Bring Purpose To Life

[Jodie]

I've been thinking more about integrity... I listened to another older Sophie call, and it was about the same thing, but in reference to health, and the 'gap' that we create when we live an inauthentic life, and our word is not impeccable, and we lie, mostly to ourselves. She said it allows 'other things' (without saying the actual word) to fill that gap and do all the dancing, while our spirit does no dancing at all.

This one is really hard, again because I believe there's so much that I don't know I don't know. Since I have the gift of her pointing out one of my biggest, meaning that I have no other real distinctions than superior and inferior, that's where I can focus. She said that if we know our 'thing', whether it's 'wrong or right', 'needed or not needed', 'included or left out', 'smart or clueless', or whatever it is, based on our soul correction, that's our pendulum, and it swings only between those two things with no other distinctions to make it swing outside of that pendulum. She described it as going back and forth in only a line, creating a narrow trench that we're in with no room to dance. She said that choosing only one distinction that we can start to recognize, and practice seeing it everywhere, both what it is and what it isn't, then we can force the pendulum to swing out to the side a bit to include that as well, and it gives us just a little more room to dance. Or, as I'm seeing it, gives the spirit just a little more room to stir.

I'm thinking this is a good one for my 'one thing'....I'm also thinking this could feasibly be my 'one thing' forever, taking this to mastery seems possibly unattainable. But I'm also seeing that I've always taken this work so seriously, like homework, and it gets me nowhere.... so I'm considering that the meaning is in the journey, and I can plug along slowly. The distinction I'm adding is to assess where I can see whether someone's heart is in the right place or not, including my own. We'll see how it goes.

[Jodie]

Today it occurred to me how so many of Sophie’s teachings tie together. I’m still working on my ‘Purpose to Life’ Challenge. I’m considering what Sophie said about my only having ‘superior and inferior’ and no other distinctions. I’m seeing that when I’m in Superior mode is when I’m not in line with my Purpose, not even thinking about it. I’m also not authentic…Not doing anything to help my integrity. And not being present.

I see that when I can be present, and pull all of my power into what I’m doing in the moment, I can see the superiority, I can look to see if my heart is in the right place to try to broaden my ‘ditch’, and I can pay more attention to my word, and I can focus on my purpose and then choose deliberately my next words and actions to be in line with my purpose. The takeaway there is the incredible importance of being present….it also pulls me back from focusing on the next thing, which is my age-old issue of living in a hurry. All of those things seem to come together and connect when I can be present.

A huge problem I see, which is something I fear, is that I can’t see all of the ways that I live an inauthentic life, and yet unless I can see that and become impeccable with my words, I can’t close the gap that allows illnesses to grow, so I may not live long enough to learn to live a life that I love and live powerfully. I’m wondering if anyone has any thoughts on that…?

I’m thinking maybe the best I can do is try to see what ISN’T being impeccable with my word…I don’t know if I can distinguish that either, but that’s what I’m thinking I’ll work on. I would love to know if anyone has had any successes in this area.

[Jodie]

I recently listened to one of my very first calls with Sophie, just a week or two after I first met her.

The call was a lot more pleasant to listen to, because I hadn't yet headed down the ugly path of hating myself 24/7 for how wrong I am. I was still my cluelessly eager superior self at that point.

Anyway, she said something I had completely forgotten about. She said that just taking whatever moment or two every day that I could stop and tune in to myself and what physical feelings I'm feeling in that moment, over time could open the sight capacity and keep it open, just the same way that Helen's collages did.

At the time she said I had a pain below my left clavicle that was on one side of where the Soul is seated...enough to almost take my breath away. I didn't feel it at all. She then said I had it in my throat, at the top of the ego....while we were talking about it she said I activated it and asked me if I could feel it - I couldn't, not a bit.

She gave me that as an assignment... not to spend hours a day or anything like that, but as many moments that I could each day, just to 'tune in' and think 'What am I feeling right now'?. That is a practice I have started, as I was never able to keep the sight capacity open, even when she activated it for me.

