The Joyful Life

I recently left a job that was no longer serving me and through talking to a friend, I realized that I was subscribing to a very unhelpful paradigm for most of my working life. For various known and unknown reasons, I was living with the idea that work had to be difficult. I didn't realize it completely, but most of my jobs involved a lot of struggle and a huge amount of worry and stress. When my friend asked me if I could imagine a job without stress and worry, I realized that, in that moment, I could not!

All other aspects of my life are really wonderful and filled with joy. I have an incredible husband, wonderful friends, a nourishing weight-lifting practice, and a creative, juicy spiritual practice.


There are aspects of my work that are wonderful. I work for an incredible Art & Healing website, which I love. I have a thriving ministry, dreamwork and creativity coaching practice, and yet I seemed, until now, to always need one other job that "drained me."  I've always had one other job that stressed me out and took up my time and energy and made me feel like I "worked a long, hard day." 

Where does this strange, unconscious need come from? I attribute a lot of it to the Protestant work-ethic that this country was based on. Work hard and you will succeed after a lot of torment and struggle. I cannot express to you all how incredible it is to release this idea of struggle as work!
With this realization, I am now committed to creating joyful work in my life, just as I create joy in all the other aspects of my life. 
So...how do I do that?

The first step, for me, was eliminating the job that was no longer serving and most definitely not causing me joy. Yes, all the work we do in the world has difficult aspects, but there is a big difference between crunching on a difficult deadline and being disrespected and harassed on a regular basis. The first is part of doing work in the world, the second is not necessary under any circumstances.

The second step for me was opening myself up to new opportunities. I have spent much of my marriage, incredibly worried about money. I knew that bringing in new, joyful work would be difficult if I held on to this paradigm of fear and worry. Instead, I focused on the work I already do that makes me joyful and asking the world for more of that. What is important to note here is that I focused on the feeling, not the actions. This means that work could appear that I had never even thought of, but the feeling of joy would be there, which is what I want to manifest more of. Already, some incredible opportunities have come my way. Some have come because I have been very vocal about my search for work and friends have recommended me for various gigs and some opportunities seem to have come straight from Spirit!

Through this whole process, I have been reading two excellent books, given to me by my co-worker and friend Danny. I shared my quest for joyful work with her, and she intuited that she should share these books with me.  Yet another way that Spirit supports us all when we are clear about what we need.

Both books are by the wonderful Suzanne Falter-Barns.

The first is called How Much Joy Can You Stand? A Creative Guide to Facing Your Fears & Making Your Dreams Come True. I have just discovered that you can also download a free PDF copy of this book on Suzanne's website here (what a generous gift)! I love Suzanne's writing. She is very accessible and funny and every chapter I read made me catch my breath, because it was as if she was reading my mind! With chapters like "The End of Struggle," "Expect a Miracle or Two," and "In Praise of Failure," she helped me realize that my dream of companioning others as they craft an authentic life is completely worth pursuing - only because it is my dream and it fills me with joy.

The second book, also by Suzanne, is called Living Your Joy: A Practical Guide to Happiness. This book, doesn't pick up where the previous book left off -  more that it goes more deeply. I found that this book went deeper both in the practical advice as well as the energetic, creative advice. I was very happy to find a plethora of online resources inside. While reading it, I was really moved towards action with concrete tools to work with. Some great chapters in this book include "How to Live with Financial Insecurity," "Why You Should Run Your Dream Like a Business," and "How to Share Your Work with the Rest of the World...and Live to Tell About It."

It is also a funny synchronicity for me that she uses the term "dream work" to describe the work of our dreams that we are all creating. My "dream work" is actually dream work (working with the sleeping dreams of myself and others as a way to more deeply understand our lives)! So every time I read the words "dream work" in her books, it really resonated deeply on my own personal path.

I can't recommend these books enough! Check them out today! Suzanne also has a great blog called Blast O' Joy.