Happy Birthday to my sister Cailin, who represents workers rights through the office of civil rights for the city of Seattle and St. Joseph, the saint who agreed to be the living father of Jesus and patron of workers and carpenters. In celebration of both, I’m encouraging meditation on work today.
Many people I know are in situations like my family, privileged to be making this social distancing happen with easy work from home options. Many, many more are struggling in the restaurant, travel, entertainment and various other self employed industries. Today we just made plans to hire some workers to paint our trim and fix our driveway. These were projects we planned to do next year. But these are projects that enable people to work at a healthy physical distance from others while still earning a paycheck. I read a notice today that if you are still earning a regular paycheck, please do something every day to support a small business person who is suffering right now.
This is a meditation on listening to how you are called to support work – your own or that of those around you. When I am in a quandary about which direction to go, I often call upon my higher powers to hold that thing and gently reveal the lighted path for me to follow. Here is a directed topic for you to begin experimenting with this idea if it isn’t already part of your life.
For meditation today:
- Find the position that worked best for you yesterday – or perhaps try another to see if it’s better. Feel free to reach out – I’m happy to do video calls to help people get into the positions I was describing.
- Breathe.
- Ground.
- Connect with God, higher power or whatever energy you may have found surrounding you.
- Send one or multiple of these questions out into the universe and spend a few moments waiting to see if you hear an answer somewhere in your body:
- How can I support my own work?
- How can I reinvent my own work?
- How can I be of help to people who need work?
- How can I redefine what work means to me?
- Pay attention through the course of the day to see if answers to any of these questions gently come upon you. When an opportunity to support someone’s work or enhance your own arises, notice if it seems to answer the question you asked. When you ask honestly, often the answer comes to you whether you realize it or not.