Owning Feeling

When we allow genuine feelings to operate within and through us, we become capable of doing what we want to do. All genuine feeling fuels our fire. The power to create an authentic career grows out of feeling unencumbered by shame or rationalization.

The word passion originally referred to pain, but it is a pain that serves the organism. The word joy is part of the word enjoy. We have a need and a creative drive to enjoy life. The fact that most people do not enjoy their work tells of a painful imbalance in our allocation of time and energy. This pain, if owned, will begin to align feeling with power and create the space for joy to enter.

Move into your feelings and put them into focus by investigating what is most important to you, where you want to spend your time and energy, and what skills you have developed that fit your concern. Wherever your passion is, that is where your life will naturally gravitate, regardless of whether you are consciously focused on it or not.

~Rick Jarrow

You can ask and answer the following questions:

• What is my passion?
• What are my base convictions?
• What do I care about more than anything else?
  
  
  

Coming to terms with our parents

It is said that, if one wants to understand one's own destiny, one need look no further than the life path of one's parents, as much for the roads they have not taken as for the ones they have.

The Parental Biography

Sit in a quiet place and begin to meditate upon the life journey of one of your parents or your significant childhood caregiver. Allow the echoes of the past to reappear, the bits and pieces of your mother's or father's life that you have seen and heard over the years. When you feel ready, begin to write that person's story. Once you begin, you will feel the energy start to flow. This is neither a report requiring factual accuracy nor a work of art, and it is being written for no one else's attention or approval. Take as long as you need to write all you can. The piece can be a page long, or ten, or thirty. Some people will find it excruciatingly difficult to begin. For others the words will just flow out onto the page. Allow your feelings and imagination to guide you. Let the writing take any form it wants: a narrative, a drama, an epic poem, a dialogue, or even a letter from that person to yourself. As it takes form, you may begin to feel your parent's life journey in a new way and be surprised at the manner in which their struggles and hopes relate to your own.

When the biography is finished, read it aloud. Even if you are alone, reading the work out loud will enable you to hear and react to what is genuine and deeply resonant. Once you have done the reading, you can continue to work with it internally. It may stay with you for some time. There is no fixed format or set of questions for working with the parental biography. Writing and reading it through is enough to reveal how many of the themes of your own parents' life are your own, and how you are often called upon to deal with similar circumstances. The purpose of this exercise is not comparison but feeling and amplification - to be able to appreciate that your work in life is not an isolated phenomenon, merely a product of the current job market or of your particular interests or aptitudes, but rather that you are in a process of re-enacting and reworking patterns that span generations in families and are often shared by entire cultures as well.

By opening to our life history, we see that our work in the world brings into play the entirety of our past and its power. That power is there, whether we acknowledge it or not. It will either nurture us or thwart us. There are no "how to's" here. This is not a simple matter of listing five qualities that you have taken from your family and wish to continue to develop, or identifying a family pattern that you want to change. When the world of our feelings truly opens, we connect with the power of our lineage - not just our familial bloodlines, but our professional and spiritual lineages as well. We thus allow ourselves to open to possibilities of employment that include the conscious engagement of the deepest feelings and issues in our lives. We seek neither to idealize nor to damn our past, but to relate to it in an empowered way.

~Rick Jarrow

Entering the Labyrinth

Our present work situation accurately reflects particular aspects of our psyche. If we go out knocking on doors or sending off resumes, we risk repeating the same self-defeating patterns that got us knocking at the wrong doors to begin with.

The solution is in the same family as the problem. We are not obliged then to go outside ourselves to find our "calling"; instead, our authentic work will grow out of the very symptoms that currently block the way. The resources we need are present if we are willing to 'stay at home" and deal with our situations. "The way out is the way in." - the labyrinth must be entered if we want to uncover our passions and convictions.

One way of entering the labyrinth is to pay attention to our feelings and our unwanted symptoms. Symptoms represent the feeling energies that are seeking to communicate themselves to us. They are the messengers of the gods who can lead us into the core of our genuine concerns and hence to our work in the world. why? Because feeling is energy, and symptoms are manifestations of deep feelings. A career can develop from any feeling, joyful or painful, but not through numbness.

If I am aware that I do not like my job, I am still working on the surface.

• What is it that I do not like?
• Who is hiding down in my labyrinth?
• Is it the boredom I despise?
• Is it the mindless authority and hierarchy of a company?
• Is it living at breakneck speed when I always wanted to waltz through life?

Being frustrated with work is not unusual, but only when we can recognize the frustrations can we begin to evolve plans of action.

~Rick Jarrow

The Thread of Passion

To get what you want, the success books tell you, you have to be able to see your goal, to visualize the object in detail, to affirm its reality daily, and to hold it in your mind. Then your dream will come true. The problem with this strategy is that what we want on a conscious level is often at odds with what we crave on the unconscious level. We are adept at finding countless ways to sabotage ourselves, and we blame it on circumstances...

This is because most of us have so much unprocessed debris floating in our emotional and subconscious realms that what we actually want and what we think we want are often quite disjointed.

If our wanting is to be positive and productive, not only for ourselves but for others, we must develop the clarity that comes from cleaning out and understanding our psychic space. This means we must first become aware of the various and largely unconscious comedies, tragedies, and farces whose scripts inhabit our inner beings.

Rather than seeking perfection or improvement, let us begin by trusting ourselves, by trusting the promptings of our inner being, and increasing that trust through action.

The question to ask, then, is greater than "What do I want to do?" Such a lukewarm question will not generate enough breakthrough passion. If choosing a career was simply a matter of choosing what you want or what you like, you could sit in the career counselor's office filling out forms that try to match your personality profile with the job market.

The anti-career needs to come from a deeper level, from the soul level. So a more appropriate question ask might be this: "How can I fully express the desire energy of life that nourishes and runs through me in a way that will enhance life itself?

~Rick Jarrow

Can you think of a better way to phrase the question?

A Daily Pattern of Trust

By establishing a daily pattern of trust, we are, in fact, reparenting ourselves and learning to receive the support of the Earth Mother, not as a metaphysical idea but by coming into touch with the actual current of life.

