And I’d love to hear from you about this new direction. I thought I’d share with you, candidly, about where I’ve been, where I’m heading, and how it impacts you and your work.

For at least the last year, I felt like something was missing in my career. I sensed the impact the work I was doing with individuals in career reinvention and said, “Hmm, something feels stuck, blocked, unexpressed in me.” I felt heavy, burdened. But I also noticed something churning inside of me, cooking, baking, percolating.

Now, I’m able to articulate that element that I’ve been so hungry to share. You see, when I went back to school for a PhD in Somatic Psychology (that’s also known as “mind/body psychology”)  in 2001, my intention was to support busy mid- to senior-level professionals to be more present, more alive, more vibrant in their work, especially in the face of rapid change and uncertainty. I knew that the principles I was learning in school could help make change smoother, easier to navigate.

I was (and still am) 100% convinced that simple practices could help professionals avoid getting stuck in their head. Heck, I’d been one of those people who could never seem to shut off my mind. As a result, my body was suffering from the tension of working long hours, pushing and pushing to get through projects, barely allowing myself to rest, recover, and renew. I started to push my way through tasks, but exhausted myself. Can you relate?

Once I learned how to really pay attention to both my head and my body, I became more resilient, productive, creative, clear-headed, and confident.

And I knew I could teach people — like you — to live with these positive qualities in your working life.

But honestly, I had been coaching people in career change as a part-time job while I earned my PhD, and somehow, it became my full-time job.

Until now.

After a decade of helping people navigate their individual career transitions, I’m boldly following my original intention:

To support companies to thrive by teaching their employees powerful practices that bring out more of their potential. And in the process, I’ll be helping professionals (maybe even you?) truly come alive in their work.

With so much turmoil in the business world (heck, the world in general) now is the moment to launch this new direction. Wouldn’t you agree? I’m excited to help motivated up-and-coming professionals navigate change and uncertainty so they move to the next level of performance. I’ll be focusing on coaching high-potential current and future leaders to cultivate greater
* resilience
* focus
* decision making capabilities
* presence
* confidence

Your wisdom isn’t just in your head

You know, your wisdom comes not just from your brains, but really from your whole body.  It’s like your body acts as a monitoring or navigational device. Your senses give you information to help you find your way, especially when the road ahead is foggy or bumpy. If you pay attention, you sense the signals….”more this way…less of that…I like this…I don’t care for that”

But many of us have learned to ignore the messages of our bodies, especially at work, because our culture treats the mind as if it is superior to the body (oh, and your body does so much more than carry your brain around!)

When you leave out the information you’re getting from your senses, you are only using part of your capabilities and potential.

Get wiser with a radical idea: SmartSensing

But instead of cutting off your sense, you can learn to pay attention to your senses, trust them, and act on them That’s what I would call SmartSensing. Essentially, you make smarter choices and take wiser actions when you complement your thoughts and ideas with your sensory information.

This SmartSensing is a radical idea. It’s like overriding what most of us learn at school, in our families, and at work. We learn to ignore our body’s messages. Like when you get a headache, do you pop an aspirin? Or do you ask what’s burdening your mind and how you might alleviate it? Or it’s like meeting two prospective new employees. When you meet the first one, you get a knot in your stomach, and when you meet the second candidate, you feel light and bubbly. Do you run to take an antacid after you meet the first one? Or do you stop and ask, “What is my body telling me?”

We often dismiss the subtle signals our bodies give us. And we also miss the chance to make small changes with our bodies that open up whole new mental vistas.

Try this out, for example: When you’re stressed out, you can shake your body while you imagine your tension dropping away. With practice, you can feel a sense of relief, so that you can get back to whatever you were doing before you got stressed out. So the next time an angry colleague or a frustrated customer yells at you, try shaking off and getting back to equilibrium.

Your amazing body is not just a monitor. It’s an amazing adaptive, self-adjusting system. And you become most effective when you allow your mind work collaborate with your senses.

My new work will help you move to higher levels of performance. And a big part of what I’ll be teaching (in my coaching, workshops, retreats, and even on the Work from Within blog and newsletter) are perspectives and practices that will help you to listen to, trust, and act on the messages of your amazing monitoring and adjustment mechanism – your body. The ability to create ease, well-being, and amazing levels of performance – it’s all in your hands (and in your heart, your gut, and your whole body).

In the coming months, I’ll be letting you know about the coaching, workshops, and customized events I’ll be offering to companies, especially those who want their people to stay resilient in the face of major change. Oh, and companies who actively support their high potential current and future leaders in navigating to the next level. (If you want the early scoop for you or your company, just get in contact)

So, what do you think? How might SmartSensing help you at work? What can you imagine in terms of your emotional flexibility, your resilience, your confidence…if you listened to your body?

I look forward to supporting you to work from within the amazing Smart sensing mechanism of your whole self.

Moving with you into the future,
Susan

PS – I’m still taking on a few career reinvention clients over the next two to three months, as I transition into this new work. So if you’ve been thinking of working together, please don’t procrastinate. Get in touch now. You can reach me via email at SBernstein@WorkFromWithin.com or by phone at (415) 508-8250.

