
Purpose Discovery
Discover your life purpose
"What is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?"
This question, posed by poet Mary Oliver, cuts through the noise of daily existence to something essential. You've built a life aligned with meaningful values—perhaps creating work that matters, stewarding projects you believe in, or starting a beautiful family. Yet something deeper stirs, doesn't it?
As you read these words, you might notice what arises when you imagine living from your deepest purpose: your unique way of belonging to the world, your deepest gifts in service to something greater. It feels more like being at home, in the most profound sense, than another achievement.
Take a moment. What would it feel like to live from that deep belonging?
You may find yourself releasing what no longer fits while stepping more fully into your place in life's unfolding story. Bringing this deeper alignment into every domain: your work, relationships, creativity, and service to the world.
This is the invitation of purpose discovery: to listen deeply to the voice within, to follow its threads of meaning, and to craft a life that is as richly rewarding as it is transformative for the world around you.
If this stirs something in you, I invite you to explore how your purpose might unfold more fully.
What’s purpose discovery?
Purpose discovery is a process that invites you into direct contact with your unique way of belonging to something larger than yourself—deeper and more fulfilling than finding a new career or constructing purpose through purely intellectual means.
Through skilled guidance and creative exploration, purpose discovery creates space for insights to emerge from deep within. Whether through reflective conversation, deep imagination practices, time in nature, or quiet contemplation, this process invites something genuinely new to unfold.
In a world that often values doing over being, purpose discovery offers a different path: an invitation to discover how your deepest calling wants to express itself in ways that may surprise you.
Why intentionally explore purpose?
In today's fast-paced world, it's common to build a life based on external measures of success. Many of us find ourselves following inherited scripts—pursuing safety, status, or approval—as a natural stage of development. With greater maturity, many individuals begin to consciously design their lives around personal values and aspirations, finding deeper satisfaction through this intentional approach.
Yet even these thoughtfully crafted paths can leave us sensing there's still something missing. The natural response is to seek change and renewal—perhaps switching roles, changing careers, leaving a relationship, travelling, moving to another country, taking up new activities, or aiming for the next achievement. Do you recognise this pattern? These explorations often bring richness and growth, yet something continues to call from beneath the surface.
Purpose discovery invites you to answer this call from deep within, a call for something more fundamentally true. You can begin right here. Try asking yourself: "What wants to be born through this life?" If the question feels abstract or nothing comes immediately, that's completely natural. Sometimes the answer emerges not as thoughts but as a felt sense, or simply as a deepening curiosity.
Beyond purpose: an invitation to soul
The word “soul” can feel loaded, perhaps evoking religious connotations or vague New Age mysticism. Nevertheless, the field of depth psychology refers to soul as way to point toward a way of engaging life that is richly imaginative and rooted in depth, intimacy, and reverence for mystery.
Soul, in this sense, is a quality of consciousness—one that speaks through images, perceives through metaphor and story, finds the sacred woven through the world, and naturally creates meaning and beauty.
Purpose discovery, when approached deeply, is soulwork. It engages with imagination, nature, myth, and dreams, to cultivate this depth-oriented way of being. The insights that arise are often surprising in their depth and direction.
What emerges is soul-level purpose—far more satisfying and alive than any purpose conceived by the intellectual mind alone.
Whether or not you use the word soul, this depth is available to you. And for many, the journey of purpose is how they first discover it. You may find that this mystery, this aliveness, has been calling you all along.
The call to adventure
Purpose discovery is an initiation into one of humanity's most ancient and essential journeys. Across cultures and throughout history, people have undertaken transformative passages to discover their unique gifts and place in the world.
When fully embraced, this is the adventure of a lifetime—thrilling, unpredictable, and requiring real courage to face the unknown and trust what emerges from the depths. You're being invited to join a lineage of explorers who have made the brave descent into mystery, knowing they would emerge fundamentally transformed.
