Is there something you've been carrying around?
Maybe it's a longing you haven't quite let yourself name. Or a cause that makes your throat tighten when someone brings it up. A kind of work you keep circling back to in your imagination, even while the practical part of you keeps redirecting.
Or maybe it's grief. Something or someone you've lost. A version of life that didn't go the way you hoped. And somewhere underneath the grief, if you're willing to look, there's usually a clue about what actually matters to you.
I've come to believe (in particular because it gives me another foothold in to understanding who I am) that our emotions are not obstacles to purpose. They are part of how we find it.
Emotions Are Information, Not Interference
Most of us were taught to manage our feelings; in workplaces, in families, sometimes even in church . Set them aside. Lead with logic and let emotion follow at a safe distance, if at all.
But what if that is totally backwards?
Your emotions aren't just reactions. They're responses to what your life means to you. Grief points to what you loved. Anger often points to what you value. Joy shows up where you're most alive. And longing - quiet, persistent longing - tends to point toward something in you that hasn't had room to be expressed yet.
When we override those signals for long enough, something dims. We stay functional. Productive, even. But we lose the thread back to ourselves.
The Longing You Keep Talking Yourself Out Of
Think for a moment about the things that move you - especially the ones you've learned not to bring up in certain rooms.
The injustice that makes your chest tight. The community you can't stop thinking about. The creative work that keeps pulling at you even though it doesn't make obvious sense. The conversation from three years ago still specifically loops through your thoughts sometimes.
Longing isn't wishful thinking. It's information. It points somewhere.
We dismiss it because following it feels risky. What if it doesn't work out? What if people think I'm being naive? What if I've waited too long?
But the quieter question is: what does it cost to keep dismissing it?
What Breaks Your Heart Is a Clue
We can’t always know all the things that we don’t know. All we can do is move forward with the information that we have. Even if we are asking the questions we think will help to clarify.
When I said yes to working with my current boss, I did check in. I asked two things: is this possible? And can we work together? Both answers were yes, so I said yes.
What I didn't ask was: what will this actually cost me? What will I have to adjust, or silence, or shrink in myself to make this work? I walked ahead naively - genuinely, almost cheerfully naively - assuming it would all be easy and lovely. That I'd show up as myself and that would be more than enough. That everyone would naturally see it that way too.
They did not all see it that way.
The emotional signal was there before I ever started. I just didn't ask it honest questions. I asked what I wanted to be true, got those answers, and called it discernment. Real discernment would have asked: what do I have to become in this new relationship - and is that something I'm actually willing to do? (which also might have been the same naive answer - but maybe with more information)
The gap between what I hoped and what was took longer to reckon with than I'd like to admit. But sitting inside it taught me something I couldn't have learned otherwise: our emotions will tell us the truth, if we're willing to ask them the right things.
And what breaks your heart? That's some of the most honest information you have. It points to what you were made to care for - the suffering you can't look away from, the gap between what is and what could be.
That's not something to fix or push through. It's an invitation worth paying attention to.
Three Questions to Sit With
These aren't meant to be thought through so much as felt into. Read each one slowly. Take a breath. Notice what stirs before your mind rushes in to analyze it.
What keeps calling to me emotionally? More than just what I think I should care about. What actually keeps showing up, even when I try to redirect it?
What breaks my heart? Where does the pain in the world land personally for me - where can I not stay comfortably detached?
What deeply moves me? Where do I feel most awake, most human, most connected to something beyond just myself?
Two Simple Practices
The Emotion Inventory. When you notice a strong feeling this week - good or hard - just pause before you explain it away. Ask: what is this trying to tell me? Not whether it's appropriate. Just - what is the signal? You're not solving anything yet. You're just practicing listening.
The Longing Journal. Five minutes. Write about something you quietly long for - not something practical, not something you're supposed to want. Something that pulls at you, that you've been careful not to say out loud too often. Just write it down. You don't have to do anything with it. But named things can be worked with. Unnamed ones just quietly drain you.
Your Heart Has Been Paying Attention
Even when you haven't been.
Even when you've been too busy, too cautious, too hurt to listen - some part of you has kept track of what matters. What moves you. What grieves you. What you can't stop caring about, even when you've tried.
Purpose isn't usually hiding somewhere outside of you. Most of it is already there, encoded in those places.
The work isn't finding it. The work is letting yourself feel it again.
Next week: Post 5 — Communal Purpose. Because purpose doesn't just live in us — it lives between us.
EMBody Wisdom offers life coaching, grief coaching, spiritual direction, Healing Touch, workshops, and group experiences for people ready to come home to themselves. Learn more at www.embodywisdomca.com
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