PPS – FYI, Somatic Psychology is also known as Mind-Body Psychology, and is a discipline that looks at reuniting mind and body for greater energy, aliveness, and well-being, physically, emotionally, and mentally.

Me, I went to a kind of “adult summer camp” on the Pacific Ocean at the Esalen Institute in Big Sur, California for 28 days to escape the confines of the virtual life. Living and working alone was killing my inspiration for Work from Within, and sapping my energy.

I opened my heart. I fed my body a dose of hard labor. And I was transformed.

Now, I am evolving a new, more vital and engaging vision for Work from Within.

Flash back to May, 2011. I was feeling extremely lonely and depressed. A dear friend pointed out something I really didn’t want to hear. He said, “I don’t know how you do it. I don’t think it’s healthy to live alone and work alone. That combination will sap your soul.”

Then he asked me an important question:  “What can you do to get a dose of community?”

He knew the answer I would give him. Immediately, I thought about the Esalen Institute, where he works. Sitting right on the Pacific Ocean, between San Francisco and Los Angeles, Esalen is sited on intensely rugged, gorgeous land, where the mountains practically kiss the ocean. For nearly 50 years, the Esalen Institute has been a hot spot for personal growth. Famous philosophers, psychotherapists, and teacher like Fritz Perls, Abraham Maslow, Ida Rolf, Aldous Huxley, and Alan Watts all lived, studied, and taught at Esalen. They ushered in an era where personal growth was encouraged and supported.

Amazingly, I have been blessed to have taught at Esalen (and I’ll be teaching a career transformation workshop there September 30 to October 2. You’re invited!) I love being a workshop leader at Esalen.

But from July 31 to August 28, I had a much, much tougher role. I decided to be a work scholar.

I agreed to work 32 hours a week. I was assigned to the kitchen. Not as a chef. Not even a sous chef. Nope. It was not glamorous work. I cut cucumbers and carrots. Sliced bread. Wiped down tables. Refilled coffee urns. And washed a ton of dishes, by hand. I mean a ton. Giant soup pots and massive bowls, all used to prepare 300 to 370 meals a seating. It wound up being the most physically demanding work I’ve ever done.

Additionally, I was mixing it up for 28 days with 23 other work scholars, ages 22 to 78, who like to dive deep in understanding themselves and others. After living alone for the past decade, I had three roommates in bunk bed space. I was worried about how I’d deal with others. Fortunately, no one snored. Everyone was friendly. And we didn’t have to cook our own food, so there were no sinks with dirty dishes to create frustrations. Mostly, we worked from 7 am until the early afternoon, took workshops, and arrived home around 10 pm to sleep and repeat the cycle again, with two days off per week.

When I wasn’t working, eating, or sleeping, I could take movement classes, soak in the hot tubs, take hikes, get a massage, take a nap on the lawn, volunteer on the garden, sit on the deck and talk to interesting people from all over the world, or find a spot and write in my journal. Interestingly, I had almost no interest in getting on my computer, even though the lodge has wi-fi 20 hours a day. No, I was much, much more interested in talking than typing. Why? I was in cultural heaven. Our group of 24 included men and women from Israel, Germany, Spain, Australia, and France. And in the extended staff, I met people from Canada, Japan, Korea, Argentina, England, Ireland, and Turkey. I love the multiculturalism of Esalen.

Over the course of the next few weeks, I’ll be sharing some of the lessons that I learned. But let me start with the lesson that touches my heart most deeply in this moment:  To create truly meaningful community, I had to unplug and reach out to people, face-to-face, heart-to-heart.

Virtual connection just doesn’t fill me. Sure, it’s information, and it’s nice to visit Facebook and read my friends’ updates. But consuming too much Facebook, Twitter, and email forms an incomplete diet for me. No, I wasn’t a monk before being a work scholar. I did have a social life, but it was insufficient. And difficult to put together. It took a lot of effort to get friends together, especially in the San Francisco Bay Area, where everyone seems to be so darned busy. Bottom line:  I was simply spending too much time alone, plugged in to a virtual world on my computer, staring at the screen instead of looking into someone’s eyes.

Before my Esalen experience, I was starting to question whether I was actually an introvert, not the extrovert I sensed myself to be at heart. I now know — from all the conversations, all the times I easily created a bridge and introduced two people, all the times I practically ran across the lodge at meal time to listen to a friend describe the massage she’d just had — that I’m an extrovert, for sure.  The contact with other human beings has just got to be real. I need my daily quotient of hugs. I need to be able to see other people’s 3D facial expression. I need to be able to take a walk with a person, or touch their hand when they’re having a hard moment. Or give them a “high five” when they’re celebrating a victory.

I’m a touchy-feely kind of gal. I confess it. (That confession is especially for myself.)

And I’m a social, connection-loving, community-building kind of woman.

