I first wrote this blog in 2014. I have decided to update it to reflect the context of our current challenging times. You can also click on the picture to watch the video of this post.
Your job is not your Source. As a spiritual life coach, I've worked with many people over the years, many of whom felt stuck in the jobs that they hated but stayed in those jobs because of a belief that their job was their Source, meaning that they felt that their job was the only Source and lifeline to their receiving any income. But today, I’m here to remind you of this truth: Your job is not your Source. Your Source is your Source. Source is that greater power and presence that we are a part of, that we're connected to and that is the truth of who we are. Some people call it God, the Great Spirit, Universe, Divine Presence, or Infinite Intelligence, among many other names. All of these words point to and describe that ultimately indescribable and unnamable thing, that creative energy that runs in and through all things. This Source nourishes you, strengthens you, supports you, provides for you, loves you and uplifts you. That is what Source is. Your job, then, is not your Source. Your job is but a vehicle by which Source can provide for you. I want to decouple these ideas and separate them because many people confuse our jobs as being our Source. We are in a situation right now in this pandemic where millions of people are losing their jobs. It's truly heartbreaking. And there are people that I’ve talked with who still have jobs or are working from home, but they fear that their work and their jobs will disappear and go away. When I talk about your job not being your Source, it's not to express any lack of compassion for what any one person might be experiencing in these times, but to be able to remember that your job and your Source are two separate things. Your work has been one vehicle by which Source has been able to provide for you. If that job or work is gone, Source is still there to provide for you! What a blessing it is that there are many forms of relief and assistance that are now being made available to people, whether that is through governments or everyday people offering a helping hand with food or a service to make sure people’s basic needs are being met. This is a way that Source provides for you. And please know, it's okay, completely okay, to ask for help if you need it. Sometimes, when one vehicle of support is gone, you might be called to explore other ways you can allow for Source to provide for you. What are other pathways, in the infinite number of pathways that are available, that you could help to create to allow Source to provide, not only for you but for your family, your community and others? What is possible? For today’s exercise, I invite you to look at all the ways that this Infinite and Loving Source is already providing for you. Look around your life. Look at the people that you have connections with. Look at your home. Look at your refrigerator. Go ahead and look around. Simply notice the many ways that Source is already providing for you. When you consider all the ways that Source already provides for you, there's one common response that bubbles up to the top, and that response is: Gratitude. When you embrace all the blessings in your life, and all the ways that you are provided for, your heart expands in gratitude. In the midst of everything that is happening, let us remind ourselves that Source, this Divine Presence, is always present, that it is Infinite and Abundant in its nature. No matter what we may be experiencing in life, we can always turn to It and remind ourselves that Source is here. All we have to do is to simply recognize it. Abundant Blessings and Namaste. ** I'd love to hear your thoughts about today's article. Please feel free to leave a comment below. Have you ever kept a diary, or written in a journal? In challenging times like these, writing can be a very powerful tool and practice for your own foundational support. Often, when I meet with clients or have students in a class I’m teaching, I’ll give an assignment where I’ll ask people to do some journaling. Sometimes, I’ll ask them to answer a particular question. For example: “What do you really want” Or here’s another question: “What is this experience trying to teach you?” Another assignment I’ll give is to ask you to do stream of consciousness writing. Julia Cameron, in her book The Artist’s Way, teaches about the morning pages, where you write down three pages non-stop of stream of consciousness writing. You allow all the thoughts and feelings experience to come up without lifting up your pen, non-stop until you reach three pages. You just let out whatever wants to be let out. And it can be surprising what emerges. I had a student in one of my recent workshops who shared how he had been journaling for a few days. He decided to look back on what he had written. He was shocked because he saw that what he had written was largely negative, a lot of doom and gloom. He didn’t realize that he was deeply focused on what was going wrong in his life and the world. In that moment, he had the awareness to choose another way of how he could look at life. And so he chose to write about what good he was experiencing in his life. When we allow ourselves to write and to journal, two things can happen. One, we allow a process for inner reflection to happen, where we can give voice to those thoughts and those feelings that lay within us. We give our inner world a pathway to outer expression so that whatever we may be experiencing can have a chance to breathe and to have some light shined upon it. When we see our words concretely in front of us, we bring greater awareness to what it is that we are experiencing. With greater awareness comes the ability to choose. Sometimes, we find great meaning when we reflect. We can uncover what matters to us, and we gain a greater perspective on life itself. Two, another thing that can come out of writing is the expression of your latent creativity. Writing allows your imagination to run wild. You can visit distant lands or meet new characters. You allow yourself to ask imaginative questions, like, “What if? What’s possible?” For your coaching assignment this week, if you choose to take it, I encourage you to do a little bit of writing. Spend some time journaling. You could use your pen and write in a spiral notebook from the dollar store, or you can use a specially dedicated one with a beautiful design on the cover. There’s something powerful about writing with your hand. Or, if you prefer, you could use your computer, tablet or smartphone to type out your thoughts and feelings. Either way is okay. For this assignment, simply write out whatever comes to your mind. Give yourself the opportunity and the space to give voice to what is on your heart and in your mind. What is wanting to express itself this day? You are a creative being, and writing is a creative process. Creativity allows you to embrace and express your own powerful life force, a reminder of your own agency and potency, especially helpful in the midst of challenging times. Let this be your act of creation in this moment. Abundant Blessings and Namaste. ** I'd love to hear your thoughts about today's article. Please feel free to leave a comment below. Every night at 8 p.m. in downtown Los Angeles, people open their windows or step out onto their balconies, and they cheer their support for our health care workers.
