Counting Your Blessings

Gisela / CC BY-SA 2.0

About a week ago, in a break from 18-hour days filled with consulting, teaching yoga, doing a little day job to make ends meet, and pitching new business, I posted to friends a list of things I've been grateful to discover (or rediscover) as a result of the downturn. Largely in response to the decline in incoming funds, what has increased in the past year is my sense of resourcefulness, my sense of priorities, and my ability to see beauty in the simplest moment. Although it really felt great to write the list for my own benefit, I hesitated to post it. Truth be told, the worry that people might judge me for my struggles crossed my mind more than once.

But of course, life being the generous experience it is, this small act of transparency brought blessings back to me many times over. Friends from around the world emailed and even called to say how much the gratitude list brightened their days. Others posted their own sources of gratitude, ranging from the smallest to the most impactful. My most fashionista friend confessed enjoying scouring sale racks in her drive to maintain her carefully-tended image. Another friend from childhood shared her delight in rediscovering the local free paper as a source for finding great FREE cultural events. Friends in London whose work situation forced them to share an apartment with another professional couple expressed gratitude for the deepening in their friendship and sense of community with this other couple.

All that in perspective, here's my little list:

1. Cortados (Latin lattes probably made with Cafe Bustelo) from little corner bodegas for $1.25.


2. Rockstar haircuts from Chinatown for $25.


3. Levi's AWESOME skinny jeans.


4. Selling stock to make ends meet during a lean spot did not kill me - and recognizing the blessing in having stock to sell!


5. Dry cleaning bags cut into squares make great doggy-curb plastics.


6. Threading instead of waxing saves a LOT of money.


7. Happy hour with friends at home is a lot more relaxing.


8. QiGong from the little underground places is AMAZING and 1/3 the price of a spa massage.


9. I can still paint my own toenails.


10. Making birthday gifts always was and is still more fun.


11. I don't miss frivolous shopping at all.


12. Consignment shops in NYC are full of AMAZING stuff.


13. Coconut oil is a FABULOUS deep conditioner.


14. Theme parties beat lounges hands down.


15. I have more music already than I could ever listen to in a year.


16. My doggy likes broccoli more than doggy treats.


17. This meditation/yoga stuff really works on managing stress and keeping peace of mind.


18. Hot rollers instead of salon blowouts.


19. A puppy who insists we start and end each day with a session of playtime.

Right after posting the list I realized the holiday season is about to kick off with Thanksgiving just next week. While I always love how the holidays give us a reason to draw together, I am already feeling a tender respect for all that I, my friends, and my family have been through in the past year or so. Health, employment, living situations, relationships - just thinking about it inspires a sense of quietness and appreciation. While that list above could go on indefinitely, the thing I'm really happy about is recognizing how full and beautiful my life is at any given moment, and how much grace we all experience in authentically sharing our lives with each other.

Be well,

Tevis

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Meditating Major

Photo: Tevis Rose Trower

A few weeks ago, I headed up to Omega Institute in Rhinebeck, New York to lead a retreat. Always a bit giddy whenever I go up to these places - the notion of being closer to nature, having time for reflection, delicious food, stimulating conversations and cultural activities, and being surrounded by people also driven to retreat - I know I am always in for a really rich and rewarding time.

This particular retreat week, as is often the case, one night there was a musical performance up in the meditation sanctuary. Since the event was planned in such a somber, still place, I was anticipating that kind of music - reflective, slow. But when these guys started to play - wow. The entire room exploded into swaying, then jumping, dancing and clapping. Everyone was grinning ear to ear, nodding in time.

One particularly smiley face caught my eye. At first glance her groundedness and clean grooming had me thinking she might be at Omega for one of the yoga teacher trainings being offered. I later came to know her as Major Francine Iazzetta of the United States Marine Corps Reserve, just back from Afghanistan. While there, she had read a book by the founder of Omega and felt inspired to take a few days away from it all for herself.

I've been reflecting so much about Fran both because of the tragic events at Ft. Hood and because I promised I would blog about her and what she had to say about the power of meditation. For one thing, she had the "smilingest" energy I have encountered in a very, very long time. For another thing, she told me she had completed two tours and requested yet another tour in Afghanistan but had been denied. Why? She said "the closeness and realness of being on deployment is a level of connection that you simply can't fathom having anywhere else."