So, instead of doing my most of my work of helping people bring out their best at work via the all-too-impersonal telephone, I am hatching a plan to create in-person, super yummy, highly experiential, community-generating, personal growth events related to work. I envision salons. Not the kind where you get your hair and nails done. Salons where people gather under the roof of an inspiring host, partly to amuse one another and partly to refine taste and increase their knowledge of one another through conversation. The intention is to educate and enrich like-minded, like-hearted people. If you’re in the San Francisco Bay Area and would like to host a salon, contact me and let me know.

I will also be speaking, in really dynamic ways, using theatrical, improvisational approaches, partly inspired by the performances some of my fellow work scholars created under the direction of the ever-humorous writer and performer, Ann Randolph.

Hey, if you’re outside the San Francisco Bay Area, no worries! I will still do teleclasses and create eBooks and eCourses for you. But, more ideally, you’ll contact me and invite me to teach a workshop or offer a salon in your area. Then, I can meet you in person and shake your hand.

No, scratch that. I will meet you, but I’ll give you a hug. I need to be touched. And I bet you do, too…

QUESTION FOR YOU:  Am I right? Do you need to be touched? Let me know how you feel about living in a world that’s going more and more virtual…

Sending you a big hug,

PS – If you want a real, in-person hug from me, and tons of support for answering the question, “What’s next?” in your career, it’s time to get your butt (and the rest of you, especially your heart and guts) to the Esalen Institute retreat center in Big Sur, California, September 30 to October 2, 2011, for my workshop, “Crafting Careers That Truly Fit.” Will I see you there…?

People really impact your work. 56% of you said, “I have at least a few difficult co-workers to deal with in my job.” That’s more than half of you who deal with difficult people. But, interestingly,  29% of you said, “I feel very connected to my co-workers – I genuinely like most of the people I work with.” It’s kind of sad that so many of you have to deal with difficult co-workers. They sap energy.

And that energy drain takes a toll, leading to 47% of you saying, “I might start off the working week feeling upbeat, but by the end of the week, I feel emotionally and/or physically fried.” And, 38% of you reported that, “In my current work, there’s a lot of drama, and sometimes I don’t know how to deal with it.”

How sensitive are you as a group? As a whole, 27% of you agreed that, “I feel more emotionally sensitiive than many of my co-workers, and I wonder how they can be so unemotional, while 33% of you admit, “I pay attention to my body’s signals at work, and use these impulses & instincts for making good decisions.” Unfortunately, that leaves 67% of you who do not listen to your body at work, and that concerns me. And only 29% of you said, “I practice good self-care at work, regularly doing things to feel good in body, mind and spirit while I’m working.”

What about the positive content of your work? I would love to see this number be higher, but 27% of you say that “I feel like my work allows me to be a force for good in the world.” And 24% of you say that “I love the freedom that my work gives me to be creative.”

And what about getting ahead? While 33% of you state that “I would like to advance or get promoted in my current work” only 22% of you say “I have a mentor or other supportive people who are helping me to grow professionally.”

So, as a group, you want great work, but it looks like you need the support to make it happen. That’s a role I want to play for you, more and more, especially through in-person contact, when I can, and through digital resources like eBooks that I plan to write for you. (By the way, I have some digital programs to share with you now, if you’re contemplating a career change).

So, how could I be helpful, I wondered? So I asked you the question, “How much would you like to develop or enhance each of the following skills?” And here are the skills you told me you would have a lot of interest in learning, followed by the percentage of you who said you would have a lot of interest in building this skill.

Feeling good in mind, body, and spirit while at work 88%
Transforming my work into a force for good in the world  77%
Having lots of positive energy at work 77%
Being more creative and innovative at work  71%
Making better work-related decisions  71%
Experiencing greater resiliency at work (the ability to bounce back from difficult situations) 63%
Finding positive ways to deal with my work colleagues 58%
Trusting my instincts and intuition at work 63%
Dealing with my emotions in the workplace 42%

So here’s what warms my heart. I love that you want to feel good in mind, body, and spirit while you work. And you care about transforming your work into a force for good in the world, so that you can have lots of positive energy.

And in the coming weeks, I’ll tell you how I intend to meet your needs. I do know it’s possible to feel really alive in your work, while making what you do truly matter.

Personally, discussing emotions in the workplace is a joy for me, partly because I felt so inhibited from expressing mine early in my career. When I worked as a strategy consultant at Accenture (then Andersen Consulting), it seemed as thought I was expected to be poker-faced, or to be polite and neutral about virtually everything our clients expressed to me. Sometimes, as a result of being so robotic, we were known as “androids.” Interestingly, Anne uses that very term, android, in our interview, as she describes the hyper-rational, hyper-professional face that many people have been acculturated to display at work.

So why did Anne write a book about emotions in the workplace? Partially because she met with other women who described crying at work, and then feeling ashamed of their tears. While crying can display empathy, compassion, and connectedness, it can also be seen negatively at work. She had also had a pivotal experience of holding back her tears at work, and wondered why she felt so emotionally constrained. Previously the Senior VP for Consumer Products at Nickelodeon, Anne was celebrating the conclusion of the largest-ever video deal with her colleagues, when the phone rang. Her assistant told Anne that Sumner Redstone, the owner of Viacom, her parent company, was on the line. Anne thought he was going to congratulate her. Instead, he berated her for not making the stock price go up. Although her ability to impact the share price seemed ludicrous, given the tiny size of her division within the multi-billion dollar company, Anne didn’t feel she could get angry at Mr. Redstone. Tears welled up at the injustice, but she felt she had to show her team a positive face, so she wiped off her tears before returning to celebrate with them. Curiosity about this and other emotional incidents lead Anne on a multi-year journey of exploring the role of emotions in the workplace.

