Blog 263 – Having A Purpose Helps You Leave The Pit – 27 May 2025

In Blog 262 I again talked about the value of yoga in helping me to meditate and leave the Pit of Depression and how I used breathing exercise drawn from yoga to increase my lung capacity.  As the repetition of the yoga exercises and the meditation gradually took hold in my body, not only did the rubbish thoughts start to disappear from my brain, but my ability to breathe increased dramatically.  As a noticeable side effect, the constant cloud of sadness began to lift.

There is one factor that I have not mentioned as yet.

A crucially important factor in my departure from the Pit was my awareness that I had a purpose.

When I was gasping for air in hospital, my purpose was easy to identify.

Margaret had untreatable and incurable cancer.  My purpose was to make sure I was there for every second that she needed me.  If I let myself die, she would die on her own and probably in needless pain and loneliness.  That was truly a purpose to live for.

Sometimes the purpose is not so easy to identify.

what possible purpose could I have after Margaret had died?

i had not just lost my wife.  I had lost the very reason I had struggled so hard to stay alive.  Finding my purpose after that was very hard.

In this Blog, I will talk about the importance of identifying your purpose and the role of your purpose in helping you leave the Pit.

****

My current purpose is deceptively simple.

My purpose is to give hope to those who have lost hope. Without hope, we remain lost in the Shadow Lands.

If you have no hope, I want to show you that hope really exists.  If you know there is hope for you, you will do everything you need to heal yourself.

There is no cell and there is no lock.

Walk away from the cell you think you are in.  It does not exist.

Even the cancer ghosters can walk away from the empty spaces they think are cells.

****

In the middle of a vast desert and in the middle of Karijini National Park located in the middle of the desert, I went for a swim on 20 March 2011.

****

Circular Pool is located in the middle of the desert within the boundaries of Karijini National Park.  It was 40 Celsius on 19 March 2011 and it was 37 next day when I took this photo.  Below the floor of the desert was an oasis with vegetation that had survived from thousands of years earlier – from before the desert became a desert.  I went for a swim! 

****

I do not know the science names for these plants but I do know there were not eucalyptus (gum trees in Australian slang).  A few metres above me, the gum trees struggled to live.  Here, next to this spring set below ground level, there were rain forest plants.  How extraordinary.

I took these photos on 20 March 2011..

****

 The below ground level pool was a large one – have a look!.

****

The four photos I show above, underline something very important – appearances are often exceptionally deceptive.

When you are sitting in the bottom of the Pit, everything looks black and meaningless.

When I was camped in the middle of the desert, I would have laughed if you had suggested I could walk for half a kilometre and have a swim.

The desert hummed with heat and I had driven hundreds of kilometres through bleak, waterless land.  I would have said it was impossible to swim in Karijini because the nearest water was hundreds of kilometres away.

I would have been wrong.

The nearest water was just a few hundred metres away from the sweltering, shadeless spot where I had pitched my tent.

To find it, all I had to do was follow a sign that said “Circular Pool”.

Even when I followed the sign, I did not believe I would actually find any water.  The start of path to the pool was very unpromising.  And yet the water was truly there.

When you are in the Pit, it seems there is no way out and nothing is worth living for.

That is why you need to recognise your own purpose.

Everyone has a purpose.

Nothing except your own heart can tell you what your purpose is.

If anyone insists to claim to know what your purpose really is – turn away.

Your purpose is whatever your heart tells you.

Your purpose does not have to be Presidential.  Who wants to have that type of responsibility?

Perhaps you want to pick up lolly wrappers in the local primary school.

Perhaps you want to teach you daughter how to drive a car.

Perhaps you want to learn how to bake scones.

perhaps you want to watch the grass grown and listen to the wind blow.

Whatever your purpose is, it is a good one.

Write your purpose down and place it where you can see it often – just like I do at the start of these Blogs.  Remind yourself of your purpose whenever you feel the blues creeping back .

When you act with purpose, you add meaning to your life.

When you add meaning to your life, you will immediately see the way out of the Pit.

****

I will tell you more tomorrow.

Find your purpose and walk out of the Pit.

You can do it.