True initiation has largely disappeared in today’s world. We achieve milestones but rarely undergo the kind of profound transformation that changes not just what we do, but who we are at the core. We've lost the initiatory experiences that once guided people into their deepest purpose and authentic adulthood or elderhood. What remains is a collective hunger for the adventure of meaning.
This is a journey into the questions that matter most. You may emerge not just with clarity about your purpose, but as someone who has touched a sacred dimension of existence and learned to live from that place.
The world needs your deepest contribution
This work isn't just about personal fulfilment. At a time when our most pressing challenges resist surface-level solutions, we need people who can contribute from their most authentic place.
Purpose discovery is an invitation to uncover how you're uniquely called to bring more truth, beauty, and goodness into the world. When people live from their deep purpose, they contribute with a quality of presence and creativity that can address what conventional approaches cannot touch.
How does it work?
Purpose discovery is more art than science. This program creates a structured container for the deep exploration that soul-level insights require, while providing practical guidance for integrating what emerges.
The journey:
Available as a one-to-one or small group program (maximum of 6 participants)
Twelve modules that guide you through the essential dimensions of purpose discovery
Twelve live sessions for guidance and coaching, one for each module
Twelve practice guides (10-14 pages each) with concepts, reflection exercises, journaling prompts, and practices
Guidance for designing your personalised ecology of practices—you might work with dreams, imaginal journeying, nature connection, or other approaches that resonate with you
Seven guided purpose meditations to support inner inquiry
The program culminates in an 8-hour “Soul Quest”—a solo ceremony in wild nature where you listen deeply for what wants to emerge
Additional readings and resources to enrich your understanding
What can unfold
Through this work, people often discover more than they expected when they started exploring purpose:
Purpose as belonging: Purpose is no longer something to find, a fixed identity, a mission to accomplish, or a life path laid out. Instead, it becomes an ongoing conversation, a reciprocal co-creation between you and life itself. A belonging, not a task. The unfolding of purpose is simply life expressing itself through you, as you.
Enriched perception: As you engage with the imaginal, dreams, and the natural world, a different quality of perception may begin to emerge. The world can become more vivid and interconnected, revealing layers of significance that were always present but hidden.
Mythopoetic depth: Your life might begin to feel like a meaningful story unfolding, connected to ancient patterns and future possibilities. You may discover your place in larger narratives, both personal and collective, creating a sense of participating in something magnificent and ongoing.
Re-enchantment: Daily experiences can begin to shimmer with deeper meaning. The natural world especially may come alive as sacred, inviting you to naturally create beauty and significance in your life.
Connection with the living earth: Time in nature can become guidance and communion. You might begin sensing your place in the earth's larger intelligence and how your gifts serve not just human communities but the planet's evolving story.
Learning to receive inner guidance: You may discover a different relationship with knowing, one that arises from deep listening beyond analysis. Many people find themselves trusting subtle intuitions, body wisdom, and felt sense in ways that surprise them, developing confidence in their inner compass.
Transformed relationships: As you come into deeper contact with yourself, your relationships often naturally shift. You may find yourself relating to others with more presence and genuine care, while also holding clearer boundaries about what truly serves.
Clarity about what truly matters: Many things that once seemed important may naturally fall away. What remains often feels essential, nourishing, and aligned with your deepest values.
Working together
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Before committing to this journey, I invite you to take a simple but potent first step. After our exploratory conversation, you’ll be invited to go on a Soul Walk (sometimes called a medicine walk). This is solo walk in nature, held within a gentle ceremonial frame.
You’ll walk with presence, holding an open-ended question, listening not just with your mind but with your whole being. Many people find this practice surprisingly moving, clarifying, or even quietly transformative.
I offer it freely as the gift of perspective. A way for your deeper intelligence to speak before any decisions are made.
Whether or not you continue with the full program, this walk often brings insight, alignment, and a sense of inner knowing about what wants to unfold.
