Committing to work is one of the best things that has ever happened to me. I say ‘happened’ to me, as it only seemed to begin after I had a major operation and STOP in 2010, yet it is one of the most empowering and loving things I have ever experienced for myself.
I did not grow up this way. As far back as I can remember, to age 8 or 9, there was the ideal that one day I would grow up, romantically fall in love, have a family and live happily ever after (which fell well short!). I did not do well at nor did I enjoy school, thinking that careers were for the smart ones; for others who did not want families and therefore had nothing else in their lives.
However this was all based on a belief, a picture I had in my head about how life should be. While love and commitment to having a family and raising children is important and needed, the same dedication was not there for myself and my life first (which included having a job) and therefore I was not truly there for my family either.
As independent as I looked on the outside to everyone else, I was forever happy to hand my life over to someone else – usually a boyfriend/my husband – and then just become a chameleon and adapt to their way of life. This was easy for me to do and so I did it… but at what cost to myself?
This lack of commitment extended to the fact that I couldn’t commit to a job or regular work.
After being introduced to Universal Medicine and Serge Benhayon, I remember in 2006 in one of my sessions with Serge where he suggested that I get a job… any job! I heard his voice saying this, but at the time could not feel it at all in my body and certainly wondered about the benefits versus being able to freely have coffees down the road with friends, then take myself off to the shopping centre to see what more I ‘needed’ there!
Clearly this was not IT as it left me feeling very lonely even though I was surrounded by people, something deeper was totally missing. I was in so much illusion thinking that my life was fulfilling when in fact there was a massive void of emptiness.
Getting a job… committing to life?
What did that mean?
I felt getting a job had to look a certain way and that I needed status so I looked important in it and that it paid well without my having to do very much. The arrogance superseded everything else.
I decided to try temping and casually did this for a couple of years. It had its ‘benefits’ financially, however there was still no true commitment from me and I would find reasons why I needed to stop working. It took a number of years as I worked on my own self-worth to appreciate the value of working and truly begin to support myself fully.
One of the things I felt as I began to heal from the STOP I had in 2010 was the strong need I had to take better care of myself, but more than that I had such a strong pull to take responsibility for my own life, mainly financially. I had hardly worked for the past 15 years, using children as an excuse to not engage with employment opportunities. The thought of having a career suddenly felt so strong and supportive and quite frankly a necessary and practical part of life. How had I not seen this before?
This was a completely new feeling for me but empowering and wonderful to feel. I had never felt that level of care for myself.
I began to see Universal Medicine practitioners who were trained in Esoteric Breast Massage, and Esoteric Chakra-Puncture and did several programs that supported me to address the lack of care and self-worth I had for myself.
This was the turning point as I could feel the most basic support of looking after myself with food and rent was grossly lacking and I wanted to change this more than anything.
It was only when I cared enough for myself as a woman that I began my journey back into employment. It was really hard at first, with several wake up calls to where I was actually at, so I started at the bottom….
I made a commitment to myself that I was going to earn money no matter what I had to do, as long as I could remain integral with myself. I sold GF (gluten free) eggs for a while, then did some house cleaning and the odd temp job with agencies. One day I asked an organisation if I could volunteer in their clinic to gain some experience, which I did for 3 months. After that I applied for a job as a receptionist for a super clinic and got the job.
I could feel myself going from strength to strength, not in a career driving way, but in my body; I could feel how this was truly supporting me and my life. I could feel that I had been at the other end of the same spectrum, withdrawn from life, and that the difference was to not go into driving a career, but ensuring that I bring all of me to whatever I am doing: this is what is truly fulfilling and what truly grows my confidence and the way I am with myself and others.
I’ve learnt also that a STOP, in my case an illness, can be the most amazing blessing in disguise – a healing journey that evolves us if we choose to adhere to the learning being asked of us.
In growing me, I automatically grow my career without having to go into a driving force.
I now know that there is no bottom or top of the ladder, it’s about committing to being ME first, then working in places that need my skills and expertise with a whole lot of ME in it!
As long as I am being my playful self, live in a way at home that supports me with my daily rhythms, my food and time to connect to myself, then work/careers take care of themselves. So while my commitment to life at first was about me getting back on my feet to support myself financially, what in fact it really was about was taking better care of myself, developing self-worth and re-connecting to something deeply beautiful within.
By Donna Harris, Dip BA, Brisbane
Further Reading:
Work is Medicine
Why Work? What Is Work About?
