I was talking with a friend and client recently, let’s call him “Jimmy L.” He started out okay a few years ago, but then a variety of those life events have left him with a stalled business.
How did he feel? Frustrated, scared, angry. And, he and his wife have a new baby on top of it. Okay, multiply the fear out a few times.
Now, there are a lot of ways we can go with a situation like this. We can look at the core of the fear and where it’s coming from, bring some healing to it, so that you can have clarity and peace as you move forward.
We can look at what he’s actually doing in his business- does his marketing need fine-tuning? does he need to get more clarity about what he’s doing in his business? Does he need help in getting simple things done that are the “straw that broke the camel’s back?”
Does he just need support to break the isolation he’s feeling- alone and lost?
Well, sure, all of those can, do, and will help as he walks forward. But some of the way he was talking about his business rang a bell for me, and I wondered about his relationship with his business.
His relationship with his business? Yes, “Jimmy L.”, like many, many others, didn’t have a healthy relationship with his business. He couldn’t “get my business to work.”
We talk about “my business,” “our business,” “the business,” all the time, and yet, most of us never quite make the step to conceiving the business as a separate entity. And, even those of us who have taken that step, very few of us have looked at how we are in relationship with this separate entity.
You can get a clue about your relationship with your business by paying attention to your language.
Do you talk about your business as a beloved friend, or as an unwilling servant?
With anyone, including your business, you can’t get much done if the basic relationship isn’t one of trust, love, goodwill, and cooperation, taking into account each person’s abilities, developmental stages, and presence.
When we looked at this, “Jimmy L.” saw that he was treating his business like an unloved servant, and whipping it for not performing, when in fact it needed love, attention, and caring. He immediately felt lighter with respect to his business, and he felt energy and desire to move forward come back into his body and his sense of his business.
Maybe your business needs some TLC?
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The Exercise
1. Start with the remembrance. For those unfamiliar with this, it is to repeat the Name of the Divine, whatever you use to call to the Highest Light, and saying it into your heart. Not with the idea of fixing anything, or healing anything, or seeing anything. It’s just remembering that there is something more than just you in the mix. If anyone has questions about the remembrance, please ask me. It’s fairly simple, but there are easy places that people sometimes get stuck.
2. Now, ask your heart to feel the heart, or the beingness, of your business (you can substitute “job” or “project” or “organization” for “business”) as a separate entity, and bring that beingness in front of your heart. In other words, stand heart to heart, face to face with your business. Just trust your perceptions.
3. Notice how your heart reacts to your business. What kind of relationship does your heart currently have with the heart of your business? Allow yourself to discover this, and drop any notions of what you may already think this relationship is.
4. Allow yourself to ask the Divine to show you what the healthiest relationship with the heart of your business would look like, would feel like, and, most importantly, what is possible when you have this healthiest relationship?
5. Now ask what is one step that your heart tells you to take towards having this healthiest possible relationship. It could be anything- drop what you think you need to do to make the business work, and just ask what is the next step in having a healthier business? You will know it’s right because it “feels” right, and it’s something that your heart naturally wants to move towards.
6. Once you have this step, calendar it. Whatever your heart received as the next step, calendar it, and do it. Some clients have gotten to spend time every day appreciating their business. Some clients have gotten that it’s finally time to get the accounting cleaned up- that their business is “cranky” from loose accounting. It could be anything- trust what you get, and do it.
Now enjoy your business!