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Purpose Discovery is available in two formats—both offer the same 12-module journey, with tailored support and rich practices between sessions.
One-to-One
A fully individualised arc. Sessions are paced to your rhythm (typically every other week), with space to explore what arises in depth and privacy.
Small Group Circle
Join a small, intimate cohort (max 6 participants) in a sacred circle of shared purpose inquiry. Each person’s story echoes through the group, creating a field of resonance, mirroring, and mutual deepening.
We move together through the same material and practices, with space for reflection, dialogue, and support. The intimacy of the group enables a unique depth of collective unfolding.
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One-to-one: AU$3,300
Small group: AU$2,200
You can split the amount into six monthly payments without extra cost.
Includes 12 sessions, complete materials, and support.
Extra costs:
Solo nature experience (self-arranged)
Optional book purchases
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Purpose discovery invites a genuine commitment. Between our meetings, you might spend 2–4 hours each week engaging in practices, reflection, journaling, and time in nature. This rhythm is what allows the deeper threads to surface and take root.
In the group format, we move together through a set schedule over six months. One-to-one journeys offer more flexibility, with up to 12 months to complete the arc.
Yet this container is only the beginning. What emerges here continues to unfold long after our final session. Many clients feel the real integration deepens over the course of a full year. And in truth, living your purpose is a lifelong path.
If this kind of commitment doesn’t feel possible right now, you may prefer to begin with developmental coaching, where the rhythm can adapt more fluidly to your current life season.
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Online via Zoom (available globally)
In-person in Sydney:
Freshwater Wellness Centre (Northern Beaches)
Public locations around Manly
Other locations might be possible by arrangement
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If you’re called to this work but the pricing is a barrier, I welcome honest conversations about what could be possible.
Questions and answers
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The Purpose Guiding process follows a comprehensive framework created by the Purpose Guides Institute to help individuals discover their unique soul-level purpose.
The approach integrates personalised guidance with practices like imaginal work, nature-based exploration, and reflective journaling. The practices draw on insights from several traditions that have explored human purpose and meaning, such as depth psychology and indigenous wisdom.
These streams have been carefully woven together through the Purpose Guides Institute to create a comprehensive approach that remains accessible to people of any background while honouring the depth of these traditions.
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This work draws from a rich lineage of purpose discovery practices, woven together into a comprehensive approach that honours both the mystery of calling and the practical need for clear methodology.
The foundation comes from the Purpose Guides Institute, which spent decades of distilling wisdom from traditions worldwide that have explored purpose discovery.
Beyond single insights: Your calling expresses through multiple dimensions—your vision for the world, your unique gifts, the specific ways you're meant to serve. Working with this fuller picture reveals directions that single-focus approaches often miss entirely.
Unparalled depth: This work recognizes that your deepest purpose lives beyond the reach of rational thinking. Through imagination, contemplative inquiry, and mythopoetic exploration, we create conditions for insights to emerge that surprise even those who thought they knew themselves well.
Sacred and practical: You'll engage with both the mystery of what wants to be born through your life and the practical question of how to live it. This isn't just visionary work—it's about discovering the story that wants to live through you and how it takes form in the world.
What emerges is often unexpected, deeply satisfying, and more alive than anything the mind could have conceived alone.
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Here’s what to expect at different stages of this work.
During our six months working together, you're likely to gain more clarity about one or multiple dimensions of your life purpose. You'll develop practices for deeper exploration and learn tools for navigating challenges. Many people find that this time marks the beginning of a profound transformation, as initial insights grow and deepen with practice.
I encourage dedicating a full year to purpose exploration, continuing the practices and integration after our formal work together ends. This extended timeframe allows deeper patterns to emerge and initial insights to mature. New aspects of your purpose often reveal themselves during this period as you practice implementing what you've learned and integrate the tools and practices into daily life.