Which is where the power of retreat comes in. Fran then told me that of all the great experiences she had in her week of R&R at Omega, what had blown her mind the most was learning to meditate. Fran had just wandered into the morning practice one morning and had made a point to go to EVERY subsequent practice for the remainder of her stay.

Incredulous at how much the practice has to offer, in her words, "WHO KNEW!!!!??? It's like giving a deposit of 2 cents and getting two dollars back in awareness, peace of mind and feeling connected!!!" .” When I confessed having done a stint in the US Army Reserves during college she said that this closeness she's experienced defies branch of service, nationality, or any other identity - it is a togetherness that melts boundaries.

Considering the discipline of her profession, I have no doubt Fran is somewhere on the planet meditating each day. When I asked her if she was planning on teaching others, she said, "I want them to sense how different my energy is, then I'll start to share it with them."

There is a notion amongst those who meditate that we meditate not only for ourselves, but to introduce a different energy wherever we go. Fran tapped into that notion instinctively. Thinking about how many turbulent environments you navigate on any given day, cultivating a practice is your best bet for creating a shift for yourself and potentially for those you interact with. Being the change literally begins with changing your being - there's just no two ways about it.

So take a moment, right now. Shift your butt back into whatever seat you are on (or find one), and roll your shoulders back off your chest. Soften your jaw and close your eyes. With each inhale repeat to yourself "breathing in I am breathing in." As you exhale repeat to yourself "breathing out I am breathing out." Try to slow the breath and slow the words you are repeating mentally until there is a softness - almost like the rhythm of the words is merging with the sensation of the breath, like butter melting. Do this for at least 12 breath cycles.

You don't have to tell anyone or go out talking about this experience. Just do it for yourself, now, and perhaps again later at a moment when you're torn between which email to act on or which fire to put out.

It might not visibly change the world around you, but practiced with care it will change the world within you. And, Major Fran Iazzetta, wherever you are, thank you for the reminder, and for really being that change.

Be well,

Tevis

Join Tevis on retreat at Kripalu Center for Yoga & Health, January 29-31, 2010. Head for the Berkshires for a weekend to reflect and start the year with clarity and renewed energy.

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Perspectives from a Party

Photo: Tevis Rose Trower

Life is a great storyteller - offering moments of insight into the mundane and the sublime, the tragedy, beauty and celebration of it all. The great storytellers all do this and it resonates for us because in their observations are embedded the very paradoxes that exist in our own lives.

Last Saturday night, life delivered one such a powerful response to conversations we've all been having about how short life is, and the mandate to overcome obstacles and put yourself fully into whatever you're doing no matter what, where, how or why.

Last Saturday night friend Sheena Mathieken threw a party to celebrate the six month mark of her really cool Uniform Project. In the Uniform Project, Sheena has pledged to wear the same dress every day for a year as an exercise in sustainable fashion. You can go onto her site and see the many ways she has injected creativity into it - looking, as she says, as if accessorized in the "Marquis de Sade's boudoir". She created this initiative as a fundraiser for educational initiatives for kids in slums in India. So far, the effort has won attention from the BBC, Elle, The New York Times, and The Times, London. Slightly over $28K later, with German press at the party and a room full of New York's creative influencers, it's clear Sheena is just getting her engines started.

Updating her about what's up in the world of corporate yogis, the focus on shifting consciousness she laughed, "if it were really about fitness or staying thin, my secret is following your passion AND keeping your day job - I have two full time jobs now and the energy alone is enough!". Even her boss acknowledged the energy this is demanding of her and that she is completely engaged and happy in what she is doing.

But last Saturday night after we left the party, someone in the building apparently fell down an elevator shaft and died. I'm not the first to report this - it's posted on Gothamist and ABC News. The tragedy to the deceased and his circle of loved ones is unimaginable. For the rest of us at the very least it is a powerful reminder to live our lives with passion and purpose, contribution and without complaint.

Which is what Sheena was already doing and hopefully will continue to do. Stressors clear, I'm offering up a prayer that this accident doesn't take Sheena off course either in this project and all the incredible contributions she has yet to make. I'm urging you to go to her site and tell her to keep going and if you have an extra $5 in your bank account make a donation.

The world needs the Sheena's and the you's and the me's to look life in the eye and give all we got while we're here - as you live your own greatest story, don't let anything take that offering off track.

