"What am I here for?"
The question that haunts modern life, usually in quiet moments
We can distract ourselves from it for years—with work, with entertainment, with the endless scroll of information. But the question doesn't go away. It waits. And when we don't answer it, our bodies often answer for us—through fatigue that sleep doesn't fix, through restlessness that achievement doesn't satisfy, through a persistent sense that something essential is missing.
This is not a character flaw. It is a signal.
Purpose as Foundation of Health
We have come to think of health as a physical matter—eat well, exercise, sleep enough, manage stress. And these things matter enormously. But there is a deeper layer that conventional wellness rarely addresses: the health of having a reason to exist.
Viktor Frankl, the psychiatrist who survived Auschwitz, observed that those who endured the camps often shared one thing in common: a sense of purpose that pulled them forward. He built an entire therapeutic approach around this insight, recognizing that humans can endure almost any how if they have a why.
Modern research increasingly confirms what ancient wisdom always knew: purpose is not a luxury that comes after survival needs are met—it is itself a survival need. People with a strong sense of purpose live longer, recover faster from illness, experience less cognitive decline, and report higher wellbeing at every income level.
At Nature's Place, we consider purpose discovery to be foundational work—not something to figure out after you've healed, but part of the healing itself. When you know why you're here, the body relaxes. The mind quiets. Energy that was scattered in confusion becomes available for living.
The Soul Contract
Many wisdom traditions share a remarkable idea: that we chose to be here. Not randomly assigned to this life, but drawn to it—for reasons that may not be immediately apparent to our conscious minds.
This is the concept of the soul contract—the notion that before birth, at some level of our being, we selected the circumstances, challenges, and gifts that would serve our evolution. The family we were born into, the wounds we carry, the talents that come easily, the struggles that don't resolve no matter how hard we try—all of it curriculum, chosen by a wiser part of ourselves for purposes we are here to discover.
This is not fatalism. The contract is not a script to follow blindly but a map to read consciously. Free will operates within it: we can fulfill our purpose elegantly or clumsily, swiftly or after long detours, with grace or through suffering. The contract sets the assignment; how we complete it remains ours to choose.
The question becomes: how do we read the map? How do we remember what we came here to do?
Fortunately, humanity has developed several powerful systems for exactly this inquiry.
Three Paths to Purpose Discovery
These systems are not competitors. They are different languages describing the same underlying reality: that you came here for a reason, that the reason can be discovered, and that living in alignment with it produces health, vitality, and meaning.
Astronomical Cosmological Astrology
Astronomically accurate astrology that calculates planetary positions according to where they actually appear in the sky.
Learn more →Human Design
A synthesis of I Ching, Kabbalah, chakra system, and quantum physics revealing your unique energetic blueprint.
Learn more →Archetype Analysis
The Hero's Journey and Jungian archetypes—reading purpose through the patterns of your lived experience.
Learn more →Multiple Maps, One Territory
Some people resonate immediately with astrological symbolism. Others find Human Design's mechanical precision more accessible. Still others need to see the pattern in their own story before abstract systems make sense. There is no hierarchy—only what works for you.
At Nature's Place, we use all of these approaches in service of the same goal: helping you remember what you already know but may have forgotten. Your soul contract was not written in a language foreign to you. It was written by you, in your own symbolic vocabulary. The right system is simply the translator that helps you read what you yourself once wrote.
The Invitation
Purpose is not something you invent. It is something you uncover. The dissatisfaction you feel when life lacks meaning is not a problem to be solved but a signal to be followed. It is your deeper self knocking, asking to be let in.
The answer is not hiding. It is waiting to be recognized.