When we connect with this current, feeling it supporting and nurturing us, we can allow ourselves more space - space to experiment, to make mistakes, to learn, and to accept our present situation, being fully responsive to it. We need no longer paralyze ourselves with explanations. At the very foundation of being we begin to operate from a kinesthetic mode - touching, feeling, plugging in, and allowing ourselves to be carried by life.

As soon as this current is met the various scarcity issues such as unpaid bills, shortage of time, fatigue, and so forth can be brought into a new focus. We are not attacking these issues, but are placing them within a wider perspective - this is crucial to understand. The authentic career must proceed from this wider perspective, from the place of our fullness.

At this point you may want to stop and identify your "power shortages." Notice where there is frustration and resistance in y our daily life. Do you feel frustration around time constraints? money? relationships?

Know that these are never the underlying issues; these are the symptoms. Instead of bending ourselves out of shape to fit into the world, the anti-career path uses the strategy of recognizing that the basis of our work is to accept, receive, and expand into our maximum energy, which is our birthright.

By connecting on a kinesthetic level with the life current, it becomes more difficult to do things that block the natural expression of our energetic capabilities. We begin to look for creative involvement with the life force. This involvement will affect our physical posture, food choices, time scheduling, and language. This relationship deeply affects our life rhythm. And the great joy is that, as we move into our full, unqualified life rhythm, nature itself begins to support us, financially as well as emotionally.

Where we once thought there was no time we now find there is more time. Where we once thought there was no one, we now find people are with us - all because we have accepted our abundance, our trust in the life we have been given.

Success may not come at once because we are habituated to living in a contracted state. But we must begin somewhere expanding into the enegy of life. Start with an hour. Move to a day. Go for a lifetime.

~Rick Jarrow

Abundance Meditation

NOTE: I should be able to record this and convert it to an MP3 and offer it here as an audio file. That was my intention. I have instructions, I think I have the necessary tools and software, however, I cannot make my microphone work. I don't know if it's a microphone problem, or a sound card problem, or something I'm doing wrong... so... I'm really sorry. Maybe by the time this gets posted, I will have discovered the solution. If not, we'll have to make do by reading this into a cassette player and recording it for play back that way.

Sit in a comfortable position. Be aware of your feet or your buttocks touching the ground. Feel the strength and suppleness of your spinal column and begin to gently breathe in and breathe out.

Allow your breath to flow freely, smoothing out and relaxing your entire being. If you feel any tension or resistance, breathe into that place and gently invite release. You may voice a long "aah" on the exhalation to assist with the release.

As you release the breath, remain aware of all the places in your body where you are holding on, trying to maintain control out of scarcity. Gently release your energy into the ever-present current of life.

You are plugging in to a circulating electric current that fills you and enlivens you. With every breath, feel yourself more deeply in the current. You can now feel yourself being supported by the earth, as if your entire being is rooted and is receiving nourishment. As the breath drops you down deeper and deeper into the earth, allow your body to be breathed by the rhythm of the inhale and exhale. Every breath now synchronizes with the rhythm of life itself.

Your breath connects you with the flow of the tides and the seas and the movement of the stars. Your rhythm is the rhythm of life- the changing seasons, the progression from dawn to dark to dawn again. The current is ever present and it fills you, energizes you, permeates your entire being. You feel the flow of the unlimited life force, the energy that is ever available as you let go and align yourself with its beauty, its power, its presence.

Feel your being harmonized in this moment. Allow the fullness of existence to enter you and work through you. Feel free, open, and easy in this flow of ever-abundant energy. From this state affirm to yourself: "This abundance, this flow, is the natural energy of being itself, and I am ever supported by this flow of energy."

Breathing in and out, lightly and easily letting yourself expand to receive the fullness of the life force, allow an image of abundance to arise from deep within and enter your consciousness.

Do not force it. Just ask and it will form within - an image, literal or abstract - a gift from your inner wisdom that shows you a form of abundance. The image need not be understood. Just allow it to form and then hold it in mind, feeling it energizing you.

And as you breathe in and out, slowly return and integrate within your physical form, keeping the image alive, knowing that you can return to it at any time to remember the reality of the life force. The image of abundance affirms regenerative trust from deep within.

~Rick Jarrow

The LIfe Current

Genuine self-acceptance is really life acceptance - accepting the current, finding and tuning into the energy of life itself and all its subsequent potential. The experience of abundance cannot be found at the discursive or even at the emotional level. It must be experienced within the body.

The career starts in the body. Isadora Duncan discovered her vocation by imitating the movements of the ocean waves in front of her mother's home and connecting to the visceral experience of energy. "I realized early in my life," she said, "That there was this kind of energy, some animating spark,"

This spark is what sustains us. To contact the spark of your abundance, you might ask yourself, "What sustains me? What nourishes me?" Then list all the things that come to mind, everything from food to friendship to manifestations of more subtle energies. As you consciously recognize these things and begin to own them, you familiarize yourself with your prime territory, the place where your abundance is found. This is where lies the strengths that you have to share with the world.

~Rick Jarrow

Acceptance: The Root of Power

"There is a time in every man's education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide; that he must take himself for better, or worse, as his portion; that though the universe is full of good, no kernel of nourishing corn can come to him but through his toil bestowed on that plot of ground which is given to him to till."

~Ralph Waldo Emerson

The message here is to accept ourselves on every level, to accept our backgrounds, histories, perceived weaknesses, and disappointments as well as our hopes, dreams, and desires. The building must arise from the foundation, the very bottom of our being with no pretense.

To truly accept what you have - your gifts, your experiences, and your chronic shortcomings - is no simple matter. But this is where your riches lie, for no one can duplicate your experiences; no one is born under the exact same set of circumstances, and therefore no one else can make the same contribution to the world that you can.

No one can do what you can do. No one can take your place in the universe. If an idea or a way of doing something is truly your own, no one else will steal it. It is yours and will amplify your power.

