So often we hear people asking, What is my real purpose? What is my true work? Sometimes our most important work has nothing to do with a paycheck.
Back in November, a client scheduled a four week Mac training series to begin in early January. She emailed me the day before our first session, saying that she was just so overwhelmed and felt terrible, but could we postpone until the following week.
I could feel her anxiety and stress and so I wrote back:
Breathe…
And honor the fact that you are recognizing that adding one more thing to your life right now isn’t going to work.
Breathe again.
Let’s cancel tomorrow and hold off on next week too.
I’m about to roll out a group training program that will address all of your needs.
And breathe again.
She wrote back that she was crying in gratitude, because I knew she just needed to breathe.
Interactions like this remind me how much I love my work, especially when it has nothing to do with making money!
Because often, the best thing that we can offer our friends, our colleagues, our clients, is to hear them, to honor what they truly need, not what we want to offer them.
Last week she wrote again, sharing that our interaction “has already paid itself forward many times since. Your kindness helped me handle a client of mine in the same understanding way because I remembered how wonderful it felt to not be judged or feel shame for letting someone down.”
Listening, supporting, holding space for others, that is sometimes our real work in this world.
I’d love to hear about your real work. Please share you stories with me and my readers on the blog at www.sparktheheart.com
