The Myth of the Hidden Calling: You Don’t Find Your Purpose. You Make It.

A guide to re-emergence after life’s great transitions — with journal prompts, a Tarot spread, and a guided meditation with Goddess Isis.

The Clearing

You’ve arrived somewhere you didn’t expect.

Maybe the job ended. Not with a dignified exit, but with a Zoom call and a cardboard box’s worth of dignity. Maybe the caregiving ended, and now the house is quiet in a way that feels less like peace and more like absence. Maybe the marriage, the city, the identity you built around a role that no longer exists.

Maybe your parents just sold your childhood home and you’re realizing, for the first time, that the safety net of “I can always go back” was never a place. It was a feeling. And now it’s gone.

A woman commented on one of my posts recently. She said: “I just wish I knew what my calling IS. I thought it was taking care of my parents, but they’re both gone now. I’m still figuring out who I am without them.”

I felt that in my bones.

We don’t talk enough about these deaths. Not the dramatic, lights-out kind. The slower kind. The spiritual death that comes when the conditions that made you you suddenly change—and you’re left standing in a clearing, wondering who the hell you’re supposed to be now.

Here’s what everyone will tell you: find your purpose. Discover your calling. Decode your natal chart, your Human Design, your Enneagram, your Tarot spread. The answer is in there somewhere, buried like treasure in your psyche, and if you just dig deep enough, you’ll finally know what you’re supposed to do with your one wild and precious life.

I’m going to tell you something different.

The Myth That Keeps You Stuck

It really bums me out to see so many people trying to “find their purpose” like it’s hidden treasure buried in their psyche or their natal chart or MBTI or a Tarot reading.

Babe. It’s not waiting to be discovered. It’s you.

Purpose is something you make from your gifts, not “find.” And you make it daily. It compounds. Look at your chart or Human Design or whatever you use as tools for making that purpose, rather than a fated path in and of itself.

The “hidden calling” myth keeps people in seeking mode forever. If your purpose is buried somewhere, you just need to keep digging—more readings, more assessments, more courses, more waiting for that lightning bolt of clarity that never seems to come.

But here’s what I’ve learned from 15 years of Tarot, a decade of working with Goddess Isis, and more career transitions than I can count on one hand: clarity doesn’t come from more information. It comes from action meeting reflection. From trying things and noticing what lights you up and what drains you dry. From paying attention to what keeps coming back, even when you try to abandon it for something more “practical.”

Your chart shows you your tools, not your destination.

Your calling isn’t written anywhere. It’s emergent. It comes from you interacting with the world—and when the conditions that shaped “you” change, you don’t need to find yourself.

You need to re-emerge.

The Raw Materials

When I broke into the tech industry, I felt like I had won the lottery. Not only was it really hard to go from teacher to freelancer to tech girlie, but it took a lot of luck. I didn’t want to miss the chance at financial stability, so I threw myself — with devotion — into my new career.

I’m embarrassed to admit how much of myself I abandoned in order to do that.

I stopped painting entirely — something I’d loved since childhood — because I didn’t see it as “productive.” I stopped sewing because handmade clothes didn’t “fit in.” I completely changed my personal style to match my new role. I abandoned poetry writing, which had been my spiritual practice for years.

I got food subscription services so I could spend less time cooking and more time working (plus plenty of DoorDash). I was drinking heavily to socialize after work, even though it gave me migraines, because I believed building relationships was more important than my health. I took pride in how busy I was, while having no time or energy for friends or family.

I modulated my voice and vocabulary to sound more “professional.” I hid my spiritual practices completely, worried they’d damage my credibility. I performed a version of femininity that wasn’t mine.

And the biggest one: I turned down a fully-funded PhD in anthropology I’d worked so hard for, because now I had a “stable” tech job.

Cries in layoffs.

Each sacrifice felt small at the time. Practical. Smart, even. But collectively, they left me feeling like I was playing a character in someone else’s story. Collectively, they made me feel like I was falling apart.

These are what I call scattered pieces — the parts of yourself that get distributed across conference rooms, Zoom calls, office politics, “strategy” offsites, performance reviews, and “culture fit” conversations until you look in the mirror and barely recognize the person staring back.

Scattered pieces don’t just come from corporate death. They come from any role that asked you to become someone else for a time. To perform a role, some parts of you inevitably get left behind.

The devoted daughter who organized her entire adult life around her parents’ needs. The wife who slowly edited herself to fit the marriage. The mother who forgot she existed outside of her children. The employee who gave everything to a company that would replace her in a week.

When those roles end — by choice or by force — you’re left with a question that feels impossible to answer: Who am I without the thing I organized my life around?

The Goddess Who Gathered Scattered Pieces

There’s an ancient story that’s been guiding me through my own transitions for over a decade.

