Work can feel like soul bursting drudgery, especially if you find yourself in an environment which exudes authoritative distrust. There's nothing worse than feeling like someone is breathing down your neck watching every little move you make. It zaps you of creative energy. It kills something inside you. I honestly believe that we are capable of taking on even the most menial kind of work if we are recognized, respected and reassured every now and then that we are needed and liked...........that we belong to a team..........that we have something to offer. How wonderful it feels when someone tells you with their words or actions that you belong.....or that you were missed when you were away.
We all yearn to belong don't we? No one wants to be a lost boy misfit all the time.
Even if we are in a field of work that is suited for our personal interests and gifts, if there is a lack of enthusiasm for new ideas, for spontaneity every once in a while.........if there is a fearful flavour emanating down the hallways seeping into cubicles and offices, even the most suited work feels torturous. When the power is upperhanded, and the playing field isn't level, the very idea of Monday morning can make the strongest person feel impotent.
I often struggle with my own situation, though I happen to love the work I do, which is why I continue to find a way to balance my feelings about the hands on counselling and my feelings about the atmosphere. It most definately has been an internal joust where I have waxed and waned with my thoughts. It has produced many sleepless nights, bouts of anxiety that I never knew existed in me. It has left me in tears, shaking my head wondering how to deal with it. And it's always the work that I DO which pulls me back into the foray again and again.
Life is not to be approached as something to get through without some scrapes and scars. If we were to handle it that way, we've completely missed the point of living. Joy is nothing without sorrow. Strength means little without the understanding of how anxiety feels like. Real living forces us to figure out the tough stuff by challenging our assumptions, confronting our beliefs, and most importantly learning about what we are made of. There are days when i feel like I'm simply made up of fluff and I have no muscle in me to take on the bullies. But, then there are other days when I can sense that I have the muscle and the fortitude to see the powerseekers as simply human beings trying to do the best that they can........that their motivation to use their muscle lies in the bottom of a pool of insecurities.
The best days are when I can put all of this aside and simply do what some Big Guy up there intended for me to do...........to work from a loving heart by recognizing that it is up to me and me alone to harness my own motivation, my own creativity and my own ability to see the world through absurdist eyes in order to approach the work I choose to do with my best foot forward with a smile on my face. If I can hold onto this thought, knowing that I alone have the key to my thoughts and wishes, the burdens will evaporate into the air and make it lighter.
And if all else fails....... stick in your earphones, crank up the tunes....... ..and leave them in your wake.
5 comments:
wish i knew what the hell the big guy thinks.....but hey, i cranked up the volume and, according to the boss, tramps like us baby they were born to run!
It sounds like you came back from your vacation into some stressful stuff....! Struggle seems to be the word of the day...or year...Or Century! (lol) I like the idea of the earphones with relaxing music playing...Reduce Stress With Music! YES!
paul....wish I knew too. He is a silent presence.....but sometimes is found in the very best music.
I was also struck with the section in O'Donahue's anam cara where he describes work.....I loved what he had to say.....his offerings as well as the blessings he included were very helpful.
He writes..."the notion of the day as a sacred place offers a lovely frame for the creativity which a day can bring. Your life becomes the shape of the days you inhabit. Days enter us.....
So many of our days and so much of our time is spent doing work which remains outside the territories of creativity and feeling.....
Days spent caged make us tired and weary.....
Work should not be like that at all; it should be an arena of possibility and real expression."
I have many appointments booked this week......have many arenas of possibilities built in....and in between those "visits" I will be smiling at the thought of the real Boss entertaining this little tramp. We are born to run....oh yeah.......AND dance in fields! :)
Naomi......yes. It has been stressful for eternity it seems, but am ready again to take it on. I am hopeful that change is in the air. And, I do love the "doing" part of my days......
Music is never far away......and neither are the stories and the realness of peoples' lives.
It's funny isn't it? If only our superiors or indeed our colleagues realised that a little encouragement and maybe a smatter of appreciation makes people want to come to work, makes them want to do better. Everybody wins and it takes so little to make a difference to a person's day.
gypsy......i thought about your comment here this afternoon and went about doing just that, because it reminded me that we are also responsible for this kindness.....and the consequence is always the realization that you have made your own day too. :)
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