I used to run a workshop for discovering your life purpose. Many who came felt restless, rootless - they felt they were at a crossroad. When feelings like these are big and uncomfortable, we look for big solutions. "I feel I am meant to be a healer." Or a teacher. Or a channeler, or whatever.

Life purpose is about as big a solution as we can get. Many of us believe that if we are doing what we are supposed to be doing, life will be interesting, satisfying, happy. So that should fix that. Find life purpose. Feel good again.

But sometimes the restlessness is not about life purpose at all.

Sometimes it is.

But it might be a personal milestone can lead us to look for meaningful new direction. "Well the kids are grown, now what do I do?"

Often it is a physical or emotional restlessness that has bubbled up because the time is right to act on it. A physical need for activity or a need for a change in diet can be strong enough for that deep restlessness to rise. Or it could be a seasonal mammalian drive to fluff one's nest or charge off to the hunt. I've been restless enough lately to unearth a life purpose exercise. But I found it unsatisfying. What I really needed to do was prepare for winter. Get snow tires on the car. Clear out the garden. Bring out the snow shovels. Then I felt better.

And when that inner ache is caused by emotional issues, well, we don't usually want to go there. They don't seem nearly as attractive as finding our life's work - especially if we've been avoiding them. Like when we finally have the time to process the grief that we had no time for when we miscarried the baby 20 years ago. Or when we finally have the time to look at a difficult emotional relationship and re-evaluate our role. We may think the solution is to divorce George (or Georgette), sell the house and move to India to devote ourselves to the guru who inspired us. But before flying off to Varanasi, we might be wise to take out the physical and emotional trash.

Yet when the time is right the search for life purpose can be meaningful.

Many of the life purpose exercises I have seen and done ask us to dig down to what really matters to us. Some ask us to dig down to stuff that makes us cry. Others ask us to dig until we get a strong intuitive sense that we are on the right track. One really great one is one that asks someone else to decipher it so that we don't hinder the process with our rational mind or our standard set of beliefs and expectations. I've seen many methods but they all ask us to dig deep.

And the search is fun.

We love a good quest. Along with animals, we share a primal and powerful urge to seek out what we need in life. When we are on the hunt, whether it's for a good bargain, or for the answer to a puzzle, or for meaning in life, just stimulating the "seeking" circuit in the brain feels really good. Temple Grandin tells us, "animals and humans are wired to enjoy hunting for food. That's why hunters like to hunt even if they're not going to eat what they kill: they like the hunting part in and of itself." So not only is the quest for life purpose meaningful, it's fun all by itself.

In the end, the search is not always what we think. What we find is not always what we started looking for but it's always about growth and change and balance and fulfilment. It may lead us to work that resonates happily within us. It may even take us to Varanasi. But it may also lead us right to where we are - in the middle of uncertainty, change and the intention to feel like we have a meaningful life. And putting snow tires on the car.

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