Will Work for Fun!

It never hurts to dream big!

“Getting stuck in the wrong career is like a horror movie where I’ve been buried and no one can hear my screams!” ~ Barbara Sher

I’m not sure which is worse hating the job you’re in, (perhaps sneaking time at work to find another job), or looking for a job, any job, just as long as it pay the bills.

Even though many people are feeling the pinch of living in an economic recession, including the thousands who’ve been laid off, there are more people than you would think actually deciding to make career changes. Women, three-to-one, are starting their own business and both men and women are choosing careers that feel more rewarding, more meaningful or at least more in sync with who they really are.

Few people these days are hankering to break into the corporate sector for happiness or job security. More often they feel “happiness” promises are marketing ploys and “job security” is an oxymoron. When we meet they often ask, “Can you help people who don’t know what it is they want to be when they grow up?” or they say, “I’ve been working so hard at keeping this lousy job – even my coworkers constantly complain – I can’t think straight about what I would do if I were to be laid off.”

One of my favorite questions to ask my career-coaching clients who feel lost but dying to do something different is this: “If you received 40 million dollars (tax free) every 12 months, from now until your death, what would you do with your days? What would you do with your time just for fun?”

Another question I ask is this: “If you were told you have 12 hours to live and it was midnight, what would you regret never having done?”

Not everyone believes you can make a living doing what you love to do for others. For instance, the authors of Who Moved My Cheese?: An Amazing Way to Deal with Change in Your Work and in Your Life, Spencer Johnson and Kenneth Blanchard, beat to death their message of “following the cheese (money?)” – as a metaphor for being willing to go with the flow of your times, follow the trends of your current cultural moment if you want to make a living. They wrote, “You’ll be wondering who moved YOUR cheese if you don’t keep following the scent of potential profit. Mice know how to do this.”

Perhaps these Blanchard and Johnson were operating from a “rat race” mentality. If profit comes before people, you’re more likely to be awfully lonely, unsatisfied and stuck in a horror movie of sorts—what Buddhists call a karmic hell realm (born of the seeds you’ve sewn by greedy choices).

Today’s happier income generators seems to be more willing to create a livelihood based on what energizes them. As my stand-up comic friend says, “If it ain’t fun, I’m not going to be doing it for long.” This sentiment seems to be the case more often than not when people take or keep a job because it pays well or well-enough. Truth be told, they are slowly dying inside and their loved ones can feel it. Is the pay off worth it?

Can you imagine thinking of your work as fun? Steve Jobs, the founder of Apple, Inc. claims: “If earning our living is what we spend most of our time doing, don’t you think it’s worth finding the kind of work that feeds your soul? Keep searching, it’s worth it.” I often share with my clients the discovery that I’ve made over and over: “Entrepreneurs are the true creators of security—especially if the measurement is satisfaction for work well done.”

Do not think you’ll be able to uncover your “calling” in no time – especially if your family members are freaking out about your depleted bank account(s). What’s required is a willingness to stay open and in action about gathering data and experience. Jumping right into the pool is not only a must, it’s a plus to keep you feeling the momentum that comes when you experiment with what works and what feels like work.

Making a transition doesn’t always move in smooth or linear ways. It can feel like e-Harmony or Match.com – there is rarely a “just right” feel right from the start. Just like Goldilocks, you might have to try a lot more porridge than you’d prefer in order to uncover what feeds you in a satisfying way.

For many of my clients, an exploration phase simply consists of gathering information, networking with Biznik events, looking at what successful entrepreneurs do to create their success, and seeing what you have to offer that continues to be interesting.

A good thing to remember is what my friend and mentor Barbara Winter says, “The business an entrepreneur starts with is rarely the one she or he finishes with.” As James, one of my clients in International Technological Sales, said,

“After working at Smith Barney in International accounts, I was afraid I’d never be able to keep up our family’s lifestyle if I shifted gears. When I started out, I wanted something less burdensome, I was tired of working from seven in the morning to eleven at night, being on call due to time differences, and worrying about getting woken up in the middle of the night and having to work the next day. I mean, I couldn’t even have breakfast with my family or walk the girls to the bus stop as my wife could do.

