Day 219- Setting Money to Purpose: Creating a Work/Life Balance

This blog is continued from: In Money but not OF Money - Howto Find Your Passion Without Chasing Money

Listen to this recording here

          This blog is focused on living the principle of honouring self, and creating the best life possible, while not allowing the pursuit of money flatten one's passion or ambition. In my last blog, I discussed about how I changed my experience at work and my starting point of working, in order to bring more of ME into my job, and re-ignite my passion and fire despite the fact that I was only originally there for money. The process was very difficult for me, and filled my life with challenge.

          During pushing myself to change the way I work and Who I Am within the work I do, from making it all about money, to making it more about me, my passion and my spark of life, I noticed an unfortunate problem: My life had become all about challenging myself, my habits and my comfort zone, and nothing else. It was ALL difficult and challenging, and there was nothing else. In this blog, I will talk about how I created my life outside of work, to support the balance that is ever so necessary in life. It must not only ever be about challenge and letting go, but also about creation, and building the new way of being and doing.

          What I did to address this problem, was to now look at what I could create and develop outside of work, in my home life. I asked myself: what do I want to create and develop for me that would create more of a balance in my life so that it wasn’t all about money and making money. So I made a list.

          The first thing I looked at was my living space. I was living with my parents in a spare bedroom to save money and pay off debt. This means that my living space had also come from a starting point of money only, I had not really considered myself. The room was small, so I had items and belongings scattered into several rooms. The room was also right next to my parents bedroom, so if I came home late, I risked waking them up. Due to this, I found myself feeling like I had no personal space to call my own.

          I asked if it would be alright if I created a space for myself in the basement so that I would rather create my living space from a starting point of what would best support me, my living, my life.

          I accumulated furniture through friends and acquaintances, estate sales and second-hand stores. I bought some plants and some lights, and created quite a nice space, with a fireplace, a workout zone, office and bedroom area. After several months, I had my space set up to reflect me, my life, and what I wanted to do.

           The next thing I noticed was that I had very little activity outside of work. I had deemed it too expensive to go out into the city while I was trying to save money and pay off debt. I decided here that it was more important to create balance in my life, than to stay at home only in order to save money. I freed up some of my funds and looked into discount classes or courses I might be interested in. What I found was that many yoga classes offer a trial month at a very reduced price, so I signed up!

          Hot yoga was very nice to attend during the cold winter months, and I really felt like I was doing something nice for my mind, being and body. It was an incredibly supportive activity for me to do after a day in the office and before going home for the night. It got me out of the house on weekends, because I had become somewhat of a hermit, and it motivated me to consider my body in terms of treating it well and giving it what it needs.

           What followed from here was relationships. Now that I had several important areas of my life covered and directed, I began to notice myself become interested and motivated to have more people in my life. There were a few ladies I worked with that I really got along well with, and began to test out spending some time together outside of work. We managed to develop a deeper connection than simply ‘colleagues’, and supported each other through tough times at work, as well as had fun times outside of work. Again, here I had to make the decision to free up some funds for this, but often times we were able to keep it cheap by making our own food and watching free documentaries at home, staying up late into the night to discuss what we had learned, or having a cookout in the yard and chatting over a meal.

          All of these things required me to challenge who I was and what my priorities were, among many other things, without compromising my goals. Due to what I had been experiencing at work, i would fall into more depressed states, and have difficulty getting myself up and out, I don’t know if I would have had the ability to contemplate my life and needs, or the tools to use my creativity and actually practically make and implement such decisions for myself if I didn’t have the skills and understandings that I learned through walking a dedicated process of self-change. This is but one example of how I walked my process for ME. I supported myself and my unique life and situation in ways that created balance within and as creating a life that is beneficial for me. Why? Because I matter. And until I make this a living realization in every moment, I will only be waiting forever for myself to change and become a better human being.

Dare to change your own life? The following links are not for the faint of heart:

[See life coaching]

[Join the forum]

[Destonian Social Network]

[Visit the store]

Thanks for reading my story!

Day 218 - In Money but not OF Money - How to Find Your Passion Without Chasing Money

I was able to sit in on this interview recording which discusses the problems money can create in our lives, and how it can flatten our passions and work when it becomes the starting point of whatever it is we become involved with.
 

I will first share the questions addressed in the interview, questions which I am sure almost every working person has asked themselves at some point in their career. Next, I will share my own case study example of how I lived this issue in my own life.

The Questions:

Is the quality of your work and your expression within it diminishing over time?

Do the things that you once loved doing feel more like work and less like something in which you are expanding and exploring yourself?

What happened to that spark that was once there?

These are often symptoms of when money begins to take over our lives and our expressions to such a degree that we suffocate our passion, our drive, and our sense of self-value.

