My Mission in Life
Facing the Darkness/Retrieving the Light:
My Mission in Life
Hidden Treasure by Rahima Warren
Recently, someone asked me to articulate my Mission in Life, and I found myself quickly writing that my mission is: “facing inner darkness, retrieving my true Essence, and inspiring others to do the same.” Wow, I thought, that’s it! I never saw that before so clearly.
Then I remembered that, years ago, an astrologer read my natal chart. After looking it over, she said that my mission in life is to go into the darkness, find the beauty hidden there, and bring it into the light. When I look back I see that this actually has been my life’s work, which I have carried out in three ways (so far).
First, of course, I had to face my own darkness – my inner dark, scary, hurting places – and slowly retrieve my wholeness. One piece of this work was facing up to how hurt I was by my father’s immediate rejection of me when I was born – for being a girl. “Well, it’s a girl…but have a cigar anyway,” he said to his buddies. This utter rejection that I saw in his eyes made me feel worthless and was one of the roots of my fearfulness and desire to hide out in books. As a teenager, I was even afraid to make a phone call to a business for fear of being sneered at! But I have done a lot of inner work over the last 50 years. And now, here I am, working on letting the whole world know about the powerful, healing book I’ve written! (More about that below.)
Having found great help in therapy, I went back to school and became a psychotherapist. The second way I carried out my mission was in my work with my clients. We would go into the darkness to face the evil of child abuse, or other traumas, and, step-by-step, retrieve the beautiful essence of the client’s soul (as much as the person could take in.)
One client had been brow-beaten into seeing herself as a shrunken, twisted, pale shadow of her real self by extremely verbally abusive and neglectful parents. To protect her Essence, she had (metaphorically) hidden her soul in a box and put the box on a high shelf in a back storeroom of her psyche. It took a long time, but we found that hidden treasure and carefully, reverently opened that box so she could begin to absorb her true Essence.
The important point here is that we had to face the darkness, and explore all its twists and turns, before we could find that hidden treasure. If we had somehow found that box and opened it right away, my client would have been overwhelmed, probably even terrified, by her own light and beauty. I have no doubt that she would have left and never come back. To undo great harm takes time and patience, allowing the person to gain each small insight as she is ready, at her own pace.
I’ve now retired from my psychotherapy practice, and yet, again without planning to, I am still carrying out my mission in a third way. After ten years of writing, revising and editing, my fantasy novel, Dark Innocence: Book One of the Star-Seer’s Prophecy was published last year. It is a deep, rich story about the hero Kyr’s transformational journey to face the darkness and retrieve the light of his soul, and has inspired readers to deepen their own quests to retrieve their true Essence.
It is interesting to look back and realize that I was carrying out the mission that was revealed in my natal astrological chart in all these ways, without quite realizing what my mission was or what I was up to, until now. Clearly, this mission or focus was inherent in my original nature and has shaped my whole life.
Contemplation Questions
- Do you know what your mission in life is? If so, how did you learn what it is? How has it shaped your life?
- Have you had to face the darkness in order to retrieve your true Essence? If not, how were you able to keep or retrieve your soul’s wholeness, light and beauty?