Be well,

Tevis

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Rise & Shine

Photo: Tevis Rose Trower

Walking home from teaching yoga Halloween morning, I passed a team of paraplegic "wheelers" getting ready for the NYC marathon. Twenty strides past this tangible reminder of happenstance and courage gave me pause to consider the ephemeral nature of this little life - that we come in, do some stuff while we're here, experience a lot, then die. Shakespeare captured this sentiment beautifully in The Tempest:

Our revels now are ended. These our actors,
As I foretold you, were all spirits, and
Are melted into air, into thin air:
And like the baseless fabric of this vision,
The cloud-capp'd tow'rs, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve,
And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff
As dreams are made on; and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep.

Indeed. It seems that the great decider of how we live isn't so much any other person or external influence, but the degree to which we determine how we will rise and approach life, and how we will recognize that we own the choices we make in the midst of the situations we experience.

So how can we move powerfully through this pageant of life? "What doesn't kill you just makes you stronger" is a quote I often heard as a kid growing up in the South. If you can imagine a heavy southern accent as you read that, then you can also imagine my surprise to learn that the famous German existentialist philosopher Frederick Nietsche is credited with first saying it. But even he can't claim originating the sentiment. My meditation teacher Sally Kempton just reminded me of the millenia-old yogic adage that "That by which you fall is that by which you rise", further reinforcing the notion that great wisdom has no nationality, dogma or ethnicity. It's just a simple truth - no membership fee required.

Giving much thought to how to rise, what to grow into, and what about life might feel more "happy-making" if approached a little differently, the approaching holidays are a great catalyst for bringing greater awareness to thoughts and intentions, choices and actions. And as much as I've dreamed of a fairy-godmother to make life easier, you don't have to look very far to realize there's not a wisdom teacher out there who says getting rich quick, shirking work, or surrendering your intelligence to situation comedies are paths to happiness.

Inspired by this, I looked at two traditional structures for the aspects of self - Maslow's "Hierarchy of Needs" and the yogic Chakra system - and made a map to prepare how to rise, not only through this holiday season but heading powerfully and peacefully into 2010.

Physiological
This level includes how you eat, getting some movement, some sleep, some comfort and downtime, making time for making love, taking care of primary physical self care such as dentist and yearly checkups, and yes, even simply heeding "nature's call" in a timely manner rather than putting it off after another 20 multitasks. Setting an intention here might include taking care of appointments long postponed, holding holiday drinking in check, packing a lunch rather than hitting the buffet, walking for 20 minutes before eating lunch, and making sure to take 10 minutes to breathe and center from time to time throughout the week. What can you identify that you need to remember on the physiological level?

Safety/Personal Power
This level relates to how well you stay connected to yourself in the midst of expansion into relationships including family, social and work. For many of us this brings up issues with over-committing, seeking approval or (the secret backside issue) forcing our will on others, judging ourselves or others, and any interaction with others that results in a power play rather than simply experiencing each other from a place of mutual respect and free-will. One way to keep yourself in that "happy-making" place is by asking yourself what you REALLY want as you consider any given choice. Whether simply determining whether to accept an invitation, or clarifying why you are squabbling with someone, this question will allow you to act on what is most true to you and to refrain from uselessly exerting your truth on someone who may have a different truth.

Heart/Love/Belonging
This is the flip side of the layer before. As an example from some of the most respected schools of coaching, there is an expression that we are all "perfect and whole", and in yoga we acknowledge this with the Sanskrit word "namaste" - loosely translated as the wisdom in me recognizes the wisdom in you. This doesn't mean we agree or even like each other, it simply means we give ourselves and others around us permission to exist exactly as we are. One way to practice this is to call to mind how it feels to observe an argument between two people you respect and admire equally seeing both sides as valid. That objectivity is a perspective you can cultivate in your own conflicts.

Self Expression/Communication
This layer is related to how we honor what matters most to us. How can you honor how you find meaning through this holiday season? Throughout your life? Taking the holiday example - maybe ritual is lost on you, but helping others means a lot. Maybe that means you spend the day volunteering and meeting others who share that value or inviting your family along or talking to them about why it means so much to you. Maybe you take on an issue you care about and blog about it. Maybe you join an organization that gives expression to issues you care deeply about. Think about it: over the next few weeks what could you commit to doing that really holds meaning for you? What about in the new year?

