Clarity of vision is essential to living an inspired life
“We don’t need clarity of vision to create or to move forward in life.” There it was in black and white – a denunciation of the very gift I offer to the world. The only thing I could see in that moment was “red”.
Normally, I’m not overly reactive to social media posts as I appreciate every person has a unique perspective and is entitled to express their opinion. Usually when I see posts that don’t resonate, I just scroll on. But this one brought my thumb to a dead stop. I could feel my heat rising. The reason it evoked such intensity of emotion is that I’ve dedicated the last 15 years of my life to helping people find clarity of vision, and here was a person proclaiming my life’s work was irrelevant. Ouch.
When I read further to understand the author’s meaning, I deciphered the reasons for their sentiment. In their post, “clarity of vision” meant “a specified objective you are working toward”. In that context, I agree with them completely. If you externalize any aspect of your work, you will get yourself stuck. And if you attempt to create your work from a mental place, you will never realize the true potentials that are available to you.
Allow me to offer an alternative perspective about what “clarity of vision” is and why it is beneficial to your creative process and essential to living an inspired life.
A fresh look at clarity
When people approach me to help them find clarity about their work, often what they seek is a concrete answer in the form of a job title, career path, or business strategy. Clarity is commonly perceived as having the ability to “see” what’s ahead. As in, I want to see my whole path ahead of me. People want to know where they are going to end up and how they are going to get there, but that’s not clarity, that’s omniscience. It is also a very mental approach.
When it comes to clarity, the mind is a hindrance. It’s full of thoughts, most of them limited. It’s muddled with wounds and traumas from the past. Fortunately, the mind is not necessary to having clarity. In fact, the more you preoccupy it with other tasks like driving or weeding the garden, the better. When the mind is fully engrossed in an assignment, you are more likely to be in the receptive mode where clarity makes itself known.
The way I look at clarity is having the ability to “receive” communication from our own internal guidance system. It is to be in constant contact with the part of ourselves that is actually guiding our journey, which is our soul. The language of our inner guidance is subtle. It appears less like vivid images and more like tingles, inklings, and nudges.
Clarity is the ability to “receive” communication from our own soul.
So, the action of clarity is not to “look ahead”, but to “feel within”. It is a felt experience in the body that requires us to get out of our minds and into an open, receptive state where we access true knowing.
How to receive clarity
- Let go of attachment to your mind as being the source of clarity
- Allow yourself to feel because clarity speaks in sensations, not words
- Open up to the spaciousness within your body
- Listen for the communication of your soul
The mind does not speak the language of clarity. It’s job is to process the experiences we are having through the lens of the past. However, our future work is conceived through the expression of the soul.
An imaginative take on vision
One of the first things I do with every person I work with is to have them clarify their vision. After years of working as a business coach, I found most people were so preoccupied with trying to figure out what they wanted to do for work, they overlooked the more important aspect, which is the reason why they wanted to work. At the end of the day, we want to work because it connects us with the truth of who we are. Our vision is our personal reminder of that truth. I want to be crystal clear here – a vision is not an external destination you are trying to reach, like a goal. A vision is a state of being you wish to embody.
A vision is a state of being you wish to embody.
Societally, I feel as though we limit our potentials by envisioning our work too finitely. We might dream of writing a book or running an ecologically-sustainable business and these would be wonderful accomplishments, however, the real reason we want to create these things is because we desire the feelings they represent. Ask yourself what is it at the core of your desire? Why do you want to write a book? Why do you want an eco-business? What are the feelings you associate with those things? Freedom? Creativity? Vitality? Joy? If you can distill the feeling of what you want down to its essence – you will have discovered your own essence. And your vision is simply an expression of that core desire.
The way I frame vision is for you to imagine the world you want to live in. Your vision is not focused on attaining an outcome, but instead it is an expression of the contribution you want to make to that world in terms of your essence of being. The closer you get to your true essence, the closer you get to the truth of all humanity. The way I know someone has tapped into their true vision is that it expresses a fundamental truth to which all humanity can relate.
How to envision from within
- Stop thinking of what you want to create in the world
- Start feeling for the world you are creating
- Acknowledge your heart’s deepest desire is your true essence
- Express your essence as your vision
The power of clarifying your vision is that it connects you with your internal source of energy. With that energy you can create whatever it is your soul is dreaming.
A new passion for life
Over the last few years, many people have reported a loss of their old passions. Things that used to excite them no longer do, including their work. This is good. Really good. It means they are releasing their attachment to old external sources of energy. The tricky part of this transition is the time “in between” when we have unplugged from those external sources, but have not yet connected to our source of energy within. Through this phase, we can feel lost, depressed, and joyless, left wondering if life will ever be the same again. Thankfully, it won’t.
One of the ways we used to source energy outside of ourselves is through our work. We would work to gain recognition and seek validation. To get money. To prove ourselves and establish our worth. Ugh. All of this is a function of seeing work as separate from ourselves. Actually, it’s a function of seeing energy as separate from ourselves, something we have to “earn”. In this old paradigm, we would seek out an “objective” for our work, plan our way to it, and then trudge along the path hoping to achieve some meager sense of satisfaction along the way.
In the new paradigm, we source our energy from within. We see work not as separate from who we are, but as an expression of our soul. We don’t dream from the mind, we allow our soul to dream. We free ourselves to create any path we choose. We don’t concern ourselves with where the path is going, we just feel around for the beginning of it and then trust our soul to guide us on the journey. This is the new form of “clarity of vision”.
“Clarity of vision” is seeing the beginning of a path and trusting yourself enough to make the journey.
As you release any old ideas that your passions are “out there”, you embrace the only true passion there is – the passion for life itself. With this new perspective, you no longer need to seek “a specified objective you are working toward” to create or to move forward in life. Now you are lit up by your own energy from within and it serves you in taking the next step and the next in the exciting unfolding of your inspired life.
