Q&A: what is my life purpose?

Question: How can one know their purpose in life?

Answer: Thank you for your question, Rosequeen. I will begin by commending you for asking this pertinent question at this stage in your life. Not everyone will reach this stage, congratulations! To have the awareness of finding your life purpose is a big milestone. Know that only you can decipher and determine what your great truth is: your purpose or mission on earth. You alone will eventually figure out what you came here at this time to do. You alone, with Divine guidance, will be able to remember what you promised yourself to come and fulfill as your life purpose during this temporary earthly experience. Once born, everyone forgets what they came here to do. They must learn to walk, talk, read and write, etc. Finding one’s purpose is one of the things you must  learn how to do.

Knowing your purpose could help provide direction and give you a sense of meaning. It could also influence your behaviour and determine how you prioritize your time.

Your purpose is not static. It evolves over time. Even when you think you finally know what it is, that revelation keeps evolving because we are fundamentally here on earth to learn, evolve and grow. We could eventually become Highly Evolved Beings when we are clear on what our life purpose is.

One of the easiest ways to know what your purpose is, is to know what you are passionate about. When you identify that thing which makes you feel good and you exploit it to help others grow, help them find their own mission, that could be a starting point.  

God created you for a purpose. When you find that purpose and its related sub-purposes, you could find more meaning in life and live a more fulfilled life. Here are some tips to finding your purpose in life.

You can begin to find your purpose in the little things of everyday life. It is important to start small and then grow bigger with time. Your mission may not necessarily be something big like eradicating poverty in the world. However, you can co-create with God the circumstances of your life, by using your skills and competencies to support communities with activities that will boost their income.

Explore your interests. What are your hobbies? What brings you joy? It is important to focus on the small daily things you do that bring you joy. Is it cleaning your home, is it farming, is it talking to people, is it sending kind messages to them, is it teaching and sharing knowledge, is it singing, is it art?

Link those interests to service for others. One of the easiest ways to experience something is to cause another to experience it. Purpose and fulfilment come when you have the satisfaction that you have used your skills and talents to make a difference that adds meaning to the lives of other people.

Learning from your experiences is also a great way to know your purpose. There is a saying, “Learn from the experiences of others because you may not live long enough to make your own mistakes and learn from them”. Some experiences such as exposure to injustice can propel you to become an activist for a better world. Watch, listen to the subtle messages that come to you when you undergo both pleasant and unpleasant experiences. Always question yourself to know the lesson the universe is trying to impart on you, then act on it.

Your circle matters. The people you surround yourself with can either make or mar your life purpose. It is expedient to surround yourself with people who help you to grow and who can contribute towards your experience of a meaningful life purpose. These are people who can also help you identify what you are good at. They notice some things you may not be aware of. I share with you a personal experience in high school in 1995. Mid-year, the school authorities launched campaigns for the election of student representatives. I was not keen on applying. One of my friends, Edna, encouraged me to apply. She told me that I have the qualities to become the girls’ Senior Students’ Officer. She took out a pen and paper and drafted the application for me. Her assurance motivated me to review the application which I deposited  in time. I prepared a campaign speech with the help of an incumbent student officer, and I won the elections by a landslide majority due to the well written speech. Your immediate circle can help you find purpose. In this case, I was steered by Edna to realize I could contribute to the student government through my leadership skills. Thank you, Edna.

Volunteering is another great way to avail of your skills and competencies to achieve purpose in life. Being a volunteer gives you the opportunity to try out new things that contribute towards making a positive difference in your community and the world at large.  This is also an opportunity to meet people who share your passions and inspire you to feel that you are contributing towards a higher purpose of helping others. Note that a volunteer is moved by passion and enthusiasm, and not recompense (money).

