Which Way? Finding Your Inner Truth And Purpose

Finding your inner truth and purpose requires listening to your intuition, and often taking a leap of faith

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For a long time, I was haunted by this question:

 What’s my purpose in life?

My biggest fear was that I was missing the boat.

I’d spent my teenage years as a professional actress, a childhood dream come true.

But, then — moving against my deepest desires during college — I agreed to attend medical school. Mentors and extended family members enthusiastically encouraged this choice and yet, a voice inside kept whispering, then speaking, then screaming, “I don’t want to be a doctor!”  For the first time in my life, fear won a massive victory: I decided to follow these well-intentioned voices of reason, rather than my own inner Truth.

So, I turned down the opportunity to attend Oxford University to receive a Masters in Public Health. Turned down my inner child asking to work and serve around the globe — as I’d spent the prior few years doing (everywhere from Southern Africa to the Thai/Burma border and the Amazon of Peru). And left behind the creative and spiritual practices that fed my soul to enter the confines of a hospital.

Part of this, I think, came from my childhood. I’d grown up in a family with lots of love and adventure (we moved all around the United States by the time I was 15) and yet, money had always been in short supply. My mom and I sometimes shared a bedroom and, when I was an infant, we’d slept in our car. When others began to advise me how I could live without such financial stress, I was eager to believe them. 

As much as I wanted to follow my dreams, I also knew I didn’t want to end up poor.

Sadly, even though my inner Truth had guided me toward my bliss and my purpose for years, when it came to my career, I no longer had the courage to honor this truth, in the face of reasonable advice from “wise elders.”

I entered medical school and, unlike my peers — who seemed eager and joyful at our white coat ceremony — I felt a growing sense of dread. In anatomy lab and biochemistry class, I felt out of place and trapped, but I buried these under the mounting workload.

Self-betrayal is a funny thing — it starts off heart-wrenching, but becomes more habitual as time goes on.

It doesn’t become easier, exactly, but we can learn to numb our regret until a crisis makes us look at her head-on.

As we entered clinical years, the hours I needed to spend in the hospital increased greatly to 12-24 hour shifts — and I was expected to spend most of the remaining hours in my day learning about ear infections or antibiotics.

At heart, I have always been a mystic, a world-traveler — a hard worker, yes, with a Capricorn sun sign, but Sagittarius and other free-spirited, fiery, spiritually-seeking signs rule my chart. During these long years of medical school, I longed to read Rumi, Sharon Salzberg, and Mary Oliver, not memorize the minute differences between bacterial strains or a dizzying array of medications.

Finally, towards the end of my third year, I felt like I would burst. After a day when I thought I’d never be released from the hospital, amidst of a week of bad events, I stood at my 10^th story window, teetering on the ledge, longing to jump.  The sorrow of ignoring my Truth had grown so strong that it would no longer be ignored.

It was then I fully understood the fiery truth behind this quote:

If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you.

— Gospel of Thomas

Several months earlier, I’d started to sense that something creative wanted to come through me. It was as though I was pregnant with a project that was gestating inside me. Months before, I felt like I was entering the third trimester. However, with the intense demands on my schedule, I ignored this inner knowing. Ignored the feeling that something needed to be born. I kept plowing ahead, until one day what I didn’t bring forth nearly destroyed me. Now, I was crowning, with all of the fiery pain that comes with birth, and this baby needed to be born.

And so, stepping down from this ledge, I knew what I needed to do. I decided to take several weeks off medical school. Each day, I would head to my neighborhood cafe, and try to station myself in the corner, with my back resting comfortably against the wall. Using exercises from “Marry Your Muse” — I began writing and writing and writing. Over the next few weeks, I wrote nearly 200 single-spaced pages — the raw Truth of my soul scrawled in neat lines across my computer screen. As I brought forth what was within me, she saved me. And, with this and the support of my wonderful friends, I slowly came back to life.

The irony is that — while I’m so glad I didn’t jump — I knew it was time to take a big leap: I needed to live my Truth in all areas of my life.

I’d long been lying to myself and others about what I truly wanted to do and who I truly was:  it was time to own all of this, all of ME, in my messy and wounded glory.  As I brought forth this Truth, I also became clear that I was supposed to finish medical school.

And, a funny thing happened: As I started to live and speak my Truth, I came to realize that I’d known my purpose all along. As a child, I sometimes said the meaning of life was to be happy and help others do the same. By the time I entered college, I’d already read dozens of spiritual, self-help, and personal development books by everyone from Deepak Chopra to Pema Chodron, Steven Covey to Wayne Dyer. Under the “objective” line on my CV, I’d long included the line “create projects that inform, enlighten, and inspire.” And, when an advisor had asked me years before, I told him I wanted to write; he told me writing was an “avocation” not a vocation, and promptly suggested I find another way to make a living.

What he didn’t know was that I was speaking to him directly from my soul’s purpose, which is to awaken and help others do the same. When we speak of our personal legend from this place of inner knowing, only the Truth in her raw glory will set us free.

In a research year, then my last year of medical school, I began to listen to the yearnings of my soul — which steadily grew clearer as I agreed to listen and act upon them. During my free evenings, I began attending teachings of the many meditation and spiritual thought leaders who come through New York City. Working with a mentor, I completed an elective in the science of meditation, where my spiritual seeker and inner nerd finally reunited. I continued writing, and started publishing blogs in the Huffington Post and other outlets. When a creative, meditating cardiologist invited me to serve on his project in India, I leapt at the opportunity, and soon found myself on a pilgrimage to humanity’s large gathering — Kumbh Mela, where over 50 million (yes, million!) people gather on the most sacred days to bathe in the holy Ganges River, with the hopes of purifying their karma.

As medical school came to a close, I was certain I didn’t want to enter residency the following year. My last elective was a month-long rotation in the medical unit at ABC News, which I absolutely loved.  Roaming the sets of shows like Good Morning America, writing scripts that appeared on national television, and bumping into Diane Sawyer in the hallway were the stuff of my dreams. My last week, I met with my boss and asked if he knew anyone in HR. He promptly announced that he had just gotten approval for a new position in the medical unit, and basically offered me a job on the spot. The position was set to begin 3 days after I graduated med school, but he let me take a week off before beginning.

Mythologist Joseph Campbell famously said, “Follow your bliss, and the Universe will open doors where there were only walls.”

Stepping into my new soul-directed life, I see his words coming to life in dramatic ways. Now, 6 months post-graduation, I am working as a medical journalist at ABC News, where I also teach my colleagues to meditate and am organizing a health and wellness speaker series. I am travelling internationally to teach mindfulness and neuroscience in hospitals and schools, and creating a digital series called “Anatomy of a Calling” (about finding a life at the intersection of passion and purpose).

This all seems like another dream come true – and I guess it is, but first I had to find my way out of the nightmare.  The secret was simple: Learn to hear and honor my deepest Truth, no matter the fear, no matter the cost. Listening to her guidance, I’m now in a position where I can fly!

And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.

~ Anais Nin

3 Minute Meditation video: 

[Editor’s Note: Jamie lost her life on 10/12/2015. She packed a great deal into her short 31 years and touched the lives of many. She will be deeply missed; however, her legacy and footprint remain as testament to what is possible. We are grateful she crossed our Best Self path. RIP. Learn more of Jamie on this Facebook page.]

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