How to Fulfill Your Purpose

By James Culver Bryant

Fulfilling your purpose is predicated on your ability to have the courage to engage in the experiences that life offers.

Deciding to fulfill your purpose means shifting your focus from your ego to your soul. The soul is free from debilitating fear and is your divinity within.

In this self-help guide, the author shares his journey of moving toward a life filled with purpose. Drawing on anecdotes from his life, he explores how to resolve past traumas and use intuition to move forward. Get guidance on:

• showing up and doing your best;
• recognizing what you take for granted;
• following what your heart really wants;
• identifying what is holding you back.

Shifting from a mind-centered to a soul-centered life requires creating a new normal – and it is not easy. But by identifying what you really want, opening yourself up to new challenges, and experiencing what is in front of you, you’ll be on your way to fulfilling your purpose.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Balboa Press
• Release date: Sep 19, 2019
• ISBN: 9781982235239

James Culver Bryant

James Culver Bryant received his undergraduate education at the Naval Post Graduate School. Retiring as a commander, he changed careers from naval aviation to social work, receiving a Master’s in Social Work from The Catholic University of America. He is a licensed clinical social worker in Virginia, certified in hypnosis, eye movement desensitization and reprocessing, Gestalt therapy, and has extensive experience with victims of abuse. He retired after ten years with the Arlington County Department of Human Services, where he worked in the adult detention facility. He has written three books chronicling his experiences as a naval aviator, psychotherapist, and spiritual student.

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Copyright © 2019 James Culver Bryant.

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The author of this book does not dispense medical advice or prescribe the use of any technique as a form of treatment for physical, emotional, or medical problems without the advice of a physician, either directly or indirectly. The intent of the author is only to offer information of a general nature to help you in your quest for emotional and spiritual well-being. In the event you use any of the information in this book for yourself, which is your constitutional right, the author and the publisher assume no responsibility for your actions.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

ISBN: 978-1-9822-3522-2 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-9822-3523-9 (e)

Balboa Press rev. date: 10/02/2019

CONTENTS

Introduction

Chapter 1     Evolution

Chapter 2     Preparation

Chapter 3     Prepare Yourself

Chapter 4     Healing Your Body

Chapter 5     Your Conscious Mind

Chapter 6     Your Unconscious Mind

Chapter 7     Healing Your Spirit

Chapter 8     Attachments

Chapter 9     Spirit Realm

Chapter 10   The New You

INTRODUCTION

Our lives have a purpose. The purpose is to consciously experience the events that arise in the course of our lives. It’s said that nothing happens by accident. This is true. There is a reason for each experience we encounter. We don’t know the reasons. Life would be much easier if we did. All we can do is to follow our hearts’ desire, notice what we notice, show up, and do our best.

Achieving your purpose is predicated on your ability to have the courage to engage in the experiences that show up. That’s your purpose—live the experience.

Fortunately, there is a plan—a blueprint. We come into life with an imprinted plan designed to offer us all of the experiences needed for the work of this life. I suggest you Google soul imprint or soul blueprint to learn more. The imprinting resides in our unconscious, which is the source of our heart’s desire. The reason we notice something, or someone, in the first place is because we are supposed to experience something. We may need to experience a relationship with someone or have a career that offers us the experience needed for a future challenge. Notice I haven’t mentioned knowing or understanding as our life’s purpose. Knowing and understanding are not required. It’s the experience that’s required.

When we decide to fulfill our purpose, we are deciding to evolve from an ego-centered to a soul-centered life. I think of the ego as having a fear-based orientation. The ego is supposed to keep us safe, know what to do, and be in control. The soul is free from debilitating fear. Our soul knows it’s safe, doesn’t need to be in control, and is our divinity within.

I’m sharing my experiences as an example of how to move from an ego-centered to a soul-centered life. It’s a story that’s intended to provide all you will need to make your life a spiritual journey. A spiritual journey is simply a life that’s lived with the intention to fulfill your purpose. It’s a life that’s soul-directed instead of being mind-directed. When your soul points the way, all you have to do is to show up and do your best. As you might imagine, the shift from a mind-centered to a soul-centered life requires creating a new normal.

The first task in creating a new normal is to become aware of your current normal. It’s hard to be aware of what has always been your normal. It takes some kind of experience that causes you to recognize a pattern or behavior that has been automatic. The experience doesn’t have to be anything other than a wakeup call. One such experience happened to me during a horseback ride.

I’d never been on a horse before. I had watched a lot of cowboy movies, which made riding look easy. I climbed up on my horse and said the magic words. Just like in the movies, the horse started to walk down the path. I thought I was in control, but I wasn’t. About thirty minutes into the ride, the horse took the bit in its teeth and started toward the barn. No matter how much I tugged on the reins, the horse didn’t flinch from its intended path back to the barn.

Life is like a horseback ride, and I’m the horse. I have a rider that I mostly ignore because I know where I want to go. I want to stay on the familiar path and return to the barn. This is my normal, and that’s just the way it is—and always has been and always will be. I don’t realize how hard my soul is tugging on the reins to get me to go where it wants me to go—to experience what it wants me to experience.

I have to take the bit out of my teeth if I’m going to create a new normal. This is an act of self-sacrifice necessary to become free from my mind’s agenda. I have to sacrifice my thinking mind. I have to walk in the moment-by-moment experience of the ride, noticing the slightest movement of the reins. My mind is too limited to know what’s best for me. However, I will continue to take my mind along on the ride so I will be able to participate—enjoy what’s around the next bend. Thus my purpose is to carry my soul through life as it guides me from one experience to the next.

Now that I’m an old horse, I can look back in retrospect and recognize how my life fits together. I’m amazed at how experiences unfolded in just the right order to prepare me for what was next. There was no way to prepare for what was coming. All I could do was show up and do my best.

The chapters that follow chronicle my journey to fulfill my purpose as it teaches you how to fulfill your purpose. The process begins with becoming conscious. You must develop your internal witness who listens to what you are saying and allows you to become aware of awareness—aware of your automatic thinking and everything you take for granted. Without awareness, you don’t recognize that you are living the same day over and over. You will not recognize that your mind is keeping you from achieving your purpose.

Chapter 1 is about evolution. The mechanism of evolution is through our experience. Life experiences set us up and prepare us for this change. I use my experiences to illustrate how I evolved from being an unconscious adolescent to becoming an adult who was aware there was a lot more to life than I thought. I learned that following my intuition was the only way to fulfill my purpose.

We are given the means to tap into our ability to be inspired, whether inspiration comes as a thought out of the blue or through intuition. How inspiration comes to us doesn’t matter as much as noticing it and being able to follow through.

You will be introduced to synchronicity and how it serves to provide solutions and opportunities to create your new normal.

Chapters 2 and 3 are about how we are being prepared throughout our life to accomplish the challenges that arise. It includes an account by a Pentagon official who showed up and went into action on the morning of September 11, 2001. Her story contains elements of how preparation, synchronicity, and intuition combined to provide everything she needed to meet the challenge.

You must have enough psychological freedom to make decisions, and this chapter addresses how past events that produced limiting beliefs must be resolved. One section describes managing your thinking and focusing awareness.