“I felt I was missing out on the very family I worked so hard to support; what was the point? So I started looking into exploring other possibilities. One of the places I had liked in the past was in Dubai.

Though I hated my work at the time, I loved the cultural diversity and how well my family was treated. I figure if I’m skillful in sales and international relations, there are hundreds of other ways I can put that to work in my own business. I’m just scared and I need someone to support and encourage me as I experiment.”

As James experience foreshadows, the experimental method of finding a better fit in work doesn’t necessarily entail guarantees or a nice orderly sequence of steps in which one side project leads logically to the next. Real work is involved when one wants to make a transition.

Calling up past acquaintances, interviewing happy entrepreneurs, attending events that interest you, putting yourself around people you admire and would love to work with, can be ways of supporting your experiments. But the trend is clear, small wins may be scattered, but what really matters is that they move in the same general direction—away from the stifling situation in which we find ourselves wanting to escape.

So much of the “right fit” is born of lots of little actions that can move you into more rewarding relationships (financially and emotionally). Just like finding a wonderful companion can happen out of the blue or by dating lots of toads — but certainly won’t be likely if you stay in your familiar comfort zone (rut).

As George Eliot tells us, “It’s never too late to be what you might have been.” Why not start inventing where you might feel greater happiness. It can start with a guess. What helps me is to do that which brings me aliveness, because I believe that’s what the world needs, don’t you?

Jennifer Manlowe, founder of Life Design Unlimited<</b, is a life direction counselor and certified publishing coach helping people step out to authorize their lives. Her books can be found at AuthorizeU.com,

Learn more about the author, Jennifer Manlowe, PhD, CPC.

Minding Your Emotions Rather than Stuffing Them by Jennifer Manlowe

Sometimes I feel like it's all too much!

“If we are perfect and complete, exactly as we are, ‘lacking nothing,’ as the Buddha says, then why all this emphasis on mindfulness, storytelling and community? Mindfulness, storytelling, and community are where we realize our perfection.” ~ William Alexander

“The miracle is not to walk on water. The miracle is to walk on the green earth in the present moment, to appreciate the peace and beauty that are available now.” ~ Thich Nhat Hanh

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What do you do with your emotions? Do you feel them, analyze them, reject or ignore them?

When I worry about not having enough money to make ends meet, I often try the technique of “putting it out of my mind” in the hope that my tidal wave of anxiety will go away. After a few years—just after losing my grandfather to a fatal stroke—I began the technique of breathing in the very thing I was afraid of—impoverishment—and, via exhaling, releasing the notion that, “I have exactly what I need for now.”

One day, on my 70-mile commute to work to the University (for the whole ride), I “breathed in the fear” and “released the calm that I was seeking.” I found myself slipping into a warm “tub of peace” without escaping into fantasy or hyper-attending to my worst fears.

Two weeks later, my grandmother died. I was so grateful to have discovered a practice that helped me grieve the loss of both grandparents and that I could work with for the stress-filled months that followed. It was a first for me to find non-destructive ways to soothe myself through difficult feelings—something I had never been able to do prior to that point in time.

The name of this mindfulness practices is called Lojong or Tonglen and was first exposed to me through Tibetan teacher Pema Chodron, Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche’s senior Dharma student, who is now head Abbess in Nova Scotia’s Gampo Abbey.

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[NOTE: Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche (February 1939 – April 4, 1987) was a Buddhist meditation master, scholar, teacher, poet, artist, and a Trungpa tülku (an incarnate Tibetan Lama). Widely recognized, both by Tibetan Buddhists and by other spiritual practitioners and scholars, as a preeminent teacher of Tibetan Buddhism, he was a major figure in the dissemination of Tibetan Buddhism to the West, founding Vajradhatu and Naropa University and establishing the Shambhala Training Method. He has also been a prolific translator of Tibetan].