Self Actualization/Clarity
Self-actualization/clarity are often misunderstood as being really decisive or set in your ways. However, that way of being can only exist within artificial limits. For us to be fully alive, we have to stay awake to the dynamic world around us. Albert Einstein may have captured this best saying,

"A human being is a part of a whole, called by us "universe", a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest... a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty."

In this aspect of self, your responsibility is to move purposefully outside of the limiting circle of your known experiences and cultivate new inputs, new ideas, find new perspectives and take new actions as your knowledge evolves. What can you do in support of this over the next few weeks? In the new year?

Remembering how short and precious life really is, get up. Rise. Make the most of it while you're here.

Be well,

Tevis

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The Difference is YOU

IMYJOB: Week 4

A couple years ago the most desired brand in high fashion recognized they had a serious problem: their employees were bitchy to people they didn't think would spend a lot of money. After I was asked to get involved in solving the problem, I tested these findings. My business partner (a former Microsoft employee) and I wandered into their boutique in Beverly Hills in our yoga gear. Lo and behold, the septuagenarian security guard is the only person who bothered to acknowledge us for the entire 20 minutes we endured being in the store. Not a good feeling.

This type of profiling happens in any business, but the obvious problem is that while missing out on lots of smaller transactions and creating a relationship with 14 year olds who will someday buy the $3,000 handbag, this company was also missing out on transactions from people like me and you who may not dress fancy, but in Sam Walton style can just as easily whip out the platinum AMEX when the mood strikes us. For the company this meant lost revenues. For the employees, it meant both lost sales commissions, and a very important something else - reducing interactions at work to either ones that "matter" or ones that aren't worth having. By adopting a mindset that precludes the majority of moments at work to being irrelevant, drudgery or a waste of time, the employees there had forgotten why they ever wanted to be a part of this proud brand to begin with. They had forgotten that this brand is the embodiment of luxury, of sophistication, and there is nothing luxurious or sophisticated about being rude or sleepwalking through the majority hours of life.

No matter where you work, for a couture name or a non-profit, there is a higher meaning behind the work you do. Each organization has central ideals and provides services others need. Sure we often look at this as nothing more than a reduced version of b.s. bingo - but those ideals are the core of how we connect and contribute to the highest version of what the organization is. Think about it: we can reduce what we do to its lowest meaning, or we can connect with it at the very highest.

As we've done with employees at organizations ranging from the NYPD to Yahoo!, employees at this company were invited to reconnect to why they ever wanted to work there to begin with. After working through their own stories of how they ended up there, the room was full of remembering the legacy, the attention to every last detail, the creativity of the vision, that working there meant "belonging" in a world of absolute luxury. We asked: okay, so if that's what drew you here, isn't it safe to assume a similar longing drew people into the door? How do you give them that experience in everything you do?

The room got quiet. We were all feeling a bit high on these notions of legacy, creativity, vision and absolute luxury. If you could have bottled that vibe you'd have a blockbuster potion no one could resist. Everyone sat with this question: how to exude these values in everything we do from answering the phone to making eye-contact to acknowledge someone even if we are busy helping someone else? How to treat ourselves with this same level of awareness so that in our interactions with each other (both other employees and the clients we serve), that vibe becomes the defining quality of the interaction. Yes, even in conflict.

Here are a couple practices you can use to get YOURSELF into your highest level of functioning at work:

1. What does the organization you work for stand for? Whether you work for SAP and deliver networking solutions or you work in food services and serve meals on trays, there are elements of grace and dignified service that are expressed by what you do and where you work. WebMD employees are a great example - they could see themselves as just working at an internet site or they could remember that this service makes valuable information available to countless people. Both interpretations are true - yet one reveals the grace and importance of their work while the other obscures it. I guarantee you it matters to how they feel about their work, how they produce and what kind of day they usually have. Look at your own job and identify those elements.


2. Ask yourself which of those elements most resonate with YOU. At Disney for example, employees are led through an exercise to identify which character most reflects their values - you can do a similar exercise for yourself. What about where you work got you there to begin with? If having a job period is what got you there, what about the work of your organization holds beauty to you? I call this the Point of Highest Resonance


3. Remind yourself of that Point of Highest Resonance on your way to work, and in the midst of conducting the tasks that are your work. Answering the phone. Responding to a colleague. How does that resonance come alive in everything you do - by doing this you literally bottle that highest vibe within yourself and emanate it with other people.