Complete clarity about all aspects of your purpose often emerges over time—sometimes years. This is natural and reflects the layered nature of purpose, which reveals itself gradually as you live in alignment with your authentic self. Think of purpose as a close friendship; the relationship deepens with time, unveiling new facets with each chapter of life.
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Purpose guiding is ideal for those who feel called to explore life's deeper questions about meaning and contribution.
This work might be a good fit if you:
Feel drawn to explore life's deeper dimensions, not just its surface markers of success
Sense you have distinctive gifts to offer but haven't found the right context for expressing them
Are willing to engage with practices that cultivate deeper awareness and understanding
Want to contribute meaningfully to the world but seek clarity about your unique way of doing so
Feel ready to question subconscious beliefs about purpose and success
Are open to nature-based practices and spending time in the wild
Can create space in your life for regular reflection and practice
You'll get the most from this work if you have:
Basic stability in your life circumstances
Capacity for self-reflection
Openness to working with imagination and metaphor
Willingness to engage with uncertainty and mystery
Some experience with inner work or personal development
This work may not be right for you if:
You're seeking quick answers or guaranteed outcomes
You're primarily looking for career coaching or job placement
You're currently managing acute trauma or mental health challenges that need primary attention
You're not able to dedicate time to practices between sessions
You're looking for someone to tell you your purpose rather than guide you in discovering it.
The best way to determine if Purpose Guiding is a fit is through a consultation where we can explore your readiness and goals together.
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Purpose discovery, vocational guidance, and career couselling serve different functions in your life journey.
Vocational guidance focuses on:
Finding meaningful work that aligns with your values and talents
Identifying and developing professional skills and competencies
Understanding different career paths and requirements
Making practical decisions about education and training
Finding work that provides both meaning and livelihood
Career counselling focuses on:
Matching your skills and interests to existing jobs
Analysing market demands and opportunities
Building professional competencies
Creating strategies for career advancement
Developing practical job search skills
Purpose discovery, by contrast, helps you:
Explore who you are, not just what you do
Discover your true purpose, which may or may not align with traditional career paths
Identify your distinctive way of serving life, beyond conventional job roles
Understand how your purpose can express itself through multiple channels, not just career
Engage with life in ways that bring more meaning, depth, beauty, and richness
Craft a mythopoetic identity, the deeper story of who you are
Explore your role in humanity’s development and your unique way of bringing more truth, beauty and goodness into the world
Think of it this way: vocational guidance helps you find meaningful work aligned with your talents, interests, and values. Career counselling helps you find your place in the existing job market. Purpose discovery helps you discover your unique way of belonging to the ecology of life.
While career and vocation may be important ways to express your purpose, your deepest calling often transcends traditional categories, manifesting through multiple channels including career, service, relationships, lifestyle, creative expression, and ways of being in the world.
Purpose is about being as much it is about doing.
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Purpose discovery is a transformative journey that can significantly shift how you see yourself, your relationships, and your place in the world. While this work can be deeply fulfilling, it may also:
Challenge long-held beliefs and assumptions about yourself and life
Bring up trauma or unexpected emotions and memories
Create temporary periods of uncertainty as old patterns dissolve
Surface tensions between emerging insights and existing life commitments
Lead to significant life changes as you align with your deeper purpose
This process requires emotional maturity and stability. While disruption is a natural part of transformation, we'll work at a pace that feels manageable for you, with plenty of support for integration.
Before beginning, we'll discuss these aspects in detail during our consultation. You'll have the opportunity to ask questions and carefully consider if this work feels right for you at this time. If we proceed, we'll establish clear agreements about the scope and nature of our work together.
If at any point you need additional support, I can refer you to complementary resources and practitioners
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True purpose isn't a thing to be found, a concept to believe in, or another mental construct to hold onto. Just as love isn't a "thing" but rather a way of being and relating, purpose isn't an object to discover but a dimension of human experience to explore and embody.
