Inner Archaeology

Life Affirming Practices

Sean Casey LeClaire is a Coach and Writer with a much wisdom to share with the world.  I'd like to share this excerpt with you from Sean's ezine Be the Change because of its powerful message:

It seems like every seven years or so, I reach a place in the forest where I do not know which way to go. My mind scrambles to find clues, as it begins frantically turning over rocks and inevitably starts “whyning.”

During these times, my feelings and thoughts are difficult to be with. What was working; no longer works. And what I want becomes unclear. Unhappiness and a growing sense of dissatisfaction replace the fleetness of foot with which I normally saunter through the redwoods and high meadows. My mind tells me that something is wrong. The truth is nothing is wrong—something important is changing. And I do not know what it is. I tend to forget that what I am meant to know will come to my awareness without any effort on my part.

My ego or small self DOES NOT LIKE NOT KNOWING!

If I fight this current reality, which of course I do, I eventually become exhausted. Sometimes that is the only way God (Self) can get me to listen.

Spiritual teachings say that “don’t know” is the beginning of surrender and that surrender is acceptance’s cousin.

A memory came to me this morning.

When I was 28 years old, I could no longer work as a rising star at an international advertising agency, where I launched brands for a living. I had no more heart for the agency business. After about a year of fighting with that awareness and destroying myself with alcohol, I finally surrendered, enrolled in a rehab program, got a few months of sobriety under my belt, then designed a unique t-shirt that I sold as a street vendor in Toronto. After about six months of that, I answered an advertisement in the business press and was selected from 450+ applicants to manage an international division of a large corporation. It was the best corporate job I have had and it came to me without any effort on my part. The key action was to surrender and accept my circumstances.

I was unemployed, I was newly clean and sober and a street vendor. I wasn’t frightened. When we surrender and accept what Spirit has given us, there is no fear. I distinctly remember being happy, light-of-heart, selling t-shirts on downtown street corners, hanging with other vendors, pulling a clothing rack on the back of my mountain bike down Yonge Street in Toronto, rolling by the high-rise offices where I once created and sold slick advertising campaigns.

When the senior vice president of the company that eventually hired me to manage its international marketing asked me where I’d been for the last nine months, I said I was resting, selling t-shirts. He looked up from reading my resume, smiled and said, “I drove a Doritos truck once. Just got tired, tired of chasing the golden carrot.” He paused, looked out his window for quite some time then asked, “Would you like to work with us, Sean?”

If any of you are in transition and finding it difficult, know that you’re not alone. Many people engaged in genuine awareness work and Consciousness inquiry hit periods of being lost in the forest. And if you’re at all like me, some days, it might seem like you’re dangling from a rocky crag not sure whether you even scaled the right rock face. My mentor has said to me many times, “Look Sean, if you can’t accept current reality then surrender the climb, sit down in a valley, pay attention, and wait till what is coming to you arrives.”

We are not our thoughts and feelings, more the spaciousness around the thoughts and feelings. That spaciousness is love. So why worry? Worry is lack of acceptance. Choose love.

All is coming!

[You can find out more about Sean at his website seanleclaire.com]

Vincent's Painting Passion

In this week's SoulMinder ezine I mentioned my lifelong fascination with Vincent Van Gogh.  Permit me now to tell you a little more about Vincent - not so much the "ear incident" which you may have heard of - but his struggle to find passion-filled work and live an authentic life.

Like many people these days, Vincent tried many different occupations in search of that elusive "career" that would enable him to use his true gifts.  He tried preaching and art sales, to mention but two jobs, and, fortunately for us, failed miserably at everything he tried.  Interestingly, no matter where he went or what he did for a living, he always drew and painted on the job or off.  He lived and breathed art even before he began creating it seriously.  Ultimately, his failures at other jobs drove him to consider painting full-time, since it seemed to be the only kind of work he was fit for.

You probably know the rest of the story:  Vincent painted energetically for the rest of his too-young life, creating an enormous output of drawings and paintings in just a few short years.  Though he sold only a few works during his lifetime (and those for practically nothing at all), his paintings now sell worldwide for tens of millions of dollars.  Vincent Van Gogh is now one of the world's most recognized and beloved artists. 

We, like Vincent, may struggle to find work that fits us like a glove, but fortunately we have many more options than he did.  Vincent lived and work in The Netherlands and France during the latter part of the 19th century, but nowadays in the US and beyond, there are more career choices - and thus more outlets for purposeful passion - than ever before in human history (even for artists).  If you or someone you know is struggling to find work that fits, remember Vincent's struggles - and rejoice that you aren't likely to have to repeat them!

Richard Bolles on your Life Mission

Richard Bolles, whom you may know as the author of the perenniel best-seller What Color is Your Parachute?, is a former Episcopal minister who believes work can be a calling if pursued within a spiritual context.  I'll be posting more on Dick's ideas about mission in the near future, but for now, consider this excerpt from an interview Bolles did with BusinessWeek.com in 2001:

Q: You talk in Parachute about the importance of finding your mission. What stands in the way of people doing that?
A: First of all, they don't want to. To find it, you have to want to find it. It's not an issue for you if the [first thing] out of your mouth is, "Oh, you've got a new job. What's the salary?" and that's the end of your inquiry.

Mission is often found through adversity. It's often found when people go through a very big crisis in their life -- their spouse dies, they go through a life-threatening illness themselves, they lose one of their children -- and they say, "I've really got to rethink why I'm here on earth, and I have to pay attention to how my work fits into it or doesn't fit."

Another factor that causes them to ask, "What is my mission in life?" is that they're bored out of their minds at their jobs. They say, "A job has got to do more than just give me a salary and put bread on the table. It has to give me a sense that I'm here on earth doing something worthwhile." If they start to say that to themselves, then they are going to work very hard to find out what their mission is.

Q: Have any examples?
A: I know so many stories. There was a guy who went to a career counselor and said, "I'm really puzzled. I don't like what I'm doing now. I'm making a very good salary, but I want to do something more meaningful to me."

The career counselor said, "Well, why don't you take weekends and teach bridge? Then do your regular job that brings in the money during the rest of the week." The career counselor sent him off to a career conference in Colorado. When the guy came back, he went looking for the career counselor who had urged him to go to this expensive conference. He wanted, basically, to choke him to death with his bare hands.

The counselor said, "What are you so upset about?" The guy said, "I found out that my passion is playing bridge." And the counselor replied, "What's wrong with that?" The guy answered, "Have you seen my house? Have you seen the two cars in the garage? I love my lifestyle. I'm making over $100,000 a year, and I would have to give all that up if all I did was just play bridge."

The career counselor said, "Well, why don't you take weekends and teach bridge? Then do your regular job that brings in the money during the rest of the week."

So, he did, and the guy soon became so popular that he had to hire other people to help him do the teaching. Then he franchised to other cities, and eventually, he was making more money playing [and teaching] bridge than he was in the job he'd had before as an executive.

My point is you don't know what kind of income you would have if you were really doing what you loved, because the enthusiasm and passion with which you come to that task often makes all the difference in the world.

I agree wholeheartedly that mission is often revealed through adversity - I see this day-after-day in my work as a Career Coach.  Adversity comes in many forms into each of our worklives and seems to invite introspection by challenging us to ask and answer life's most profound questions ... the smart professionals are those who listen to adversity's calling and use it as a means to unveil their own.