Soul's Mission vs Mind's Desires: Understanding What You Really Need
"Sometimes not getting what you want is a wonderful stroke of luck." — Dalai Lama
There's a tension between what we think we want and what we truly need to fulfill our soul's purpose. In my experience, these two don't always align—and for good reason.
Your personality self operates from a place of self-preservation, clinging to what feels safe, socially acceptable, and familiar. It works within the boundaries of your current identity, protecting you from discomfort and keeping you tethered to the known. This part of you cannot fathom the potential that lives on the other side of uncertainty, challenge, and transformation.
Your soul, however, sees differently.
Your higher self recognizes the paths that will stretch you, the wounds that need healing to set you free, and the experiences that will crack you open to become who you're meant to be. While your personality seeks comfort, your soul seeks growth. While your mind wants guarantees, your soul is willing to walk through fire—because it came here for exactly that: to evolve, expand, and transform.
What happens when these two forces collide? Let me show you through my own journey—from resisting my path to finally surrendering to it.
What You Need vs What You Want
I never wanted to run a business. What I REALLY wanted was financial stability—a steady salaried job with a long-term contract, eventually becoming a head of department. Security. Respectability. A clear path forward.
Only I did a theatre degree and went into arts administration where I discovered that didn't exist. In my whole adult life I have never had a permanent contract. I don't think that's an accident.
Deep down, I knew a steady job would make me desperately unhappy. I became a project manager to avoid boredom, but even that wasn't enough. Once I mastered the team, the company, the work—I was done. I love to learn, and as soon as I stop learning, I want to press eject.
I fought being self-employed for years, constantly applying for jobs. Yet self-employment gave me everything I actually needed: the freedom I craved, the constant learning curve, the ability to create my own timetable and work with people who inspire me. Now, as a solopreneur, I'm learning all the time—how to create and build a business, developing skills as a healer, constantly evolving.
Here's the key insight: A 'steady contract' was not what I needed to be happy, expansive and my authentic self. But I didn't know myself well enough to see that. My higher self knew. My personality's fear-based decision making did not.
This is the friction we all encounter—the gap between chasing what we 'think' we want and what we actually need to evolve and discover our soul's purpose.
Chasing what wasn't for me felt like raking water up a hill, or grabbing at a mirage that vanished as I got close. My efforts came to nothing. Yet once I started learning healing, there was a grace behind it, an energy and momentum that flowed. I was finally in the 'right lane' and getting traction.
When we're off track from our soul mission, we get redirected—and we won't get support to keep wandering in the wrong direction. It doesn't mean you won't encounter challenges when you're on the right track, but it won't feel like the universe is constantly taking the wind out of your sails.
The Catalyst and the Challenge
So what forces us to change direction? External events become catalysts that demand transformation—death, trauma, redundancy, bankruptcy. For me, it came as an injury.
In my mid-20s, after leaving the arts, ending a long-term relationship, and letting go of my yoga practice, I came home to Norwich to regroup. I started temping at the county council while training in Shiatsu. I still wanted that steady job with a paycheck.
Instead, at 28, I got RSI in both wrists from one episode of volleyball.
I couldn't use my arms consistently or reliably for 2-3 years. Typing in an office was impossible. The only thing I could do occasionally was light touch shiatsu—I couldn't type or lift anything without burning pain and muscle fatigue. The universe, or my subconscious, said a hard and clear NO.
I pieced together freelance work when I could, hoping for good days. Thank goodness for my family and the shiatsu and my then Buddhist community. It's uncomfortable to think back to now—a time when I had to dig deep and heal as best I could.
The injury was peeling back layers of emotional trauma that was bursting out of my body. Beginning to face my childhood trauma was never something I wanted to do. Who does?
But it was something I needed to do. It would become the gateway to my personal purpose.
Western medicine told me there was no cure, only paracetamol and rest. But I wanted my life back. I had to create change. I had to change. I didn't have a choice. This was the start of a deeper journey into self-healing.
The Dark Night
I can see and understand this all now, with hindsight. But at the time I was truly in the dark, feeling hopeless, lost, terrified, alone, clueless, enraged, pessimistic. I didn't want to be alive.
Years later, reading 'Waking the Tiger' by Peter Levine, I realized: oh, I have trauma symptoms. These feelings had followed me since childhood, hitting more intensely at tough times. I could finally name what was happening, which meant I could look for solutions. But at that moment, I was face to face with it all.
I didn't know if I would ever heal. No one understood what I was going through. I could see everyone else getting on with their lives while I was scrabbling.
I had lived with almost daily panic attacks since I was a teenager, but this was on another level. I just kept going, following intuitive nudges, not sure what I was doing. I continued my training, tried to untangle the inner mess, learning more about the subconscious mind-body connection.