When we talk about "true purpose," we're not suggesting there's a predetermined role or fixed destiny waiting to be uncovered. Rather, we're pointing to:
A way of being authentically yourself when you're not caught in habitual patterns or social conditioning
How you naturally contribute when you're most deeply aligned with yourself
The unique way you can bring more truth, beauty, and goodness into the world
Your way of belonging to the larger ecology of life
Your role in humanity’s development and leaving a thriving planet for future generations
This work isn't about adding another belief system or identity to your collection. In fact, it often involves seeing through fixed concepts and rigid identities to discover something more fluid and alive. Purpose can't be captured and contained in concepts, it can only be lived.
Many clients find that purpose work actually frees them from the need to believe in anything particular. Instead, they discover a more dynamic and authentic way of being themselves in service to life. The goal isn't to arrive at a final answer but to engage in an ongoing exploration of how you can most authentically belong to the world.
This perspective requires a certain maturity: an ability to hold purpose as neither totally relative nor absolutely fixed, but as something that emerges through your authentic engagement with life. It's an invitation to move beyond both naive certainty and cynical dismissal into a more nuanced understanding of how meaning and service manifest through each unique human life.
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It's important to address this insighful concern thoughtfully. Purpose work does not suggest that your life's meaning, wholeness, or happiness hinges on finding or fulfilling a specific purpose. Life is inherently valuable and meaningful, whether or not you engage in the work of discovering purpose.
Purpose is not a fixed destination, a mission to accomplish, or a standard by which your life is judged. Rather, it is a dynamic, evolving relationship with your life. It’s a way of listening deeply to the currents of meaning and contribution that are present in each moment.
Purpose discovery is simply one possible journey that can be taken, not an obligation or a requirement for living a full life. It's an invitation for those who feel drawn to explore it, a way to engage with your life more creatively and authentically.
Far from creating pressure or anxiety, this work encourages compassion and curiosity. It’s not about prescribing a single "soul-level purpose" or imposing a rigid framework for success. Instead, it supports you in releasing societal expectations and exploring what feels deeply true to you. There is no failure in this process, because it’s not outcome-driven. Whether you engage in purpose discovery or not, you are inherently whole and complete.
Ultimately, Purpose Guiding invites you to embrace your life as a creative and unfolding story. The goal is not to “accomplish” anything but to live in a way that feels richly alive and connected, both to yourself and the world around you.
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I completely understand this concern. The fear of being “boxed in” often stems from encountering purpose framed as a fixed identity, career path, or life mission that you're then supposed to follow for life. This understanding of purpose treats it like a job description or predetermined destiny that constrains rather than liberates.
The approach we take here is fundamentally different. Rather than seeking to define your purpose, we're interested in how purpose wants to live and breathe through you as a naturally dynamic and ever-evolving way of engaging with life.
Think of it this way: your purpose isn't a box you step into, but more like learning to sense your own authentic “yes” and “no”. It's like developing an inner compass that helps you navigate toward what truly enlivens you and brings more truth, beauty, and goodness to the world across all the changing seasons of your life.
What we discover is often not “I am meant to be X” but something more like “I am someone who brings Y quality into the world”—perhaps depth, or bridge-building, or fierce compassion. That quality might express itself through different roles, relationships, and creative endeavours across the seasons of your life.
Paradoxically, without that inner compass of purpose, we can become scattered—moving from thing to thing without deeper discernment, or staying stuck in situations that don't truly fit.
True purpose feels liberating and expansive. Many people find that connecting with their deeper purpose actually opens up possibilities they never considered, while simultaneously helping them gracefully release what no longer serves. It's expansion through discernment, not limitation through definition.
Ready to explore your purpose?
If this journey speaks to something in you, I invite you to write me a short note sharing why you feel drawn to this work. Just speak from where you are. After that, we’ll arrange a half-hour conversation to connect. This call is a chance to sense together whether this path feels aligned for you right now. You're welcome to bring questions, doubts, or simply curiosity. From there, we’ll let the next step emerge naturally.