Additionally, in partnership with J Walter Thompson, Anne created a national study on emotions at work, in order to ask people about their everyday lives and the emotions they bring to work. In contrast, virtually all studies on emotions are done in the laboratory, in contrived experimental conditions, and Anne was curious about people’s actual lived experience. For example, she wanted to know if there are there gender differences behind how we process our emotions? We are fortunate to live in a time when fMRI technology has let us look at real brains in working environments. That data complemented what Anne found in her surveys. For example, when asked about whether they had cried in the previous year, 41% of women said that they had, and only 9% of men said that they had (a number which Anne speculates is probably higher). So something was going on.

One of the emotional dynamics that women face is the social pressure to suppress anger. While 60% of women reported having felt angry at work in the past year, many feel ashamed to express that emotion, due to social conditioning. But that anger needs to be dissipated, so women cry. And yet some workplace norms make crying a sign of weakness and failure. So there comes the double-whammy for us women. We are ashamed to get angry. And then we cry, and we’re ashamed of that. And all of that shame comes from social conditioning, not from the raw emotion.

Interestingly, Anne found that when we see a CEO crying, their employees tend to perceive that CEO as more empathic and more human than CEOs who don’t cry. And men who viewed women crying did judge that crying as bad, nor did they make the tears a big deal. However, women who saw other women crying had negative perceptions of those tears. Anne indicates that this dynamic may have to do with women having to fight so hard to be perceived positively in the workplace for the last 40+ years. However, that fight is over, and now, women comprise roughly 50% of the American workforce.

Anne raises an especially important issue:  Women are going to shape the service jobs that can reshape the economy: Health care, elder care, green jobs, and education. These are the types of jobs where we need empathy and caring. So especially in these kinds of jobs, she asserts that women ought to step back and be less critical of each other.

I asked Anne about her fondest hopes for the impact her book, “It’s Always Personal: Emotions in the New Workplace,” might have. First, she would like to see people become more aware of the importance of emotions for good decision making. And secondly, she wants to see us be more of ourselves at work. It used to be that you didn’t make personal calls during work, or receive business calls at home. Now, we get texts from family and friends while we’re working, and at home, we check email and find business messages. Work and our personal lives are intermingled. So, the more we can be ourselves across the board, the more we can reduce our need for emotional labor — that is, we can stop trying present a professional persona that has nothing to do with how we view our essential self. Anne and I both firmly believe that when we present more of who we are essentially at work, the less we feel the distress of a false self. We both hope that people (you, too, dear reader), will take the message of this book as permission to feel and regulate your emotions, thus contributing to wellness (physical and mental) in the workplace.

Immerse Yourself: Share your response here on the blog…
How much do you feel the need to hide your emotions at work?
What might happen if you allowed more of your true self to show at work?
And how can we create workplaces where people feel freer to be themselves?

With no anger, all joy,

Well, if you’re into feeling better, fast, I’ve got an ear-to-ear grin as I share this TED video of Ron Gutman, an expert on wellness who founded WellSphere and is currently CEO of Silicon Valley-based HealthTap.

Did you know that smiling is a predictor of long-term well-being? If you haven’t smiled lately, go hang out with some kids, because, on average, they smile 20 times more per day than adults.

One smile can generate as much pleasure as 2,000 bars of chocolate. No kidding! More great facts on smiling in this video. So enjoy!

Smiling your way,

I spend a lot of time at the Esalen Institute, a retreat center that’s been an icon of transformation since the 1960s. Last weekend was one of those times. I stopped in the gardens, where most of the organic produce is grown, and recorded this video for you, to tell you about the career transformation workshop I’m teaching June 24-26, 2011, called Crafting Careers That Truly Fit: How to Work from Within. If you’re at a career crossroads, and you’re tired of agonizing over the question, “What am I going to do next?” stop the stress! This workshop gets you out of your head and into the wisdom of your body. You can slow down, relax, and allow me to guide you to your own inner knowing. This workshop helps you gain much more clarity about your future in just one weekend. You get to discover answers you have hidden within yourself, and that’s a lot of fun.

So, what happens as a result of the workshop? Here’s a heartfelt comment from a past participant of this workshop, “Susan, you made my life so much easier. I had been making this career change so complex. You gave me a way to simplify my inquiries, and to shift my energy from feeling tense and negative to feeling relaxed and positive. I now have a much clearer idea of the work I’m going to do next, and I’m excited instead of fearful. That’s a big change, and I’m so grateful for the workshop you so thoughtfully facilitated. Thank you!”

Well, you, too, can find your own calm, clarity, and confidence in the Crafting Careers That Truly Fit workshop.