By using these highest values as an organizing principle as you contribute your energy, intelligence and self to your work, work becomes an outlet for self expression that is inextricably linked to feeling a sense of purpose, whether you've ever thought of it that way or not. Wisdom traditions teach us that Karma is the law of action, and work is another field of your action.

You've got the concept, now work it. Moving through the last week of this series, notice when your action is required at any given moment, and see how it feels to allow yourself to resonate with it at a higher level. Notice when your work calls upon you to create a solution. No matter how mundane the problem or simple the solution, notice that you can respond with a low appraisal of your work, your contribution, your life, or you can choose to embody a higher value for all of the above. Notice that no matter your role, the challenges of your day invite your imagination of other possibilities whether you see it that way or not. Your consciousness and cognitive powers mean that no matter where you are or what your role, it is up to you to make the difference in how you go about whatever it is you do for work.

Be well,

Tevis

IMYJOB - The Series:

• Jobs: Love The One You're With
• Black Holes & Illumination
• Employee ID: Work As Self-Expression
• Rut, Routine or Ritual?
• The Difference is YOU

Related Topics:

• Mind, Body, Spirit: Member Discussion
• The Good Life Neighborhood
• Emotional Wellness - get helpful tips in your inbox

Rut, Routine or Ritual?

IMYJOB: Week 3

You know the drill. With some variation we all experience the following: Alarm. Arise. Bathe. Eat. Drink. Leave. Arrive. Work. When I was in college a popular band called The Godfathers reduced it to a stultifying Birth, School, Work, Death. It was their only hit. The Police captured it beautifully in their drudgery anthem Synchronicity II, and even Francis Ford Coppola says you'd better love what you do because "eventually you will hate it".

Because humans are pattern-makers both in terms of how our brains organize information and how we structure our lives, the workaday mentality is an inevitable one. But equally true, our nervous systems are wired to respond to chaos. Any fitness trainer will tell you that the human body responds best when dealing with uncertainty and will intentionally sequence exercises to wake the body up. Despite first-day-of-school reluctance to step into new situations, we crave both the security of the predictable and the excitement of the unknown. Having both is dependent upon how you cultivate your own sense of presence no matter which seems dominant on any given day.

To convert the hum-drum of everyday, you have to see your day with new eyes. The words "rut" and "routine" might easily describe the patterned events and actions you take everyday, but when held with a sense of appreciation and presence these very same events can bring a elements of comfort, connection and community.

• Savor the Sacred - What ARE the sacred moments in your day? What are the small pleasures that you experience because of the routine of your day? The sacred doesn't have to involve chanting, incense, or some other more esoteric ritual, although it might. It does require you look at your day as a series of patterned actions that create ritual, no matter how mundane they might seem.


• Patterns of Pleasure - Chances are the routines you experience have evolved from countless repeated choices you make based upon what gives you pleasure. Your morning beverage of choice; the route to work; what you read or listen to while in transit; pleasure can even be found in how you settle into your work-space. We all have endless small pleasures sprinkled throughout our days, often without notice due to the constant chatter of the brain. Take an inventory of your work-pattern pleasures this week.


• Cultivate Community - From the moment you awaken, how does your work create opportunity for beauty, for connection with others, for resolution, for rest? Is it saying hello to a neighbor as you collect the paper from outside? Is it the joke with the barista when you get your morning jo? Might the shared pre-meeting personal anecdote actually be a moment of connection? Is welcoming a new team member secretly a moment of compassion and kindness?

Anything from preparing for a meeting to organizing the things on your desk can be seen as creating order and ritual. When viewed with a beauty-seeking eye, any given day is full of sacred, pleasurable moments. By recognizing these moments of connection and sacred beauty in midst of the absurdly mundane, we elevate our work experience from being "what I do to get paid", to being another venue in which to experience the delight of being alive.

