Create A Better Workflow - Live Recording

In this talk you'll learn about the four phases of a conscious work session. We discuss practices that can help you to be able to start working on those projects that matter to you most and how to elevate your work experience continually.
Important note: This is a piece of a recording of a LIVE session.

Photo by Hoang M Nguyen on Unsplash.

Transcript

When it comes to things that really matter to us,

A lot of the times there is a heaviness to it because it feels so important,

It feels significant,

It feels like a lot of things are riding on this,

Like there is a lot of pressure that you feel that you put on yourself about succeeding or how the end result will be of what you're doing.

But the thing is that when you start to look at it actually as a process of evolution,

Every small idea or every big idea,

Every project that comes to you that seems really or feels really important to you,

It can be one step further for you in your evolution.

Because at the end,

All of these projects that are important,

That really come to us to be created by us,

Are helping us to grow and evolve.

And if we go about it consciously,

Then we will grow and evolve really in our spiritual practice,

In our spiritual journey.

And there are four distinct phases when you sit down and you try to work on something that is important for you.

And we are going to go through those four distinct phases.

The first one is,

So the first phase is really just becoming aware.

I call it true awareness because it is really about finding a complete awareness of what is going on.

A lot of the times people get stuck already in this phase when just when you want to work on something or you said you're going to work on something,

But you just cannot sit down or maybe you sit down and you start and you want to start,

But you cannot start.

Now this is the time when true awareness comes in because everything that keeps you from working on that project is something that you can observe and you can see if you're practicing awareness,

Then you can see that what is keeping you is not really you.

That is something that is not who you are.

Ultimately,

With true awareness practices,

We go in layers,

We become aware of thoughts of maybe there is physical pain that is keeping you from doing something or emotional distress.

Becoming aware of these different layers will put a distance,

At least a little bit of distance and with practice it will be a bigger distance between who you are and the thoughts and the emotion or the physical sensation.

A lot of the times these things,

Our inner landscape is really pulling us in or pulling our attention in in a way that we start to identify with it.

When we get caught up in thoughts or we get caught up in emotional responses or even physical pain or sensations,

A lot of the times it just pulls our attention so hard that we don't understand or we don't see that that is just something we have,

But it's not who we are.

That's not the full reality of what is going on.

This is something we experience and it's not who we are.

So how does it look in practice?

Let's say that you would like to work on something,

But you have this habit of procrastinating or to do just you feel this urge of doing something different.

At that moment you can stop and become aware of what is going on.

Just stop and watch.

It's quite simple,

But it cannot,

It's not always easy.

So stopping and watching,

Or if you feel like it's too much to just watch and observe what is going on inside in your inner world,

Then you can also look at how to calm your nerve system,

Calm your whole being.

And with that you can do breath practices,

For example,

To really just bring some balance into the system to the point that you are able to just sit and observe.

Now sometimes it can be a very short time,

Just you get the,

You become aware like,

Ah,

I'm stuck in a thought process right now,

Or I'm stuck in an emotional reaction right now.

So that can be enough to just get you out of it and to actually continue doing or continue with starting to work on your project.

And sometimes it takes a little bit more time,

Maybe it takes a few minutes of breath work or meditation to snap you out of that identification with the thought processes or the emotions or the physical sensations.

So that's the first step.

And as I'm going through these steps,

You can create for yourself a kind of a workflow with different practices,

Depending on what you need at the moment or what is it that really talks to you.

So just if you have a lot of difficulty with getting lost in thoughts and emotions that take you away from working on your project,

Then having a practice that will snap you out of it,

That will put the distance between what you're experiencing and who you actually are,

That will help you to transcend that identification with the thought.

So you will be able to just see the thought for what it is.

Okay,

It's a thought.

It tells me that it's useless what I want to do,

Or it tells me that I'm not able to do this.

But it's just,

It's a thought.

It's not me.

It's my mind.

I have a mind that generates thoughts.

And that is what it says at the moment.

But if you think about it,

A lot of the times our mind generates automatic thoughts that if you look at it afterwards,

It wasn't really true.

So becoming aware and putting the distance,

Just observing and being able to lean back and detach yourself from that inner disturbance is already a huge,

Huge step and the foundation of being able to move on creating what you want to create.

And then we get to phase two.

And this phase is what I call true nature.

Because at this moment,

After you became aware,

Like,

Okay,

There are the thoughts,

There are the emotions,

There are maybe the physical discomfort or pain,

But that's not who I am.

That's what I experience.

Then you get back to actually to the ultimate level of awareness,

Which understands that you are the consciousness that is experiencing everything here.

That helps you to really sit back and relax into who you truly are.

And you,

The consciousness,

Who is here,

Is really here to experience things,

Experience this life.

And in true nature,

The practice is to rest in that knowing that you,

The consciousness,

Wants to experience things.

And from then,

From that place of really sitting,

Having a seat in that place of consciousness,

Who you actually are,

From that place,

You can start to grow into embodying the qualities that you,

The consciousness,

Is here to experience in this lifetime.

Now these qualities can be,

Maybe it's a set of qualities that is really like going through your life,

You can look back and you can see that there is a pattern in it,

That it's this set of qualities that I'm always trying to find or that I'm always trying to embody in things that I do or things.

Also qualities that you long for are often things that you,

The consciousness,

Is trying to embody in this lifetime.

And the projects that come to you are also a way for you to actually embody.

It's an invitation to embody more of these qualities and experience more of these qualities in this lifetime.