This trauma response would explode again at 37, lasting a year and a half after I became a Mum during COVID. This time I found the right practices to help me finally recover: EFT and bodycode.
None of it was what I wanted. I was barely able to function, shaking with terror pouring my cereal, living in survival mode. But it was what was needed. There was nowhere to hide. I was cornered and rinsed of layers of trauma.
When we have a soul calling, it can require intense leveling up and breakthroughs in consciousness. These are rites of passage where invaluable wisdom is gained. We come to know ourselves on the deepest levels. This lived experience is powerful—it's how we become leaders in our fields. But at the time, we're just trying to make it through the day.
The Transformation
At the beginning of this breakdown in my 20s, a well-meaning doctor said about my panic attacks: 'It's just the way you are built, there's nothing you can do'.
I looked at him and immediately thought 'You're wrong'.
I knew inside this wasn't 'it'—not the only way I could live. There was a way to heal, another solution. I remember thinking: I'm going to heal, and when I do, I'm going to help others recover.
I didn't have the answers, but I had intention and determination. I was still a mess for years, but my intuition told me there was a way. If western medicine couldn't give the solution I needed, so I turned to alternative medicine. I knew the powerful impact of yoga and acupuncture, so I had a starting point.
I started shiatsu training at 28 to understand the mind-body connection. My panic attacks arose with waves of memories—I knew my subconscious and body were strongly linked. I needed to access the subconscious material that was stuck. This led me to EFT, then bodycode, and eventually to developing my own practice: Intuitive Channeling and energy healing.
Not everyone who recovers from trauma needs to become a healer. For many of my clients, the journey simply frees up their energy to move out of survival mode and onto their path of purpose. But for wounded healers, the journey gives us lived experience so we can guide others. We have to go through it first.
In my mid-30s, during the worst bout of trauma response that lasted a year and a half, a shaman in training said: 'You're going through this because you are strong enough to handle it, and then you will help others'.
I sat there, body shaking with suppressed terror, thinking: I don't feel strong. Not one bit.
Now when I complain to my guides about a rough healing process, they give me the side eye. I think of that year and a half—the toughest of the tough—and realize, it's not that bad in comparison. For some of us, transformation is a rough ride. I say this to normalize it, not scare you. If you're struggling now, it doesn't mean it will always be this way.
Three people who knew me five years ago saw me recently and didn't recognize me at all. Not because of my haircut or middle age—they said I felt like a different person. They were shocked. Close friends say the same. When we truly transform, we do it on a molecular level. Our whole energy field changes.
This is possible for each of us, if we set the intention to change, put that into action, and are persistent.
Trust the Redirection
"I firmly believe that what we perceive as rejection is actually redirection." — Whitney Wolfe Herd, Bumble creator
Would I have chosen to go through all of that on purpose? No, absolutely not. My personality self would never have signed up for it. But my higher self did.
I always wanted to help people and teach—I just thought I'd do that through the arts. Turns out, that wasn't my way. I was being completely redirected and transformed into a Channel, healer and mentor. A role I never aimed for, that unfolded through my personal journey of self-healing.
A friend said to me recently, 'You look good… I think it's the look of contentment'. She was right. I finally feel I've found my place in this world and my true calling. It gives me a deep sense of contentment.
Isn't that what we're all longing for?
Evolving and Your Purpose
I'm grateful to be of an age where I can look back at those hard transitions and say: I'm glad that happened.
Not getting the man I wanted. A long-term relationship ending when I thought it would be marriage. Going for jobs I really wanted and losing out. Leaving communities I loved because I knew it was right for my evolution. Look what opened up when I let go. Look at who I became. In some cases—I dodged a bullet!
We've all experienced this. The heartbreak over someone who didn't love us back, only to realize five years later we dodged that bullet. Getting made redundant, which was terrifying, only to discover the toxic atmosphere was slowly killing us. Sometimes what we think we want is not what we need.
Our personality doesn't see our full potential—how much more expansive life can be, how much more we can become. It doesn't have the vision of our higher self, what's coming or what we need to learn. We often only see this with hindsight, when at the time it's messy, uncomfortable, and we feel lost.
This is why following our intuition is invaluable. Intuition is the receiver for direct insight from our higher self about our direction and path. If we have a soul mission—a role to play on earth to support the evolution of collective consciousness—then our soul holds the blueprint and memory of what that is.
The path unfolds as you evolve. Your evolution enables you to become who you need to be to deliver the work. As that happens, insights about the work itself are revealed piece by piece. But you are the project, the vehicle first and foremost. Start there.
Your higher self knows what you need, even when your personality can't see it. Trust your intuition. Trust the redirection. Trust the process. Trust that not getting what you want might be exactly what you need to become who you're meant to be.
