Let’s jump right in,
A client wrote last week, ‘I want to make a difference. But maybe what I really want is to make a name for myself.’ Another wrote, ‘I think I’ve confused finding my passion with seeing my name in lights’. And another, ‘I want to do work that matters, I want my work to be seen, to stand out, but I feel like I am losing who I am in the process. Help!’
Background: They all are making (or want to) a living doing what they love while making a difference.
If that’s you, read on. If you aren’t self employed but want to make a difference in your career, read on. If you’re curious because you want to do work that matters, read on. If you know there has to be another way, read on.
Everyone else, you’re excused. But you may want to read, to really silence the inner critic know what you’re dealing with first, that went up last week.
All settled who want to be here?
Okay, lets keep jumping.
Have you ever noticed that in order to really get something you’re shown it over and over again in different forms until it finally goes in.
Me too.
I too have confused making a difference with making a name for myself. I too wanted to see my name in lights. I have sooooooo lost who I am – letting my ego lead the way – because I wanted to stand out.
I explained to the people who wrote, I started with my heart in the right place it got ‘kinda messy when I didn’t know how to merge the make a living part with the make a difference part.
I choose to remember this,
“The basic foundation of humanity is compassion and love. This is why, if even a few individuals simply try to create mental peace and happiness within themselves and act responsibly and kind-heartedly towards others, they will have a positive influence in their community.” ~ Dalai Lama
We can’t make a difference just for ourselves.
We can’t make a difference to simply satisfy our ego: to be acknowledged, approved of, known, famous, or to have our name in lights.
Now, at more than any other time, we are leaping into who we really are and fearlessly allowing ourselves to not only do what matters but what is needed at this time to heal the planet (and it’s residents) that has been driven and destroyed by fear for a very long time.
This is where we find ourselves.
Us.
Alive at a time when we are collectively agreeing that we will no longer wait for things to get better or be different, we are choosing to make the change. And it’s needed. It’s already began.
There are billions of people on this planet connected to you by heart and compassion. And the common connection to do work that matters and makes a difference is ultimately – for those choosing to take part – is to bring all suffering to an end.
That’s the path.
It’s an important walk.
It’s a big deal.
The road to make a difference while making a name for yourself is in the opposite direction.
And yes, some will want to make a living while making a difference, and that’s okay. Choosing to do work that matters and meet all their earthly needs, because, hey, banks don’t accept ‘hugs’ for mortgage payments as far as I’m aware.
However,
Ultimately.
Money and making a difference are not related. I know you may disagree. That’s fine.These are my thoughts.
But can you open your heart for a moment and allow me to explain and go deeper?
The yearning for peace, kindness and compassion to all beings is no longer a nice idea and a members only spirituality club. It’s happening. Now. Everywhere.
The old ways on how our home has been run – including business and careers – are crumbling and breaking down, the unjust rules that have been in place to keep us asleep – locked in fear – are falling apart at the seams because we are just done with the struggle and suffering.
Watched TV lately? Yeah, it leaves me asking ‘are we going to make it’ on some days.
We are.
You know it, so do I. We haven’t been taught this, we just know it on a level we don’t even have the words to explain.
We are choosing to wake up voluntarily, to no longer be caught and trapped in mindset of the political, economic powers and systems that perpetrate suffering further.
We are in a time when people – us – are asking questions and coming to a new understanding that, ‘What do you know, we really are connected!’ and the bigger realisation and we are co-creators. We’re in this together.
People are opening their eyes all over the world and are leaping willingly into a new era of asking different questions that will – we know – will work for the greater good, not individual return.
We are choosing to do work on ourselves because we know now that’s all we can do.
We are way past trying to change the outside world, mostly. That’s the old way and the route was to condemn, blame, shame, tell people they are wrong, do or say anything to get them to fall in line to our scripts of how it should all go.
We are now accepting that the change and difference we want to make is happening faster now that we stopped fighting with the external and returned to Love on the internal.