To be abundant is to accept the validity of your destiny, no matter how seemingly small or insignificant. Such an embrace of your uniqueness generates a presence that flows out over your heredity and environment and creates unforeseen opportunity. This is as true for one's so-called weaknesses as it is for one's apparent strengths.

When we feel loved by life itself, we begin to feel that there will always be a place for us in the world.

~Rick Jarrow

The Power of Action

No matter what our experiences are in the inner world, if we are not able to cross over into action, they will remain just that - inner experiences. Action completes the circuit. To truly live is to ground our intuitions and establish circuits of mutual interaction between our outer and inner worlds. There are thousands of armchair metaphysicians out there, but they remain in their armchairs because they have not embodied their teachings.

The only teaching that has any effect, and hence, the only one that can generate a career, is the one that has become embodied. The Jungian analyst and writer Robert Johnson speaks of this principle in dream work when he states that whenever he has a significant dream and has gone through the process of understanding its meaning, he will enact something in the physical world to commemorate that dream. This is an example of the grounding that is necessary to manifest inner vision.

In order to move from dream to reality, you have to put the dream to the test, and the only way that happens is by risking it in the crucible of action. It is through trial and error that information feeds back into the dream process and the inner world and the outer world begin to work together.

~Rick Jarrow

Listening: The Willingness to Change

Asking is the active polarity that opens up energies; listening is the receptive polarity that allows these new energies to find their space. Listening is a mode of sensitivity, an awareness of all the messages we are receiving: the messages we receive from the body, from the earth, from our moods and reactions to others, and from our dreams. To listen is to establish a dialogue with everything and everyone that comes into our path. On the outer plane, our senses - sight, sound, taste, smell, and touch - are separate entities. The deeper we penetrate into listening, however, the more we may become aware of a realm where the senses converge - a realm in which seeing is hearing, for example.

To listen is to keep one's attention supple and sensitive, to allow a voice to speak through the natural as well as the human world. When tracking an animal, you bend your ear to the ground and pick up a vibration from afar. Listening, then, is an act of humility in the original sense of the word humus - not having one's head in the clouds, but being close to the earth and her signs, bending down low to hear the rumblings in the ground.

~Rick Jarrow

Asking: The Power of Articulation

To "ask" is to take up the way of inquiry as opposed to the way of complacency. To ask is to maintain a state of alert energy. We work with our doubts and questions, and we grow through our resistances. This is how creative careers are built - not by smooth sailing, but by the willingness to negotiate troubled waters.

To ask means that whenever and where ever we feel a disjunctive energy -be it within ourselves, in interacting with another, or in external processes of the world - we inquire into its quality, its texture, and it's message.

To ask is to open the floodgates of blocked energies, to move into connection, sincerity, and connectedness with others and ourselves.

Asking is not necessarily about questions and answers. In fact, one of the models we want to avoid is the problem solution model. The victim thinks, "My life or my career is a problem, and I have to find the solution." Such thinking reinforces the hamster-in-the-cage mentality that keeps us seeing life as an unsolved problem.

There are many different ways to ask, and they are all valid. You can ask the universe. Go to a sacred place, a place that has meaning for you and ask the clouds, the trees, or God for whatever is truly urgent in your life. Ask from your heart, from your gut, not as a supplicant but as a being burning with inquiry, with a passion to know deeply. Ask, and energy is set into motion. But know that the answer you receive to your asking may not be the expected one, for this kind of asking opens possibilities for new pathways and non-solutions.

Here are some questions you might want to ask:

• How am I really feeling about this?
• Do I really want to go to work this morning?
• Why am I resisting this particular situation?
• What one thing would brighten my day?

And here's something to consider:

If you are going somewhere too fast, you do not have the time or energy to inquire.... And if you don't have time to inquire... do you even know where is it you are hurrying to get to?

~Rick Jarrow

Breathe Easy

Our level of trust is readily revealed through our breathing patterns. To what degree are you willing to allow the breath of life to flow through you to heal and shape you? Do you constrict your breathing, try to control it, stop it from sinking down into lower levels of your body?

Every day you can move deeper into universal trust by allowing breath to move down to your edge, to that place where you hold on tight. Meet that rigidity, and then just let go a little bit. Every day you can practice breathing a little easier, letting go a little bit more.

~Rick Jarrow

In this awareness, here are some breathing exercises! I uploaded them as separate posts and listed below are links to each one. Try them out. Pick the one that suits you best, and use it daily throughout the rest of this project.

• Exercise for Complete Breathing
• Belly Breath
• Humming Breath Exercise
• Chinese Breathing Exercise

Exercise for Complete Breathing

1. Sit up straight. Exhale.


2. Inhale and, at the same time, relax the belly muscles. Feel as though the belly is filling with air.


3. After filling the belly, keep inhaling. Fill up the middle of your chest. Feel your chest and rib cage expand.


4. Hold the breath in for a moment, then begin to exhale as slowly as possible.


5. As the air is slowly let out, relax your chest and rib cage. Begin to pull your belly in to force out the remaining breath.


6. Close your eyes, and concentrate on your breathing.


7. Relax your face and mind.


8. Let everything go.


9. Practice about 5 minutes.

Belly Breath

The following exercise is a simple way to deepen breathing and to cleanse the lungs. These exercises will also increase energy and decrease tension.

Lie flat on your back to get a proper sense of deep breathing. (Have some small pillows available to reduce strain by tucking them under the neck and knees. The natural course of breathing in that position will create a slight rise in the stomach upon inhaling and a slight fall upon exhaling.)

Place your hands palm down on your stomach at the base of the rib cage. (The lungs go that far down. What fills them deeper is the pushing down of the diaphragm. The diaphragm creates a suction which draws air into the lungs. the air is then expelled when the diaphragm pushes up. In this process, the life-giving oxygen fills the lungs and gets into the blood stream for distribution to the cells. Carbon dioxide is expelled from the blood into the about-to-be exhaled breath, thus cleansing the body and blood of waste products.) Lay the palms of your hands on your stomach just below the rib cage, middle fingers barely touching each other, and take a slow deep breath. (As the diaphragm pushes down, the stomach will slightly expand causing the fingertips to separate somewhat.