Be well,

Tevis

IMYJOB - The Series:

• Jobs: Love The One You're With
• Black Holes & Illumination
• Employee ID: Work As Self-Expression
• Rut, Routine or Ritual?
• The Difference is YOU

Related Topics:

• Mind, Body, Spirit: Member Discussion
• The Good Life Neighborhood
• Emotional Wellness - get helpful tips in your inbox

Employee ID: Work As Self-Expression

IMYJOB: Week 2

If you've been paying attention, you may have noticed that there are lots of ways to perceive work challenges. For some people impediments to being happy at work roll like water off a duck's back. For others, not so much. From obstacle to growth-opportunity, the ways we frame the world around is of our making and has real impact on the quality our life experience. The comments submitted by readers of this series give great illustration of this - ranging from (paraphrasing) "I love my job if not for all those irritating people I have to deal with", to "It IS our work to interact with each other".

But what IS your work? Is it part of your identity? Although there's a cliché that Americans live to work and Europeans work to live, in both equations work is somehow separate from life. Taking a clue from nature, all living things work and live. A tree could not be a tree without doing the work of being a tree (photosynthesis, etc.). While all other plants also conduct this work, the essential nature or treeness of the tree is what that work (photosynthesis) supports. The work supports the tree's essential nature, as our work supports ours.

Consider this example: when asked what his greatest work was, passion-driven workaholic, inventor, artist and renaissance-man Leonardo DaVinci responded, "Leonardo DaVinci". His sentiment contrasts with our modern demonization of identifying with work. I remember at a party asking someone what they did for work and being lambasted with indignation that such a question has anything to do with who they are suggesting that only people reminiscent of the greedy banker character Gordon Gekko in the movie Wall Street so identify with their work. But wait - if we are on a path of cultivating satisfaction in our lives, shouldn't EVERYTHING we do somehow be an expression of who we are?

Back to the tree example: imagine a tree that does less that 100% effort in photosynthesis - not much of a prognosis for survival. Suggesting there can be no conditions applied to how we embrace and exert in all venues of life, Martin Luther King Jr. said this:

If it falls your lot to be a street sweeper, sweep streets like Michelangelo painted pictures, sweep streets like Beethoven composed music, sweep streets like Leontyne Price sings before the Metropolitan Opera. Sweep streets like Shakespeare wrote poetry. Sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will have to pause and say: "Here lived a great street sweeper who swept his job well."

Ego, status, self-conscious competition, and co-worker drama aside, King suggests - as many ancient wisdom traditions from the Bible to the Bhagavad-Gita do - that connecting full-heartedly to what we do is our real work. This concept is expressed by the term dharma meaning one's righteous duty (wikipedia).

This week's practice surfaces your insights about the identity-work connection. At any gathering of adults, often the first question exchanged is "what do you do for a living?" Set aside any conditioned guilt that this is the easiest way to break the ice with strangers, and take a new look to see just why that question yields so many pieces of information that allow us to learn about each other.

1. When held with fascination these conversations provide subtle clues that allow us to connect and establish common ground, and insight about un-familiar territory. Beyond job title, what do you learn about others by asking this question?


2. Notice what you surmise about other's education, interests, skills and social networks. How are these assumptions validated by further conversation? How do people's complexities surface? Can you allow people to be full human beings even in this conversation?


3. When you meet people you assume you have nothing in common with, how can you learn about and respect them? How do you connect with them even when you're not sure where to find common ground?


4. Do you get a sense that whomever you speak to is passionate for what they do? Do you perceive that they have interpersonal and executional challenges that arise in the course of "getting the job done"? Do they allow both passion and imperfections to coexist within this conversation? Do you?


5. What about outside passions? When you meet people who convey simply "working to make a living", do you find they typically have an outside passion? Do you find people with passions for work are the people with passions outside of work or do you find people who use passions outside of work to compensate for their lack of passion at work? BONUS: Would you say that passionate people are simply passionate no matter if the topic is work or leisure?

Wherever you go this week, don't forget to ask these questions of yourself as well. Notice how you express aspects of yourself by talking about work. Rather than allowing your work-centric conversations to be habitual venting or complaining, simply allow work to say something inherently powerful or meaningful about you and the people you meet. In embracing work as a form of self-expression, you practice an aspect of dharma integrating work into life and life into work.

Let me know how it goes.

Be well,

Tevis

IMYJOB - The Series:

• Jobs: Love The One You're With
• Black Holes & Illumination
• Employee ID: Work As Self-Expression
• Rut, Routine or Ritual?
• The Difference is YOU

Related Topics:

• Mind, Body, Spirit: Member Discussion
• The Good Life Neighborhood
• Emotional Wellness - get helpful tips in your inbox