You do have an internal guidance system that can direct you to a satisfying life.

You do deserve to experience satisfaction about your life because we all do, and we all can. Life satisfaction is not a limited resource.

I guarantee there is something you can do or a way you can be today that will move toward a more satisfying life.

Make sure the answer to this question is something that you can do or a way you can be. (If all your answers depend on your external circumstances to change, then the question won’t be very helpful. See “Here and There” below.)

By satisfaction, I’m talking about that deep sense of “rightness” when you access your potential, meet the moment, face your fears, be your best self, open your heart, truly feel the joy sadness or longing you’ve been repressing, reach out to a person you love, have compassion for yourself, or connect with the divine.

What could you do, or how could you be right now in order to access that sense of satisfaction?

Our life satisfaction can come in infinite ways and directions. Having worked with people for many years, their answer to this question often comes in one (or more) of these four categories, so this can be a good place to start.

You came into this life with a mission, something you intend to accomplish while on Earth. It’s been called your vocation, your dharma, or your calling. It can be many things, or it can be one thing. It can be a way of serving others, serving the planet, learning lessons of trust, humility, or courage. The one common thread is that fulfilling your purpose feels deeply satisfying.

You may not know your purpose.  I spent years not knowing mine, but looking back I recognize that figuring out my purpose has been a big part of my purpose.

What is your satisfying work to do?

This is our relationship with whatever higher power is at play. It may be the great organism of Earth, it may be a monotheistic God, it may be the interplay of divine energies, it may be the movement of the stars. These beliefs can change based on our circumstances. It can be deeply satisfying to examine beliefs and ask if they still fit. It can be threatening if questioning beliefs puts us at odds with our family or community, but following the thread of satisfaction can help us stay true to ourselves and our values through this complicated terrain.

Some of us aren’t sure what place we have in the universe.  We think we may be an accident, or a mistake.  Others may believe we are the naughty children of a punitive God.  A deep dive into exploring these ideas could potentially have a big impact on the ability to live a satisfying life.

Whether or not you consider yourself an artist, every single human being feels good when they get to share some part of their unique experience with the world. Sure it can be in the forms we traditionally call the creative arts: music, painting, sculpture, dance.

But it also includes the way you tell a joke, your hairstyle (or wig, or scalp!), your tattoos, your clothing; even the way you walk can be uniquely you. Tune into the satisfaction of your self-expression.

Where does your satisfaction guide you regarding the quality of your connections? There may be people you know who you want to see more often. You may want to start the process of making new friends. You may want to deepen or repair your emotional bond with a partner or spouse.

This is usually with other living people, but not exclusively. In many traditions, people feel deep connections with deceased relatives, guardian angels, or other non-visible beings. At certain times in my life, I’ve leaned heavily on my sense of connection with writers and poets who are no longer alive.

Let yourself tune into your guidance toward the most satisfying relationships.

There’s typically a huge “BUT” when we begin looking toward a more satisfying life. “I could move toward more satisfaction if it weren’t for X!” That’s the obstacle.

Obstacles are part of our curriculum. They just come with the territory. The only way to avoid obstacles is to avoid life. In order to intentionally move toward more satisfaction, you’ll need to develop skill at dealing with the obstacles.

I’ve found four questions helpful in this work. When I hit an obstacle, I’ll pause and interview it to find out it’s role in my life.

Ask each obstacle:

Sometimes obstacles simply need to be addressed. This can especially be true for internal obstacles like certain types fear and anxiety. Or admitting something to yourself that you’ve been avoiding. Stop running from it, turn and face it, and sometimes the obstacle is resolved.

This is the most common answer in my experience. Our satisfaction can come from fighting the good fight; not letting depression keep us from living, not letting corporate interests continue to exploit the planet, not letting financial stress ruin our children’s happiness, not letting intimidation stop you from taking a risk, not letting someone else’s anger keep you from being yourself, not letting violence continue unchecked.

After years of pushing against obstacles large and small, I realize we must not be naive.  Some situations of injustice will long outlast our short lives.  But it is our full engagement, doing all we can for what’s right, that brings the satisfaction.  These obstacles are here to be fought, and we must accept the challenge.

