Accepting your Earthly Role
Not all of us understand what our role is on earth. Sometimes our earthly role is not physically obvious and we have to deeply explore our lives to understand why we are here.
At times it may seem that we are far from fulfilling our purpose on earth. We may need to prepare ourselves before we are ready to accept our earthly role. Sometimes we have to build a strong foundation for our lives, or learn certain skills before we are able to do our true work.
It is not always easy to identify your earthly role and to understand where life is leading you. Yet if you flow chart your life from the moment you were born up to today, you may be able to see more clearly what you have been learning, and where you have been heading.
Highlight on the flow chart every major event that has impacted your life: big changes, accomplishments, relationships beginning and ending, births and deaths, illnesses or injuries – both positive and negative events. This gives you a broader perspective in which to view your life, offering you the opportunity to see the patterns you might not have been able to see otherwise.
When I created my first flow chart it was obvious that in the early part of my life, I was learning about change. By the time I was age 20, I had moved 14 times, and had experienced many deaths of friends and family, including my father at the age of 12. During this period of time, I learned how to adapt, how to let go, and how to live without attachment to anything including: homes, animals, friends, relatives, or any familiar way of life. As a result of this learning I became resilient and self-reliant, qualities which I now understand were needed for the work I would be doing in the future.
There are times when we may resist our earthly role. We may wish our lives were different. We may feel bitter that we are having to do specific work and others are not, or feel resentful of what others give or receive in their lives – and demand fairness, balance and equality. Yet often what we do not consider is that sometimes an individual’s earthly role is being completed energetically, not physically.
We hold a limited view if we do not consider the potential of an individual fulfilling an energetic role as equal to the fulfillment of a physical role. An individual can contribute to a family or social group by doing energetic work to clear karmic patterns that have been held for generations.
This type of work may require that the individual is in opposition to the group, or in order to pull out of the entrenched patterns that keep the group stuck in old non-beneficial ways of being they may need time away to do their work. Often this separation from the group occurs without a conscious understanding of why they are making this choice.
The individuals that play the role of the catalyst for the family, social group or the collective, create change on many levels so that future generations can be free of harmful or limiting patterns.
Catalysts are not always easily accepted in our society. They are often viewed as the difficult ones, the rebels or nonconformists. The choices and actions of catalysts are often resisted, as those left behind want to hold on to their comfortable role and the power they gain from it.
With greater awareness we can begin to understand why change within the group is important, and why it is necessary for us to learn to adapt. Change is a part of the inherent nature of life. To resist change is to resist nature.
If we are resisting the natural change of life, there is a good chance we are also resisting our earthly role, or making it more difficult to identify what the value of our role actually is. Once we identify and accept our role in this lifetime, it becomes easier to accept and value the role of others, and the higher purpose of the group we are a part of.
Often we are so immersed in our familiar identities, and our emotional attachment to feeling good, that we find it difficult to see our lives objectively. This is when it is important to seek support from another who can offer a broader perspective. We will know that support is needed when we are not able to accept or create change very easily in our lives.
If we believe in the powerful force of the Divine that participates in our lives, we realize it is impossible to deny our earthly role. The question then becomes how can we support this participation and make it easier to fulfill our earthly role in this lifetime?
Photograph by Asoggetti
