Make it Happen

If we're using our gifts to develop more love in this world, we are working. If someone or something is blocking our gifts or our ability to use them in this world, we'll be frustrated, angry, depressed, anxious, and maybe even ill. The least recognized, and consequently, least understood and discussed, cause of work problems is poor energetic boundaries. What if we thought of workplace stress and conflicts, and even under-or unemployment, as energetic issues? And what if we perceived that the most critical work-stress symptoms, from acute illness to chronic exhaustion to interpersonal conflict, are at least partially energetic in nature? If we realized that energy is causing at least some of the problems, then we know that energy can change some of the problems. Since energy is unlimited, you have unlimited energy at your disposal. If we find ourselves chronically or acutely struggling with work concerns, we are probably afflicted with distorted physical, emotional, relational, or spiritual boundaries, which create any of the energetic syndromes. Clear up your boundary problems, and you begin to clear up your work issues. Then your heart can open again, and success--however you define it--will be yours. Take advantage of the fact that you tend to have the most energy first thing in the morning and get the hardest job out of the way first. If you start your day sorting emails and reading newsletters, you're liable to procrastinate--and you'll be forced to make up for it later in the day. If you can get the key tasks finished first, the rest of your day will fall into place. Mark Twain once said: Eat a live frog first thing in the morning and nothing worse will happen to you the rest of the day. Once you've identified your three key tasks, you need to timebox them, which basically means blocking out whatever amount of time is necessary to get them done. Think of it as scheduling a meeting with yourself. Physically blocking out space in your schedule like this helps you avoid getting sidetracked by meetings and provides you with a dedicated time slot in which you can get the job done once and for all. If you follow the Rule of 3, you'll have around two or three timeboxed slots every day, which will automatically leave less space for meetings. With your day made up of timeboxes and only the most worthwhile meetings, your energy levels will stay high throughout the day. If you're extra-worried about getting looped into a bunch of meetings that may clog up your schedule, it's worth creating timeboxes in advance even if you don't know exactly what you'll be doing.

After eleven months Katie breaks up with Kai because she felt he didn't show his love enough and she needed more. Poor Kai is now the recipient of the most unsavoury gift bag, partly caused by Katie's hurt and rage and distrust . And now that Kai is feeling the pain of being dumped out of the blue by a woman he adored, he will add to, and pass on, this putrid little parcel. But we'll get to that. Sometimes when we get deeply hurt in a relationship (often because our beloved is still carrying around debris from being deeply hurt themselves), we wrap up that wound and keep it somewhere deep in our subconscious, occasionally but not always adding to it each time we suffer a romantic blow. Even if we think we are over the person who caused us this hurt (or more realistically over what that person did to us), we're usually lying to ourselves. And so we carry this little parcel around, and the moment we feel unhappy, scared, uncomfortable or threatened in a relationship, we wrench it out and (unconsciously) thrust it into the hands of our lover. I say unconsciously, because we're not even aware we're doing it - this stuff is so deeply hidden in our psyche that when we hand it over, we barely even hear the music stop or see the parcel change hands. But but but! There is hope. Sewing Up the Seams: Tips for Good Physical Energetic Boundaries at Work Work is a way to achieve our spiritual mission, but for most of us, it is also the primary way we meet most of our concrete life needs, which involve our bodies and materiality. Stress at work often activates our survival issues, which are governed by our physical energetic boundaries. In other words, work issues often cut to the core of our physical self and boundaries. We must, therefore, employ concrete activities to clear and sustain our physical energy boundaries. That's why, for work issues, I'm offering more ideas for strengthening and repairing your physical boundaries than any other boundaries. The place to start is figuring out what you want your work life to be like. Don't concentrate on when you want to retire or the title of your job. What's important is how you want to feel at work--about yourself, the people you're serving, and the contribution you're making. We want work to be an expression of our immortal gifts and true essence.

