The Purpose of Your Life: Finding Your Place in the World Using Synchronicity, Intuition, and Uncommon Sense

Adrienne, who has experienced what she writes about and who appreciates the importance of sharing other’s experiences as well, has written one of the best books on a very important type of exceptional human experience (EHE), the sense of vocation or calling. All types of EHEs, I am beginning to think, are at least tributary streams feeding into the river of vocation, but the feeling of being personally called is also a separate EHE. It becomes an EHE, however, only if we follow the signs we are given and know and "know that we know" that we have found what it is we were "meant" to do, whether by divine design or our own devising before birth or in this life. Whatever its origin, even if it is in what Jung called the archetypes of the collective unconscious, it comes from the transpersonal realm and enables us to live our lives rooted in the transpersonal, the implicate order, or, as I prefer, from within the Experiential Paradigm rather than the separative deterministic body-based ego-imprisoning mindset.

I would like to quote Adrienne’s own view of her purpose in writing the book, which is based on her "own lived experience both personally and professionally" (p. xi). She elaborates: "My intention is to create a field of interaction among you, me, and the universal field of intelligence that will begin to create a momentum of energy, catalyzing the recognition of your purpose, if that is as yet unclear to you. In order to do that, I am counting on your own desire to know yourself as part of the current of energy flowing between you and the book. The book is based on the perennial philosophies by which humanity has long navigated the unpredictable shallows and depths of life. My hope is that by bringing you the stories of real people, some inner knowing and recognition of your own path will be touched" (p. xi).

For purposes of this Journal, it is about how to enter the EHE process and as you live it to penetrate deeper into and live increasingly more from within the Experiential Paradigm, which is inherent in the perennial philosophies and indigenous worldviews and Western wisdom literature.

The book has four parts, the first being "Principles for Finding Your Place in the World." Here she gives her own story, and describes how reality is nonlocal and therefore "anything is possible." There is an important chapter on "The Magnetic Force Field of Your Life Purpose" and another on the EHE of synchronicity, which assists people in unfolding their purpose in life.

The next section is on techniques, which is on intuition and discerning life purpose and on increasing creativity and activities that can encourage creativity and intuition, such as channeling, the Tarot, inner dialogue, and journalizing. Her definition of intuition is the best I have encountered: "the creative, universal intention expressing through you" (p. 34). Deep Water is what the third section is about, or nadir experiences of the void, nothingness, dark night. As she shows, these seemingly "negative" experiences can also be positive life-changing experiences, or EHEs. She describes the shadow aspects of vocation and how we lose power to it and also can lighten it, including an important chapter on "transforming obstacles." The last section, Being There, is about being in the Experiential Paradigm, in the flow of "Doing what you love—and were meant to do."