When you don’t feel like you’re really contributing

This past weekend the blues were hitting me hard. I was feeling aimless, exhausted, spent, but also restless and somewhat hopeless.

I recognized this in both myself, and from working with clients. So many people start to feel aimless, hopeless, almost “depressed” (I put it in quotes not to confuse it with the much more challenging clinical depression). It crops up in different stages of business, perhaps most notably in the earlier stages, when you’re short on clients and you forget that you’re really good and can really help others.

But it can also happen in later stages of business development, when what you’re doing has become rote, or you’re involved in a strategic project that is taking awhile to bear fruit.

Often I see folks in business trying to process these emotions spiritually, as if you are just needing to “get over” or through them somehow. However, prayer, at least the silent, quiet, meditative kind, is not always the answer needed.

The human being needs to be useful, needs to contribute. Someone said, “the spark of the soul is to serve” and this is true, deep down at our core. The heart wants to contribute in meaningful ways. It’s true that this desire to serve can be abused through a lack of appreciation or witnessing of this service, as happens often in our economy for those who are doing poorly paid menial labor, among other roles.

But that doesn’t take away the need. If anything it highlights it. To “slave” away at work, unappreciated and poorly compensated, just highlights the lack of contribution – you want to know that you are making an impact.

It doesn’t have to be a grand impact. Often, in fact, these contributions are humble. But they must be meaningful.

Wrap yourself in this acknowledgement

Don’t try to get over it. Don’t try to process your way through it. Don’t explain it away with mental models of “My light is contributing to the world” that you don’t actually feel.

Instead, feel the grief that you may be feeling, that arises out of the need to contribute. Let yourself breathe in that.

Find a way to humbly contribute

This weekend I did 3 small things.

I built a shelf on the wall, so our cat Rafi can climb from the back of the couch, to the window sill, and on up to the top of fridge. What Rafi doesn’t know yet (but perhaps suspects) is that we’re going to be getting a dog soon, and we’re wanting him to have a safe space to eat, and also to be able to leave food out without the dog eating it all up.

Then, I borrowed my neighbor’s broadfork and aerated a couple of rows in the White Hawk Ecovillage community garden that we’ll be using to plant some fall greens and lettuces.

Finally, after the family went swimming, we went by my sister-in-law’s farm, she has many sheep and 5 horses, and I filled 4 bags of manure for compost to bring back for the garden.

Nothing very grand or exciting. But the combination of physical exercise and making progress on projects that were useful really fed my soul.

Whoosh… I felt 100% different. Part of it was the physical exercise, yet that wasn’t the whole story. I went to a gym religiously for 3+ years in Portland, and it felt great, and helped in wonderful ways, but it didn’t feel *useful* in the same way this work did.

I have noticed that I do have to pay attention, to listen to my heart when I feel disconnected that way. Sometimes it is a need to be useful. Other times it can be a need for self-expression, in which case playing the guitar or drawing helps. Other times it’s a need for connection, and spending social time with friends helps a lot.

By paying attention when I feel disconnected, I often find physical activities that help me stay engaged with the flow of Life and Love.

And yes, sometimes I do need straight-up spiritual practice, prayer, chanting, meditation. But sometimes I just need to dig some compost.

If you’re building your business and you are finding yourself feeling disconnected, honor that and find a way to fulfill your heart in simple, humble ways. Building a business can take time, and there are stretches when you just might need to get those critical needs fulfilled elsewhere.

p.s. Friday Deadline for early early bird: The Heart Sessions: November Retreat near Ithaca, New York.

If your business is needing a re-envisioning. If you’re needing to dive deep, with some real space to listen to your heart and the heart of your business, to discover the path forward. AND get expert business coaching and support to put it into a plan for the following year, why not join me and a small group of business owners?

In late fall, I’m going to be leading a group of no more than 16 people in an intimate retreat in beautiful upstate New York. We’re going to take 4 nights and 3 days to go deep on topics of surrender, sovereignty and creating an actionable path forward. Delicious food, amazing beauty, deep quiet. Notice if you take a breath and your body relaxes. Maybe your heart is needing this? Maybe your business needs to step out of the whirl of life so you can get really clear on what you are creating over the next few years?

Click here to find out more.

p.p.s. Starting the week of August 22: The Heart of Your Business

Come live in your own heart, within your business.

The Heart of Your Business program is meant to help all business owners, no matter what stage you’re at, to reconnect with the heart in the context of the critical parts of your business.

And yes, you get to name the price you want to pay, we call it “pay from the heart” pricing. You have a couple of weeks yet before we begin, but by the time you read this we will have already started getting the pre-work out to folks in the program (or will be in the next day…)

Please join me.

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Heart of Business Community Update

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Ready for spiritual nourishment? Your next Virtual Retreat is scheduled for this Friday, August 12, 2016.   Register here.

In our Facebook group yet?

In our Facebook group, here are some discussions happening right now:

• You made the hard decision needed to get back on track – now where is the sense of lightness you were seeking? Lots of insightful responses being shared right now – jump on over to the Community and see for yourself!
• Celebration Monday posts provides a venue for you to share, witness and celebrate together accomplishments both big and small.  Check out what your fellow Community members are sharing now!

These are just 2 of the many discussions happening every day in our active, compassionate group! Don’t yet have access? Click here. 
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