Osiris was the first King of Egypt. When he was 28, he was murdered by Set, his jealous brother. The Goddess Isis — his wife, his partner, his queen — was stricken with a grief so terrifying that her wails caused people to die of fright.

She recovered the body. But Set found it. He proceeded to dismember Osiris into 14 pieces and scattered them across the entire land of Egypt.

And here’s where it gets interesting.

Isis refused to accept this as the end of the story. Even in her grief — especially in her grief — she knew she wielded great magic.

She searched everywhere. Marshlands. Cities. Temples. She gathered each piece of Osiris with fierce devotion. And when she found them all, she used her magic to resurrect him just long enough to conceive an heir: Horus, who would grow up to reclaim the throne.

But Osiris didn’t come back to life exactly as he was before. He became the Lord of the Underworld — a guide of souls, the god of death and rebirth and fertility. His old kingdom lived on through Isis and Horus.

Isis took each piece of his body back to the place she had found it. She buried them, and those locations became sacred ground. Temples formed. Cities sprang up around them.

Her journey of gathering transformed the entire landscape. It brought cosmology down into the tangible world of maps, geography, and society.

What This Means for You

This story offers a blueprint on that quest to “find your purpose.”

Isis didn’t go looking for the meaning of Osiris’s death. She didn’t sit in the clearing asking “what am I supposed to do now?” She didn’t wait for a sign.

She went looking.

And from those pieces — gathered with grief and love and fierce determination — she created something new. Not a return to what was. A resurrection into what could be.

Your resurrection after any kind of spiritual death won’t be about recovering your 22-year-old self or returning to some idealized past version of who you were. You’ve gained too much wisdom, come too far, and seen too much to turn back the clock.

But what you can do is acknowledge what was lost. Gather back the authentic expressions of you. And integrate them into your next chapter.

Some pieces will be easy to find. Others will require deep excavation. But they’re still there. They’re not gone. They’re just scattered across the landscape of your life, waiting to become sacred ground for future growth.

Your Scattered Pieces: What to Look For

So what got scattered for you?

Take the holistic view.

What did you trade in for “professionalism”? What parts of your authentic self did you hide? Your accent, your humor, your political beliefs, your spirituality, your creative expression?

What did you sacrifice to the altar of “productivity”? What hobbies, relationships, rest, or joy did you abandon because they weren’t “useful” or “career-advancing”?

What did you lose to conformity? What dreams, values, or versions of yourself did you leave behind to “fit in” or “move up”?

What was stolen by burnout? What aspects of yourself—patience, creativity, curiosity, integrity, hope—were consumed by chronic stress and overwork?

What did you give away to your role? What did the good daughter, the devoted wife, the perfect mother, the loyal employee require you to bury?

Here are some pieces I’ve helped clients gather:

• Reading fiction (abandoned because it felt “frivolous”)
• Niche, nerdy interests (hidden to seem more “normal”)
• Playing music, dancing, or making art
• Dreams of creative fields (dismissed as “impractical”)
• Gut instincts and intuition (overridden by “data-driven decisions”)
• Authentic enthusiasm (masked to avoid being “too much”)
• Playful spirit (buried under forced seriousness)
• Ethical values (compromised to succeed in broken systems)
• Friends who weren’t “professionally useful”
• Any sense of what actually brings joy outside of achievement

Too often, we’re told these are just unfortunate side effects of building a life. But these are your scattered pieces. And like Isis, you have the power to gather them again.

The Practice: Making Your Calling

I’m not going to tell you to meditate on your purpose until the answer reveals itself. That’s seeking mode. That’s the myth we’re here to bust. (And I road I’ve been down too many times, just to come up empty.)

Instead, I’m going to give you tools for making.

Journal Prompts

Get a pen. Actual paper. Give yourself at least 30 minutes.

1. What did you love doing before you learned to ask “but is it useful?” Go back as far as you need to. Childhood counts. Teenage obsessions count. That weird thing you were into in college that you never talk about anymore—that definitely counts.
2. What ideas keep returning to you, no matter how many times you dismiss them? The persistent ones. The ones that won’t leave you alone even when you’ve told them a hundred times that you’re not the right person, it’s not the right time, it’s not practical. They’re still here. Why?
3. What problems in the world make you angry enough to act, not just complain? Not sad. Not worried. Angry. The kind of angry that makes you want to build something.
4. If your persistent ideas are seeds, what conditions would they need to sprout? What’s actually in the way? Not the excuses — the real obstacles. And which of those are moveable?
5. What’s the thing you’d create if you knew no one would judge it? No one’s watching. No one’s evaluating whether it’s profitable or practical or impressive. What would you make just because you wanted it to exist?
6. The Library: Visualize yourself entering a library made just for you—an archive of everything you’ve ever cared about or had an interest in. It has records, objects, photographs, books, artifacts. Spend a full day (or night) there. What do you find yourself reaching for first? What’s in the back room that you forgot existed? What section do you keep returning to? Write down everything you find.

