She finds that, when she does The Work, she can get along with anyone. She can find ways to make anything work. So she was afraid of doing The Work on these clients because she thought she might have to work with them.
If there is one thing that seems to stop people from doing The Work more anything else, it is this: trying to solve big problems.
Because big problems are big! And important. And daunting. Big problems make me think, “My whole life is at stake.” This kind of thought adds pressure when I want to do The Work. And it makes me put it off. Fortunately, The Work is much simpler than that.
I compare the amount of money involved in real estate with the amount of money I make each month. I think, “I have to be VERY careful.” I get tense. I see images of foreclosures. I see myself humiliated. I want to pare down to a shack if necessary to avoid any risk.
I have a craving for freedom. And it confuses me sometimes. Because that craving usually leads me to renounce the world more and more. It leads me away from taking on more responsibility. It leads me away from people…
Over the past few months of running The Work 101 course, I’ve become increasingly bothered by participants who don’t participate fully. I see the value of showing up day after day for six weeks: a momentum gets created that allows for a deeper experience of the course. When they would get behind, I felt frustrated. So I did a worksheet on it and here’s what I found…
There’s an idea that if I can work the first occurrence—maybe when I was a child—then I will be done with it once an for all. But my experience is that this is not the key to doing effective work. What is more important for me is picking whatever is alive for me at the time.
We are not meant to live stressed lives. Learn how to address the root cause of your stress and find your freedom again. Otherwise, stress will keep accumulating. Learn how to break the cycle of stress here.