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In this particular breathing practice called tonglen one uses “mindful” or “relaxed attention” given to the feelings that arise during meditation without getting overwhelmed by these emotional experiences.

It is precisely through working with this feeling-filled, mindfulness practice—carried on the wings of my breath—that I have found the greatest comfort and relief.

No need to rush out of uncomfortable feelings into anesthetizing with food, alcohol, spending, or hyper-fixating on the problems of others to find relief from an anxious mind. We can go into the feeling and witness its transience.

The thing we are each searching for is already within each of us. No drug, well-behaved children, perfect mate, or financial windfall can provide the calm we can create through nurturing it via our mindful breathing.

Breathing mindfully is like listening to waves on an ocean, always available to attend to—the ebb and the flow of our very own, breath-spirit (spiritus in Latin).

One thing that I’ve found over the years is that this practice takes practice. It’s like training a skittish, stray cat to “stay still” and trust that today will take care of itself. To begin this practice, experiment with focusing on what you are dreading right now and work with it in this exercise (below).

Making This Practice My Own:

The Practice of Tonglen

Each of us has a “soft spot”: the place in our experience where we feel vulnerable and tender. This soft spot is inherent in appreciation and love, and it is equally inherent in pain. Often, when we feel that soft spot, it’s quickly followed by a feeling of fear and an involuntary, habitual tendency to close down.

This is the tendency of all living things: to avoid pain and cling to pleasure. In practice, however, covering up the soft spot means shutting down against our life experience. Then we tend to narrow down into a solid feeling of self-against-other.

One very powerful and effective way to work with tendency to push away pain and hold onto pleasure is the practice of tonglen. Tonglen literally means “sending and taking.” The practice originated in
India and came to Tibet in the 11th century.

In tonglen practice, when we see or feel suffering, we breathe in with the notion of completely feeling it, accepting it and owning it. Then we breathe out, radiating compassion, loving-kindness, freshness; anything that encourages relaxation and openness.

In this practice, it’s not uncommon to find yourself blocked, because you come face to face with your own fear, resistance, or whatever your personal “stuckness” happens to be at that moment. At that point, you can change the focus and do tonglen for yourself, and for millions of others just like you, at that very moment, who are feeling exactly the same misery.

I particularly like to encourage tonglen, on the spot. For example, you’re walking down the street and you see the pain of another human being.

On-the-spot tonglen means that you just don’t rush by; you actually breathe in with the wish that this person can be free of suffering, and send them out some kind of good heart or well-being. If seeing another person’s pain brings up fear or anger or confusion, which often happens, just start doing tonglen for yourself and all the other people who are stuck in the very same way.

When you do tonglen on the spot, you simply breathe in and breathe out, taking in pain and sending out spaciousness and relief. When you do tonglen as a formal practice, it has four stages:

First, rest your mind briefly in a state of openness or stillness.

Second, work with texture. Breathe in a feeling of hot, dark, and heavy, and breathe out a feeling of cool, bright, and light. Breathe in and radiate completely, through all the pores of your body, until it feels synchronized with your in-and out-breathe.

Third, work with any painful personal situation that is real to you. Traditionally, you begin by doing tonglen for someone you care about. However, if you are stuck, do the practice for your pain and simultaneously for all those just like you who feel that kind of suffering.

Finally, make the taking in and the sending out larger. Whether you are doing tonglen for someone you love or for someone you see on television, do it for all the others in the same boat. You could even do tonglen for people you consider your enemies—those who have hurt you or others.

Do tonglen for them, thinking of them as having the same confusion and stuckness as you find or yourself.

This is to say that tonglen can extend indefinitely. As you do the practice, gradually, over time, your compassion naturally expands—and so does your realization that things are not as solid as you thought. As you do this practice, at your own pace, you’ll be surprised to find yourself more and more able to be there for others, even in what seemed like impossible situations.

[See more meditation exercises from Pema Chodron in her book, When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times].

For another groovy book on the subject of emotions, addictions and mindfulness, see my book Loving Life As It Is!