Awaken....THEN Determine Your Purpose

So many of you contact me asking, "How do I know this job/career is what I'm meant to do?"

Yes, your contribution to our society is relevant, but the most important thing you can do for our planet is to awaken.

Not just awaken to your life purpose or your life work, but to awaken from the social conditioning and collective confusion we all suffer from. Only then can you make the connection between who you are and what you are meant to contribute.


This series of videos from Oprah and Eckhart Tolle will definitely give you what you need to accomplish that on your own. I sincerely hope you will give it your time. Take it fast, one after the other, or take it super-slow....but watch this series as if your life depends on it. I believe it does.

Watch It Now on Oprah.com
See Stephanie's site Work Stress Solutions for more information like this.

Nothing More Than Feelings

Emotions are not the enemy. The term "professionalism" has always been about not having, and therefore not showing, emotions (at least not the ones that we find unattractive). And our coworkers FEEL very strongly about this!

Instead of avoiding emotions, try leaning into them. I'm not saying express them---that was the flawed advice of the '70s pop psychologists (who were definitely on the right track). We've all regretted EXPRESSING an emotion in public. Expression and acceptance are not the same thing.

The only way to move through, and end, unwanted emotion is to sit and FEEL THE HECK out of it. Quietly. Alone. Until it's all over. Sound nuts? Try it. You'll see.

According to Michael Brown, author of The Presence Process, "Many of us do not even realize we are living almost exclusively in the mental plane and that our increasing confusion, frustration and sense of hopelessness arise directly from this misplaced reliance."

This obsession with your thoughts (in order to control emotion) ultimately creates boredom. That's because you won't feel the bad feelings and therefore you can't feel the good ones either. You (and I) can be just as resistant to the good feelings because, like anger or sadness, we fear we will lose control if we let in joy or awe without parameters. Being in control via your thoughts creates a nice, safe, consistent, predictable... BORED...person. You can take it. FEEL IT ALL right where you sit. Just let your boredom, worry, sadness, anger, joy, hope, relief...let it all happen in your body.

You can't THINK your way out of emotion. You have to FEEL it. Until it's felt, it will stick around. And let these feelings be okay. It's all just coming and going anyway.

You're only human.

"The only way out is through." ~Carl Jung

See Stephanie's site Work Stress Solutions for more information like this.

The Practice of Tonglen

What the heck's a Tonglen?

Well, there is no need to know this word (I assume it's sanskrit). It's from a Buddhist teaching, and it must be the original source of several modern works that now tell us to EMBRACE stress and anger and upset, instead of suppressing them or managing them (or numbing them with food, drink, etc).


It would have been nice if the psychological community from about 1970 through today had mentioned this, but instead, we've all been flailing about struggling and causing conflict because we were told to EXPRESS these feelings to get them AWAY from us, instead of sitting and feeling them fully and watching them transform.


So, who's surprised that the Buddhists had it right all along? Certainly not me.


I have two sources for you to read-up on this practice and how to do it. The first is Pema Chodron.


Tonglen reverses the usual logic of avoiding suffering and seeking pleasure...tonglen practice is a method for connecting with suffering —ours and that which is all around us— everywhere we go. It is a method for overcoming fear of suffering and for dissolving the tightness of our heart. Primarily it is a method for awakening the compassion that is inherent in all of us, no matter how cruel or cold we might seem to be.

Go to full article.



The second resource is a page I have personally bookmarked and read regularly. Each time I read this page, I get a better sense of how to implement this practice. It's a good page (from the website Source Point Global Outreach) and I've provided an excerpt and a link here:


In this way of practice, in this way of being, we transform our tendency to close down and shut out life's unpleasant experiences. In accordance with Buddha's First Noble Truth, we acknowledge, touch, and embrace our personal and collective suffering. We do not run away. We do not turn the other way. Touching and understanding suffering is the first step toward true transformation. Rather than avoiding suffering, we develop a more tolerant and compassionate relationship with it. We learn to meet and embrace reality—naked, open, and fearless.


Although the idea of developing a relationship with suffering may sound somewhat morbid, we must remember the teachings of the Second and Third Noble Truths as well: when we touch and embrace suffering, we can finally understand what causes it. When we understand the cause of suffering, we can eliminate it and be liberated. There is an end to suffering, however, we must learn how to meet it in a new way. Tonglen practice can help us accomplish this shift of awareness, this training of the mind.

Go to full article.

And for those who prefer video to reading, here's a quick explanation of how to "do" tonglen:


See Stephanie's site Work Stress Solutions for more information like this.