When we get quiet, we can find our inner voice. We can hear nature. We can start to breath and be real with the world around us. I have a Zen saying in a frame in my guest bathroom that reads, "The more one becomes quiet, the more is able to hear."

What does that saying meant to you?

So much of what we do involves noise.  Many of us either get up to the radio/alarm (an instant state of noise awareness) or we start with the TV or newspaper -- both sources of negative input first thing in the day.  Then, when we head out the door, we turn on the radio in the car.  Whether it be the morning disc-jockeys, Howard Stern, or smooth jazz, we still are putting a form of noise in our head and making it difficult to become quiet.  At work we are bombarded with telephones, cell phones, email, pagers, and other noisy equipment.  The festival of noise continues.  Then we reverse the process at the end of the day.  

If you head home and click on a game show or watch TV re-runs you are still putting more noise in your head. Or if you go to the gym and listen to music you're not quiet then, either. The only way to get quiet is to turn everything electrical off and find space and quiet from these distractions. Some people consider yard work therapeutic, yet, at the end of their Saturday's efforts they clean up by using an air blower (many air blowers have decibels rating high enough to require ear plugs or risk hearing loss). To get the payback on activities like yard work the environment must remain quiet.

When discovering my own purpose, I made a point to get out in nature to the ocean or the mountains as much as possible. I still get away as often as I can into nature or at least my backyard where I can be around the flowers and butterflies and my cat, Maggie (in editing, Miss Maggie, the magical cat, is gone away to kitty heaven...(sniff)...life is not the same without her. But, I still do go for walks on the beach every week). I also cancelled my subscription to the newspaper and make a point to never watch TV news in the morning (nor the evening) as steps to eliminate negative and noisy influences (nope, still don't - and don't miss it one bit, either!)

QUIET! Sheesh! It is so noise in some households, I don't know how they ever find time to think!

Every now and again, get quiet by turning off the TV, radio, and cell phone. Yes, I just said turn off the CELL PHONE. It frees you up for a while, it really does. Head out someplace where you can be alone for a while and let your brain become quiet. See how this helps in journalizing your thoughts and intuitions for discovering your purpose.

We really need to be quiet prior to asking The Purpose Question. Sometimes we can be in a quiet environment and still not truly experience peace of mind. This is because of the chatter our mind works on. One way to deal with this chatter is meditation. It is important to allow ourselves the space and time to think of nothing - to get below the chatter level of our monkey mind and let our spirit talk to us. Meditation is the tool to reflect this state...

The rest of this article appears in our audio program on Life Purpose (see below).

Attitude of Gratitude: thank you for letting AspireNow help you discover your purpose!

We review the more about our Spiritual Nature and The Purpose Question in our new Life Purpose Program entitled, "The Keys To Discovering Your Purpose," featuring our experiential e-workbook, audio CD companion, and upcoming e-book and hardcopy book on Discovering Your Purpose. 

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