This movement indicates full use of the lungs, resulting in a truly deep breath rather than the "puffed chest" breath experienced by many as the greatest lung capacity. Chest breathing fills the middle and upper parts of the lungs. Belly breathing is the most efficient method. Infants and small children use only this method until the chest matures. The yoga breath or roll breathing combines belly and chest breathing.

For best results practice this exercise for 5 minutes.

Humming Breath Exercise

Follow the instructions for inhaling in the Exercise for Complete Breathing (Steps 1-3). Now, as you begin to slowly exhale, make a HUM sound. Keep making that humming sound as long as possible. Pull your stomach muscles in, squeezing out a few more seconds of humming. Then relax. Practice for 2 to 3 minutes.

NOTE This breathing exercise came from the University of Missouri website, a very pragmatic conventional site. However, the "hum" sound reminded me of our mantra practice for the Spontaneous Fullfilment of Desire. It occured to me that the seed sound "hum" could possibly be used as a mantra. I looked it up, and this is what I found:

The seed syllable hūṃ embodies all the principles in all the sutras:

“The content of the word are broad, yet no confusion can be found; the form of the word is simple, yet nothing is missing. The word is, indeed, created by the suprarational power and the natural grace of the Tathāgata Mahāvairocana.” - Kūkai. Ungi gi

According To Chogyam Trungpa, collected works volume 5:

HUM is the seed sound in all four orders of Tantra (kriya, upa, yoga, and anuttara) and composed of HA (which expels impure air from lungs), U (of U M) releases irritating thoughts thru the mouth and M clears the remaining thoughts thru nose.

For advanced meditators HUM is a means of developing five wisdoms.

• H is the mirrorlike wisdom: Clear and continuous
• A is the wisdom of equanimity
• U is the wisdom of discriminating awareness
• M is all accomplishing wisdom, effortless accomplishment
• A is the wisdom of all accomplishing space (dharmadhatu) ground from which all things originate and to which they return.

So!! How cool is that?

Chinese Breathing Exercise

A very fine, short (though not shallow) breath exercise comes from the Chinese Tai Chi Chuan. Three short inhales are done through the nose without exhaling. On the first inhale, the arms are lifted from the sides straight out in front at shoulder height. On the second, the arms are opened out straight to the sides while still at shoulder height. And on the third, the arms are lifted straight over the head. Then, on the exhale through the mouth, the arms are moved in an arc back down to the sides.

Usually, ten or twelve breaths are sufficient and will not cause light headedness. If light headedness should occur, simply stop the exercise. This exercise also has the effect of really opening up people physically. In subtle ways, this exercise uses the body in leading the mind and spirit to greater openness with each other and the environment.

CAUTION !! Especially for older people: Never do panting or shallow breathing except while seated. Hyperventilation may occur. As long as one is seated, hyperventilation will not be a problem because, even if a brief blackout should occur, the body's automatic breathing apparatus will immediately take over.

Trust: The First Movement into Power

At its deepest level, an active trust indicates a confidence in the life process, a willingness to let things be as they are. Many of us who have received mixed messages from our parents, from the government, and from advertising campaigns have grown cynical and have consequently closed down our trusting faculties.

We have become intimidated and thus hesitate to articulate the first flash that comes into our minds. We don't allow certain realms of experience, such as dreams, fantasy, or feeling, to nourish us, and playful spontaneity only manifests after we have had a few beers.



But we can work to re-awaken these areas. We can begin to restore trust by opening to woundedness, by learning to forgive, by contacting the fundamental and ever-renewing rhythms of the life process. This trust will not succeed if it remains on the conceptual level alone. It must enter into the very core of our behavioral and psychic configurations until we feel the flow of life stirring inside us. Such trust is essential in working with the inner world. Without it we will be tempted to manipulate inner phenomena, to make our visions and dreams appear to be more or less than what they are, and when the real thing comes we will wonder if it is true.

As far as the inner world is concerned, the rule of thumb is to trust whatever comes up - this especially holds true for meditation - and be honest and clear with it... the more you are willing to work with what is, the more the unconscious receives the reinforcement that it is okay to reveal truth and that you are ready to engage core material.

As we work toward authentic career manifestation, we will discover the need to recover trust in ourselves and others.

Getting Started

We are here to transform the earth and redeem ourselves through our work. Therefore, our work has a purpose. We are collectively rebuilding the road toward the holy city, the realm of our true nature. If our work does not have this sense of transformation, of working in congruence with an inner ideal, then it will be experienced as a curse. We will shirk difficult conditions and take the path of least resistance because we will not believe in what we are doing, and we will have no larger sense of why we are doing it. On the other hand, if we feel that our task is worthy, the smallest charge can be accomplished with enthusiasm.

A first step in reversing the idea of work as a curse is to move toward caring about one's work as much as about one's life. An office can become a shrine when we passionately care about what we do and respect the people and circumstances we engage.

The serious issue of finding one's vocation will not be solved by aptitude tests that help gear one to become a well-adjusted producer/consumer. What is needed is an anti-career - a throwing off of the shackles of obligation, approval, and mindless activity in order to enter deeply into the dynamics of co-creation. To make your work sacred is to believe in what you do, to do a good job as it's own reward, and to feel proud of your work not by comparing it to the work of others but by feeling good inside, filled with integrity, neither fatigued nor drained of energy. It is work that does not destroy live, that honors pleasure, that promotes full presence and involvement and reflects your deepest sense of being. This is the challenge and the possibility... to create a life work that will reflect your own nature, and to develop the courage and wisdom to bring it into form.

~Rick Jarrow

QUESTIONS:

• Does the work that you do have a purpose?
• Does it serve the higher good?
• Is it in alignment with your own ideals?
• Are you enthusiastic about any small portion of it?
• What is the work that you engage in that feeds you?
• What is the play that brings you joy and fills you with enthusiasm?
• Something in your life is sacred and good, what is it?

Food for thought:

Your life is a work of art
A craft to be most carefully mastered
For patience has replaced time
And you are your own destination.

