Pregnant with purpose
I’ve been lying awake for hours.
2:45.
Now it’s 4:45 and I’m writing it all down.
Still awake. Still turning. Still churning.
I no longer experience the anxiety that used to partner with all the other anxiety on these sleepless nights. The worry of not sleeping. The worry of what the next day will look like. I know there are things churning. I know energy is moving and I’m being invited into something.
I am here.
I am listening.
My thoughts begin to pivot as I, finally having closed my iPad, tried to get that exact right position for those decaying vertebrae in my neck… my constant, complaining companions. I fail to appease them.
The churning in my brain wins.
But it’s not from the fear, it’s from the creation that comes when I am present to- and willing to listen to my fear.
It’s the other side.
I want to make.
I have to make.
What? Who the hell knows.
The rolodex of projects both started, not started, half-baked thoughts of projects rolls through my mind… what could we do? I think of every single one and the limitations in approaching them.
I try again to get comfortable. Change the pillow three times. No pillow, maybe?
I think of a phrase that hit me weeks ago: I want to be filled with purpose to the point of pregnancy.
Let me explain it… because that sounds weird as hell.
My sister has been pregnant this year and I have experienced the multitudes of feelings that have come with that. There was one week in particular that I kept noticing pregnant women everywhere I went.
Their glow.
Their intentioned bodies.
Their purpose.
I’ve noticed over the years how a woman’s focus shifts during her pregnancy: she’s so aware of every feeling within and without her… with a looming deadline, she is consumed by this little life inside her.
I felt it too. It was like a get-out-of-jail free card of not having to pay attention to anything or anyone but my own experience in some ways. Like, I’m making a whole human… and that’s all that’s on my radar.
I noticed a jealousy rising up in me.
Now, we are a chosen solo-child household. So I really pay attention to these things welling up. It could be simple for me to say, “ah. I just want to have another baby.” Or “oh, that’s just my biological clock.”
But it’s not.
I have made a beautiful and powerful and right choice for my family and my body to only have one child. But there is something I’m jealous of…
It’s their purpose.
In our culture, it is permissible for a woman to make her entire world about her children. It’s permissible for her to be selfish and self focused and only talk about herself and forget to ask about how her friends are doing when she’s pregnant.
For one… none of that is as permissible simply for a business owner that births ideas, programs, and offerings into the world every day.
Purpose to the point of pregnancy.
I want to be so certain and aware and focused on my chosen purpose in this life that it feels like I’m pregnant again.
It’s a no-brainer.
I talk about it as freely and as confidently as the baby girl that grew in my belly.
I want to feel the signs that the things that I’m creating are coming, to the point of the nausea I experienced in the first trimester.
I want to watch my belly grow with the goals of my creation.
I want to meet weekly benchmarks… checking into that parenting app seeing things like, “your business is the size of a peppercorn this week and it’s growing saving for taxes in advance, creating automated onboarding workflows, it’s increasing revenue 40%.
I want to glow because of the power of my creation.
Now, purpose can be a really tricky thing to chat about… and maybe you have a ton of feelings about it too. For a long time, as a woman and a X-tian, I was told that my only purpose was to save others’ souls, my own soul, and to make life better for everyone around me. But I’ve reset that purpose… many times… and I’m doing it again.
When I was a spiritual director, I would always walk folx through resetting their ‘purpose of life.’ It can be such an amazing tool for decisions—a wonderful plumb line—as well as a foundation for contentment.
I don’t have my purpose figured out, and maybe you don’t either—or maybe you do.
But I’m giving myself permission to put everything on the table and ask, what am I here for? What do I want to do? What brings me joy? What makes me feel accomplished and successful at the end of my days? What feels like an offering to an aching world—but that I’m not responsible for—a gift given?
If telling your story/stories and creation is part of that purpose, I want to be in dialogue with you.
And if a way that you share that with the world is through podcasting, I want to be your editor.