As an update on the Purpose to Life challenge, for whatever it's worth, my husband out of the blue said that he wanted to live, for the first time in a long time. Very telling, I thought, as to the effect I and my entitled superior attitude was having on him. He actually went out and bought a motorcycle to take adventure trips on and 'start living'. I attribute it completely to Sophie's challenge... it seems to me to be an amazing result, considering where we started from.

I've re-started creating an attitude for each day... I'm using 'today I'm starting from where I am...it's where I should be, because it's where I am. I am stupid and teachable, I'm pulling all power into what I'm doing right now, and I am impeccable with my word.'

I've been starting to imagine that Sophie is with me, sitting at a table where I'm sitting with others, or sitting in a meeting I'm in, or wherever, watching what I'm doing. It seems to push my mind into focusing on being present and being calm and deliberate with my words. I sure miss her.

[Majeed]

I'm glad to hear that your husband has decided to live life.

I also have been imagining Sophie with me from time to time. I found myself drawn to this excerpt from one of her articles:
YOUR IDENTITY:
"what you fancy yourself to be, what is the basis of your whole existence. And the idea that it ain’t nothing till you call it threatens your identity. In essence you are a rookie umpire: you are not even willing to allow for the possibility that it isn’t the way it is, that it is maybe just how you see it, let alone that it ain’t nothing till you call it.

Which means, your interpretation wins out every time, and that is that.

You can see clearly that other people do that, but on yourself… you look and there is nothing to see.

What you cannot see is your attitude, your fixed way to be, most of the time the attitude of victimhood. The attitude that you would be good if all those things didn’t happen to you, those pesky details, those pesky people, that pesky government, or me… lol.

The questions you may want to ask yourself, if you have this issue: what is the ‘price’ I need to pay, if in fact I give up that I am a victim? and the second question: What would I gain if I were suddenly free to be ANYTHING, free to do WHAT WORKS, and free to relate to life as it had no meaning other than what I give it?

Then compare the two, the price and the gain, and start experimenting with transacting this deal with yourself… Eventually you’ll see what you want to choose, and then choose that.

I bet there will be people who will choose to remain victims. And that is OK with me." (Article referenced- https://yourvibration.com/47140/arent-happy-time/)

One thing I'm getting from this is that if it ain't nothing until I call it, then I have nothing to be bent out of shape about because it ain't nothing until I call it. I have been fancying myself to be one thing or another as if it afforded me some advantage in life. However, it has just served to be rigidity and blindness to life as it unfolds.

I wish I could ask Sophie if identifying as anything is somehow problematic. It seems we are either expanding or contracting beings, but maybe never static to lock in on an identity. It seems from the Observer position that I can neither be good or bad or any systemic judgement value.

[Jodie]

It was great talking with you Baheej.... as we were talking about our struggles, thinking of all of Sophie's teachings and all that we know we should be doing from what we learned and aren't doing, you said one thing I found so brilliant - and that is, 'we got what we got'. Yes, there was so much to practice, so much to do, that we don't do, but I would dare say every one of us who worked with her now looks at the world a little differently, and at ourselves and how we relate to the world a little differently... we got what we got, and whatever we got was more than we had before, and is what we have to work with. In my view that statement is essentially ALLOWING, which is one thing I constantly struggle with, just allowing things to be as they are, allowing that where I am is exactly where I'm supposed to be, and from Sophie's teachings, we got what we got. From that perspective, stewing about what I'm not doing and should be is clearly pure self-concern and a colossal waste of time, whereas looking at what I did get and using that and going from there is movement on some level. It sounds so basic, but I needed it - thank you!

To your question about identifying as anything, I've recently been reading about our Core Identity, and how our constant struggle to hide it and resist it is the foundation of how we keep ourselves from accomplishing anything. But I ran across this in an older article today, about defining ourselves:

Now, let me ask you: why define yourself? For what purpose?
Do you think that matters? Do you think that different purposes will result in a different definition?

If I ask you to describe yourself so when I come to our meeting place I can recognize you, if you don’t say anything about your height and such, I will surely think you as a moron and cancel our appointment.

If you want to be a driver for me, and you talk about your job at blah, I will not even answer your email.