Discover how we can begin to change our relationship to money so that we can bring back the spark and the inner passion of who we are within what we do, and not allow money to override our work, our living, and our expression.

The recording can be found here:

In Money But Not of Money - The Soul of Money

My living example, and how I lived it for ME:

For me, personally, I found myself in a corporate job in the back offices of a bank. I got this job because I had just moved back to Canada after a divorce, and I had bills to pay. I was working because of a need for money, I was working for money. The job itself was robotic and repetitive, reading and correcting SWIFT and other payment messages all day long… basically reading money codes and finding where they are broken, why they stopped for repair instead of going straight through into the recipient's account. I also did high volume settlement transfers for large US corporations, monitoring for insufficient funds and verifying that audit requirements are met for approval limits on transactions. It sounds about as fun as it was, meaning, not at all! I felt like a real robot, a cog in the machine, working inside the mysterious black box where your money passes through when you send it anywhere.

This was NOT my idea of living my passion or changing the world to any degree, and the potential was there for me to become depressed, unmotivated, discouraged and complain… in fact, before and even during my process of change, I did all of these things! But the difference between living according to the automated patterns and programs of the mind, and living in self-awareness with the tools of self-correction, is that by using the tools of support I have been practicing for some years now, I managed to change myself within the work I do, find my fire, my passion and my spark of life, even within these conditions. I will explain how I did this, which is also looked at from various angles in the interview recording I sat in on.

The first thing I did was to change my perception of my job and why I was there. Instead of processing transactions and verifying payment messages, I made it about self-development and acquiring new skills. At work, I pushed myself to practice discipline, focus, and the ability to learn new things – all are qualities which needed some attention and development within myself anyways. I viewed my job to be more like a game, where there are moving pieces and every day, throughout the day, I needed to put the puzzle together and solve the problems.
 

This is how I changed my perception and starting point of my job, and here are some of the results:

In pushing myself, I ended up leading campaigns, doing training and making presentations to develop leadership skills and the ability to work within and direct groups. I ended up finding and implementing process improvements to improve the running of my department, and even changed the way our cross-departmental quarterly townhalls were presented. I pushed for and achieved a change in terminology within how the corporate announcements referred to employees, to a way that is more aligned with my principle of respecting and honouring my peers as my equals, and to not support the corporate hierarchy where employees low on the ladder are seen as replaceable resources. In pushing myself to develop myself, I also managed to leave changes in my workplace that will remain there after I have left.

I also developed qualities within myself the serve me to this day, leadership skills, the ability to work with all types of personalities in a group, the ability to be more direct and expressive, bringing myself as Who I Am into what I do. Also, the ability to focus on tasks that may be perceived as mundane and repetitive, discipline to push myself to do things that I might have otherwise judged as overwhelmingly boring or unpleasant. All of these things are present in daily life no matter what we do. The reality is that it is not always fun and stimulating, there’s always paperwork, administrative tasks, bills, budgeting, and things that repeat every day, so these skills I viewed as essential to my future, no matter what my future brings.

It is easy to list things here, years later, but the truth and reality is that at many points, this process was difficult, challenging and I had many hard times. 

Realistically, some skills can take years to develop. I spent the first year or so feeling a bit shell-shocked and getting back on my feet after my move and divorce. What I was able to accomplish there was planting the seeds within myself, and nurturing them into seedlings that will require continued maintenance, nurturing and support in my life. “If you don’t use it, you lose it”, as they say.

The process is far from over or complete. This is a living process of self-creation that can and must be lived in all moments throughout life. Does this sound like a burden or a lot of work? Maybe. But I don’t think so, because before I made the push to change, as I mentioned, I was living as depressed, unmotivated, discouraged and complaining. To me, THAT sounds more like a burden and a lot of hard work! Both ways are using mental and physical energy, but one way leads to growth and development, while the other leads to self-diminishment and misery.

If you got this far, thanks for reading! I will continue in my next blog.

For now, check out these links to learn how to change yourself to live your utmost potential:

 

See life coaching

Join the forum

Destonian Social Network

Visit the store

 To read about how I got here, check out my journey:

Leaving the Rat Race - Going to Africa
Turning a Self-Defeating Moment Into A Moment of Self-Empowerment
The Greatest Gift
The Cure to Self-Sabotage: Unprejudiced Objectivity
Conquering the Rat Race
Defining My Own Life
Re-Defining my Moment
Change Who You Are Within the Work You Do
A Small Change in Environment, A big Change in Perspective

Day 217: My Stay at the Desteni Farm - The People

The People

The people here at the Desteni farm are simply awesome. Everyone here is walking their personal process of self-change, so each one is checking themselves, questioning and investigating their reactions, taking points back to self first, and then speaking or discussing an issue if necessary.  This makes for what I can only describe as a clear, calm and open atmosphere between people, from my experience. This makes for an awesome environment for self-reflection, because it becomes clearer that I am alone within myself, completely responsible for the creation of Who I Am and for sorting out my own consequences from past living, decisions and paly-outs in my life. I am alone within myself, but I am very much in a group here, walking as individuals, together in support.

