What is Soulful Impact and How Do We Create It? (Part 4)
Step 4: Give Your Gift
Welcome to Soulful Impact, a newsletter exploring the territory of remembering our true nature and realizing our full potential.
This is Part 4 of a 5-part series introducing the concept and practice of Soulful Impact:
Step 2: Turn Toward What You Are Running From (Embrace the Darkness)
Step 4: Give Your Gift
As always, I’d love to hear what resonates and I welcome your comments and feedback. Thanks so much for being here.
Step 4: Give Your Gift
“Your secret suspicion that you are here for something magnificent is true. You are here to contribute to the unfolding of the magnificence of creation, to contribute to more life and more beauty in the world. And when I say magnificent, it doesn't necessarily mean famous or successful in the outward sense, but something magnificent to you, something that makes you say, Yeah, this is what I'm here to do.”
— in a recent interview with his 18-year-old son
Before waking up to wholeness, we may question whether we even have a gift. Or maybe we’ll acknowledge its existence, tapping into a deep knowing inside — but be too scared to really open to it.
There are countless world-changing gifts out there that are hiding beneath a blanket of unconscious or semi-conscious repression, which typically looks like self-doubt, cynicism, or categorizing one’s gift into a smaller and less magnificent version of what actually could be.
Why do we fear our gifts? I believe it’s because our true gifts are something that originate from far beyond us. They’re not actually “ours” — we just get to learn how to connect with them and let them move through us into the world. They defy our intellectual comprehension and attempts at control, and are therefore threatening to our egos.
Our egos may be attracted to the idea of using our gifts to meet their desires — for example, to validate or strengthen our personal identity and help us gain approval, control and security. There’s nothing wrong with that. It’s a natural and normal phase of human development, and it meets many real and legitimate needs. But if we aspire to create Soulful Impact, we will eventually be called beyond it.
Giving our gifts is a practice that, by its very nature, calls us deeper into the journey of remembering our true nature and realizing our full potential. Our gifts have an uncanny way of inviting us to confront and lean past the edges of our comfort zone, testing and stretching our ego’s constrained ideas of who we really are. Choosing to embody our gifts might lead us to do, say or be things that fly blatantly in the face of our ego’s typical defense strategies or desired self-image — for example, turning our perspective upside down around what it means to be “good” vs “bad.”
Embodying our gifts calls us into our sacred vulnerability — that tender space where we open our hearts so wide that they break, and in the aftermath we rest in the renewed strength and wholeness of having dissolved yet another layer of our smaller self-identity, allowed our fears to melt into the deeper truth of who we really are, and been exquisitely held by forces much greater than ourselves.
Giving our gifts invites us to touch and feel the depth of our greatest fears — fears like being rejected, broken, too much or not enough. “If I expose the deepest authentic truth of my being and don’t get the results I’m hoping for, then what? What would that mean about me and who I am?!”
This is how giving our gifts becomes an alchemical crucible through which we have the opportunity to remember our true nature. As we are drawn into the fears of our ego, we have the chance to lean in and lovingly examine, face and dislodge those foundational stories, assumptions and beliefs that support the idea and the experience of being a smaller self.
In this way, Step 4 of the practice of Soulful Impact leads us straight back into our growth edges in Step 1, Step 2 and Step 3. Giving our gifts calls us to expand our idea of who we really are and actually embody that new understanding in ways that drive our egos into deep discomfort — therefore inviting us to return to, deepen and expand our ability to adopt an empowered creator mindset, turn toward what we are running from and wake back up to our innate wholeness.
Each time we wake back up, there’s an opportunity for the magic of our gifts to continue to flow. We get to revisit and deepen the ongoing experiment of “What does life want to do through me now? And… now?”. The infinite expanse of this present-moment experimentation and curiosity is what, in my opinion, gives us the opportunity to genuinely realize our full potential.
I believe we realize our full potential in this now moment by embodying the energetic space of true openness and presence. Our gifts come through via the energy we transmit when we dance in wakeful awareness, open our being to the divine and let the river of life through us. When we’re in that state, we’ve done our portion of the work: we’ve created ourselves as fully open and awake. Our greatest potential in that moment is a function of the love and creativity that naturally flows through us when we are in that state.