My current driver was the only one out of 250 applicants who defined herself saying ‘I am punctual, I am a decent driver, and I am good company…’ I hired her without asking any more questions. She was intelligent enough to look at the question as ‘what will be my experience with you driving me to places?’

She used three different verbal tools to communicate to me what to expect

promise
assessment
declaration
She promised to be punctual. She assessed her driving as decent. And she declared to be good company.

The last one, the declaration, now became her core identity in our relationship. I don’t continue riding with her because she is punctual. Nor because she drives decently.

I ride with her because she has a commitment to be good company.
And she has been… in spite of some potential glitches. Amazing.

Your core identity is a commitment.
It’s a vow. It is the flag you carry. Ultimately it is what defines you.

At this point…
At this point your core identity is your thinly veiled hidden nature that you hope won’t come out. Like belligerent, like nasty, like ‘when it gets tough I’ll leave’, like ‘I’ll do everything to dupe you’. ‘I’ll argue with you.’ ‘I think I am smarter than you.’ ‘Hey, I’ll get my money’s worth. Not in value but in being a time-suck.’ etc.

Before we can CREATE a core identity that will serve us, we need to tell the truth about the hidden identity, so we can manage it. It’s the mud through which we need to go through to reach the solid rock, so we can build something worth building, in spite of the mud.

And when the mud shows up again, we can say to it ‘I know who you are… go back where you came from’

Your assignment in developing your brain, developing your thinking is to define yourself to

1. a potential mate
2. a potential teacher
3. a coach in a project
4. a project leader who considers you making part of the team
5. a head hunter
6. a talent scout
7. a friend wanting to mooch on you

Do not lie. Say only facts or promises/declarations that you can keep.

How to do this assignment that it becomes a self-growth, self-developing exercise?
Imagine scenarios where you are taken into scenarios where your behavior/attitude is important.

how will you be if you are caught exchanging intimate words with your ex?
how will you be if your new mate/your boss/your teacher yells at you?
Who/how will you be if you are accused of not carrying your weight in the new team?
how will you be if someone asks you for something that is beyond what you promised?
how will you be if someone asks why you are not sharing your wealth?
Lots of confronting scenarios mean lots of learning, growing experience.
If you don’t like how you have been in a similar situation, invent a new way of being, and test it out in your imagination. If you like it, become that kind of person.

Make sure that these are not silent movies: the words are important. The words reflect your attitude, your hidden Self.

One of my students suddenly inherited money. She is now encountering, in her real life, situations that in the past had a predictable outcome.

Saying no is a problem for many of us, saying no gracefully and with authority is something you need to learn, you need to practice.

You won’t become an independent powerful person overnight. If you have been a door mat, a people pleaser, a victim, a bully, a despot, you will need to practice ways of being of an independent powerful person. It won’t be easy.

I agree with you, that from the Observer position you can be neither good nor bad. But it seems from this article that we can invent a new way of being and test it out in our imagination. I remember reading this article a while ago, but I never tried this.

Sophie told me once on a call that we all approach life like a surgeon who didn't wash his hands before surgery... completely unprepared for what comes. I wasn't sure how to act on that, but this practice that she describes seems to me to be one way to do it.

[Jodie]

I just listened to SUCH a great call I had with Sophie a while ago...where I first realized that all of the constant pondering about what I should be doing was pushing me further down the hole of self-concern. It's no different than all of the pondering I've been doing about what I should be doing now without Sophie's guidance, and about how I can't see how I can possibly grow without it... more of the same, self-concern.

It was also a call where she said that possibilities disappear if we don't keep in mind why we're doing what we're doing. She said she cut sugar out of her diet off and on a bunch of times over the years, only because she forgot why she was doing it in the first place. Which is exactly what I've found with the 'Purpose to Life' challenge with my husband... I still so often find myself acting superior and condescending, and asking myself why. The only reason is because I let the purpose slip away. When I call it back to the forefront, that I want a relationship where it's more fun being with him than not, and that I want to love him exactly how he is and how he isn't, it all changes. I wish I could say the 'superior' and entitlement completely disappear, but they don't...they are still there and I can see them. But they become useless and pointless because they're not in line with my purpose.