Every age has its tyrants, and in this postmodern era tyranny is expressed through the interlocking webs of institutions that control our lives. The health, insurance, and banking industries, fixated on notions of "security" and "future," lead us to believe that it is impossible to fundamentally transform one's career, to live for something other than a salary. How can life be a "craft to be most carefully mastered" when the institutions around us favor the quick-fix and mass produced copy?

If patience replaces time, we may be able to reconnect with the natural rhythms of our nature. Instead of looking for a new job "out there," we can turn to the real source - ourselves - and allow our authenticity to recreate our lifestyles and our work, for the two go hand in hand.

To have patience may be the singular act of courage in today's world. Such patience appears when it is understood that "you are your own destination," that there is nothing and no one better to be than yourself. This is a genuine affirmation of the value of your own essence, a leap beyond the endless regression of doubt, and it will enable you to develop work situations that nourish your soul. The art of work thus emerges as a path. It takes courage to enter upon it, and commitment to stay on it, but as your determination to "work true" fosters inner growth, it becomes a "way."

QUESTIONS:

• So... what do you think?
• are you looking for a quick fix?
• or are you committed to making real change happen?
• are you connected with the natural rhythms of your own nature?
• do you even know what those rhythms are?
• are you a square peg in a round hole?
• maybe you're a round peg in a square hole?
• do you have patience?
• do you doubt your inner voice?
• does your current work situation nourish your soul in any way?
• if so how?
• if not, why not?

Creating Work You Love

"The separation between life and work, between our daily struggles and our dreams, plagues us as a people. The great majority take dissatisfaction with work for granted, thoughtlessly supporting a burgeoning entertainment and consumer culture as the only way to connect with the realm of the imagination. Others among us, despite a nagging feeling of having "sold out," accept working as a necessary sacrifice. Very few of us look forward to Monday morning. To make art forms out of the stuff of our lives, to create vital forms of living and working, may be our most current challenge.

• Is it possible to be who we are in or work, rather than veiling our authenticity in order to survive in the job market?
• Can we create forms of work that will allow us to offer the fullness of ourselves to the world?
• Why have work and career become such areas of pressure that the struggle to simply maintain oneself increasingly crowds out the time?

These questions need to be addressed fully if there is any hope of stepping off the treadmill we have created."

Welcome to our 30 day project "Creating Work You Love" based on the book by Rick Jarrow. Starting tomorrow,and for the next 30 days we will be exploring his concepts and techniques, working with them to see if his process really does work, finding out if we can indeed create lives and livelihoods that we do indeed love.

So, are you ready? Do you already have some ideas of what it is that you would like to create with regards to work? How do you feel about your current job? How do you feel about your life and the part you play in it?

When in doubt...

Perhaps life is calling you right now to shape a beautiful work or composition that will serve others as well as yourself. Visualize it and then take definite action, without any half-measures. As Rumi says:

“When in doubt, start a large foolish project like Noah!”

Unhappy With Your Job?

It could be worse!
You might go in to work every day and do this!!



All kidding aside, our next project - Creating Work You Love - will begin July 17. We'll be making a thoughtful exploration into how to have work and create lives that are authentic and fulfilling. Even if you already have a job you love, this next project has plenty of "food for thought."

We'd love to have you join us as we delve into this interesting book by Rick Jarrow. Do his techniques work? Does he have the answers? In this economy, is it even possible to create work you love? We're going to find out.

Creative Visualization Techniques - Project Summary

All men dream; but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds awake to find that it was vanity; but the dreamers of day are dangerous men, that they may act their dreams with open eyes to make it possible.

~T E Lawrence

Here is an overview of our Creative Visualization Techniques project. This post provides links to pertinent aspects of this project, so that you won't have to sift through the archives.

If you would like to try this project for yourself, you could start on Day One - Our First Exercise and then continue on through Day Thirty - I Love My Life. Or, you could browse through the posts and work the project in no particular order.

This is an active blog, and if you post, we will notice and reply.. and give you the benefit of our own experience and our support if it seems pertinent or appropriate. Feel free to post your thoughts, ideas, results, joys and disappointments as you go. Even though we love you, comment spam is deleted when discovered, and anonymous posting is discouraged.

You will find complete listing of the day by day links at the bottom of this post. Yes, there are more than 30 posts - this was an intensive project. To alleviate confusion, the posts are listed in order of occurance - first to last. The basic summary of our results can be found here: Reporting On Our Results and individual comments and feedback can be read How did we do?.

We do have a recommended reading list if you are interested in expanding your understanding. I don't know how up to date it is, but there are a lot of really good books listed. Feel free to add titles and authors that you would recommend. There is also a collection of our favorite affirmations, prayers, poems, and etc. Or you can just go to Way Cool Quotes and find a bunch more.

As promised, here is the complete listing of all the posts for Creative Visualization Techniques:

Daily Exercises and Meditations:

• Our first exercise:
• Exploring the power of thought
• Some Things That make Imagery More Effective
• Exploring Imagination
• The Gift
• Exploring Emotions
• Memory and Emotion
• Guided Visualization to Increase Empathy
• Pain or Pleasure?
• Auditory Meditation for Emotional Healing
• Relaxation is the Key
• What is Meditation?
• Exploring Spiritual Connection
• What is Reality?
• Power Increases With Sensory Attention
• An Exercise For Exploring the Present Moment:
• Pink Bubble Technique
• Happy Father's Day!
• Allowing vs Forcing
• Going with the flow.
• Accepting Your Good
• Exploring the Power of Love
• Visualization for Self-Esteem
• Strengthening the power of your thoughts
• Exploring the Power of Authority
• What is nalu?
• The Nalu of Sight
• Focused Visual Meditations
• How to Visualize
• Creating your Sanctuary
• Being in the flow
• Get Your Energy Flowing
• Well, how's it going?
• Memories are patterns of energy
• Change your memories - change your life
• Auditory Meditations
• Focus
• Get out of the box with these techniques.
• Our life is shaped by our mind
• Wherever I am, good things happen.
• To feed your right mind
• A Diorama
• Exploring the Power of Flexibility
• An Extended Visualization
• Traversing The Circle
• Focus on symbols or goals
• I am a spark of light.
• Walking The Labyrinth
• What do you think of this?
• Pretending vs Visualizing
• Important points
• I love my life.
  