The magnificence that you secretly suspect you came here for is what will appear when you toe the line between agency and surrender such that your ego’s self-consciousness dissolves. You’ll be moved by love, play and joy instead of fear, threat and blame. When you embody this most natural, open, loving and creative state, it will be easy — unavoidable, in fact — to give your gifts. They will organically show up.
In this way, Soulful Impact becomes a practice of being guided by life. When you get yourself into alignment, energetically open and present to the totality of your experience, life will guide you to do that which is uniquely ours to do. Life will guide you to give your gift.
Understanding and Cultivating Your Gift
The actual essence of your gift defies definition — it’s an ever-unfolding mystery that only exists in the present moment and can’t be encapsulated by language or rational thought. However, there are several pathways that I’ve found to be very helpful — for myself and others — on the journey of investigating, courting, and cultivating a healthy relationship with your gift.
As you nourish your connection to the magic of your gift, while letting go of the need to fully comprehend it and allowing some part of it to always remain in the mystery, you can increase your ability and skill as the conduit for your gift to enter into the world.
Here are four of my favorite pathways for encountering, cultivating and embodying your gift:
1. The Feeling of Aliveness
The best place to start is to simply ask yourself the question: “When do I feel most ALIVE?” But pay close attention, because the feeling of aliveness can easily be confused with adrenaline or thrill — and it is neither of those things.
Adrenaline or thrill are circumstantially dependent, meaning you’re at the effect of the situation to give you the feeling (and therefore not rooted in an empowered creator mindset). You’re often seeking (and attached) to a certain outcome, like whether you will win the game, prove the other person wrong, meet your sales quota, etc. While this is a certain form of excitement, it’s not what I mean when I speak about aliveness.
Aliveness is an experience that’s independent from what is happening because it’s derived from how you are being with what is happening. It’s unattached to any outcome because it’s fully rooted in the present moment. It comes from the way you open to that moment and use it as a gateway to connect with your infinite inner well of love, joy and appreciation for what is.
It can be helpful to notice which particular settings or situations tend to bring you most alive, but focus less on the details of those situations and more on the mindset, consciousness or way of relating to the world that those situations help you create.
Somatically, aliveness has a different flavor than adrenaline or thrill. Adrenaline and thrill are tight, racy, contracted and often associated with tunnel vision and/or short breathing that doesn’t make it down past the chest. Aliveness is grounded, wide, open, expansive and associated with deep breathing down into the belly. It’s like we are letting the slow, deep and powerful vibration of Earth resound through us.
Aliveness is what we feel when we wake up to wholeness and allow our true nature — love — to flow through unconditionally. It connects us to our gifts because our gifts are the form that love takes when expressed through our particular being. These forms will often look like service, compassion, play and inspired creativity.
2. Zone of Genius
A very useful and practical tool to support the journey of finding and honing your gift is the framework of Zone of Genius, created by Gay Hendricks and further popularized by the Conscious Leadership Group.
The basic idea is that we each have four zones: Zone of Incompetence, Zone of Competence, Zone of Excellence and Zone of Genius. Our Zones of Incompetence and Competence are the things we are really bad at or just OK at. Our Zone of Excellence is what we are exceptional at doing — so good that we stand out above the crowd and are likely to receive a lot of external recognition. But at the end of the day, being in our Zone of Excellence feels like work. It’s energy draining and requires us to apply considerable willpower.
When we’re in our Zone of Genius, not only are we exceptionally good at whatever we are doing, it’s also a net energy gain for us to do it. We love it. It doesn’t feel like work — more like flow or play. It’s easy — so easy, in fact, that we may not even notice that we’re doing it, or assume others can do it just as we can. Meanwhile, someone with a different Zone of Genius may be watching in complete awe at how easefully and effectively we’re doing what we’re doing. When we’re in our Genius, we lose track of time and lose track of ourselves — both signs of opening our being to allow the gift to come through.
The boundary between Zone Excellence and Zone of Genius is characterized by a tantalizing combination of excitement and fear. While being in our Genius is a lot of fun and incredibly life-giving, it can also be terrifying as we bump up against our self-imposed limits of how powerful and gifted we allow ourselves and our lives to be.
