Unfold Your Wings and Watch Life Take Off

Part 3 - Your Healing

Your Healing From Distaste For Work

Unfortunately many people dislike their work. This is sad. Work should be a source of great joy and personal fulfilment. It is important that we learn to express the love we feel in and through our work. If we dislike our work, we can change our perspective. Instead of seeing work as a means of earning a living, we can see it as a vehicle to express love by being of service to others

When at work we can be like the patient shepherd, ever watchful and devoted, ready to meet the needs of his sheep. Becoming sensitive and responding to unmet needs while at work is one of the primary means we can use to increase the flow of love in our lives.

	UNFOLDING YOUR WINGS
Try to see your workplace as a school, where you can learn to communicate more effectively, anticipate and meet colleagues and customers needs and happily conform to a discipline. By changing your outlook, jobs that were previously unfulfilling may become satisfying.

Changing our outlook is the vital first step to a satisfying working life. However we may wish to change our job as well as our outlook. There are several guidelines we can use in assessing the suitability of our work. Our work should harness our strengths and not stress our weaknesses, be of personal interest to us, create enough income and provide a personal challenge in our ability to express love and caring.

Fortunately there is more scope and opportunity than ever before to find a job that really suits. However such jobs rarely drop into our lap, we have to do the necessary groundwork. In my last occupation I was working part-time as a self-employed management consultant. This work suited me very well except that living with schizophrenia meant I found it difficult to concentrate for long periods during lengthy business meetings. If I overdid it, I found it impossible to work for the next two days due to mental exhaustion.

My work as a management consultant was putting undue stress on one of my key weaknesses, an inability to concentrate in meetings for more than 90 minutes in any one day. This meant that although I could do the work easily, I often felt unsure of my ability to cope with the demands that were being placed on me.

By acknowledging that I had these weaknesses and accepting them, I became open to the possibility of a change in career direction. After a period of voluntary effort I constructed my present occupation as a writer, webmaster and personal development trainer. My new career is even more creative than my old one. It still uses my strengths to advantage but does not pressurise my weakness, because I can now control precisely the amount of concentration my work needs each day. I love my new occupation even more than my old one.

To create or find a job we can fall in love with, we may need to work voluntarily to get things going. It took me four years of unpaid effort to set up my current occupation. I have a friend who works with me in the woodland in Glencraig. He was offered his current job, which he loves, after working in the woods for two years as a full time volunteer. He made himself so indispensable to Glencraig Community that they offered him employment.

	UNFOLDING YOUR WINGS
If you wish to change career direction I recommend you get a big yellow file (yellow is such an optimistic colour), and fill it full of notes that will help you find a suitable job. These notes should include your strengths, weaknesses, and your interests. Your strengths, weaknesses and interests will suggest a project or job type. Ideas for projects and job opportunities can then be added to the file. You can use these notes to explore options for voluntary work in suitable fields or for further education and training.

In life some types of work are of our own choosing and some are not. We all have duties to perform. Our duty is work that we need to do but which we have not consciously chosen. Looking after elderly parents or a severely disabled child are examples. Work that is our duty needs to be gracefully embraced and carried out with love and devotion.

Our inner call will tell us when we can give our employer loyalty and support, how we can select and find a better job and what constitutes our duty. By changing our perspective on work and with the call as our guide we are well equipped to find fulfilment and joy in our working life.

Envoi

I do not like my work.

My supervisors annoy me.
My customers annoy me.
My deadlines annoy me.

I decide to experiment and change my perspective.

My supervisors teach me.
My customers teach me.
My deadlines teach me.

As I learn I discover more about myself.
As I learn about myself I am better equipped
To improve my working life,
And I am healed of my distaste for work.