Life Purpose

Choosing Your Life Purpose is the first thing your soul did once it decided to incarnate. A typical cycle of lifetimes on planet Earth can vary between a few dozen and several hundred, depending on countless factors. In the interests of speedy evolution, a soul may choose to pack every lifetime in the cycle with lots of great challenges, such as blindness, infirmity, hearing problems, and/or lots of experiences from which to learn, such as intense grief, abuse or betrayal. On the other hand, another soul may forgo that intensity and choose to learn and evolve thoroughly … and a lot more slowly. So it all depends on your soul, your true identity and who you are between those lifetimes. When it comes to your soul, the only rule is that there are no rules. You are that powerful.

The first decision in the life planning that occurs prior to birth is to define the mission and purpose for the lifetime, such as to learn a specific lesson or achieve a specific goal. This includes choosing the broad life circumstances, geographical area and time period into which to incarnate. The type of challenges the soul chooses depends on its Soul Age. Baby souls worry about following the rules; Young soulsare out to master the material world; Mature souls are about emotional mastery; Old souls are busy tying upall the loose ends.

The book Courageous Souls by Robert Schwartz presents case studies of souls who have chosen challenging life experiences. For each volunteer, he arranged for psychic mediums to interview the subject soul to discover its intentions in choosing challenging life circumstances. Here are some of the volunteers’ stories in this fascinating book:

Jon: His challenges were being gay in a small, southern town, and contracting AIDS. His soul’s purposes for this were to:
1. Learn to overcome shame, and develop self-love.
2. Show others their prejudices and judgments, and help them overcome them, leading to self-love and unconditional love for others.

Doris: Her challenges were to have an abusive, alcoholic Jewish mother, and to contract breast cancer. Her soul’s purposes were to:
1. Learn correct use of sexual energy.
2. Accept the female form.
3. Develop self-love.
4. Overcome anti-Semitism from a previous life.
5. Alleviate guilt over taking many lives in WWI.
6. Overcome powerlessness and experience empowerment.

Jennifer: Her challenge was to have two autistic sons, one with ADD, one blind. Her soul’s purposes were to:
1. Learn patience.
2. Hone communication skills.
3. Give a safe, loving environment to soul group members. (The sons were healing past lives as Nazi propaganda officers, atoning by experiencing lack of communication skills.)

Christina: Her challenge was to survive a parcel bomb blowing off 2 fingers from right hand, and suffering extensive burns. Her soul’s purposes were to:
1. Show others, in a very public way, that the human body is just a shell. Her public forgiveness of the bomber affected millions.
2. Wake up and lead a life conscious of spirit.
3. Go through the five stages of grief and become self-realized.
4. Have her life slowed down.

At first sight, these lives may seem tragic, but when we look behind the scenes, we see a wealth of thoughtful choices and meticulous planning for maximum soul growth. For this reason, it’s vital to look at the big picture wherein you’re an emissary from the soul plane, here to gather experiences and take them back with you. If your life has tragedy in it, you may think you’ve got a bum deal, but on your return Home, you’ll be welcomed like the hero you are – truly a courageous soul. In fact, compared to the soul plane, Earth plane life is so challenging, you actually get a gold star for just showing up.

Choosing Your Life Purpose is the corner stone of the remainder of the planning process.

Exit Points

Exit points are a little like exit ramps as you fly down the freeway of life. They can be a serious illness, a fatal accident or murder, and you-the-soul responds in one of three ways:
1. “I’m done here, so I’m going Home.”
2. “I’m not done and intend to press on at full throttle!” In this case, you quickly recover from the illness or accident, and have new gusto towards your life and mission.
3. “I’m not sure, so I’ll wait until the next exit point,” in which case, your life goes on pretty much as before.

Knowing about exit points makes a huge difference, because then, death is not something being done to you, but something you’re choosing. You can’t blame “God” or the Grim Reaper; it’s all about you saying, “Okay, I’ve gotten enough juice out of this lifetime, so it’s time to go.”

Of course, it only brings you comfort if you can make that mental leap to include your soul in your answer to: “Who am I really?” Maybe that’s a stretch, but what’s the alternative? Wallowing in “poor little me” for the rest of your time here? No way. When your life purpose is done, so are you, and your soul will arrange an exit point.

"Life Purpose" is excerpted from "Death Without Fear" by Tony Stubbs