Sometimes obstacles are here to make us acknowledge our limits and reach out to others. There’s a different flavor of satisfaction that hides underneath humility, the feeling of asking for and receiving help. Personally, this is my most difficult obstacle. I will try the other three options multiple times before even considering that I may need to ask for help.

Thankfully(?), these types of obstacles can be very patient and persistent. They’ll stick around until I get over myself and find the right help.

Strangely enough, there are times that an obstacle simply needs to be given up. Most obstacles can’t be avoided and must be addressed with the three options above, but there are some obstacles that are here to teach us how to let go.

As one example, I’ve seen this happen with heavy grief. There comes a point where someone stops asking, “How do I live with this overwhelming sadness?” and recognizes instead that it’s time to move on.

This can also happen in relationships. After struggling for years with a contentious relationship with her father, a middle-aged woman realized that this wasn’t her fight any longer. After years of trying to climb over that mountain, she could finally shrug her shoulders and take a path around the mountain.

If you walked into a bank with your hard-earned paycheck, and the teller turns and hands it to a shady person in a trenchcoat who sticks it in their pocket and walks out the door, would you keep going to that bank? No!

Don’t pour water into a bucket with a hole, and don’t put your money in a bank that steals your money.

There are three thieves who work on the inside to make sure you never get to experience your hard-earned satisfaction.

This is the criminal mastermind of the soul. Shame will drain every bit of your account, no matter how hard you work and how much you earn. Shame has you believe that you don’t deserve to feel satisfied.

There’s a lot to say about working with shame; where it comes from, what it’s trying to do, and how to overcome it. Suffice it to say, it’s lying: deserving has nothing to do with it.

Feeling satisfaction is your birthright, and it’s your best tool for creating a good life, not something you have to qualify for. Period.

If you’ve ever tried to describe yourself on a job application or on social media, you’re describing your conscious self. Your full self is way, way bigger than that.

We humans are massively complex beings, and we’re only aware of a tiny part of our full selves. Along the way, parts of our massive, complex self inevitably get “put away” or “repressed.”

Robert Bly refers to this as a “sack” into which we put all our qualities that are undesirable for ourselves or others. That “sack” is your shadow, and those repressed qualities drain our energy and satisfaction.

One common example is how young women are trained to “be sweet” and avoid getting angry.  Their natural power, anger, and rage get shoved into their sack, and not only does this often manifest later as bodily symptoms, it leaves her more vulnerable to exploitation, and can also drain her well-deserved satisfaction with life.

Our nervous systems are built to keep us alive, and fear is a natural response to a threatening situation. Unfortunately, many elements of modern society can keep our fear response elevated to levels that aren’t helpful or sustainable.

Other factors, such as trauma, poverty, abusive relationships, and more can make an elevated fear response the norm. It’s like living with a car engine that’s at full throttle all the time; it’s going to keep running out of gas! When your fear system is jacked up, it’s hard to experience satisfaction.

As a general rule, satisfaction is a combination of two opposing forces: Accepting and Desiring. The more we can fully accept our present circumstance, while also fully desiring to grow and improve, the more we can live in satisfaction.

Ken Wilber describes this movement as “transcend and include.” We naturally desire to grow and transcend our present circumstance, while also learning to fully accept and include where we are. There is a bit of a paradox here, but our deepest satisfaction comes with a combination of full acceptance, and the natural movement toward growth.

A good example would be political activism, which is most sustainable when we can fully accept the present circumstance, and at the same time demand change for the better. Reading the diary of Mohandas Gandhi, you can see both elements at play. He lived in full acceptance of the present moment, including the violence of British colonial rule. He could also devote his entire life to demanding justice and refusing to participate in an oppressive system.

We can also live in both the Here (full acceptance) and There (full desire for change) at any level. I can accept my depression, and work to overcome it. I can accept that my supervisor has a personal vendetta against me, and I can figure out the best possible way to respond with self-respect. I can accept that the injustice of ongoing racism exists, and continue learning how to stop my part in it.