And, to sweeten the experience, if you register for the workshop by June 1, 2011, I’m offering you a free 50-minute coaching session (you can use it any time between June 30, 2011 and July 31, 2011), PLUS downloads of my two popular CDs — How to Make a Meaningful Career Change and How to Create Work That Fits You — to help you get unstuck and overcome your fears about change. That’s over $375 worth of bonuses!

How do you get your bonuses?

All you need to do to get these wonderful bonuses is to drop me a note at info @ workfromwithin.com by June 1, 2011, telling me that you’ve paid for the workshop through the Esalen Institute. To register for the workshop, simply go to this link for workshop details, and you can either register online, or you can can call the Esalen Institute at 831-667-3000 from 9 am – 7 pm Pacific Time Monday through Friday, or 9 am to 5 pm Saturday & Sunday. Or click here for more contact information at Esalen.

I’d LOVE to welcome you to the workshop and help you get clear about your future career. And it would be great to sit in the hot tubs and chat with you during the breaks. What better, more relaxing, inspiring way to gain clarity about your life and your livelihood? If you have questions about the workshop, please feel free to contact me.

So, sign up for the workshop NOW, and get your FREE 50-minute coaching session with me AND your two bonus CDs. Remember, you only have until June 1, 2011 to get this benefit, so call Esalen now at 831-667-3000 and register and then drop me a line at info @ workfromwithin.com to let me know you registered, and be sure I send you an acknowledgment back!

See you in the hot tubs!

I wanted to escape these awful feelings that were dragging me down. For relief, I tried an Emotional Freedom Technique called Tapping. I tried Affirmations. I even tried Lifeforce Yoga to Beat the Blues, my winter standby feel-better video. I got a brief respite. But then it was back to anxiety, tears, and a litany of self-criticism. Yuck.

Before bed, I took a moment to ask the Universe (aka G-d, aka My Higher Power, aka Source, aka You Get the Idea…) for some assistance in lifting this depression. Moments later, feeling especially anxious about tidying up, I returned some a pair of jeans to the top shelf in my well-stuffed bedroom closet. I looked up to find space for the pants. My search took more than a few seconds, as I balanced my petite self on my tippy toes, my eyes pointed upward. I noticed that something felt different. I felt lighter. More open in my chest. Emotionally freer. Less tense. Almost buoyant.

I love experiencing these embodied aha moments. The inner wisdom wake up call. Indeed, something magical occurs when I turn up my gaze. I kept doing it. I raise my chin slightly and raise my eyes softly. Very little effort. It’s not about muscling. Wow! Things really are looking up for me. The depressed feelings are fading. Amazing. As they say, the body speaks in metaphor.

If you want to stop feeling down, if you want your circumstances to look up, well, you can simply look up.

Try it. What happens for you? I’d love to know.

No, I don’t expect you to absolve me of sins. It’s just that what I’m about to say to you makes me feel a little sheepish. Like hiding. Which is what I’ve been doing.

Through some deep soul searching, I recently realized that I’ve hidden something from you, Dear Readers. And it’s time to tell the truth.

So, I’m taking a deep breath…before I tell you that…

I’ve hidden from you…my sassy, spunky side! Enough of always talking like I’m Sweet Polly Purebread (that’s from my Underdog days), all too nice and kind of academic, kind of smarty-pants. But not sassy pants. And yet it’s dang time to wear my sassy pants! So I can reveal that side of me that “mouths off,” and gets straight with you and tells it like it is.

In my business, Work from Within, I’ve been, well, um, “corporate.” Buttoned down too much. Too serious. Not playful enough.

Maybe all of this seriousness is by decree of the British half of my heritage. I’m itching to invite my feisty, vivacious Brooklyn side of myself to the par-tay. (My mom would kill me. She’s from Queens, not Brooklyn. But it’s way more fun to say “I’m half Brooklyn and half British.” Mom will understand, I’m sure.)

I’m not trying to “beat up” on myself or make myself wrong for hiding my sassy and spunky energies. Here’s the thing:  Despite celebrating my 10 year anniversary of leaving the corporate world this month, and being much freer in my expression, I still have further to go in being me. So that I can help you feel freer to be you, too!

You may be asking yourself: Why should I care that you’re going to show your sassy side, Susan? Because in the realm of creating work that truly expresses who you are in the world, I want to acknowledge that it’s not always easy or straightforward to tell your truth, to show yourself, to strut your stuff, to dare to be different, to sing your own song.

For too long, I worried “What if I want to teach all this career reinvention stuff in the corporate world? If I talk about things like Return On Life Energy, will they think that’s woo-woo?” Or “Will people think I’ve gone off the deep end if I mention “chakras” or “sensory awareness” or even “emotions”?” I listened so intently to an inner advisor I now call “Little Miss Perfect” that I trusted her. But really, she’s the voice of worry. She wonders if-if-if-if-if in a fabulously negative way. Enough!

Little Miss Perfect was actually concerned about what other people would think, rather than what my heart and gut were telling me. Guidance that comes from my heart and gut is simple and natural. And of course, of course, I teach you to listen to your inner wisdom, so you can “work from within,” because I need to remind myself to do that, too.