I'm just putting this out there because it was a huge reminder. I'm nowhere near mastery with this, so I'm just continuing on this same path. My relationship has changed for the better, no doubt, but there is still much to do in this area.

[Jodie]

In the entire year and a a half that I worked with Sophie, I had one major stumbling block: I never managed to bridge the gap between DOING and BEING.

The work I did was, as Sophie put it, done like homework… as I see it, I and the work were separate. I did what I did and reported it to her, and I even saw amazing results much of the time, but I never became the things I did, I only did them. It was as if she was teaching me to drive a race car, and while she was in the car I drove exactly as she told me to drive and had excellent times, but the minute she got out of the car I went back to how I always drove (and often crashed & burned)…I never became a race driver, just someone who occasionally managed to follow her directions well.

What does that mean moving forward?

I did hours and hours of ‘work’ with Sophie…hours per day. And she would tell me from time to time that I wasn’t doing the work as it was meant to be done.

I would be incredulous every time, because I put so much time and effort in.

I had recurring issues with the ‘gap’ that allows unwanted things such as illness to grow, because, as she put it, I live an inauthentic life. And I would be incredulous every time, because I felt like I was working so hard.

As I’m looking at it, it makes sense to me now. I have been doing, to be sure, but not being. I haven’t been doing the work as it was meant to be done.

I copied the portion of that article I posted about earlier, and I did the exercise, one quick run-through. And normally that would be it & I’m on to something else. But I think doing the work means sitting and doing that exercise until I start to become it.

I think it means taking my attitude that I create for the day, and not changing to a new one each next day, but doing that one until I become it.

Each of Sophie’s daily articles contained something, or several things, that it seems nothing else works without. Something different that needed to be mastered. So each day it was like I was in a sandbox with a toy that I focused on & worked with & started to get good at, and each next day someone tossed in a new toy that I grabbed & focused on, completely forgetting about the last one… lots of cool toys, but none that I got good at playing with.

My takeaway is that it’s time to slow down and become present to what I’m doing. And choose one thing, and do it and do it and do it until I become it.

Will I do it? I would guess Sophie would say most likely not. But I’m guaranteed the same results if I keep doing things the way I have been, which I see now is essentially pretending, inauthentic… actions only but no becoming.

It seems more clear now, how things in our world have been designed… all that she’s been writing about for so long. Designed so that we have no Self. We listen and memorize to take tests, only for the grade. We don’t learn…we parrot. What is the result? We mill around like highly suggestible sheep… any person or sheepdog can easily move us all in any direction, because there is no Self. It seems to be increasingly important to choose one thing and do it until we become it. Why? To live authentically; to have a self. To close the gap. She said it all along, I just didn’t really get it. I see how I earned the ‘dumbest student ever’ title.

[Jodie]

My life has been a bit of chaos, as I've been clearing out my house to list it and hopefully sell it, and I've had more drama with my husband and the other woman. I've recently changed my 'one thing', to a different daily practice that seems to help me (1) change the way I look at something and (2) become more present in the moment.

I read an older article of Sophie's that was so good...once again the one about words, from Oct. 31, 2022. This part I never got, about hitting bottom:

'Life for a human is best when one can feel the ground under one’s toes…
When there seems to be nothing you can do, when you just lost the ground.

But humans have that miraculous brain that can conjure up stories other people wrote, stories of people who were in situations similar to yours… and without anything changing the solution, the direction, the thing you can do emerges.

But for that you need two things: you need to have a lot of stories that you experienced vicariously through books, and movies, where you were washed away by the story, so it is now stored in your muscle-memory not just your mind. Not just words.'

After that I stumbled onto an email she sent me after I reported on something I was struggling with, where she said this:

>> the art is to be able to change the background words fast...
>>
>> you can do the assessment route... or you can just bring words to everything that changes what you see.
>>
>> slow is smooth, smooth is fast is and example... when you look at something, the background is that you are superior. But if you put 'slow is smooth' through saying it in you head, for example, it CAN alter the picture, just as if you have said: 'Now, wait a minute!' or 'we are in this together'
>>
>> the superior is now not the backdrop: you have a different one, so what you see MUST change... If it doesn't, try a different saying.