A Tarot Spread: Making Your Calling

This spread is designed to help you make, not seek. You’re not asking “what is my destiny?” You’re asking “what do I have, and what do I do with it?”

Shuffle your deck with the intention of understanding your raw materials for this next chapter.

Card 1: The Raw Material What gift or quality is asking to be used right now? This is something you already have. A skill, a trait, a capacity that’s been waiting for you to pick it back up.

Card 2: The Wound What experience has shaped you that wants to become medicine for others? Your hardest chapters often contain the seeds of your greatest contributions. What did you survive that taught you something worth sharing?

Card 3: The Persistent Idea What keeps coming back, even when you try to ignore it? The ideas that won’t leave are messages. This card illuminates what your spirit is trying to bring forward through you.

Card 4: The Resistance What’s blocking you from acting on this? Be honest. Is it fear? Resources? Timing? Other people’s opinions? This card shows you what you’re actually up against.

Card 5: The Next Step Not the whole path. Just the next move. You don’t need a five-year plan. You need to know what to do tomorrow. This card points the way.

After you pull, sit with the spread for a while. Notice what surprises you. Notice what you already knew but didn’t want to admit. Notice what makes you feel something — excitement, dread, recognition, resistance.

A Guided Meditation: On the Wings of Isis

I’ve created a guided meditation where you’ll journey with Isis across your inner landscape to recover your scattered pieces.

In this practice, you’ll:

• Find yourself at the liminal space where sea meets desert
• Fly with Isis in her form as the great kite (bird of prey) high above the lands of your life
• Witness the monuments and markers of your past rising from the sand
• Descend to investigate what feels familiar, important, calling to you
• Recover scrolls that contain memories of who you were—the parts you thought were lost forever

This exercise can be repeated as many times as you wish. You might discover a hobby you loved that you haven’t touched in years, a dream you buried under “practical” concerns, a quality you possessed that you’ve forgotten, a relationship you let fade, a belief or value you compromised, or a version of yourself that’s been waiting for you to remember.

The Re-Emergence

Here’s what I want you to understand:

When you ask the question, “What was I always meant to do?” you end up avoiding the truth that you’re the author of your own story, and creator of your own myth. This is why I continue to return to the symbolism of the Scarab, and other transformation symbols like the Butterfly, the Moth, the Phoenix, or the Wildfire.

The question becomes: “What do I make now, from what I have, in the life I’m actually living?”

The woman who cared for her parents for decades isn’t purposeless now — she’s standing at a threshold with decades of wisdom about love, patience, and presence. That’s raw material.

The corporate refugee who gave everything to a company that discarded her isn’t broken—she’s holding hard-won knowledge about systems, about power, about what happens when you build someone else’s dream. That’s raw material.

The mother whose children no longer need her the way they once did isn’t obsolete — she’s finally, finally, meeting herself again after years of being needed. That’s raw material.

Your scattered pieces are your raw materials. Your wounds are your raw materials. Your persistent ideas, your abandoned dreams, your strange obsessions—all of it is raw material.

Purpose doesn’t get discovered. Purpose gets made. And you make it daily, from whatever you’ve got, in whatever clearing you find yourself standing in.

The temples and cities that grew where the pieces of Osiris were buried are a glorious metaphor for your next chapter. Your scattered parts become sacred ground for future growth.

So gather your pieces. Make something from them. And stop waiting for permission from the cosmos to begin.

Your calling isn’t hidden. It’s waiting for you to create it.

Begin Your Re-Emergence

I know what it feels like to be scattered. To look at your life and wonder where you went in all of this. To achieve everything you were supposed to want and still feel empty — or to lose everything you organized your life around and wonder what’s left.

But you’re not broken. You’re not lost forever.

If you’re in the clearing — after the job, the loss, the ending — and you’re ready to gather your pieces and re-emerge, this is what I do.

Pocket Witch is high-touch coaching for women navigating career transitions and identity resurrections. We work with Tarot, ritual, and strategic clarity to figure out who you are now — not who you were, not who you’re “supposed” to be — and what you want to build from here.

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This post is part of my Scorpion Medicine series for rebirth after the kiss of corporate death, led by the Goddess Isis.

Stop talking about manifestation outside-in and listen to what your spirit is already trying to bring forward through YOU. Inside-out. Your persistent ideas aren’t just random thoughts. They’re sacred messages trying to emerge through you.