What compels someone to put in the years of study and effort necessary to write and publish a book? Certainly, they have to be passionate about the topic and willing to get to the bottom of things. But it’s more than that.
I wanted to discover what led great men and women to discover and fulfill their personal life missions. But I also wanted to figure out why so many women, especially mothers, are spending their lives depressed and unfulfilled when they have everything at their fingertips – even beautiful children waiting to learn from and be led by them.
When my research made it clear that life purpose and NOT HAPPINESS, was the key to a rewarding and joyful life, I was willing to pay any price to discover what life mission really is and more important how each of us can live ours everyday.
Watch the “7 Laws of Life Mission” FB Live Training in The Mission Driven Mom Mastermind FB Group!
Full Transcript
Many years ago, I lived in a neighborhood with a friend who was a pharmacist. She worked at a pharmacy near a university that was close to our homes. One day I mentioned to her that I kept hearing about more and more women that we’re getting on to antidepressants. This was becoming a concern to me and so I asked her about it.
She said, “Audrey you cannot believe how much the numbers are climbing! Where it used to be predominantly women, more and more men are getting on to antidepressants. Every year there’s this huge percentage leap in the number of students from the University campus that are coming over to my pharmacy and getting antidepressant prescriptions for themselves.”
This is something that I have thought and have been concerned about for a long time. A couple years ago I was watching a TED talk. I can’t remember the speakers, she’s a researcher on human love and how the brain works when we’re in love. As part of her presentation she gave out a warning about antidepressants because she said, “We can’t know what their long-term impact is going to be on our physiology. That can be very dangerous for us! We are flattening out our emotions and we don’t know how that will harm us long term.”
As part of this warning, she said something that has stuck with me ever since. She said in the previous year, this was three or four years ago now, there were 100 million – 100 million antidepressant prescriptions written in the United States alone! I have thought so much about that.
In the meantime, if you know anything about my book The Mission Driven Life, you’ll remember that I share some reasons why I wrote the book but I want to talk for just a minute about another really important reason why I wrote it.
Because I was fascinated with life mission, I wanted to know what made it truly happen for people. I wanted to discover the difference between people who had a really positive impact on society and people who were really powerful but had a negative impact on society. All those things fascinated me. But additionally, I have spent many years pondering and researching WHY, as a nation, we are depressed, anxious and flocking to therapists like never before in the history of the world. It’s very disturbing to me. And I’ve discovered that it’s specifically because we don’t have purpose.
In the sixties, Bibles were taken out of the schools. Our religious systems began to really break down. At one point the Bible was our National Book. It was read by everyone and talked about by everyone. Today that has completely changed. The number of people that have actually read the Bible; especially the complete Bible is a very small percentage of our nation. We don’t have that glue, that moral foundation, that set of values that holds us together anymore.
And it gave us a sense of purpose, meaning and connection with God.
Now, we’re emotionally and spiritually broken. Many are spiritually bankrupt, thus the rise in addictive behaviors. Addiction is rampant with all kinds of addictions and addiction recovery centers are all over the country. It’s a major, major, major problem.
If you’ve watched my post The Three Reasons Moms Must Pursue Life Mission, you’ll remember that I talked about Viktor Frankl and his work before World War II and after. He developed new brand of therapy called “Logotherapy” which meant meaning therapy. Before WWII he used this approach to help teenagers who were committing suicide over tests that they were forced to take. Later, he also helped concentration camp and war victims and others who had really been taken advantage of or victimized by this war. He helped them find meaning and purpose in their lives and saved them from depression and suicide.
He was just one person that showed me how important life purpose is. I wanted to understand why purpose had such a profound effect on people. I especially wanted to discover how someone could go about finding life purpose or mission. “How can a person find life mission?” I asked myself. “More importantly, can there be a formula to it? Is there a way for it to happen consistently? Was there something the greats could teach us about how they discovered their life mission?”
For example, my husband helps a lot of couples. He used to say all the time that although you could find couples who have happy marriages, when you you ask them why they have a happy marriage, they often say things like, “Well, we never fight.” Or, “We go on a date once a week.” Those are good answers, they’re part of the formula, but usually these couples can’t actually tell you how they got there. Even many of these greats that I was studying couldn’t communicate to me, “This is how we got there.”
I had to find the formula for myself.
When I finally had studied enough to discovered the laws of life mission and I was watching them work in my own life and home, I wanted to share them with the world! Why? Because we are depressed, we’re addicted, we’re anxious, we’re unhappy and we’re unfulfilled. When we make that connection with God and when we prepare ourselves for mission, so much of those struggles fall away. I’m not saying there’s not clinical depression and I’m not saying this is a catch-all solution for every person in every scenario but I am saying that much of the time those things fall away when we get on the path to life mission.
It reminds me of a really close friend at one point. She kept coming to me and complaining about her husband and all the things she didn’t like about him. I knew that they had trouble in their marriage but I kept saying to her, “Look, you have to find what’s yours. The only way you’re going to stop obsessing about this marriage is if you find what’s yours.”
That’s what life mission is! That’s why I want to focus specifically on moms. Of course, I wrote the book The Mission Driven Life for a broad audience. Anybody can read that, take the 7 Laws into their lives and work on life mission. But here at The Mission Driven Mom, we’re talking about motherhood because moms are in this really special niche; in this really special place where we can’t just run off and do something full-time that we really love doing. We have to find the balance
You know what I think? I think this is an amazing opportunity! I think that instead of it being something that holds us back – instead of motherhood being a limitation, like so many in the feminist movement wanted us to believe – it’s actually an opportunity.
A chance to become more than we could have become. It’s a chance to expand our capacity, to learn how to love in deeper and more meaningful ways and to take that information into motherhood and then out into the world and make a difference in our communities as well. And as we do, we show our children how to do that in their lives. We are modeling that for them.
So, I wrote the book so that we could have something higher and bigger to work toward. Something elevated to reach for. Something that inspires us and motivates us to help us get out of this funk that we’re stuck in with these addictions, depressions and anxieties. I know that life mission can do that for us if we’ll follow and obey each of those 7 Laws.
I want to invite you to a Facebook Live training this week with me in The Mission Driven Mom Mastermind Facebook group where we are going to go more in depth than these 7 Laws. Since the book was s written just about the ten Booms, I’m going to tell you some stories about some other mission driven people who also lived the 7 Laws. I’m going to answer your questions specifically about the book and about these 7 Laws. It’s going to be awesome!
If you’re already in the group please pass this on to friends that you think would really enjoy this opportunity to discuss this book in depth because they have to be part of the group in order to join us. Share this and encourage them to join the group so they can be there with us this week on that Facebook Live.
If you don’t have a copy of The Mission Driven Life, please go to TheMissionDrivenMom.com and grab a copy. Start reading it so that you get on that mission path and especially so that you can get on this Facebook Live with us and talk to us about the book. Make sure to bring any questions to me specifically that you might have about the book. Remember, that you do have a mission. God has an important life work for you. All you have to do is prepare yourself for that work and then hear the call when it comes.