For more on Zone of Genius, I see these resources from the Conscious Leadership Group or read The Big Leap by Gay Hendricks.
3. Court the Mystery of Your Soul’s Purpose
A deeper, longer, more intense but ultimately incredibly fruitful pathway to encountering and embodying your gifts is to court the mystery of your soul’s purpose.
This is the approach that I recommend for people who are at a significant crossroads in their life. There may be significant change happening on a professional and/or personal level — or if it’s not already happening, it feels imminent and needed. The key determinant of readiness to begin this particular journey is the sense that it’s time to let go of a prior life stage and version of yourself so you can open to what’s next.
Courting the mystery of your soul’s purpose is ideally supported by the wilderness rite of passage of a vision fast. I wrote about the vision fast in Step 3, and will tout its blessings again here. The fast is an exquisite pathway for discovering your gifts because it supports your outdated identities to crumble in a loving and safe way, avails you to the divine guidance of your soul, and fundamentally shifts your relationship to yourself and the world on a level that I observe to be more durable and lasting than your average peak experience.
The vision fast stands out because it helps you learn to listen to the call of your soul. It’s like suddenly beginning to understand a new language that someone has been speaking to you your whole life — but instead of rational thought, this language is rooted in metaphor, imagery, dreams, feelings, emotions and numinous encounters with wild nature.
You begin to realize that your soul is constantly speaking to you and guiding you through these mysterious channels, which are more or less always available. Then the pursuit of giving your gift becomes less of a destination to reach, and more of a lifelong journey of learning to listen, offering what’s yours to give, and gracefully surfing the waves of co-creativity with life.
For more on soul’s purpose, see some of my prior writing here, and check out the brilliant book The Journey of Soul Initiation by depth psychologist and wilderness guide Bill Plotkin. If a soul journey is calling to you, you may be a fit for a vision quest.
4. Through Me Consciousness
Finally, a wonderful pathway for discovering your gift is the practice of Through Me Consciousness. You’ve already seen many hints at this idea throughout this post and this series, but I’ll share a bit more here.
Based on a useful model created by spiritual teacher Michael Bernard Beckwith, there are four ways of being in the world: To Me > By Me > Through Me > As Me. I find it useful to think of these as experience states, in that we can bounce around between all four all the time. Buy we also need to progress through the earlier stages in order to reach the later ones. Somewhat like the practice of Soulful Impact, this can be seen as a cyclical journey in which we are continually pushing the edges of what we are capable of experiencing and returning back to the earlier stages for the sake of that learning.
From To Me, we experience that life happens “to me” (victim consciousness). Then we take responsibility, and experience that life happens “by me” (empowered creator consciousness). Then we surrender, and experience that life happens “through me.” Finally, in a state of oneness, we experience that life happens “as me.”
As I wrote about in Step 3, the portal to Through Me — and being guided by life to give our gift in any given moment or situation — opens up via the dynamic balance between agency and surrender. When you can rest in that state, ask yourself with deep wonder and curiosity:
“What does life want to create through me? If I were to put myself in the shoes of life’s greater intelligence and look at all these circumstances surrounding me in this moment, what would I see that is uniquely mine to do or contribute?”
For more on Through Me, see my prior writing on my own journey of surrendering to Through Me here, and check out this great PDF on the Four Ways of Leading from the Conscious Leadership Group.
Remember to Play
Last but not least, remember to play, relax and have fun!
While the journey of discovering and giving our gifts can feel very serious sometimes, and connecting with our gifts can be extremely profound, we are the most effective channels for the magic of our gifts when we find the willingness to hold things lightly and allow the experience of ease.
See if you can trust that no matter where you are and no matter where your mind thinks you should be, you are exactly in the right spot on your journey and your gifts are following their divine timing in becoming more and more clear to you.
Ultimately, I like to conceive of giving your gift as letting your inner artist and lover out to play and create. When you feel stuck, return to your practices of Steps 1-3, and then you ask yourself:
“What would feel easy, playful, loving, authentic, energizing, in service and a little terrifying for me to do in this moment?”
Enjoy the journey!
Step 5: Repeat
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Find the complete 5-part series here:
So grateful you’re sharing your gift!
Beautifully expressed Brooks.
Bravo.
With admiration,