By swallowing all of Little Miss Perfect’s haughty admonishments,  started acting based on my fears. I kept my website buttoned-down neat and tidy, instead of getting more personal and raw. I used words that were “polite” and “sanitized.” I’d say things lightly and neutrally, like “consider making your career transition with me” instead of shouting, honestly, “When are you going grab the life preserver I’m throwing you, so you can get out of your crummy life-sapping job?”

So, in the coming months, you’re going to be seeing some changes in the tone and the vibe with Work from Within. Not all at once. I already banished Little Miss Perfect, who was demanding to me, “Well, if you’re going to make changes, you must do this swiftly. No procrastinating.” No worries, I’m not procrastinating. But I’m doing things at a pace that feels organic, natural, and authentic to me. And hey, that gives you permission to do the same in your life. To follow your life energy in a positive direction.

What’s ahead, what’s the future of Work from Within? More colorful. Sassier. More verve. More style. More for you to sink your body, mind, soul, and emotions into. I will continue to care about helping you renew and reinvent yourself and your career, from the inside out. I think you’ll find yourself in for a much juicier, joyful ride.

I’m as committed as ever to helping you craft a life and a livelihood that brings you alive…frees you, makes you smile, fills you with joy. More to come…

I’d love to know what you think, BTW! Drop me a line on my contact page!

Susan

It’s Susan here. I’m excited to introduce you to one of my clients, Kamael Sugrim. I feel lucky to get to coach a number of entrepreneurs, and she is one of them. Kamael reminds me that many of us professionals, particularly women, are used to organizing our lives through our accomplishments. But then, a moment comers (or a slew of them) and we realize that defining ourselves by what we’ve ticked off on the “to-do” list doesn’t feel fulfilling. We begin to seek fulfillment, that sense that the meaning of our actions makes us feel full, in mind, body, and spirit. It’s a delight to see what Kamael is creating. I invite you to check out the amazing way she’s reaching out to stem poverty through an innovative use of technology with www.mPoweringFoundation.org. Congratulations, Kamael, and thank you for making a difference in the lives of others!

And now, for some words from Kamael…

I’ve spent the last 15 years working to methodically and meticulously cross off the things I don’t want to do in my career. First there was consulting – that one quickly bit the dust. Then there was finance – which lasted a good 5 years. When I was offered a more senior role in investment industry that bored me to sleep at my desk, I rapidly completed 6 business school applications and ran off to the West Coast to “hone my skills.” Then I graduated and went into marketing in the tech industry. I thought that was very interesting, but after 5 years, I still found myself itching to get out and do something that felt like it came from my core.

Instead of searching for my next venture while chained down to the existing one, I quit corporate America and took a few months off to really learn how to listen to who I was – not develop – but just listen. Susan and I worked for several months on this together and, as a result, I have a much better understanding of what gives me positive energy. I liked Susan’s style because it incorporated a completely different way of looking at my future and myself. We didn’t start off making lists of skills, or companies to talk to, or even action plans. Sure, I eventually did those things. But Susan starts by guiding you to listen to your body and understand the feelings that run through you in different situations.

I’m a person who can’t stand yoga, falls asleep in meditation and thinks that chanting is for monks. But with Susan, I felt comfortable enough to “shake my stress off,” learn new breathing exercises, and more importantly be in tune with what my mind and body are telling me. Susan’s own energy level is so positive and her approach so comfortable, that I found myself completely engaged and excited for our sessions!

My favorite exercise has been making a list of Drains and Gains as part of maximizing my ROLE, my Return On Life Energy. That’s something that I still keep in my wallet and refer to often. I listed all the things that drained me – inauthentic people, boring work, alongside all the things that gave me energy – working with smart people, helping others. When I’m faced with choices on where to take my life, I look at this list and see how those choices stack up against what makes me happy. It’s like having a new pair of glasses that allows me to see things I’ve never seen before.

Living in Silicon Valley, I’m surrounded by some of the most exciting opportunities, but I’ve learned just because they are exciting to others, that doesn’t mean they will be exciting to me. By truly understanding what makes me tick, I can make decisions about my career that are about what I like and want to do vs. the trial and error method I used for the last 15 years. It’s even stretched into my personal life. I find myself confidently recognizing and moving away from people and situations that drain my energy level and ultimately make me unhappy.

Earlier this year, I decided to put my passion for helping people together with my love for technology and start a nonprofit – mPowering. mPowering creates mobile applications and builds programs that empower the world’s poor – those living on less than $2 a day – to break the cycle of poverty they live in. I work twice the hours I did in corporate America, make half the salary, but am the happiest I have ever been in my life. Every morning I wake up knowing that I’ve stayed true to myself and am doing the things I love. My career journey isn’t over – a life journey is one that never ends. But I now have this new navigation system – understanding my life energy – and I’m confident that I can lead myself down the rights paths in life. It’s very empowering.

If you would like to follow my and mPowering’s transformative journey, check out our blog at www.mpoweringfoundation.org/blog.

-Kamael Ann Sugrim
Co-founder and CEO, mPowering

I have a confession.