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There are some universal laws that can help you fast-track understanding your purpose in life. Gratitude is one of the greatest tools which is tied to fulfilment and satisfaction for what we have and who we are, and it is directly linked to well-being. Grateful people are happy people. You can operationalize gratitude by keeping a gratitude journal or by having a vision board. A gratitude journal is a notebook in which you put daily entries of what you are grateful for, both visible and invisible. We are spiritual beings in physical bodies. The body is something we have, not who we are. A vision board is a collection of words and pictures that depict your gratitude for what you have and what you hope to achieve.

Nothing has a meaning except the meaning you give it. Even though I suggest a few examples of life purpose here, it is meant to provide you guidance. As already mentioned, focusing on the small things in life will lead you to find other ‘purposes’ such as showing total dedication in daily tasks, mentoring other people on career development, having a passion for karaoke and entertaining others during home and public events, becoming a researcher to contribute to better health, having a family and giving the best example to your children, learning from a good or bad experience to help others avoid them.

In line with finding and achieving your purpose, recall this popular phrase from one of the greatest masters that ever lived, Jesus: “You are the light of the world”. You are like a light that when lit, cannot be hidden under a table. A light must shine so that others may benefit from it. By discovering your purpose, you help others discover theirs. There is fulfilment in supporting others to live a beautiful and harmonious life.

Know that your life purpose is independent of other people’s freewill. For example, it would be naïve to think that your purpose is to make someone happy. You cannot control someone’s life and you cannot make them do something against their freewill. We all came into this world alone and will leave alone. No one is responsible for another person’s happiness.

To crown it all, each morning, affirm the following: I am always in the right place at the right time, doing the right thing. This powerful affirmation sends out vibrations into the Universe so that things and events will reorganize themselves to bring the right people into your life at the right time, under the right circumstances, to participate in the realization of your life purpose. Life’s purpose is simply that which gives you the fulfilment of having contributed to a greater agenda that is of help to you and other people. When you do this, you do it with joy. Not constrain. Not because someone is asking you to do it. Not because you are afraid to go to a place called ‘hell’. You do it out of pure joy and the awareness that the raison d’être of life is to have joy in it.

Type 2 diabetes is reversible: exercise, intermittent fasting, dieting: two testimonies

There is a saying: you are what you eat. People who have experienced improved health and healthy weight loss through better meal choices can attest to this.

Mba is a friend who stopped taking insulin in 2023 after three (3) weeks of controlled dieting (eating foods very low in carbohydrates), intermittent fasting (spacing out his meals), and exercise (walking). He'd been taking insulin shots everyday for over 30 years to control type 2 diabetes. Despite no longer taking the shots, the family doctor advised him to continue monitoring his blood sugar to determine the precise quantity to eat. It may sound straightforward, but it takes a lot of self-discipline.

Ever since Mba was diagnosed in 1984, Mba sought help from diabetes specialists, but none revealed this simple therapy. They all focused on medication. It is thought-provoking how we grew up believing that we can medicate our way to health; to the point of taking medication and slimming teas to lose weight! Big Pharma comes across as your best friend…. It isn’t!

A friend once observed that you cannot empty a bottle (lose weight) by filling it up (eating something). If you want to lose weight, consider fasting rather than eating things that will ‘cause’ you to lose weight. Intermittent fasting has been proven to be one of the easiest weight loss techniques. Again, that is a story for another day.

To successfully reverse type 2 diabetes, Mba lived with his daughter who doesn't have a medical background but who was diagnosed with gestational diabetes a few years prior and put on insulin during her pregnancy and on medication (Metformin), after the baby was born. She could not imagine herself on medication for the rest of her life. She asked her doctor to take her off the meds because she decided to used diet and other means to control her insulin resistance. Her doctor agreed and gave her one month off the meds. She carried out extensive online research on how to regulate blood sugar. She modified her diet (very little or no carbohydrates), introduced an exercise routine (mostly walking) and spaced out her meals (intermittent fasting). As agreed, she returned to her doctor after one month and was permanently put off medication.