Reporting on Our Results

Judging by the posted results, this project was a rousing success. It looks like creative visualization does actually work. Here's what some of our participants had to say:

• Wow, this went by so fast! This was a really great project and creative visualization works in amazing ways.
• I enjoyed this project and I think it really did work.
• I do think visualization works. And I would recommend it absolutely.
• Though I only recently subscribed to this project ... I am aware of using the power of IMAGINATION/VISUALIZATION which results in a powerful activation of the LAW OF ATTRACTION.

Here are the success stories that were shared:

1. My sister was really angry and tense over her home situation. Her daughter and son-in-law and baby were living with her and everyone was getting on each other's last nerve, I told her to visualize the baby playing in a nice yard, happy. (Actually, it was my guide's suggestion). Within two weeks they found an awesome house for a great price with a lovely yard for the baby to romp in! I really feel that hanging on to their irritation was directing their energy towards STAYING IN THE HOUSE rather than MOVING.
2. My other sister created a vision board, including a picture of the Island of Malta for creating a vacation there. Voila'! She just met a man whose family is from MALTA. Wow.
3. For me, I was visualizing my yard quite a bit. Creating in my mind a lush, peaceful sanctuary. So far, my husband and I explored a really cool landscape shop (he normally wouldn't be caught dead having anything to do with the yard), I was inspired to do quite a bit of clean up, fertilized plants and watered more.
4. I visualized a working washing machine for a coworker, and her washing machine "miraculously" began to function perfectly.
5. I visualized a washer and dryer for myself, and voila! After I don't know how many months... at least 3... I now have a working washer and dryer. (Which cost me nothing !! and was delivered and installed FREE!)
6. I visualized a lawnmower and a mowed yard area for myself and now I have the mower - the mowing part is a little slow in coming - but time for the DOING of the mowing has been allotted. So that's on it's way to being done.

Here are the not as successful stories that were shared:

1. The larger goal of paying debts is still a challenge. I'll be doing great, creating images of sitting at the table and writing check after check to eliminate balances that are due. I feel so relieved and happy and FREE. But then every so often the word BANKRUPTCY pops into my mind and I have to shoo it away really fast.
2. The bigger things were harder for me. I couldn't come up with anything really CLEAR for anyone including myself. So... consequently the bigger things that I was HAZY about have been hazy in their manifestation.

Words of advice - insights - and other thoughts:

• I think by visualizing consistantly and being EXCITED about it, improvements towards my goal have occurred.
• Perhaps when our creative process feels stuck or impossible even, we need to remember to look at the little signs that tell us, "Hey, keep it up..don't stop now..you're on the right path!" Here's a story to illustrate: Last night I was on the deck looking at the sky just past sundown and it came again as an option. Out of nowhere came an absolutely beautiful huge bird (hawk, owl?) that gently soared down and circled me a few times, probably 15-20 ft directly above my head. Ok, ok. I'll stop being negative and won't think of the "B" word (bankruptsy) any more! It sure made my heart peaceful and hopeful to see that bird, I felt comfort and encouragement.
• What I liked most about this project is that it really got me focused on a daily meditation practice that was interesting and enjoyable.
• When I begin a project I first of all create the cover, I did this for my new CD project PRESCRIPTION FOR WELLNESS, and also selected Master tapes of Sunday messages I had presented on this topic. I then asked someone I knew, who had a passion for creative audio/visual techniques, how I might go about editing the tapes. RESULT: He met with me AND offered to do the project FREE OF CHARGE! .. it is now in the making. ON REFLECTION: This began with a "Divine Idea." I went into THE SILENCE, just being open and receptive to "whatever;" then I FELT EXCITED about the project and let the UNIVERSE know my needs! Now I live in GRATITUDE for the FLOW OF THE CREATIVE PROCESS!

To those who shared their experiences and their thoughts - A big thank you! If anyone else would like to add their results and experiences (positive or negative), just post it as a comment and I'll add it to this post.

Imagine

Here is something nice to entertain you while we wait for everyone to check in and post their results, so if you want to put your 2 cents in, now's the time. On Sunday, I'll be uploading our results page and also a wrap up of the project. In the mean time, enjoy!!

Imagine

Imagine there's no heaven,
It's easy if you try,
No hell below us,
Above us only sky,
Imagine all the people
Living for today...

Imagine there's no countries,
It isn't hard to do,
Nothing to kill or die for,
And no religion too,
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace...

You may say I'm a dreamer,
But I'm not the only one,
I hope some day you'll join us,
And the world will live as one.

Imagine no possessions,
I wonder if you can,
No need for greed or hunger,
Or brotherhood of man,
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world...

You! You may say I'm a dreamer,
But I'm not the only one,
I hope some day you'll join us,
And the world will live as one.

You may say I'm a dreamer,
But I'm not the only one,
I hope some day you'll join us,
And the world will live as one.

How did we do?

Wow! This project was chock full of all kinds of information. I'm wondering how we did. Here's a list of questions to answer that will give an idea as to how effective creative visualization actually is.

1. Did any of the things you visualized for yourself or others actually take place? If so, what?
2. Were you more successful when visualizing for yourself? or for others?
3. Do you feel that you have a good understanding of what creative visualization is? Are you comfortable with the process?
4. Which techniques did you use most often?
5. Did you learn anything? If so, what?
6. What was your favorite part of this particular project?
7. Your least favorite?
8. Were you able to create a time and a place for a regular daily practice of the techniques presented? If not, why not?
9. Does creative visualization work for you?
10. Would you recommend creative visualization to others as a way to achieve prosperity?
11. Is there anything else you'd like to share?

>

I love my life.

