of all things. You might recognize your spirit nature by your heart’s response to great beauty, joy, love, majesty, or truth. Or perhaps from qualities you’ve discovered in yourself when faced with suffering, pain, or injustice. Or when you imagine there is, there must be, something more.
Whatever your experience, it’s sure to be personal. That’s because your personality is unique in all existence. Personality is a gift from Spirit. Beyond genetics, it’s the particular essence that belongs to you, which has never been expressed before and can never be replicated. You make an individual imprint on reality, different from anyone who has ever lived or ever will.
And there is a purpose for your uniqueness. As a unique child of Spirit, only you can express Spirit’s qualities in your original way. You are the only one who can contribute your part of the divine pattern. There is a need for you.
So you are endowed with a body, a physical self, which allows you to act in the world. You are given a mind, a personal energy system, enabling you to have ideas and make decisions. And Spirit indwells you, a loving pilot available at any moment to guide your experience from within.
That’s right, Spirit doesn’t just live at the center of all things. Spirit lives at the center of YOU. No wonder you want something different from your life!
When you came into this world, a beautiful, brand new person, Spirit saw who you would become and said YES. I want YOU. I want to share every aspect of every experience you will ever have. I want to partner with you in everything. I want to fill you with love in your very being.
And so you feel this longing. A longing to connect with the Spirit presence that is uniquely yours. That you carry within you! But that you may not have gotten to know yet — and that’s okay. It’s never too late to start.
As you learn to partner with Spirit, you begin to grow your soul.
You are a soul-in-progress. You were born as a soul-to-be. Your soul is the spiritualizing form of yourself; the work of your personality and your inner Spirit. Your soul grows every time you make a decision or take an action that is spiritual in nature, in the sense of being guided by Spirit’s loving and creative energy. The more that you let Spirit guide your life, the more your soul becomes the seat of your identity.
And the more you start to find what you seek.
What is living?
The true journey of living is the journey of soul growth across your lifetime. Your life purpose is to grow spiritually. You do this by getting to know and love the Spirit in you, and learning to know and love others as carriers of Spirit too.
You can visualize this journey like an infinity loop:
As you cultivate a connection to Spirit within, you allow Spirit to infuse and uplift your thoughts and decisions, helping you to become a spiritual actor in your outer life. This in turn makes life more meaningful, inspiring you to discover new qualities of Spirit to go express in the world.
Anything that takes place on this inner-outer continuum, is what’s known as personal spiritual experience. Before Judaism, Moses had personal spiritual experience. Before Buddhism, Gautama had personal spiritual experience. So with Jesus, and Paul, and Mary Magdalene, and a world of others. You can have personal spiritual experience whether or not you belong to an organized religion. And while you may get to have a peak experience or two, like Moses at Mount Sinai or Gautama under the Bodhi Tree, the vast majority of spiritual life occurs in the everyday, as you increasingly invite Spirit into your regular activities and relationships.
The key to personal spiritual experience is living values. Values are qualities of Spirit that are available to everyone, are expressed in relationship, and lead to love. Among others, these are qualities like:
Love is multidimensional and replete, comprised of all other Spirit values.
Service is the expression of Spirit values in loving action toward others.
Spirit, as the source of values, can support you in making decisions and taking actions that bring values to life. When you go inward — that is, when you spend time in your inner world — you can ask Spirit to help you express them:
“Spirit, please help me to forgive my brother.”
“Open my heart to my boss and help me to understand why she acts this way.”
“Show me how to serve my new housemates. I want them to feel at home.”
“Spirit, help me to feel your compassion for me. I want to be kind to myself and I don’t know how.”
The Spirit you carry isn’t meant for personal gratification, although a relationship with Spirit can become the most gratifying experience you will have. Spirit lives in you as a potential collaborator, to work with you as you learn to express values in your relationships — with yourself, with others, and with Spirit.
Becoming closer to Spirit and more led by Spirit values in your life: This is the purpose of living.
Why should I do it?
The more you express values, the more you discover what they mean. In time, this gives your life meaning. You experience ever-greater depths of forgiveness, respect, and love in your life, the more you practice forgiving, respecting, and loving. And by sharing your inner life with Spirit, you begin to discover your true voice: your unique expression of Spirit in the world.
Only you — no one else — can express your true voice. Spirit chose to live in and through you, specifically, because your experience and expression of Spirit, your original and irreplaceable imprint on reality, is needed. The unique person you are has never been before and will never be again. Spirit needs you, and so do we.
