Bonjour! (That’s french for ‘hello’, in case you aren’t barely bilingual like me).This week I wanted to touch on purpose. If that made you want to vomit immediately, this is just for you. If it got you excited, also for you! I used to get very triggered by talking about a sense of purpose because it tends to entail knowing what the hell you are doing with your life, and that wasn’t my strong suit for many years.

I’ve got a hot take on purpose though, and I’d love to share how so many of my life experiences came together to help co-create Vortex, and how it helped me realize I’m doing exactly what I’m meant to be doing.

Shall we?

purpose without pressure

Unless we feel fully aligned with who we are and we’re living the vision we’ve set for ourselves, thinking about a sense of purpose can be a bit paralyzing and anxiety-inducing.

Often it’s because we compare ourselves to others and their big, shiny lives. As Brené Brown says, comparison is the thief of joy. Just because you see someone who seems like they’re in their element, living their truth and rockin’ their purpose, that doesn’t mean it’s your path. They ain’t you!

I also think there’s a misconception that we think we need a *big* purpose to be happy. Humans are so cute. Sometimes we think it’s solely up to us to cause a major shift on this planet and be helpful to the masses in some way. That’s all well and good, but your purpose could just be to find happiness in life every day, or to lift others up by simply being consistently kind. Isn’t that beautiful?

Next, I don’t necessarily thing that we’re meant to have ONE purpose in our lives. That might be true for some, but humans are so multifaceted and multitalented that I find it hard to believe we are here just to be purposeful in one way.

Here’s a thought: why not just let life unfold, be yourself, and let your purpose find you? That’s what I did!

If you’re like me and you’ve struggled for a sense of direction on your quest for purpose, it’s hard to lock onto a vision because there has never been another you before so there isn’t necessarily a template or reference point.  

Ultimately I’ve come to believe that your purpose is very uniquely yours, based on all aspects of who you are and what individual life experiences you’ve had.

To me, your true purpose evolves out of a beautiful combination of:

• The things you like to do
• The things you’re naturally good at
• The skills you’ve acquired along your journey

And all of this aligns at the right time with the right opportunity. So don’t stress too much! If you don’t feel like you’ve got a grip yet, you will get a grip.

I used to assume I was lost, but now I realize I was just collecting experiences to better define my purpose.

While sometimes I wish my purpose was to eat myself to death via Honey Mustard Kettle Chips, at this point in my life I believe it’s to make people feel good and help them see their full potential – and I arrived at that conclusion while creating Vortex.

let life lead the way

When people visit Vortex, sometimes they’ll say “Wow this place is amazing! It must be a dream come true”. That couldn’t be further from the truth. I never wanted to be an entrepreneur. I’d never even considered it. When I was doing graphic and web design for a couple decades, I called myself a “freelancer” because it made me feel better that this job was unofficial and temporary.  

I never had aspirations of owning a business and I’ve never taken a business course. I did, however do almost everything else there is to do, and that has helped me tremendously in finding my place.

When it came to creating the first of its kind self-guided self-care studio, I figured I could do it because a) I was doing it with my hubby and b) I always figure things out.

When you build a business, there are a seemingly infinite number of jobs that need to be done in order for everything to launch and run smoothly. If you saw my resume, it probably wouldn’t make any sense that I would run a brick-and-mortar wellness studio, but when I break down all the experiences and skills I’ve acquired, it was actually kinda perfect.

Check this out:

From my early jobs in customer service, I learned how to listen and respond to other humans and their needs in a friendly and compassionate way… and now Vortex  has only 5-star reviews.

My geeky inclination toward computers and the internet lead me to design and build websites from a young age, and I branded, designed, and marketed Vortex from scratch.

My Drama education and time as an actor taught me performance, which is why our customer experience is amazing and I can hold my own on social media.

My time as an executive assistant taught me how to do everything from renewing passports last minute to buying airplane insurance… now I know I can figure out how to do absolutely anything.

My experience managing Toronto’s busiest yoga studio helped me remember hundreds of people’s names and ignited my passion for wellness.

My lifelong obsession with personal development and spiritual teachings helped me to view the world from different perspectives and constantly strive for growth via positive energy.

My time teaching meditation unearthed a natural ability to lead and inspire people via their personal connection.

My work in film, TV and theatre taught me attention to detail and the importance and production value and, from lighting to sound to staging, Vortex is dripping with attention to detail and production value.

My love of songwriting taught me to view things from multiple perspectives and organize my thoughts… and now you’re stuck reading these thoughts once a week ;)

I’ll stop there, but this isn’t even everything that’s added up over the years. As you can see, this list is pretty random, and it’s also very uniquely specific to me. (I also need to point out that obviously my incredible husbands vast skillset – namely interior design, finances and administrative magic – were invaluable in the creation of our studio… but we’re talking about me ;)

If you look at any of these things singularly, none of them really scream “you’re going to own a wellness studio in your home town one day!” Yet here we are.

I hope this illustrates for you just how interesting our individual journeys are, and how our life experiences can act at as little clues in finding what we’re meant to do in this world.

feel good first

It needs to be said: it’s so weird being a human. We can never be 100% sure exactly why we’re here or what we’re supposed to be doing. But isn’t that kind of awesome? There’s actually no rules. We get to live life day by day, dream by dream, try and make them come true, make a $#!% ton of mistakes along the way, and watch as those experiences shape the amazing individual that ends up inspiring others on their own journey. It’s the circle of life, baby!

Now, the first step to stumbling on your purpose is to feel good about yourself. Ain’t nobody gonna figure out their reason for living while they’ve got a f’d up nervous system!

That’s why I love my job. We basically host a big wellness party every day – everyone who comes here leaves feeling lighter in some way and, even though the sessions do all the work, we get to take credit for it! It’s awesome.

And so, even though I had no plans to be Daniel the Wellness Guy, here I am, signing off once again with gratitude that I get to make people feel good, and wishing the same sense of purpose for you.