Caroline Myss: “If You Have Life, You Have Purpose” | Super Soul Sparks

0:00Hi, it's Ashley from OWN. This episode is sponsored by Dispatches from the Divide, a new limited series podcast. When conflict pushes us apart, what does it take to choose compassion instead? Dispatches from the Divide shares powerful true stories of ordinary people facing extraordinary divisions and finding unexpected ways to lead with empathy, courage, and humanity. It's a moving look at what can happen when we choose curiosity over conflict, even when it's hardest. Find Dispatches from the Divide wherever you get podcasts. Hi, it's Ashley from OWN. I used to think great work was about being in the right headspace.

0:39Then I found a TikTok video that made me think about my physical space. An interior designer explored how things like ceiling height and room size might influence how we think. Now I wonder how much of our environment shapes our work without us noticing. Now I'm looking at my workspace asking what kind of thinking I'm making room for. On TikTok, one idea can change how you see something you thought you knew. Your next discovery is waiting on TikTok. Born in Chicago and raised a devout Catholic, Carolyn May says she was just eight years old when she discovered her gift, her intuition. I first met Carolyn in 1998.

1:16By then, she had become well known for doing readings to help people heal. I just feel like I'm falling apart. I mean, literally falling apart. I think your childhood wasn't long enough. You had to be the mother to your mother. Is that true? It's true. Very true. Carolyn said she could also gauge people's health without a physical examination and refer to herself as a medical intuitive. I feel like cold feet, cold hands, imbalanced. I can't get any sense of balance in your body at all. The response from our viewers was overwhelming, and Carolyn came back to the show three more times. I can't believe it's been nearly 15 years since we last spoke.

2:08So I invited Carolyn to Harpo Studios to get together and talk and hear her unique perspective on some of life's big questions that will help us all feed our soul. Okay, so how do you know... That's the big question. I know, I know. Okay, how do you know you're on the right path? You were saying that it's not as hard as we may think. No, it's not. It's not at all. Okay. Before you answer that, does everybody... Before you answer that, does everybody have a path? Totally. That is the best path for them. Everyone has a path. No one falls from a tree without... Without just, right? So there's nobody here on Earth whose life doesn't have a purpose or a path.

2:56Correct. Correct. Absolutely. No one. Okay. If you have life, you have purpose. Okay. That's, and, you know, as an exercise on the aside. That's a good tweet. If you have life, you have purpose. Tweet, tweet. That's a good one. If you have life, you have purpose. And that is true of every one of the seven billion of us. Totally. It can't be otherwise. And this is why I absolutely love studying the work of the mystics, because this is what's so extraordinary. The tiniest, tiniest truth is the same at the big level. If you have life, one drop of life, one atom is as purposeful as our planet. What is in one is in the whole.

3:43It can't be otherwise. It cannot. Now, you... Now, I knew that and I say that, but I just got that in a different way. Makes me want to wee. It does. Yeah. The magnitude of that makes me want to wee. It cannot be otherwise. Yeah. Isn't that something? You cannot take this one Adam out and say it is separate from the whole. You cannot. I cannot take you out and say you are separate from the whole. Yeah, I know that. There it is. I know that. I know that. You just reminded me. Really? It goes to your soul. It goes to my soul. And someone says, well, how do I find my life purpose? I first say to you, you've never lost your life purpose.

4:20Okay, now we're going to get over that in a minute. Number two, I have to say to you, have no judgments about your life, no expectations, and give up the need to know what happens tomorrow. Have no judgments. No expectations. No expectations. And give up the need to know what happens tomorrow. And give up the need. To know what happens tomorrow. Tweet on that, too. Okay. I need you to be fully present, just fully present, and to appreciate all that is in your life right now. No matter where it is. No matter where it is, no matter what it is, to appreciate fully. And what a person does is... I can't pay my bills.

4:59I lost my job. Okay. I mean, I'm speaking for people who are watching who are... Absolutely. Still, I would say to these people... I'm in the depths of despair. You are in the depths of despair. And still I need to say to you... You need to say to me. You had your life focused on something that didn't belong to you and a path that didn't belong to you. Yes, you did, or you wouldn't be here. You locked in on something that did not belong to you, someone that didn't belong to you. You didn't let go of a yesterday that didn't belong to you. You hung on to a rage that did belong to you, and you wouldn't let it go.

5:36You lost track of being here, and that is true. or this is what you did. A track of being here now. Or something happened to you and you said this, it shouldn't have, and you never got over it. One of those things happened and you said, it shouldn't have happened to me. I promise you that happened. When someone finally said, it's not my life, I don't know how I lost my purpose. No, you didn't. You did not lose your purpose. What you lost was this sense that you thought certain things shouldn't happen to you and they did. As if you were excluded from the ordinary everyday things of life and you can't get over it.

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7:22Hi, everyone. It's Katie Couric. And on my podcast, Next Question, we love stories about how women are taking control of their lives. They are increasingly leading financial decisions in their households, yet many say they don't feel fully prepared for the long-term financial choices ahead. Real confidence comes from knowing your financial future is protected whatever happens. Pacific Life has helped generations protect what matters today and prepare for tomorrow with life insurance and lifetime income solutions. It's a promise Pacific Life has kept for nearly 160 years so its customers can keep theirs.