It’s natural to think of our actions impacting the visible world that we can see and touch. Yet who could have imagined the extent of our biological ecosystem until the microscope? Now we need a macroscope, to see the consequences of every human thought and action. Each person’s source of light grows with every effort to express Spirit values, and webs of light connect to form hubs every time our efforts band together. Piercing through hopelessness and despair, this is the infrastructure for true progress.
Okay, but how? How do I actually do this?
Yes, great question. You can approach living this way from the inner or the outer direction — and ideally from both at once! Inner work connects you to the wellspring of love within you, while outer work gives you the experience of putting that love into action.
Let’s look at the inner approach first.
Take a breath. Take a moment to check in on your inner life. By that, we mean the whole range of experience within yourself. Turn inward and just notice: What’s in your awareness right now? Are there thoughts? Sensations? Feelings? What about fears or judgments? Memories? Desires? And how does it feel to be in here? Is it a place that you want to stay?
What you just did — looking inward — is a hard thing for a lot of us. You may not yet feel safe or comfortable in your inner world, or believe that you have permission to spend time here. That is completely normal! There are strong cultural currents that go against you discovering the power you carry. It will likely take time and practice before you start to relax and enjoy the inner life, much less feel at home here.
These three steps may help you to get more comfortable going inward and inviting Spirit into your life:
1. Give yourself permission to connect
Connecting with your inner Spirit may feel like a leap of faith. You may have to override objections from others or even your own limited sense of what is possible. The good news is, you can try it on your own time, and nobody has to know. Remember that your relationship with Spirit is personal. It’s just for you! It won’t be the same for anyone else. For that reason, there is no “right posture” or “right environment” or even “right way” to connect. This inner relationship is available to you all the time, anywhere you go. But only you can give yourself permission to go inward. If that sounds daunting, you might try treating the whole exercise as imaginary. Imagine you have an inner Spirit, and imagine how Spirit’s love might feel, filling you up and radiating out.
You should know up front that there is no such thing as a hopeless case. Depending on what you’ve been through — or are still going through — in your life, at first, you may feel almost completely cut off from the inner world. You may feel unworthy of or unavailable for the love that Spirit has to offer. But that is no match for Spirit. Trust the longing. The longing means something different is possible. Spirit wants to meet you right in the midst of your pain. Ask Spirit for help finding a new way of experiencing your own mind. The more acutely you have suffered, the more Spirit wants to meet you there. It all starts with opening yourself to the possibility of being nourished from within.
You have a right to your inner life. Your mind is not your enemy. Your mind is your home.
2. Create space and time
As simple as it sounds, finding a window in your day can be one of the biggest obstacles to getting to know Spirit, especially at first. For this reason, it can be helpful to choose a consistent time and place to go inward. Since your relationship with Spirit is personal, what that looks like will be specific to you. It could be that you create a dedicated space in your home and sit quietly with your eyes closed before bed. Or you might talk to Spirit out loud during your run every other morning. You might sing to Spirit in the car after work, or write to Spirit over your morning coffee. Try any and all approaches, knowing that you are always free to make changes as your relationship with Spirit deepens and grows.
Generally, you may find that it helps to be by yourself, so that you can give your full attention to connecting with Spirit and receiving what Spirit has to give. (Though there are other times when it is powerful to commune with Spirit in a group.) If you are like us, you may find that despite every good intention, you still struggle to keep up the habit of taking time with Spirit every day. Toward this end, we have found that it can be very helpful to form an ongoing spiritual growth partnership or circle with one or more companions. You can then hold each other in loving accountability for cultivating your personal relationships with Spirit and expressing Spirit values in the world.
3. Have a conversation with Spirit
A spark of pure Spirit lives in your mind, always available, and nearer to you than breathing. Your inner relationship with Spirit is personal but not human-to-human. If that feels confusing, consider that Spirit is the source of values like forgiveness, respect, and love, which are expressed in relationship. Spirit is able to support you in forgiving, respecting, and loving, because Spirit forgives, respects, and loves YOU. (So much so, that Spirit chose to share your inner life!) If your experience with people has been difficult, it may feel difficult to trust in a personal relationship with Spirit. Remember steps 1 and 2 above. You can take this as slowly as you need to and keep coming back.
What does a conversation with Spirit look like? It’s as simple as sharing whatever is on your mind with Spirit — which means, it may look different every time. You can share silently or out loud. Speaking, writing, singing. Sitting, standing, walking, running, dancing. You can do it differently every day, or find a more consistent approach. Whatever form it takes, just make sure it feels authentic to you. Spirit is there to support you in the substance of your everyday life: your difficult decisions, your relationship questions, your creative challenges, your philosophic ponderings, your pain, your fear, your secret aspirations, your highest highs, your lowest lows, your plans for your day and your future. You name it, Spirit wants to share it with you.