Picture the sky, trees, buildings, activities in your life - the interesting and varied people you will meet. Visualize a brilliant light coming from your solar plexus area and emanating throughout the whole scene radiating the entire image with light. Imagine yourself moving from one activity to the next, feeling energetic, alive, full of light and smiling. Your wallet is stuffed with $100 bills, your home is filled with every beautiful thing you want, maybe there is even a garden overflowing with flowers, fruits, and vegetables ready to be picked. Picture yourself hugging the loving people around you, welcoming them with open arms.

~Laurel Jan Fuller - Shaping Your Life

Important points

When using creative imagery, craft your desires with:

• Ideal - what you want.
• Purpose - why you want it, who you will become in the process of creating it.
• Activity - the steps of mental and physical preparation - the "how to."

Here are some points to remember:

• Thoughts are things and everything is created with thought.
• You are a mental-spiritual being and your physical experiences are for your learning.
• The secret to visualization is creating clear, detailed thought forms using all five senses.
• You must release your visualized thought form to your subconscious mind for manifestation.
• The language of mind is in pictures or images.
• You have free will; therefore, you always have the freedom to choose the thoughts you want to think and create.
• Other people have free will. You can create yourself as you desire but you cannot create someone else.
• The physical world, your physical body, physical conditions will respond to the direction of your thoughts.
• Thought directed with intelligence is the greatest power in the universe.
• You are endowed with imagination and will; therefore, creating and fulfilling desires is inherent in your nature.
• Like attracts like. Therefore, create positively and with love.
• Love is the magnetic attraction between positive and negative poles.
• Be aggressive by shaping the thought images you desire and receptive by expecting and watching for your desires to come to you.
• The nature of matter is change. If you don't like something in your life, you can change it to become what you want. Imagining how you want to improve yourself and conditions in your life is the first step in making it so.
• You have the freedom to choose your response to any person, place, or thing in your life. Love your enemies by creating understanding. When you initiate the response you desire, you have the power of understanding, which produces inner and outer peace.
• When you feel trapped in any limitation, imagine every alternative you can think of. When you have exhausted the probabilities you can imagine, start imagining possibilities. Remember that you can always add to what you have and what you experience by imagining "what if...?

~Laurel Jan Fuller - Shaping Your Life

Pretending vs Visualizing

It is important to know that visualization does not take the place of physical practice and preparation. You cannot give an effective speech by visualizing yourself on a stage if you have not written or prepared or researched a speech to give! This is pretending.

When you pretend, you actually increase your anxiety because you are always afraid of being found out. You cannot play excellent music by picking up an instrument without studying the notes, unless you are going to improvise. Even then, you need to develop skill through practice with learning how the instrument functions.

So... What I'd like to know is what one small thing can you do today, right now, this moment that will bring you even a tiny bit closer to your dream come true? Have you thought about the steps you might need to take in order to achieve what you want to achieve... have what you want to have... be who you want to be? Is there something you could learn? or a person you could call? Do you need to think about and/or formulate a "plan of action"? Does the idea of taking action scare you? or excite you?

Think about it! And then do one small thing.

What do you think of this?

I found the following post at Clam Lynch.com. Sometimes I wonder if I have this same attitude towards my own creative visualizations - that somewhere in my head, there's a voice that thinks I'm being silly and living in a make-believe world.

So, I'm curious. Does this push your buttons, make you laugh, or is it just one big yawn? If you could talk to this Clam Lynch person, what would you say? How is what he is talking about different from we are doing this month? How is it the same? How many times have you let someone's judgments and criticisms talk you out of a big idea? How many things have you wanted to do but didn't because you were afraid people would laugh at you, or think you've lost your mind?

I LIKE TO THINK OF 10 IMAGINARY THINGS THAT COULD HAPPEN WHEN I FIRST WAKE UP IN THE MORNING. Before breakfast or coffee or a cigarette or whatever else might pop up before I get out of bed (wink).

IMAGINARY FOOD.
IMAGINARY MONEY.
IMAGINARY JOB.
IMAGINARY FRIENDS.
IMAGINARY MENTAL HEALTH.
IMAGINARY CAR.
IMAGINARY LOVER.
And so on…

THEN I IMAGINE WHAT THAT WOULD LOOK, FEEL, TASTE AND SMELL LIKE.

THEN I PLUG INTO IT.
AND GET, TURNED ON TO IT.

THEN MAYBE THE PHONE RINGS OR I GET AN EMAIL OR THERE’S A LOUD KNOCK ON THE DOOR (Sometimes on the apartment door sometimes in my mind)

AND IT USUALLY IS SOMEONE OR SOMETHING TRYING TO PULL ME INTO THE SO-CALLED- REAL WORLD-SAYING, "WAKE UP IMAGINARY MAN WITH YOUR IMAGINARY THOUGHTS OF THINGS UNSEEN"

And they start in with their FEARS and their LOGIC and their GOSSIP and OPINIONS and BLAH, BLAH, BLAHS!

AND I SAY, "NOW WAIT A DING DANG, BEE-BOOP'N MINUTE!"

I AM cooking up some NEW THOUGHTS and there’s one thing I know about COOKING. TOO MANY COOKS SPOIL THE IMAGINARY STEW!!

FOLKS IMAGINATION IS WHERE IT ALL STARTS.
FEEL IT, BE IT, SEE IT, DO IT !!
AND BEFORE YOU KNOW IT, YOUR IMAGINATION WORLD WILL BECOME YOU REAL WORLD.
JUST KEEP AT IT AND GET JAZZED ABOUT YOUR IMAGINARY NEW WORLD.

TALK TO YOURSELF (OUT LOUD) ABOUT HOW GREAT IT IS.
AND HERES A LITTLE TIP:
I FIND IT HELPFUL TO WEAR SOME KIND OF HEADSET IF YOUR OUT IN PUBLIC SO UNHIP FOLKS DONT
GIVE YOU THE FUNNY EYES OR CALL THE POLICE.

BUT MAKE SURE THE OTHER END OF THE CORD IS STUCK IN YOUR PANTS POCKET, NOT YOUR ZIPPER, OR SHIRT.