I’ve been a stress case.

That’s hard to admit. Especially since I work with people to help them come alive at work. I do love coaching people, on a one on one basis, about their work. And I’ve been feeling more and more confident about my ability to help people truly light up at work. My head and heart both trust the effectiveness and transformational value of  the unique ways that I help people to conceive of work that fits them. So now, I’m quite hungry to expand my reach and impact so I can touch more people. That has meant teaching more group programs, writing, speaking in as many venues as possible, and influencing larger groups. Doing all these new activities has involved learning how to use webinar software, getting on the phone to talk to organizations and businesses about helping them, discovering how I can best describe what Work from Within is all about, and generally stepping out in the world in a much bigger way. Most of the time, learning these new skills and approaches to marketing Work from Within and my philosophies and practices has been fun. But it’s time consuming, and I’m prone to rush myself and demand results (dare I say, money) rather quickly. I’ve been impatient for success. I want it on my timeline, darn it!

All this effort lead me from stress toward burnout. I started recognizing the shift from becoming angry and frustrated at my circumstances to feeling resigned. For example, I would try to learn how to use webinar software, and somehow I’d lose my participants into the Internet ether (oops!). I’d feel enraged at the software and embarrassed at not being a perfect presenter. Then the nasty voice of Little Miss Perfect would scream in my head, and I’d berate myself for not getting familiar enough with the tools I needed to make the webinar hum along.

Over the course of a few months, I started to think: “I just don’t know what I’m doing. I’m not a celebrity yet, like Oprah or Suze Orman. Who am I to help people learn to come alive at work? I’ve been running Work from Within for five years. So why am I not on TV yet? Why haven’t I written a book, let alone published it? What am I doing wrong? Maybe I should just give up…”

My body began to feel heavy as a boulder, sluggish as a slug, mentally foggy like the June Gloom that hangs over the Pacific Coast, and downright stomp-my-feet-and-shake-my-fist irritable.  I remembered the difference between stress and burnout. Stress is about feeling over engaged and anxious. When you hit burnout, you’re likely to become disengaged, hopeless, and depressed. I was headed for the latter. After weeks and weeks of this experience, a lightbulb went off in my head:  Perhaps my ideas about failing and taking too long to make an impact aren’t true. Maybe I’ve been seeing my circumstances through a distorted lens, a narrow angle.

I resolved to shift my energy. I’m all about maximizing Return On Life Energy (ROLE), so I knew I needed to take action to build up my energy stores. I started with getting checked out by the practitioners at the Acupuncture and Complementary Medicine clinic in Berkeley, because I love that Chinese medicine is all based on life energy (which the Chinese call qi, and which Indians call prana). It’s been a process of replenishing my energy stores. I’ve gone from depletion to stagnation to amplification to expansion. Instead of feeling exhausted and irritable, in the course of six weeks, I’m now feeling mellow, flowing, and full of ease. And filled with gratitude for my life and the beauty in the world, sensing the joy of simple things, like the warmth of the mug of my wild sweet orange tea to the playful chatter of the birds in my magnolia tree.

Something else that helped my renewal, something counterculture:  I decided to follow my body’s instinct for rest. I booked a retreat at one of my favorite places on the planet, the Esalen Institute, on the Big Sur coast (I’ll be teaching a workshop at Esalen from December 5 to 10), with it’s warming sulfur hot springs, the crash of the waves of the Pacific Ocean against high cliffs, and the magical landscape with its rainbow of flowers, stands of gracious trees and cradle of rugged mountains.

To renew myself sense of self, I enrolled in an Esalen workshop with performance artist extraordinaire, Nina Wise, who created a practice called Motion Theater, a form of autobiographical improvisation. To me, learning Motion Theater was like finding self-transformational storytelling. Our group of ten women played theatre games (like forming ourselves into shapes and riffing off each others stories), meditated (in creative ways, including with singing), stretched, danced, and learned to tell our personal stories, rich with detail and grounded in sensory experience. Most importantly, the combination of verbal and non-verbal activities re-started my energy. By immersing myself fully in play and presence, I got back in touch with myself. Hallelujah!

If you find yourself sliding into stress, catch yourself and find your antidote. And if you’re slipping into burnout, or you’ve already landed there, stop pushing yourself. Your body, mind, spirit and emotions are telling you that what you’re doing needs to shift. It’s time to give yourself a break for relaxation, restoration, renewal, rejuvenation.

Based on my week at Esalen, and my personal discoveries, I’d like to share some suggestions for shifting out of stress and burnout and back into your essence, your true self, the quiet internal place that is you, no matter what.  Please feel free to take only what feels good, and trust your intuition to modify any of these ideas so they fit you:

Rest. I can be a work machine. That go-go-go behavior got ingrained in me during my tenure in management consulting, when I sometimes worked 80 to 100 hours a week. These days, I think that’s insane. It’s all push, no pull. In other words, I used to make myself do work, rather than feeling drawn or inspired to do it. When we’re stressed, we often push ourselves hard. But that push, push, shove, move forward, go, go, go energy is only one way of being. You are not a machine. You cannot keep up an unrelenting pace indefinitely. Staying up late, working around the clock, denying yourself breaks…this is a recipe for a breakdown. Instead, give yourself the gift of rest. Of doing nothing. Or doing only those things that are pleasurable. Not just satisfying, but truly nourishing. Make the choice to feed yourself what you truly want, which very well may be peace and quiet.