A word of encouragement: After trying this once or twice, you may be tempted to give up if it feels awkward or if your mind is too garbled or impeded by blocks like anxiety, negative self-talk, or judgment. Do your best to stick with it, even if it’s just three minutes a day. One strategy is to directly address your struggle with Spirit. Tell Spirit, “I can’t even talk to you because my inner critic is too loud!” Keep sharing your specific struggle with Spirit every day and see what happens.
How might Spirit respond to your sharing?
As much as you might crave the back and forth of a human conversation, it is rarely that. More often, it will come in the form of new thoughts, feelings, and ways of thinking and feeling. You might feel Spirit’s presence in quiet or profound movements of your heart, unexpected lightness and life force, startling imaginations or ideas, new and more mature thought patterns, or a deeper intuitive sense of what feels right or what something means. Often, Spirit responds in the form of insight. (In-sight. Literally, seeing from within!) Most likely, a Spirit insight:
- brings a new possibility into your mind that feels right in your heart
- resonates in a way that calls you toward your potential
- makes you feel more loved and capable of love
- expresses Spirit values
- leads to greater good.
The more you share with Spirit and attune yourself to Spirit insight, the more you create conditions in your inner life for Spirit’s will — namely, what Spirit desires for you — to emerge. Over time, you begin to cultivate receptivity, patience, and openness of heart to listen for Spirit, not only during your set-aside time, but also in all the other parts of your day. You never know when someone will say something, or you’ll see or read or experience something, that suddenly sparks insight into a question you were exploring with Spirit.
Especially at first, it can be hard to tell the difference between everyday human thoughts — even those that feel important — and true input from Spirit. Ultimately, it falls to you to discern whether an idea or impulse in your inner life is from a divine source. (If it rings of truth, beauty, goodness, and love, you are probably on the right track!) The more you spend time with your inner Spirit, the easier this discernment becomes. But when in doubt, it is actually better to err on the side of rejecting Spirit insight by assuming it’s purely human, rather than assigning divine origins to the workings of your mind. You can trust that Spirit will find another way to share whatever is important for you to know. Spirit will work with any means necessary to help you grow spiritually, as long as you are a willing participant.
Next, let’s look at the outer approach
Whether or not you feel ready to try the inner approach, the outer approach is readily accessible and just as profound. Here you cultivate a connection to Spirit by expressing Spirit values in service to others. Service — when freely chosen, not forced — is the surest way to activate the Spirit presence in you and learn to relate to others as indwelt by Spirit too.
You may think of service as something you do through a volunteer organization, which it absolutely can be. But here we’ll use it as a broader term for doing good to others in your own personal way. Remember, you are unique, and so your personal expression of Spirit values will be unique as well. Looking back at the list of values above, you can ask yourself,
“How do I express generosity to the people in my life?”
“How do I put my creativity in service of the greater good?”
“Where could I bring more compassion to the needs of others?”
“How might I become more dependable to those who count on me?”
As you can imagine, your life of service might take almost limitless forms, as you discover more and more ways to express combinations of Spirit values in more and more of your relationships. This could look like releasing a grudge against a close friend to be by her side when her dad starts chemo; showing up at the school bus stop every day to pick up your third grade neighbor whose parents work until 5:00; or running the chat at a suicide prevention lifeline.
Where can I start?
The most immediate option may be to start with the people closest to you — especially if you find yourself feeling lonely and friendless. In those moments where you’re asking:
Why am I so lonely? Why can’t I connect with people? Why don’t I have friends?
You can flip the script and ask: “How might Spirit help me discover what someone in my life needs from me and how I can best give it to them?” Odds are, you will find yourself expressing Spirit values as you go about responding to the other person’s needs. In those moments, not only is Spirit at work within you, but you are serving Spirit, who is there living within that other person. You can begin to recognize Spirit’s presence in these instances, by the feeling you experience in your heart when you are truly in service.
Most likely, you are already serving in your everyday life, by responding in real time to the needs of others. But the beauty of recognizing Spirit’s presence is that you can bring intention and purpose to growing your capacity to work with Spirit as a way of life. One way to do this is by setting spiritual goals. A spiritual goal is any personal goal, big or small, that advances your expression of spiritual values. When you begin to rely on Spirit for strategic consultation and problem-solving toward attaining your spiritual goals, then you are bringing together the inner and outer approaches to soul growth.