AND JUST YAMMER AWAY ABOUT HOW THINGS ARE SO GREAT!! IN THE IMAGINARY NOW.
AGAIN DONT JUST THINK IT, FEEL IT!!!

I AM IMAGINING A GREAT NEW LIFE FOR ME/YOU, AND YOU KNOW THAT IS THE REAL DEAL!! And I AM NOT JUST PULLING YOUR TOOT STRING.

IMAGINE THAT FOR A MINUTE. A WORLD OF TRUE IMAGINATION.

I AM GOING TO NOW TAKE ANOTHER IMAGINATION NAP.

GOOD MORNING, GOOD NIGHT, GOOD DAY.

IMAGINE ME AND YOU.

I DO.

CLAM

Walking The Labyrinth

Not long ago, I happened onto the image below, it's from Heart Sounds, and it occured to me that this might make for a really interesting visualization exercise for this project.

As you can see, the artist has "walked the labyrinth" by writing words and symbols. I thought that maybe we might do something similar. This week we are visualizing our larger goals, our biggest dreams, and seemingly impossible ideas. I wonder what would happen if we took them into the labyrinth as a meditational written exercise.

If you'd like to try it, here is a labyrinth template you can use as a base. The full size image can be downloaded here.

I am a spark of light.

Picture yourself with a warm glow in the center of your being. Image it growing, first small like a candle flame, then increasing in size to the size of a flashlight beam, then growing to fill your entire body with light, then radiating out beyond your body until your entire being is a silhouette of light. Image yourself walking through your experiences like this, and see your light sparking a glow of light in each person you encounter.

source: Laurel Jan Fuller - Shaping Your Life

Focus on symbols or goals

Sit quietly and focus (visually) on a symbol, picture, or object related to some goal or project. As you maintain focus on the subject your patterns link and change. The usual effect is that initially you begin to get a flow of ideas, old and new, about the subject. If there is tension to begin with in your relationship with the subject or what it represents, you body may express that tension for a while, but as you continue the focus there will be a release and a new relationship pattern.

This is a good meditation for clearing up relationships with people, places, money, success, or any goal-oriented endeavor, as well as for stimulating a flow of creative ideas in relation to it. Many people are doing this without realizing it when studying, planning, or working. The third thing this exercise does is set up a resonance that begins to attract the nearest equivalent to what you are focusing on.

A useful variation is to focus on a symbol, picture, or object related to a problem in your life. This may upset a lot of people who say they don't want to give energy to their problems by focusing on them, but this focus is different. When you focus on a problem with a calm attitude of positive expectation and nonjudgment, the problem changes because you change. You may get different insights or realizations about it, or conditions surrounding the problem may change without your conscious knowledge or effort, but something will change.

We often say that it is easier to resolve a problem if you make peace with it first, and that is what this exercise helps you to do.

~Serge Kahili King

Traversing The Circle

Do creative visualization with a black circle about six to eight inches in diameter drawn on a white background. Imagine a path or a road in the circle that goes over a hill or around a bend and out of sight. Enter the circle with your awareness and follow the path or road, looking for something (without defining what).

You may or may not find yourself in a body, you may or may not feel like continuing the exercise with your eyes closed. You also may or may not find anything in a given time period, but you usually do. Just go along with whatever happens.

This visualization helps to open and strengthen your creative imagination, and provides lots of good insights.

~Serge Kahili King

An Extended Visualization

Pick a quote or a phrase and as you repeat it keep your mind open to ways in which it operates or could operate in your life. And while this can be done in a condensed meditation of five to twenty minutes, it can also be done in an extended meditation that lasts all day.

By focusing on one thought all day long, it becomes a background or framework for everything you do that day. This not only gives all the benefits of focused attention, it also helps to incorporate a chosen idea deeply into your life pattern while also giving new insights about it.

Not sure what phrase you want to use? Here are some ideas:

• Every day in every way I'm getting better and better.
• Everything I need is coming to me easily and effortlessly.
• My life is blossoming in total perfection.
• I have everything I need to enjoy my here and now.
• I am the master of my life.
• Everything I need is already within me.
• Perfect wisdom is in my heart.
• I am whole and complete in myself.
• I love and appreciate myself just as I am.
• I accept all my feelings as part of me.
• I love to love and be loved.
• The more I love myself, the more love I have to give others.
• I now give and receive love freely.
• I am now attracting loving, satisfying relationships into my life.
• My relationship with _____ is growing happier and more fulfilling every day.
• I now have a perfect, satisfying, well-paying job.
• I love doing my work, and I am richly rewarded, creatively and financially.
• I am an open channel of creative energy.
• I am dynamically self-expressive.
• I enjoy relaxing and having fun.
• I always communicate clearly and effectively.
• I now have enough time, energy, wisdom, and money to accomplish all my desires.
• I am always in the right place at the right time, successfully engage in the right activity.
• It's okay for me to have everything I want!
• This is a rich universe and there's plenty for all of us.
• Abundance is my natural state of being. I accept it now!
• Infinite riches are now freely flowing into my life.
• Every day I am growing more financially prosperous.
• The more I have, the more I have to give.
• The more I give, the more I receive, and the happier I feel.
• It's okay for me to have fun and enjoy myself, and I do!
• I am relaxed and centered. I have plenty of time for everything.
• I am now enjoying everything I do.
• I feel happy just being alive.
• I am vibrantly healthy and radiantly beautiful!
• I am open to receiving all the blessings of this abundant universe!
• _____ is coming to me, easily and effortlessly.
• I have a wonderful job with wonderful pay. I do a wonderful service in a wonderful way.
• I stay deeply relaxed and centered, and everything is accomplished easily and effortlessly.
• The light within me is creating miracles in my life here and now.
• I am now attuned to my higher purpose in life.
• I love and accept myself completely as I am.
• I don't have to try to please anyone else. I like myself and that's what counts.
• I am highly pleasing to myself in the presence of other people.
• I express myself freely, fully, and easily.
• I am a powerful, loving, and creative being.
• I am deeply satisfied with my financial situation.

sources: Serge Kahili King, Shakti Gawain, and others