We are working the inside to automatically impact the outside.
Intuitively we know that we aren’t here to live in fear, we are Love and we want to live in peace and joy, forgiveness, kindness and compassion.
Instinctively we know we cannot end or heal the suffering left over from the old way all alone. Nope, we need one another to do this.
All suffering has been caused by fear – in all it’s forms. As long as we are a willing participate in the fear we aren’t allowing the healing that needs to take place to happen. We can’t have our cake and eat it for want of a better metaphor. This is not the time be sitting on fences for want of another one.
We are acting from a place of compassion, love and truth.
If, like those words wrote by individuals above, you’re in business to make a difference you’ll know that many teach in order to reach more people and connect with your tribe you have to become the authority and expert in your field, and you have to choose to go big or go home, become the big fish in the pond to make what you want to do work.
I can see how many become confused and eventually lose who they are. I can see how I did.
You’re innocent.
The shift that is taking place is more radical than dressing up the old lessons from the old school in a new outfit in attempt to sell it to those who haven’t made to connection fully yet.
“We are all students in the Earth school,” writes Gary Zukav and Linda Francis in The Heart of the Soul. “And the time has come to create a whole new lesson plan. What we need now is an inward focus, in which we cultivate the heart and live in alignment with our souls.”
The lesson plan is in your hands. It’s written. It’s who you’ve always been. It’s not being taught. You don’t need to schooled in what you already intuitively know. You only need to be it.
I believe we are all going to make it. Together.
The world is in session. You have a place at the table. You always have.
So,
You can choose to stand out, or you can choose to stand up, stand with and stand connected.
You can choose to have your name in lights, but why choose something so insignificant when you are the light?
And if you do rise, there is a risk that the fear energy left over from the old way will throw everything at you – you may risk ridicule, you may be left out, you may never be allowed back into the old club – the fear that has been running this planet when we have been asleep would prefer you paid attention to a light you shine on others instead of beaming your own.
You can choose to go big or go home.
You choose what to focus on.
You can choose compassion, love, the divine or you can keep trying to jump up and grasp at the illusion of recognition, fame and fortune and lose yourself in the process. That choice is yours to make.
But what you decide, will be your decisions everywhere. What you choose, will impact your choices everywhere.
I believe in us. Let’s not confuse making a difference with wanting to feed the needs of your ego to be something special.
Making a difference happens in each and every relationship you have with any other being.
It’s the smile at a stranger. It’s aligning yourself fully with your core. It’s recognising we are all carrying pain left over from the old ways and responding to what’s needed not reacting to what we don’t understand. It’s knocking a neighbours door to see if they are okay. It’s answering in the best way you can at that moment to suffering. It’s offering yourself fully and expecting nothing in return. It’s being here.
Gandhi wrote, “Be the change that you wish to see in the world.” He didn’t say, “Be famous and you’ll become the change wish to see in the world”. It includes the world directly outside your front door, it’s the world going on your living room, street, immediate community . It’s the world that you walk about in every day.
It’s the world inside you.
“As a single footstep will not make a path on the earth, so a single thought will not make a pathway in the mind. To make a deep physical path, we walk again and again. To make a deep mental path, we must think over and over. The kind of thoughts we wish to dominate our lives.” ~ Henry David Thoreau
You want to make a difference, do work that matters, be the change – don’t leave home. Eh? Let your heart, wisdom, intuition be your guide, you will never, ever, lose yourself again.
Name in lights? It’s a past story.
Name for yourself? You are more. So. Much. More.
And maybe, you need to lose who you think you are in order to become who really you are.
Connect and align. Walk. Do the work that matters and is needed. Let your work be seen.
Everything else is just noise. A distraction. It has nothing to do with the cause.
What about you?
What do you think is needed now – at more than any other time – to make a difference and do work that matters?
Do you want help aligning yourself with what you ‘do’ in the world? Download the Core Values Workbook. I may be able to help you bring together making a living and making a difference.
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