That's the second part.

True nature comes actually from that embodiment of the qualities.

So what you can do in this,

How it looks when you actually want to sit down and work on something is that you connect by true awareness,

You connect also to you,

The consciousness,

Your core.

And then you ask yourself,

What are the qualities that I want to embody right now?

What is it that I want to experience with creating this project or with working on this specific task?

And that's a reminder for you.

From then on,

You can build up the layers of how does it feel physically?

What is the posture that belongs to that quality?

What are the emotional states that I would like to experience that belong to this quality?

And also,

You can also look at thoughts.

What are the thoughts that I would like to experience or see or hear?

And when you remind yourself of this,

At that moment,

You will get into action with a much more conscious attitude,

With a much more conscious way of being.

Which brings us to phase three,

And that is true action.

And that is really the place where,

As people say,

The rubber hits the road.

In true action,

We actually put into action what we've learned already in true awareness and true nature,

Which means that we start to let go of the tensions and the built up stuck energies that are in our minds,

In our emotions,

And in our bodies.

So we act with much more ease and with a true sense of efficiency.

And that means that a lot of the times we have these habitual tensions,

For example,

In the body.

Let's say now I'm talking to you,

I don't need to pull up my shoulders,

But maybe I have the habit or I learned this habit to pull up my shoulders when I talk to people.

And then I can become conscious that when I'm talking to people,

I can release my shoulders.

I don't need to waste energy on keeping the tension in my body.

And the same is true with emotions.

We always have habitual emotional reactions to things.

Like let's say you sit down and someone is ringing the doorbell and you hate it when someone is coming.

It feels like an intrusion to your private space or private time to work on this thing that is really important for you.

So then you get this automatically emotional reaction of maybe getting really angry or irritated or just getting completely out of your focus and just being distracted by that emotion.

And the same with thoughts.

Thoughts can come up automatically as reactions to things.

And that is also something that is just stuck in us.

It's stuck energy because we did not experience something before in the past.

So it's stuck in us and it brings up certain things,

Certain things that happen outside of us bring up these stuck energies for us to actually experience it.

Because we said it,

I said it before,

The consciousness that is you is here to experience things.

So in true action,

How does it look in practice?

So let's say that you sat down to work on that project that really matters to you.

You become aware of what is going on.

Those are my thoughts,

My emotions,

My body.

I am the consciousness.

And then you connected to your true nature,

Finding the qualities that you would like to embody with this project or during this work session.

And then you get to work.

When you start to work,

You can notice these habitual tension spots,

These patterns of emotional distress or the patterns of thoughts.

And just without engaging with them,

Just letting them go.

Like let's say you want to write and then you start to write,

But right away you feel that there is tension in your jaws.

The moment you start to write,

There is tension in your jaws.

You can practice keeping,

Like keep writing,

Just keep writing and releasing the tension from your jaws at the same time.

You can do this on the other two levels also with emotions or with thoughts.

But normally when you work on something that requires mental focus,

A lot of the times focusing on the body and focusing on the tensions that creep up in the body are the easiest places to let go of the tension.

And since body and mind and the energetic heart are all interconnected,

They are pretty much on the same line.

If you focus on one of them to let go of tension,

The other two will also follow.

And then at that moment,

When you keep working on the project that you want to work on,

That is truly important for you,

And you keep releasing the tension that comes up,

Just relaxing into it,

Relaxing and going on,

That means that you are also resolving these habitual tensions,

Which means that with time you are going to start to have less and less tension when you systematically work and release the tension.

And then we get to phase four,

Which is what I call true surrender.

And phase four is when you are wrapping up your work session.

You finished what you wanted to finish or your time is up.

And in phase four,

This is something that a lot of the times gets completely left out of productivity systems or productivity advice.

And it is really about integration and rejuvenation.

Now every time you work on something that is really important for you,

There will be unconscious leaks in your energy,

Like these habitual tension spots and thoughts,

Emotions.

There will be a lot coming up if it's something that is really important for you.

So with the phase four,

First of all,

We look at what you've created and putting aside a little bit or trying to put aside a little bit the judgment of maybe it's not good enough or maybe I didn't have enough time or maybe I didn't do enough.

There's a lot of the times this judgment that comes up,

But also through the judgment or putting it aside if you're capable.

And just looking at it and see the point that you did do this.

You did put in the time and you did put in the effort to work on this,

To work on something that is important for you and you did consciously put in the effort to do it even better.

So feeling that appreciation that you did do this is also important because it will set you up for a more positive association with working on your project in the future.

And another thing with true surrender is that we need to allow the experiences and the lessons that we learned.

Even in a short session,

There are lessons to be learned and you allow that experience and the lessons to just integrate.

How you do that?

You do that actually by wrapping up everything,

Feeling the appreciation and then looking at what are some genuine needs you have at the moment.

Maybe you got really exhausted emotionally,

So you need to socialize with someone that you really love or maybe you actually need a big glass of water or tea after this session.

Maybe there is something,

Maybe your mind is now really just overwhelmed and you need to take a break to just take a walk or go for any other type of physical activity.

You take the time to just really see what are genuine needs that you have after this so you can rejuvenate.

And while you're rejuvenating,

That's also helping to integrate the lessons because you take the time to really fill yourself up again after the session.

Reviews

Really fantastic approach to conscious working. I’ve been figuring this out for myself over the years and have a lot of post it notes on my wall. Thank you 🙏🏽