Relax your efforts. Before taking this retreat, I had been working for months without a break, staying up until 11 or 12 at night to reply to emails, plan a workshop, update my website. So much effort! In physics, effort equals work. But work — as in your career, your livelihood — need not be full of hard effort, at least not all of the time. Notice how hard you are trying, and reduce the effort. Here’s one way to do this: Start by doing something that comes very, very naturally to you. Like walking. Or talking on the phone with a friend. As you’re doing this easy, natural activity, become aware of your body and where you hold tension and tightness. Then, do an activity that you don’t do so easily. Not the hardest thing, but something that you have to pay attention to do, and where perhaps you have less skill. Like for me, that’s riding my bike downhill. I have to concentrate. I’m afraid I’ll fall. I can do it, but I have not yet mastered it. How do you feel, in your body, when you do this activity that you’re still mastering? Where are you tight? Where are you loose? Your clamped jaw, your shoulders that come up near your ears…these are all signs of added effort. What can you say to yourself (like “I’m starting to get the jist of this”), and how can you modify the activity (like doing less of it, or only a portion of it, or slowing it down) and particularly your expectations of yourself (maybe telling yourself “It’s OK to be a beginner, and to make mistakes”), so that you can feel more ease?

Reconnect with people who care about you. I’ve been going to Esalen for nearly a decade now, so in that time, I’ve made a lot of friends there. Having them ask about me, getting to spend time with them, catching up…these are all nurturing. I feel seen and appreciated by people who know me. In times of stress and burnout, we need to have people around us who will support us. Who might you like to have around you to support you? You might call a friend and ask to have an hour to just share what’s happening. You could get some friends together and have a “dump your problems in the garbage” ritual, writing down what’s bugging you, reading your list aloud with feeling and emphasis, and then ripping up your list and throwing it in a collective trash can or fire. Then, make a resolution to do one thing, just one for now, that can make you feel better. And report back to the group when you’ve done it, either in person, by email, or by phone. Connect to yourself by connecting with others who are willing and able to help you regain yourself.

Spend time in nature. The rhythms in nature tend to be so different than our man-made mechanistic rhythms of cars and traffic and TV show and meetings and all the scheduled, pre-planned activities, and the constant onslaught of information. Nature is slower, organic, cycling and shifting. Nature is not like the airbrushed superstars we see in magazines and attempt to emulate. It’s raw and honest, the apple that has been pierced by a worm looking for food, the jagged leaf that’s asymmetrical, the birds that do not fly on a preordained flight plan like airliners but flit from tree to tree as they feel called to explore and as the need arises for food and shelter. Nature reminds us to slow down, to get back in touch with our innate instincts and impulses, to trust the flow of life. Immerse yourself in Nature’s rhythms, and you’re bound to have your own reflected back to you.

Turn down your mind and turn up your innate, embodied impulses. When I’m being very verbal — even if it’s replying email — I’m up in my head. And if you’re anything like me, your head can be a dangerous playground, with the broken carousel of repetitive negative thoughts and the teeter totter of self-talk alternately flinging you between self-aggrandizement and self-deprecation. I often tell people to “take the elevator down,” suggesting that they move from their heads to the rest of their bodies. Give yourself time to explore and play non-verbally. Perhaps you will put on music and just move your body in whatever ways feel good, without thinking of the moves you’ll make. You could shake your body like a ragdoll for a few minutes and shake out the cobwebs. You might slither on the floor like a snake and then roll and ooze. You could move your hands like they are talking, which is an activity Nina Wise suggests in her book,  A Big New Free Happy Unusual Life. Listen to what you need, what feels satisfying, and nurture yourself the way a mother nurtures a baby: with touch, rhythm, and movement.

Open your heart. When we’re stressed our burned out, often we’ve neglected our hearts. We are so hell-bent on achieving success, so determined to do what’s right and good, so focused on making money or getting that promotion…and our hearts are suffering from being left out of the conversation about our needs. Needs? Hah, we think, it’s needy to have needs. No, actually, it’s not. Our heart’s desires deserve our attention. Set aside 10 to 15 minutes. Get quiet and put a hand on your heart. Ask your heart, “what do you need?” Be patient, and listen to the answers. Write them down. Follow the most compassionate or most nourishing replies first, like the ones that tell you “Give yourself a hug.”

In every moment, you can add ease and joy to your life by reducing the effort, doing what feeds you, and reducing the activities and situations that deplete you. Bit by bit, day by day, your practice of minimizing your energy drains and maximizing your energy gains will deliver you into a life and livelihood that works for you. That way of living does not come from being hard and harsh with yourself, but rather from relaxing, restoring, renewing, rejoicing, and rejuvenating, as needed. It’s just what the doctor ordered.

Love from Dr. Bernstein!

Susan