She credits her success to Dr. Jason Fung, a nephrologist and functional medicine advocate who promotes a low-carbohydrate high-fat diet and intermittent fasting to reverse type 2 diabetes. After watching some of his YouTube videos on reversing type two diabetes with therapeutic fasting, she began her journey and continued her research which led her to Dr. Eric Berg and Dr Mindy Pelz who are all advocates of intermittent fasting. Their YouTube channels carry short videos with a wealth of information you can benefit from. Indeed, type 2 diabetes is reversible to the point of no longer taking medicine! These two people are living testimonies.

Do u know that a simple headache could be resolved through rehydration? We ignore water and then we're surprised by these simple regular health challenges.

Do you know that the ear, just like the vagina, is a self-cleaning organ? Discard those cotton buds. They rather push germs into your ears to cause bacterial infections. Your pediatrician or family doctor will tell you same.

Enough rambling. Let’s keep sharing these practical health tips. We are here on earth to help each other. If you can’t help someone, at least don’t hurt them by suggesting dangerous health practices that don’t have evidence. The moment you begin searching how to improve your health both online and from similar success stories, you will live a healthier life.

PS: the caveat for online research is to always double-check with a medical specialist just like Mba did.

Blessings always, all ways💐. 

Breakfast: the most important meal of the day…it’s a myth!

Definitions are the beginning of wisdom. A myth is a widely held but false belief or idea. Breakfast is the first meal of the day and the word self-explanatory… to break your fast means you have been asleep all night (not eating/fasting) and whatever you eat after waking up constitutes breaking that fasting period, thus, breakfast, irrespective of the time of day.

I woke up on the morning of 25 February 2024 with gratitude in my heart and feeling delightful that God has given me an additional day to live. My mind was full of random thoughts about health, self-healing, fasting and our role in the process. The night prior, I had a WhatsApp group discussion with some friends about the role of fasting in the healing process. Digestion is an energy-consuming activity and our bodies ‘rest’ when they are not performing this task. Besides, long fasting periods deprive ‘diseased’ body cells of food, thereby causing them to die faster and let the healthier ones live on. Some health experts recommend a gap of at least 8 hours between meals. 

During our WhatsApp discussion, one of the group members made the famous statement, ‘Breakfast is the most important meal of the day’. That got me thinking. For over five years now, I practice OMAD (One Meal A Day) and this meal is always in the evening. If that statement is true, how come I am doing just fine? According to the above definition of breakfast, I take my breakfast in the evening because that is when I have my first meal after waking up. I decided to Google the origin of that famous phrase! Do you know that the phrase is nothing but a marketing slogan coined by John Harvey Kellogg’s cereal company in the 19^th century? It was meant to encourage people to buy and eat cereal!

Back to my thoughts… Water is the most important meal of the day. Fasting is the most wonderful gift you can offer your body. The ability to afford food isn't a passport to eat as we wish. Several diseases can be controlled through nutrition and intermittent fasting (google the last two words).

Bottomline, do not believe everything you hear. Do your research. Question the mainstream ideas and general thought patterns you have grown up paying attention to. Humans are rewarded for using their brains, not for having it. Your ‘truth’ will set you free. Unless you enjoy being caught in the processes of what other people think. Find your own truth and live it.

Blessings always, all ways 💐.

A request to mentor another: my spirituality mentorship guide

Dr. Brigitte is an MD friend who has been my fervent WhatsApp status viewer. Recently, she asked me to mentor her on Gratitude and the Law of Attraction (LoA). This prompted me to share with her a few daily practices which generate the indispensable vibrational frequencies of gratitude. 

My spiritual journey began in 2007 when I read two books: The Secret by Rhonda Byrne and Conversations with God: an Uncommon Dialogue by Neale Donald Walsch. I enjoy reading books on spirituality because they are full of testimonies on how people like you and I overcome challenges to live a more fulfilling life. As I peruse their testimonies, I always tell myself, "If they can do it, then I can do it".