This has become my new 'one thing'.... to look at each situation and see that my backdrop is that I am superior. And I am dismayed to see that it really IS that. Every time.

It makes me settle in and become present to look at it, and to see the superior, and say to myself, 'slow is smooth. smooth is fast.' And then alter the picture, to alter the backdrop. It's interesting, and I actually find it fun, which is really unusual for me as I've historically attacked each exercise like a rabid pit bull fighting for its life - one of the things that drove Sophie crazy about me that I couldn't seem to get over.

It's helping with with my Purpose to Life, as well... there has been drama resurfacing with the 'other woman' in our lives, drama which I thought was over and wasn't. I'm finding I'm teeming with entitlement, being 'wronged', and being superior in every instance. This 'one thing' that I'm working with doesn't work every time...sometimes my mouth runs ahead of my brain by a few laps, but in many cases it really helps me 'reign it in' and choose different words, and see that I'm not entitled, that I had an expectation that was not realistic, and that much of what goes on is a result of my choices.

Still plugging along, but the use of this exercise makes it much more interesting, and much more bearable... I'm grateful for it.

[Majeed]

I appreciate what you've shared here. This has caused me to look at what I have running in the background. Thank you so much

[Jodie]

I’ve been looking back over notes I’ve taken from Sophie’s articles & workshops and from phone calls with her. I ran across this set of notes about ego that I found helpful…I’m posting them here in case anyone else does as well:

Remind yourself how much you don’t know at the library or bookstore.

Focus on the effort, not the outcome .

Choose the purpose over the passion.

Stop talking and talking and get to doing the work .

Remind yourself every day, how much work is left to be done, not how much you have done. Humility is the antidote to pride.

There is no grand narrative… Focus on the present moment, not the story. The path to failure is getting too cocky and overconfident.

John DeLorean constantly got distracted and abandoned one product for another. It’s not enough to be smart or right -you can’t grow as a person being at the center of everything.

Know what matters to you and ruthlessly say no to everything else… Have an honest conversation with yourself, and understand your priorities, and reject the rest .

Forget credit and recognition. Do the grunt work and make superiors look good without getting any credit. Trade short term gratification for a long-term pay off… Submit under people who are already successful and learned, absorb everything you can.

Connect with nature, tap into it as often as possible. Realize how small you are in relation to everything else. There is no ego when you’re standing on the edge of a cliff or next to crashing waves of the ocean.

Choose a lifetime of learning and acting over dead time, when you are passive and waiting. Dead time is ‘I don’t want this. I want it my way.’. Choose alive time instead.

Get out of your own head. Stop playing the soundtrack of how special, gifted, misunderstood, and humble as you are. Live with the tangible and real.

Let go of the poisonous need to control. Remind yourself of the limits of your power and reach.

Place your mission and purpose above yourself. It’s not about you.

Don’t be deceived by recognition, money or success. Leave self absorption and obsessing over your image.

Leave your ego and entitlement at the door. Bragging can lead you to outright failure.

Hatred is when someone turns a minor insult into a massive sore, and then lashes out… Don’t let it eat it you, choose love instead.

Pursue mastery in one thing. When you pursue one thing, the better you get, and the more humble you are because you understand there’s always something you can learn, and you are inherently humbled by this craft or career.

Just because you win, doesn’t mean you deserved to win… Keep an inner scorecard, rather than using an external one. Measure yourself against your potential, what you’re capable of.

If you let your ego think people are out to get you, you will seem weak, and then people will try to take advantage. Be strong, confident, and forgiving.

Always stay a student. Be in rooms where you’re the least knowledgeable one and observe and learn. Deliberately have the uncomfortable feeling that you feel when you’re most deeply challenged…when your assumptions are challenged.

Being sensitive about slights, insults, and not getting your due is a waste of time.

Stop playing the Image game and focus on the bigger purpose.

Focus on the effort, not the result. If you can accept that you control the effort that goes in and not the results that come out, you will be mastering your ego.