Passion Leads to Action

Why “pursue your passion”?

The Passion Flower in my garden

Passion, intense feeling, typically refers to something we thoroughly enjoy doing, something that excites us, gets us going in the morning. Passion is what drives us to move past our perceived limitations, passion leads us to activities that make us truly happy.

Without passion, our lives would be quite bland, boring, drudgery, a lot of work and misery. It is passion that inspires enthusiasm, drives us to succeed despite the challenges... passion leads to action....passion fires our desire to achieve... passion sustains us when defeat seems imminent...

“A great leader's courage to fulfil his vision comes from passion, not position.” John Maxwell

“If there is no passion in your life, then have you really lived? Find your passion, whatever it may be. Become it, and let it become you and you will find great things happen FOR you, TO you and BECAUSE of you.” nhsalan

But what if you can't find your passion? What if little in life excites or inspires you? My first advice would be to see a doctor... seriously! A lack of passion can be indicative of a deep depression... But often a lack of passion comes from living a life dedicated to satisfying everyone else's wants and needs. In that case, we need to break through a lot of old conditioning to be able to “find our passion”.

Some clients come for a reading because they are lacking in passion, needing direction or focus in life. While often we can help them to notice some latent talents or to acknowledge their hidden desires, most often the task is to get the client thinking with a series of questions:

What do you enjoy doing,
what are you good at,
what did you like to do when you were a child,
what have you always wanted to try...

Too often we are afraid to pursue our passion... our old conditioning, fears of inadequacy – or success – get in our way. A client recently called wanting to make a big career change... she was a mature woman, many years of experience in her field, and she had a growing family to tend to... although her job paid very well, she was bored, felt unfulfilled, clearly lacked passion for her work. In the reading, I could see that she had some talent as a writer, which lead her to admit that she had wanted to write since she was a child, and now she was ready to take the risk, to look for ways of making money as a writer... Note that she was so afraid to admit what she wanted to do, or that she might be wrong in thinking she had the ability, that she didn't speak of her interest in a writing career, until after I saw it in the reading... In fact, she was barely able to tell me that she wanted to change careers at the beginning. Not surprising then, it was also obvious from the reading that such a change would be disastrous at this point in her life... she would be walking away from a good pension and still had one child to get through college – and there aren't a lot of high-paying jobs for writers, especially new writers... It was easy to understand why she felt stuck... afraid to even think of pursuing her passion.

In this case, there was an easy solution... I suggested that she could reclaim some of the passion for her day job by seeing it as a means to an end... a springboard to her heart work... the job could pay for a course in creative writing which would help her to get started on a writing career. Writing could be her avocation, a way of making some extra money – and fulfilling her dreams... Writing was her path to renewing passion in her life, and even in her job

Passion is complex. Like the passion flower, many layers, many elements must come together to inspire intense emotions in us... To find our passion, we must face our fears, we must be brave, willing to look into our souls to see what interests and drives us, what nurtures us and inspires us to action. What is so important to us that it is worth our risking our fortunes and even our lives to attain?

“Rest in reason; move in passion” Kahlil Gibran

By definition, passion is any intense emotion... and so we have crimes of passion and we can be excused for mistakes made in the heat of passion. True passion is not thoughtless however... Rage is certainly an intense emotion that drives us to action, but unless that is positive action, designed to correct or remove issues, such passion is wasted and will ultimately lead us to depression and listlessness.

“If passion drives you, let reason hold the reins.” Benjamin Franklin

It is not that we cannot or should not express our rage, in fact I have noticed that one of the first emotions that may need to be expressed with passion is anger... Before we can get to joy, enthusiasm and excitement about life, we need to dump the anger, the fear and the pain that has keep us from experiencing life with joyful passion.

Reasoned passion leads to greatness, but perhaps more importantly, passion leads us to enrich our lives, to fulfill our purpose... and to make the most of whatever abilities we have been blessed with... so... pursue your passion, and if you haven't found it yet, start looking.

In researching this article, I came upon some interesting information about the passion flower.

The Passion Flower in my garden

Passion Flower has a depressant effect like a sedative, and is hypotensive; it is used for it's sedative and soothing properties, to lower blood pressure, prevent tachycardia and for insomnia. It is the herb of choice for treating intransigent insomnia.

Although proven effective for edginess and insomnia, passion flower may also be used as a remedy for depression and nervous stomach.

It seems that passion flower is the antidote to too much passion. It can help is to calm down when feelings run high. But the herb can also calm our fears so we can connect with the passion in us – and get into action around our goals!