How will I know that it’s working?
While soul growth is unconscious, that doesn’t mean that you won’t notice changes as you start to live this way. If you’re usually impulsive, you’ll find that you consider things more. If you tend to be shy, you’ll find yourself unexpectedly speaking out. Even better, you’re increasingly relieved of thinking about yourself all the time. You get an internal energy boost from not being in the negative self-talk spiral anymore.
Others may reflect these changes back to you. “You seem more confident. More grounded.” Your perception of others alters as well. An internal script about resenting someone may no longer seem relevant. You’ll notice that you’ve outgrown certain relational patterns. What a different quality of living, to be at a distance from the human tyranny of judgment! While competition, criticism, and self-doubt don’t go away, their power over your state of mind diminishes greatly.
Though often quiet and subtle at first, over time, these changes typically lead to a radical recalibration of the things you want, your expectations of yourself and others, and your orientation towards life. This is not to say that life gets easier! If anything, you can expect things to get more rugged as you invite deeper connection to Spirit and a higher sense of purpose. Many people leave jobs and relationships, do deep healing work, and face down addictions along the way. Your experience may not always be comfortable in the moment, but because of your inner connection with Spirit, your perspective changes such that you’re willing to endure discomfort in service of a vision that goes beyond yourself.
Finally, by spiritualizing your thinking through your own choosing and redirection, you come to appreciate the power of your will when aligned with Spirit’s will. Over time, new thoughts start to arise: Instead of either/or, a “third way” of new possibility becomes more and more the norm. You deepen into acceptance of the present and release your grip on the past and future. Your sense of self begins to include your inner companionship with Spirit. Over years of deepening, you may even become conscious of Spirit’s presence most or nearly all of the time. This creates a well of peace, contentment, and joy within you that nothing can disturb.
When you consecrate your will to the doing of Spirit’s will, when you give all that you have, then you become more than you are.
Where can I find other people living this way?
This is such an important question! While your inner life is personal, it’s meant to be shared. Coming together with others to share the journey of spiritual growth can be one of the most powerful experiences of belonging you’ll find. It can also nourish and catalyze you as you grow, giving you the courage to act on big decisions and set new precedents for your life.
You don’t have to be part of an organized religion in order to join with others in spiritual growth. (Although you certainly can be!) As a start, we encourage you to begin sharing more about your personal spiritual life with those close to you, and inviting them to share more about their own. In our experience, while few people initiate conversations on this topic, many people are excited for the chance to talk about it.
From there, you might seek out a spiritual growth partner or circle. Spirit can help you with this. Go inward and ask Spirit to help you identify a few people in your life to reach out to. Be patient and discern over a period of days or weeks if need be. Then share this letter with them. See if they would be interested in creating a circle with you, to meet regularly and check in about how you’re each doing in deepening your personal relationship with Spirit. While it might feel vulnerable to ask, you can trust that if you want this for yourself, someone else out there wants it too.
For our part, we offer monthly online gatherings, specifically for people in their 20s. We both experienced feeling disconnected, lost, and anxious during this time in our lives, and we felt moved to create a community space for you who may also be feeling that way. Anyone from any background, religiously affiliated or not, is welcome. Over time, we will develop more community offerings to support your deepening inner-outer journey.
The more you get to know Spirit within your mind, the more your ideas, decisions, and actions transform and reflect the spiritual power that is your birthright. And the collective impact of many people making similar adjustments, would truly foster epochal change.
For you who want something different from your life: Your longing is worthy of you.
You may have learned to repress the longing, distract yourself, or numb it out, or maybe you just didn’t recognize it until now. But it won’t go away.
Spiritual thirst is as real as the thirst for water. Until it’s quenched, you will suffer more and more for the lack of connection.
Personally, we’ve found that our anxiety largely comes from this separateness.
Our hope is for you to develop a clear sense that the process of connecting with Spirit is doable. You don’t have to be a mystic or someone with special powers. You just have to trust your longing and follow it.
The good news is that Spirit said YES to you a long time ago. The life you long for is the life Spirit wants for you too. When you go inward, YOU are coming into focus: the vision of you that Spirit said yes to. You are becoming who you are in your soul.
And at every crossroads, at every dark hour, when you think you can’t do what it takes, remember: There lives within you one who can.
Spirit is with you, always.
Angie and Claire Thurston
Visual design by Nicole Fleck
