Fastest Way to the Work You Love

In the last episode, we talked about the importance of meditation, how it affected me to get in touch with who I actually am. We talked about how, who you uniquely are lies under the layers of habitual reactions, what you learned from your family and friends, what you learned that you should hide these behaviours that you have practiced for so long to fit in for practical benefit, what brought you success and what the society accepted as success. And we talked that by doing meditation, how you were able to just be with all that is so that you can see all these layers and by seeing, you distance yourself and who you are reveals itself to you.

I want to continue with meditation today. It's actually not about meditation so much, but it's about the journey of finding and doing the work you love and what makes it so difficult or what can make it easier. And yes, it's going to be related to meditation here again. We have one big obstacle towards doing the work we love, which is ta-da: ourselves, we have our self judgment that we carry with us. And usually it is the loudest voice that we have inside of our mind.

My own self judgment I want to share with you, how it was back when I was depressed at my work, I was not liking my work. I was finding that it didn't really contribute, but I was loving my colleagues and my manager, and I wanted to give back the value equal to what I was earning. I was feeling so unfulfilled at work, that it was so difficult to concentrate and to do something at work to get things done.

So when I went home, My emotional tank was so empty that I looked to fill it up with junk food and mindless TV watching, you know, all these things. Everybody has their own way of fulfilling their emotional needs or filling their emotional tank. But for me, that cycle, this rush to save myself from that feeling of unfulfillment created the additional judgment, because then I hated myself for eating so much for eating junk food for spending my time on useless things.

And I said, I can't manage my time. I can't manage my life. I can't do anything. And with this voice I want at work and this voice spoke to me when I had to get things done: "You can't do it. You never manage it. You will never go out of this". And of course, when this voice is active, my emotional state was even worse.

So what do I do? I do what I know. I compensated with food and doing mindless things. And the voice of self judgment grows. Well, there is no other voice, anyway, in that moment.

Here comes the practice of meditation. With the practice of meditation. What you do is ..You hear this voice, you hear this also unfulfillment that you feel, this lack of happiness. You feel it in your body, not only in your mind, because your mind carries thoughts, which are part of your experience, and then you have your bodily experience. Then you just sit with those feelings and thoughts and while sitting, what do you do or what you don't do? You don't rush and eat or you don't rush and watch something. And by the time your muscle of being with what is uncomfortable and being with the words of self judgment increases.

It all sounds great and perfect. And you just start doing it so that you will find a space of real seeing and real being, and real energy, which will help you make the right choice. Because when you can be with this feeling of unfulfillment and you can be with the voice of self judgment, you can actually recognize that something softer is arising inside of you - self-compassion- and you can naturally feel towards doing something good for yourself, which would be probably changing your work conditions little by little, in the way that you will enjoy your work a little more, maybe communicating with your manager, maybe starting looking into what you enjoy doing a little more, and, and, and, and, and... But you would not be acting in a rush with the voice of self judgment.

I said, that sounds easy. Maybe it doesn't to you, but it's not that easy. Because the voice of self judgment and this immediate rush to fill your emotional tank with whatever you have known that worked is so strong, you have been practicing that pattern for a long time and to pause it and to change it requires you to practice and to practice again, and when you fail at this practice to come back and do it again. The building muscle is a learning process and I don't know how you learn, but for me, building a habit is a lot of coming back and being compassionate with myself. And I have learned from experience that this process works smoother, faster and stronger. When it's done with people who are going in a similar path and with people you can reach out to when you find yourself struggling, when you find that something doesn't work, when you want to give up.

You know about alcoholics anonymous. Here, we don't talk about of course alcoholics anonymous or any kind of really bad habits well, it is kind of a bad habit, but not the worst. Building a new habit is reinforced and strengthened by doing it in a community and doing with people who can be there for you.

The same is true for your finding work you love and doing work you love. Doing it alone leaves you alone with your self judgment. Even though you practice meditation, you might still fall into the cycle of, "I can't do it, I will never be able to do it, I feel terrible, let me eat something and let me not meditate again, or let me not do what is meaningful, but not the easiest thing to do". And we create what I call it, what I learned it to be "a container", a safe container. And this container can be created in a couple of ways. Find people to surround yourself with who are going through the same journey and bring this group together frequently and share the journey with each other. The second way is make an alliance with someone who will be there for you without judgment, who will be your sounding board, who will be your cheerleader, who will remind you of your own goals of your own strengths and uniqueness so that you strongly go forward in your journey and in your practice. For this, you can take coaching, for this you can take mentoring.

And also have people who you aspire to become. If you see someone that is your ideal self, you see their qualities and you want to be like them, keep these people in your mind. And whenever you practice, first acknowledge them and the qualities and feel these qualities within you and do what you need to do, be with your emotions.

I have realized the power of being with community when I decided to quit my job, but it took me two years. It took me two years to give the decision, to actually get clear with myself that I didn't want to do this any longer and I was going to do something else. Even though I knew from the beginning that I didn't like it, and I was feeling depressed because of the unfulfillment I was feeling, I couldn't do anything with it because I went into the cycle of this sadness, eating, judging myself, sadness, eating, judging myself and not moving and not doing anything. Of course, I looked for ways by Googling, by reaching out to some people, but I never got this firm commitment and clarity for myself, which only happened after being with my mastermind group, my coaching group.

We were co-coaching each other. And through their support, through their reminding me what I wanted and through their challenging me of what is the worst that could happen, I was able to see myself. I was able to find courage. I borrowed their courage. I borrowed their trust in me and I made the leap.

It took me two years. And now I know that when you have your system set up, then you can save yourself time. You can be powerfully yourself and get 100% clear about who you are and what you want and make the steps towards becoming that so that you will love your life, love your work, and be completely, fully alive.

My Offer to You

Your journey is very unique. I cannot exactly give you the direct path of how you will follow to become who you are called to become. But I can be there for you holding the space for you so that you will see yourself. You will find the ways and I'm happy to share my experience and my knowledge with you.

I don't want you to lose two years. I want you to get clear now, and for this I make an offer to you. I opened coaching slots for you for two weeks in my calendar where you will gain clarity now about what you need and what the next steps are to move towards it.

It's of course completely free of charge because I want to be there with you, I want you to move strongly towards who you are called to become by doing the work you love.

Book your session here.

You don't have to be in this alone. You don't have to lose yourself in self judgment, lose your time in self-judgment and the old pattern of filling your emotional tank. We can do this together. I can be there for you, for your clarity, so that you can plan your next steps moving forward. I am looking forward to talking to you and take very good care of yourself.

Bye.