The goal of inward observation is to identify your purpose in life.
Millions, if not billions of people have been haunted for ages by this question: What am I here for?
To answer that question, an individual has to take the time to observe himself.
The Message Bible translation of Galatians 6:4 says,
“Make a careful exploration of who you are and the work you have been given, and then sink yourself into that…”
Right now, I find it amusing that something so easy to do could be very difficult for people to handle. Ironically, it was once difficult for me to observe within.
I had more than my own fair share of contention with the question about my life’s purpose.
Back then, in my undergraduate days, whenever a guest speaker asked all those who did not know their purpose to come out for prayers, I always ended up in the front. Why? I didn’t know my life’s purpose because I had been totally ignorant of how people could observe inwards. The most amazing thing was that as soon as I was able to take hold of mastery in the art of inward observation, I was able to define my life’s purpose in a matter of moments.
To be able to observe inwards effectively, it is paramount for you to be able to still yourself.
We live in a day and age where it is becoming increasingly difficult to stay calm in the mind.
When our minds are not bugged with background noise in our immediate environments, we constantly pile up all the junk on TV down our streams of consciousness. And when we are not doing any of these, we are busy fiddling with our phones, going to Facebook and endlessly chatting away the units of our lives – time!
As it were, all the technological advancements that were intended to make life much easier for us have all seemed to make life more complicated. Look, I am not condemning watching TV, or interacting with other people on social media. I do all these too – but I try to be conscious of what an overexposure to these things would do to me. For many people, checking their Facebook News Feed is almost an automatic response when they wake up in the morning!
Pay attention to this: You are never going to discover your life’s purpose on Facebook, on the TV, or while responding to IMs on your favorite chat room. You’re only going to be able to discern and observe what you’ve got within you if you are able to still your mind from all kinds of noise that you would encounter in your life.
At this point, I must emphasize that the term ‘noise’ would not be limited to merely external disturbances to the sound waves in our immediate environment. Noise would also have to include all forms of mental clutter that fill our minds throughout the day.
When you find yourself constantly and continuously anxious about what you would eat or what you’d wear or what people say or think about you, you are unwittingly filling your mind with mental clutter.
When you are filled with doubt, uncertainty, negative self-talk, personal prejudices influenced by your cultural background, upbringing, and so on, you are unwittingly giving in to these mental noises.
Read this carefully: If you are in a quiet, noiseless environment, far away from the rumbles of the city, but your mind is in a state of clutter, you’d still be unable to harness the power of observing within!
‘La pausa’ and The Art of Inward Observation
I love football because it is a game of passion. It is a game of life too, as many life lessons can be learned from merely watching a game.
For instance, some teams are better than others in keeping possession of the ball. On the other hand, some teams prefer to sit deep and defend before launching a devastating display of lethal counterattacking football. It is frustrating to play against a team that is so good at keeping the ball, because of the negative psychology of playing almost an entire game of football – without the ball. Likewise, it is depressing to play against a team that decides to line up its entire team right in front of the goal post, because the team with the highest number of goals – not highest ball possession wins.
In instances like this, a stalemate is almost inevitable without the ‘la pausa’.
The ‘la pausa’ is an almost undetectable pause in play that is used by either an attacking team or a defending team to discomfit the opponents. The defense-oriented team can use it to wait for the fastest player on their team to be well positioned before launching a devastating counter. On the other hand, an attacking team can use the ‘la pausa’ to shatter organized defenses into creating passing lanes that were hitherto non-existent.
Both ways, the ‘la pausa’ works whether you are a defending team or an attacking one – and it would work for you if you’d just engage it.
How?
To tap into the power of observing within, you need to find a way of detaching your attention from the external noise of your surrounding environment, while also silencing all forms of mental clutter that may be fluttering about your mind at a given point in time.
In short, you have to pull off a ‘la pausa’.
Proverbs 20:5 says, ‘Counsel in the heart of a man is like deep water; but a man of understanding will draw it out’
As you are seated there, quietly poring over the letters of this book, you have counsel bubbling up within you already. It is this counsel that would inform you of the exact nature of your life’s purpose.
But there is no way you would be able to draw out counsel out of your heart if you do not take that pause from the noise of everyday living and negative self-talk. Once you are able to get those precious moments of silence, you’d find out that you’d start adopting the right frame of mind necessary for productive inward observation.
Questions About Inward Observation Point Out Answers
To start observing within you, you need to ask yourself a series of questions. There are endless amounts of questions that you may ask yourself – and the good thing about this exercise is that more questions would readily arise from the initial questions that you ask yourself.
There is a caveat, however. For this exercise to work out well, you need to be extremely sincere with yourself, while also trusting God to assist you with the quality of your answers. The easiest and most disastrous form of deceit that any man can fall a victim of is self-deceit. Jeremiah 10:23 says, ‘O LORD, I know that the way of man is not in himself; it is not in man that walketh to direct his paths’. You may ask yourself the right questions, but you would not get the right answers until you are sincere with yourself. God can help you out with that, if you’d ask Him.
To make it easier for those who are foraging into the world of inward observation for the first time, I would be leveraging on the SHAPE strategy developed by Pastor Rick Warren in his book, The Purpose-Driven Life. The acronym goes thus:
S = What are my Spiritual gifts and talents?
H = What is my Heart truly drawn to?
A = What areas can I easily make use of my Abilities?
P = What is peculiar about my Personality?
E = Which Experiences have I passed through that can help others that are passing through the same?
As you take the time to honestly ask yourself these questions, there would be a crystallization of possibilities you have within you. The truth is that God has already wired and shaped us uniquely – there are no two persons on the face of the earth that possess the exact same SHAPE.
All it takes is for you to take some time off to turn your eyes inwards and observe what you’ve already got within you. You can join the 30-Day Challenge which provides you an opportunity to develop inward observation habits that would place you on the path of the fulfillment of your life’s purpose and destiny.