Some of the entrepreneurs we spoke to simply label these work time or else do not schedule anything. Most entrepreneurs suggested blocking out slots of one to two hours, but feel free to choose your own length of time. For example, you might try the Pomodoro method, which was invented by Francesco Cirillo, an Italian researcher who discovered that the optimum concentration period for the human brain is 25 minutes. He suggests breaking your schedule into 25-minute work periods punctuated by five-minute breaks. He named it after those kitchen timers in the form of a tomato (for a researcher, the man certainly has a good sense of marketing). You can of course choose longer work periods: to write this article we worked for two hours at a time with ten-minute breaks in-between (and that worked out pretty well for us). It's important to remember that however long your timeboxes, your schedule is central to how you structure your work. So many of us tend to fill our schedules with nothing but meetings, be they with clients or coworkers--which is a shame. If you don't determine your own schedule, someone else will. By planning your day in a way that suits you, you'll be better organized to take on your key tasks and will avoid having your time hijacked by colleagues, emails, and newsletters. If you are aware of this sick little game, then you are on your way to defeating it. And do be aware of it, do recognise that someone has hurt you, and that it wasn't fun, and you feel like shit because of that experience, but don't let that experience barge into your next relationship and infect it with old, unnecessary anger and pain. While break-ups can happen for kabillions of reasons, emotional leftovers are so often a part of why we end things with a person who, sadly, had nothing to do with those leftovers. Similarly, if we're executing a break-up, we need to sit down and ask ourselves honestly what the layers of our heartbreak parcel hold, and if maybe we are throwing a few extra gifts in there this person doesn't deserve. Part of being a self-aware, respectful, evolved human is engaging in brutal self-honesty and emotional awareness before you hurl all of your shit onto another person. If that sounds too hard, just call in the Wishez R Us van to magically transport you to the Bahamas. And by `important' I of course mean `impossible'. We mistakenly believe we can get our closure by talking to our ex, by asking them what went wrong and trying to understand how it all came to a grinding, messy halt. It's not possible. Whether your relationship ends happily, mutually or horribly, people who lease space in our heart never completely leave our brain.

As big a statement as that sounds, I think nearly everyone would agree with it. We want to bring all of ourselves to work. Whether you sit in a cubicle counting numbers or make children go ah while you look at their tonsils or paint murals on the sides of buildings, you need your efforts to contribute toward a higher end. We also want to work in line with our ethical standards. You don't want to be forced to drink at a conference if you don't drink alcohol or flirt with the boss just to get a raise. We long to be our higher, not lower, selves in the workplace. Nor do we want to be abused in order to obtain or keep a job. Work abuse comes in many forms: harassment, overwork, underutilization, criticism, negativity, ridicule, poor working conditions, and inadequate pay. Unfortunately, such negative factors are the norm, rather than the exception, these days. We can't change our work situation unless first we set an intention or a goal. Make use of your calendar to plan your schedule and article time for important tasks. Here are two types of calendars. Which one sounds like yours? Time spent in offline mode (when you're on a plane for example) represents a great opportunity to make some headway on your most important tasks. Many entrepreneurs told us that they take advantage of being cut off from emails, text messages, and other distractions to work on the tasks that require the most attention. If you need to work on reports or presentations using Google Docs or Slides, turn on offline access in the settings menu on Google Drive. Alternatively, if you've got a bunch of emails you need to write, activate the offline mode in Gmail settings. Passive Tasks first When we say passive tasks we don't mean tasks you don't need to do at all, but rather tasks which simply require you to take one action to get them going. These could be:

But it's okay! It's totally okay. Permit a lady with fantastic shoes and a soy cappuccino to explain? So, there's this thing called `energy'. It's everywhere, in multiple forms, and we use it for every single thing we do. Drink three Red Bulls. That's energy. I impart all of this incredibly crude scientific information because it can be very useful when you're dealing with a haunting ex. You know the one: no matter how many months or even years it's been since you split, or how many self-help articles you read, or how many new people you date, or how much couch time you spend talking to your friends/mum/ sister about this person, they refuse to leave you in peace. It might be a few teeny thoughts a week, an unsettling sex dream here or there, or maybe it's a lot more. To arrive at this intention, let your imagination soar and your heart sing. How do you really want to feel at work? Respectful? Who do you want to primarily help? Adults' inner children? The ill, depressed, or anxious? People striving toward their goals? What is your unique contribution? Do you empathize, help people manifest or create, add truth, communicate, provide spiritual direction or healing, organize, strategize, lead, command, or follow? Once you can answer a few of these questions, lock your desire into an actual intention, using the five steps for setting an intention (see article 86).