I prepared a list of items that constitute my daily spiritual routine which I shared with Dr. Brigitte. I refer to it as my Spirituality Mentorship Guide. These are things I do, mostly daily, to keep my body, mind and spirit in harmony. When these three are in agreement, you are certain to experience a healthy and fulfilling life in which the mind decides with ease, the body executes in synch and the spirit approves your actions in harmony. This could be likened to the biblical reference of Mathew 18:20: “For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there I am in the midst of them” (NRSV).

My self-learning Spirituality Mentorship Guide consists of the following:

• Writing in my gratitude journal.
• Accepting outcomes, no matter what they are.
• Having a vision board and reading its content daily.
• Sharing LoA knowledge and testimonies with others.
• Having the burning desire to know more about spirituality.
• Using positive affirmation words as part of my passwords.
• Trusting in the process and knowing it is never too late to expand one's spiritual journey.
• Writing positive words with bold marker on all mirrors at home e.g. blessings, abundance, joy, peace etc.
• Posting positive affirmations that resonate with me on my WhatsApp status. Rereading them during the day.
• Reading and listening to positive affirmations from apps in my phone – I have 6 of them, two audios and four text-based.
• Listening to inspirational audio messages by my favorite authors: Dolores Cannon, Joe Dispenza, Abraham Hicks, Sadhguru, Joel Osteen, Rhonda Byrne, Neale Donald Walsch, Raoul Wafo.

In case your spiritual journey has been on hold, NOW is the time to resume. Live the present moment, and know that NOW is the right time to receive this knowledge. In case you were not aware of it previously, have no regrets about the timing. Perhaps you were not ready to receive the knowledge. 

May your onward journey be richly blessed with infinite testimonies after putting some of the above into practice. This is my wish for you.

PS: what other daily spiritual practices do you engage in? I'd appreciate your feedback.

 

I experienced joy today: the easiest way to experience anything is to cause another to experience it!

I always look forward to my Saturday morning sports appointment in the Mt Fébé area. On this specific day after rigorously jogging and dancing (to the songs on my iPod shuffle), I decided to take a moment to enjoy the flowers in the flower garden of the Bastos round about. As I sat on one of the benches after a series of stretching exercises, I looked into the blue/grey sky and took a deep breathe to feel the moment. I gave thanks for my life and for the many achievements, for good health and for the strength to do sports. I remembered that the easiest way to feel something is to cause another to feel it.

Just then I notice two young men picking up something in the gardens. Initially I thought they were harvesting mushrooms. Then I realized they were rather caretakers of the gardens; they were picking up dirt. I walked up to them and noticed it was peelings of sugarcane left by visitors to the garden, as well as fallen leaves from the flowers among other trash. I greeted them and started picking along with them. They were apparently overwhelmed and couldn’t help wondering why I would want to do such a thing. I smiled back and told them not to worry, let’s just work together…

One of the young men said to me in broken French, “You are really a nice Cameroonian; I have never met anyone in this country who is as nice as you”. From his accent I could tell he was from another French-speaking African country. His other companion was also very surprised that I joined them to pick up the trash.

One of the photographers in the garden walked up to me and said, “From every indication you are a housewife who likes working a lot”. I smiled, marveled at his prejudice, said hello, and continued picking the trash. Another guy in the gardens who had been jogging asked me to carry him on my back so that he could do his stretching exercises, I told him I was busy, let him find someone else.

We worked for about 30minutes and the garden was now looking very neat and tidy. I was glad I had the opportunity to make the workers feel joyful, that someone could join them in their task that morning, thereby fastening the pace of the task. They gave me a tiny bar of soap to wash my hands at the nearby tap when we finished.

Usually after sports, I buy sugarcane to eat at home. I bought some on my way home and as I drove along, I felt true joy. It is said that the easiest way to experience something is to cause another to experience it, because we are all one. Words are so limited in explaining what the heart feels at times. It felt like a combination of satisfaction, excitement, blessing, fulfillment, enlightenment… When I got back home that morning, I settled down for a sugarcane treat after a warm shower. I realized that that particular sugarcane was the sweetest I had ever eaten!