I help people find their passions.  I LOVE this work because it is rewarding and fun.

I want to share with you one of the biggest roadblocks I see in my clients who have spent years working in an environment that is wrong for them is that they are not in touch with their feelings.

This is a big roadblock because they want to discover their passion and lasting contribution to the world – and passion is a feeling.

We can’t know passion when we see it – we know it when we feel it.

Reconnecting with how we feel is often the first and is an unavoidable step to identifying what we are uniquely passionate about.

How do we reconnect with how we feel?  We reconnect with our feelings by reconnecting with our bodies.

Do this mini-body scan as you read this post:

• As you sit or lay there, uncross your legs and let your arms hang by your side.
• Take a breath in as you count one-two-three-four, and now let it out as you count 0ne-two-three-four.  Do that two more times.
• Think for a second about the balls of your feet. How do they feel? Are they tingly or throbbing or tight? Check in with the ball of your feet until they respond to you.
• Now let your focus climb up your feet and ankles and legs, making mental pit stops as you go.  Each part of your body feels a certain way right now, so keep asking until it tells you how it feels. Don’t give up on your left knee — it wants to speak up, it’s just been years since you have paid it attention.

How did that feel?  Was it very difficult? This mini-body scan is a great way to get back in touch with your feelings because feelings live in your body.  As wonderful as our minds can be, they cannot get us to our passions, only our body’s can.  And we only know something is our “passion” if it feels like passion to us.

HINT: If it is very difficult for you to access how one part of your body is feeling, this is a sign that you have neglected it and have climbed out of your own self, so to speak, and been living a disproportional amount of time in your head or totally outside of yourself (by constant awareness of how what you do or look like seems to others).

Even if you found the exercise difficult, and are thinking, sure I don’t freaking know how my pinky toes feel, but I have feelings often – take a moment to pause and consider that it is possible that you are only registering the feelings that are bopping you over the head.

All of the emotions at a talking level – which happens to be the level at which your passion speaks, at first – are too quiet for you to hear right now because you are not in your body enough to hear them.

Years of ignoring aches and pains and discomfort leads to a fairly high level of disregard for the whispers that can help us the most.

If you take 10 minutes each day for one month concentrating on how your body feels at that moment and thinking of your happiest memories, you will achieve mountains more than brainstorming about things you like and trying to figure out what you want to do with your head.

• Do a body scan like we went through above each morning when you wake up. It’s just a few minutes and it will set up your focus to the right compass for your entire day full of experiences.
• Spend 10 minutes each morning thinking of your favorite memories.  Think of them like marbles that you keep in a treasure chest in your mind – take them out, hold them in your hand and then keep them safe until tomorrow. Do this for 1 month.
• Spend 10 minutes each day imagining the absolute best life for you. Think about how you feel and where you are, what your home looks like, who is with you, the kinds of things you do. Do this every day for 1 month.
• Twice each day, take three deliberate inhales and exhales where you focus on keeping your inhale equal to your exhale.

While it may seem counterintuitive not to be hammering out a 10-step plan for finding a career or switching jobs or uncovering your passion, this is the plan!

You won’t know what the plan can be until you know the direction of your passion that is “warmer” and can say no to the direction that is “colder”.

Trust me – do one of the above suggestions for just 1 month and in my experience there is a 99% likelihood you’ll be closer to uncovering your passions.

Here is what you risk – nothing. At worst, you’ll be more relaxed, calmer and happier – not a bad worst case scenario when the upside is finding your purpose.

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