            Each person here has a unique expression that creates a really nice diversity for discussion. Each has their own interests that they are focusing on, whether it be programming, baking, music, building, gardening, parenting, sports and more. There are families, couples and single people, so it is quite a mix. This variety of expression is the result of people getting to know themselves on deep and intimate levels, where they are expanding their interest, work and hobbies through experimentation, testing and looking at Who They Are within everything they do. And each person here is committed to writing and sharing their process of what they face in their lives within whatever they are currently busy with.

            With the writing, it’s cool to see what points people are facing internally, and then to watch them in their work or play to see how they are living their words. Because I have been walking my own process, I know what it takes to live the words you speak, and it is not so easy! So, when I see people here with the focus and dedication to truly live and stand as examples of what it means to live in a way that is best for all, equal and one, I know the work they put in to get there and it is inspiring to me, where I want to push myself to do the work for me as well. I also see the work that is being put in to support others out in the world, on the web, through courses and social media platforms, which is how I found out about this place and the tools of support. So I see the value and necessity to share, to give as I have received, and to build and create myself into someone that can equally share and support.

With the diversity and openness here, conversations often go back to points one is facing or has faced. Hearing all the different perspectives has given me incredible insights into myself, where points open up for me and I can see ways that I have been living that have been limiting or diminishing me. Not only that, but I am often supported, either directly or indirectly through others, to identify certain specific moments or events in my life, or patterns of behaviour that I can now write out in my own blog in order to sort out within myself. This supports not only myself to change, but anyone that is facing similar points to me can also read about my journey. In this way, others can have the same experience that I am having here, where sharing, relating and telling our stories can open up so much for each other, thus quantifying our processes of change. This is for anyone that understands that any real change that is going to happen in this world is going to start with change on an individual level.

            I also thoroughly enjoy meeting the other visitors that are coming from all over the world to spend some time here. I get to hear about their lives and what they do back home, we discuss challenges we’ve faced and successes we’ve had. Each person that comes here brings something unique, and in many ways, I am also getting to know myself better through the interactions I am having with them. One visitor that came with her children from the Netherlands, is working towards becoming a Life Alignment Specialist. She needed case

studies to complete her course and certification process. I’m pretty sure almost everyone here volunteered to do a session with her. I certainly did! The experience was amazing and I dug real deep into mind points that were contributing to a skin condition I have. I have since been writing out the points, as well as using supplements and creams to support my body, and in a short time I have begun to see results in the form of the skin clearing up, becoming calmer and less irritated and inflamed (I have seen doctors who have only prescribed steroids, which work temporarily, but is not a long-term solution for me, so I’m experimenting with a more wholistic approach).

            Another visitor, Garb from the US, has been amazing to observe. Her discipline to push herself to fill every day and live it fully while she is here is truly impressive. She is used to working long hours in an office back home, so here she has been challenging herself with more physical work, bringing her out of her mind and more into the physical, connecting to the earth and soil she has been working with. I have been learning from her how to develop this consistency and discipline, as it is something I have struggled with in the past.

We discussed these topics and more while we planted climbing plants that will eventually produce berries for the local birds to eat. Check out Garb's travel journal HERE. 

          Discussion and asking questions is cool and very supportive, but the thing that has the most impact on me personally has been to simply watch her live, again, standing as an example and the proof that I too can develop myself to become whatever I decide, so long as I apply myself (and within the practical limitations of physical reality, of course).

          


            

          For me, as someone that started off exceptionally shy and introverted, it has been very exciting to come out and express myself Here. I have been working on this point for years, but the difference is that back home, at work for example, there is so much extra ‘noise’ to deal with, in the form of gossip, ulterior motives, judgments and reactions. In that environment, we are to work as a team, yet in competition with each other in the face of job cuts or promotions. In this competitive environment, I found it exceptionally difficult to remain stable within myself, and was usually on the brink of ‘survival mode’, where keeping my job and keeping my boss happy were number one on my mind. I could express myself, but always had to make sure I was presenting myself in accordance with company values. Sometimes I found that company values conflicted with my own, and voicing myself had in the past caused some negative consequences for me in my career. Here, however, when I express myself and come out of my shell, I can just be me and express my principles of cooperation, equality and oneness.The difference is that I am now doing it to discover myself, Who I Am and what I am capable of, and not thinking about who I need to impress, or
staying on anyone’s ‘good side’.

          






          I will continue to share about my experiences at the Desteni Farm in blogs to come, so stay tuned, there will be more to come! But for now, please enjoy this video from the farm:

Cesar Discovers Video Camera