It's beautiful to watch and to witness. People will bang their pots and pans, or they'll clap really loud, or they'll cheer, “Yay for our health care workers!” because these are the people who are in the front lines who are caring for us. Today I wanted to take a moment to express my deep gratitude, and to create a collective space for all of us, to share our deep thanks for all of these people who are caring for us. These are the people in the hospitals and the clinics. They're the nurses, the doctors, the medical technicians, and the people who register you when you go to the hospital. They're the custodial staff who wipe down the equipment and clean the rooms to make sure everyone stays safe. They are the pharmacists, the therapists and the assistants. They are the emergency service workers who transport us to the hospital. All of these people, and so many others, are doing what they can to take care of us. Let’s take a few moments to express our gratitude for who they are and for continuing to answer their calling to show up. What’s also beautiful is that there are so many different ways people are showing their gratitude for our healthcare workers. I thought I’d share these with you, in case they inspire you to move to show gratitude in your own way. I've heard stories of people going to our local restaurants where they're buying meals and food, and then bringing them over to these hospitals and clinics to make sure that our healthcare workers are fed. Some people are making masks and building personal protective equipment for those places that don't have enough. Richard and I were fortunate to find a place that actually was still selling surgical masks and we ended up buying a bunch of them and donated them to a doctor friend of ours who works at a clinic where they didn't have any masks at all. I hear of hotels and motels who are donating their rooms for healthcare workers to stay in because many people are afraid to go home and potentially infect their loved ones with COVID-19. I've also heard stories of people with recreational vehicles, RVs, those huge vehicles that people take on camping trips, and they’re lending them to health care workers so that they could actually have a place to stay. They park it in front of their house so at least their loved ones could talk to them through the window of the RV. And then I'm hearing stories of hospital and healthcare workers themselves who are donating and volunteering their time by moving from one area of the country and traveling to the hotspots to help ease the burden that many of our cities and regions are facing right now. With all of this, I just want to say a huge thank you! Thank you to all of our healthcare workers. Thank you to all of you who are supporting them. Anything that we can do to help is greatly needed and appreciated. If there's anything that you want to do or say to give thanks, go ahead and express your own gratitude. If you're hearing of any other ideas that people are doing, please share them because I think we could use a collective coming together to hear what people are doing to show our support and ways that we could be of service in this time period. I believe that at any moment in our life, we can be of service, to whatever degree that we can. That's why I'm sharing this message, in the spirit of that service. And if there's one thing that any of us can do to be of service, we can continue to physically distance ourselves and stay at home (if we can), because that in itself is a great act of service in this time period. Abundant Blessings and Namaste. ** I'd love to hear your thoughts about today's article. Please feel free to leave a comment below. |
About JoselitoJoselito is a spiritual life coach helping people create a purposeful, spiritual path to career and financial freedom. Sign me up to receive the free newsletterPopular Blog Articles Beware (Be Aware of) these 5 Unhelpful Money Stories How my body told me to quit my job How I was offered an all-expenses paid cruise after making my Vision Board Today I choose to live my GREATNESS You are not your stories. You are the story-teller. Your job is not your Source. |