This workshop offers a step-by-step process
for creating self-sustaining and prosperous conditions that resonate with our
deepest levels of integrity, passion, and purpose.
What do you do and why? How do we answer that question? Today we learn to
open doorways of inspiration, to put desires into action, to create and receive
support for our visions, and to be inspired and motivated to create the work
we love. Throughout the day we work with a meditative format that combines
internal exercises (based around the chakra system) with particular issues
central to establishing our vocation in the world. Beginning with an exploration
of abundance versus scarcity and then moving to connect with our deeply felt
passions and convictions, we learn to uncover our true priorities, to focus
them, and to align them with the full force of our being.
Once I have an idea of what I want to do, how can I transform that idea into
a working reality? Learn powerful tools for bringing ideas into manifestation.
Beginning with our "project" (the contribution we would like to make
to the world), we align it with our inner, ethical sense, learn how to prevent
self sabotage, to mobilize energy for accomplishment, correct and incorrect methods
of visualization, how to access dream materials for career opportunities, how
to manage our time and energy (time management is the yoga of the nineties),
and how to receive tangible support from personal and transpersonal sources.
A discussion of coming vocational trends and how to interface with them complete
the workshop.
The Seven Steps
to Concious Career Building
1. Abundance: conscious careers begin
with abundance; a visceral feeling of trust in life, self-esteem, and
the value of being who you are in the world. What do you do easily,
naturally, effortlessly? True, powerful positions can be achieved through
scarcity (the feeling that I am not enough or that I do not have enough),
but they take one away from one's authenticity. What profits a man
who has gained the whole world?
2. Feeling: passion is the fuel that drives us. What
do you care about? What makes you indignant enough to change yourself and/or
the world? What would you do spontaneously - even if you weren't being paid for
it? If passion is not consciously present, symptoms are. Symptoms (defined here
as anything on any level that bothers you or moves you) are the harbingers of
passion. If you are in abundance, you do not need to mask or deny symptoms, but
can work deeply with them, listen to them, and let them lead you to your core.
3. Focus: this is where most vocational programs
begin; defining your goals. But if you are not aligned with your sense of abundance
and feeling, goals may be chosen out of scarcity, not out of being aligned with
your greater sense of being. Trajectory might be better than goal here. You are
responsible for choosing a direction, for making commitments, and for following
through, but you want to be open to deeper forces at work in the making of your
destiny. Setting a direction is more effective when it is done in timed increments
instead of idealistic "forevers." What is the one (two or three) area, that if
you focused on it in the next six-months, no matter what else happened (barring
acts of God), you would feel supremely good about yourself and your place in
the world?
4. Sharing: to share instead of struggle, to understand
that work exists within the greater eco-context of relationship and community,
to focus on making a contribution instead of eking our a living from the world,
these are the transformational possibilities of the heart. The heart is the seat
of prosperity, and here is the place where you learn the laws of giving and receiving,
of creating prosperity instead of obsessing over profit, of developing win/win
situations in all transactions with others. To hold anyone out of our compassionate
embrace is to hold out a part of ourselves. A key question, then, to ask in vocational
development is, "Who, where, and what is my community," for another name for
a community is a "market!" To work from the heart of sharing (to give and to
receive) is to transform the outworn presuppositions of the market-place, and
to make your work a reflection of your health, authenticity, and love.
5. Creativity: If the job you want does not presently
exist, you can create it! This is the more than the entrepreneurial spirit, this
is participating in the process of creative manifestation. In this realm, you
learn to re-envision your work and the purpose of your work. What is the highest
possibility you can imagine for your project, product, or service? Do you have
a vision of the world as it could be, not a concept (i.e. freedom, justice, equality)
but an actual visceral sense of what could be. What would the revisioned world
look like, smell like? To paraphrase Edward Kennedy speaking at his brother Robert's
funeral, "Some people see the world as it is and ask, "Why, my brother saw a
world that never was and asked "Why not." Have the courage to vision, to dream,
and to build from the deepest place within you. "In dreams begin our responsibilities." 6. Spirit: if petitions to Spirit (in whatever form
you relate to a Higher Power) have cured cancer, brain tumors, and the like,
then God should be able to get me a job! Why not invite the spiritual dimension
into our job search? Not by asking Spirit to manipulate things in our favor,
but by opening our own plan to "The Plan." As Hilda Charlton used to say at the
end of every one of her meetings (when she asked people who needed jobs to stand
up and receive prayer), "There is a place that needs you and a place where you
need to be. See these two coming together."
7. Mystery: ultimately, we don't know! No matter
how many "steps" we follow, there is a mystery underneath and around our lives.
There are forces at work that we cannot even begin to conceive of. More often
than not, we draw the circumference of possibility too tight around our limited
ideas. In this final moment, we take a leap of faith, we embrace the unknown.
We move actively into meeting our fate instead of passively resigning to our
destiny. Your Life is a work of Art, a craft to be carefully mastered, for patience
has replaced time, and you are your own destination!
You may also want to ask yourself these questions:
What is the priority, project, product, or service that you would like
to develop through this course?
What has been your experience around goals and goal setting?
Name at least ten resources that are currently available to you to further
your project. Now name at least five more.
What has been your experience around translating a vision into action?
Around networking?
What community (market) do you feel related to? What are their primary
concerns? How might you share energy with them?
What are the major obstacles that have stymied the manifestation of your
priority in the past? What is the "message" they have been trying
to communicate?
How is your whole (spiritual) Self related to your current area of focus?
ABUNDANCE
Once I have an idea of what I want to do, how can I transform that
idea into a working reality? Learn powerful tools for bringing ideas into
manifestation. Beginning with our "project" (the contribution we would like to make
to the world), we align it with our inner, ethical sense, learn how to prevent
self sabotage, to mobilize energy for accomplishment, correct and incorrect
methods of visualization, how to access dream materials for career opportunities,
how to manage our time and energy (time management is the yoga of the nineties),
and how to receive tangible support from personal and transpersonal sources.
A discussion of coming vocational trends and how to interface with them complete
the workshop.