8:04Ask a financial professional about how Pacific Life can help you create a more confident financial future. Pacific Life Insurance Company, Omaha, Nebraska, and in New York, Pacific Life and Annuity, Phoenix, Arizona.

8:23So, to live with no judgment. No expectation. And no expectation? Yeah, no expectation. In the sense, think about this, expectations are that certain things should not happen to you that happen to ordinary people. I got it. People hold the idea of being ordinary in absolute contempt. Please, God, make me anything but not ordinary. Uh-huh. Right? Yes, yes, yes. And because they do that, they feel like they should be protected from ordinary things. That's right. So when something happens, like an illness, poverty, any kind of catastrophe, I can't believe this happened to me. Right. So many people spend so much time in the shock.

9:06They never get to move through the other stages. Right. Because they're stuck in, I can't believe this happened to me. And who did you think it was going to happen to? Them. The person across the street. And it makes them think, I must be on the wrong path. And why is that? Because something bad happened to you? Something you thought was bad? What if it was the best thing that ever happened? One of the stories I love to tell, which is St. Augustine, an old story from St. Augustine, when this man said to Augustine, I've been praying, praying, praying for what? Gold. And why do you want gold? Because I'm poor.

9:43And what else, what would you do with it? And Augustine says to him, tell me about your life. He says, well, I have family and I have food and I have friends. And he said, that sounds like gold to me. He says, but I don't have real gold. And Augustine said, well, what would you do with it? Well, I would hire my friends and they would work for me and then I wouldn't have to work. And Augustine said, well, I can understand why God hasn't given you gold. Why? Why? Because it would turn your heart into someone bitter, and you would abuse your friends. And I can see why God has been so fair and just by not giving you the answer to your prayer, by not giving you what you think you want.

10:26He's protected you from the worst of you and given you the best of you. But is God always fair and just? Life on earth will never be fair the way we want it to be. It will never be for every one cause there's one effect. There's not. There's millions of causes and millions of effects for every single breath we take. You don't recognize that every choice you've ever made in your life is leading to whatever decision you're making in any given moment. And not only that, that for every one choice we make, we're actually making 30 because of our emotions are making a choice. Our mind is making a choice.

11:08Our heart's making choices. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Our unconscious is making. So every moment we're probably making 500 million choices. Okay, okay. I got a really good question. What is the difference between I'm going to accept and not resist because I have learned that what you resist only shows up more. That's right. Yeah. You're just building the muscle for that thing that you don't want. What is the difference between knowing how to surrender the thing and knowing when to surrender? And doing nothing. And doing nothing. A person has to try. A person has to put their energy into their own life and their own effort.

11:45You have to do that. Yeah. We have an intuitive voice in us. We are born intuitive. We are so intuitive that it's actually for most people the source of their greatest suffering. All right. That inner guidance tells us... I'm just going to let you... I don't even know what you mean by that. How is your intuition, your intuitiveness, the cause of your greatest suffering? I think it would be the opposite. Oh, no. No, it isn't, Oprah. It's actually the source of people's greatest suffering. Why? Because people hear when they've betrayed themselves. People are very much aware when they are not honest with themselves.

12:28People, it's that voice that says, you shouldn't have said that. You know that's not right. Or you're still with this person and you know you should have left 20 years ago. This is the voice of your conscience. It's the voice of your consciousness. It's the voice of your gut instinct. It's the voice you don't want to hear that never turns off. And when you follow this voice and you push, this is the part that says you should push and you should do this. so it's the part that keeps us moving and turning the wheel of our life it's also the part that says you've done as much as you could now this is it you've done everything you can so it's the part that will say that's as far as you can go yeah it will guide you it will say this is it so what you're saying is is exactly what i've always believed and how i've operated The being able to accept lives within the range of doing all that you can do.

13:26And when you have done everything that you can do, you surrender it. That's it. Let it go. That's right. To the power and energy that's greater than yourself. That's it. That's what you do. That's right. You got to give it your all. Give it your all. Give it your all. Give it your best. And this inner voice. And then not be attached to the outcome. You got it. That's it. So did you always know these things? Were you intuitively attuned to knowing these things? I was very intuitive from all my whole life. Yes. Your mother saw it in you. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. When I went to the world of medical intuition and that whole life began, then my inner world developed very rapidly, very clearly along a certain line.

14:15And it just has been that ever since.

14:30Hi, everyone. It's Katie Couric. And on my podcast, Next Question, we love stories about how women are taking control of their lives. They are increasingly leading financial decisions in their households, yet many say they don't feel fully prepared for the long-term financial choices ahead. Real confidence comes from knowing your financial future is protected whatever happens. Pacific Life has helped generations protect what matters today and prepare for tomorrow with life insurance and lifetime income solutions. It's a promise Pacific Life has kept for nearly 160 years so its customers can keep theirs.

15:12Ask a financial professional about how Pacific Life can help you create a more confident financial future. Pacific Life Insurance Company, Omaha, Nebraska, and in New York, Pacific Life and Annuity, Phoenix, Arizona.