My Relationship with Work: Choosing to be All of Me
Words on Serge Benhayon 
Amazing Donna as what you bring to the table is very digestible and when we understand that work is also a cycle we understand that our jobs will come and go with no stress as we explore who we are.
Commitment to life is so much more than we realise – it is a committment to self and ones connection with Universality…
I too had trouble committing to work and it took a while to get ‘the ball rolling’ and then when it took off, boy did it take off! I now work 2 full time jobs and have been loving it for 5 years…it is like the pendulum needed to swing from the stagnancy to the excess work to now gradually finding its balance beautifully so. A constant work in progress.
Agree and understand what has been shared Henrietta and adding to our understanding is the fact that our working life is like a cycle. When one job is complete another is already in the wings waiting for us to move in a way that opens the door on our next project or purpose-full endeavour.
Donna this is a beautiful and practical sharing – and one that I suspect many women can also relate to. We can think that the home life of looking after children is there as our main role, but in reality we do need to care for ourselves and our other valuable forms of expression including work with equal importance.
Henrietta, I was born into a generation where girls were seen and not heard and that their main role in life was to get married raise children and look after the house, while the husband went out to work to provide. There was no emphasis on looking after ourselves first, that would be termed a selfish act, everything was to revolve around the husband and family first. I know so many women friends who wore themselves out trying to live and uphold up the ideals and beliefs that they were bombarded with from their parents, friends, media and the church. The media at the time idolized the perfect women, who looked stunning, was a great hostess entertaining friends, family and the husband’s clients, kept the house immaculately, AND was a sex goddess in bed. Quite frankly no wonder they suffered from self-worth issues no one could live such a perfect life, but so many women of my generation tried to.
Work is a way of living that supplies us with energy when we worked connected to our Essences, Inner-most-hearts / Souls and another upside is when connected we are so much more available to express to others in the most transparent way.
As children being commited and responsible is natural. I remember in my early childhood, waking up in the morning, opening up my eyes and feeling ready to start my day with so much joy. Ready to learn, to explore life and to bring all of me in all what I did. This changed for a while, but today I can feel again the same joy and appreciation for having a job I love because all what I can learn and bring through it. This is a reflection and the result of committing more in the relationship with myself and my body. Attending Universal Medicine workshops and courses, having regular sessions and being part of the esoteric community of students enatils a significant support in my life, to bring all of me in everything I do, which is something that I deeply appreciate.
I really enjoy working, regardless of what it is. I go mad when there’s 2/3 days off in a row because I lack focus and a direction after the first day off. I enjoy being out in the world with people as I’ve dealt with most of my issues and am less reactive. If I do react it’s great because I get the reflection/trigger from another so I get to look at it. There’s so many benefits to work greater than the pay package.
Love what you shared here Leigh. The work we have is the life we live, we don’t separate one thing from another, that’s what makes our job so enriching and inspiring.
Before my involvement in universal medicine I had such lack of commitment to life, I ran from society, now the picture is completely different, I am bringing loads to society in way of true inspiration and true purpose.
Like many others, I grew up with a belief that I had to earn a living, and the current education system prepares us for that. We could be working most of our life, but with no real sense of commitment to life or ourselves. I totally agree with you, Donna, it is about committing to being ME first.
Life surely is about the energy we are connected to and when we have a commitment to bring our Loving self to any situation then we can share with others our loving reflection and one of the greatest places to reflect is in the work place.
“committing to being ME first” A great confirmation today as I realised that greater commitment to life is a commitment to being connected to myself first and foremost.
Committing to life when we are aligning to our essences, Inner-most-heart / Souls definitely starts with the self and when fully connected life becomes about being a reflection of the divine Love we all can be and thus drops the individuality.
When we are given those moments to stop, whether due to a health reason or some other reason, they offer us the space to reflect on where we are at, how we are living and what choices we are making. They offer us the space to consider how we have been with ourselves and also how we are with others. Nothing just ever happens. There is always great purpose behind everything. All we need to do is see everything for the opportunities being presented. What is it for me to learn here?
I really appreciate what you are sharing Jennifer
“Nothing just ever happens. There is always great purpose behind everything. All we need to do is see everything for the opportunities being presented. What is it for me to learn here?”
Looking at life and the opportunity to learn has to be one of the greatest gifts, I understand how we can be a student of life and that everyday life is an absolute opportunity to learn about ourselves and others.
Always so supportive to read this, I can feel many points you have raised I can relate to, feeling in my case I was there to care for others and not take seriously my own self care including committing to work and financially supporting myself. Your words about it being a truly loving journey for yourself to go back to work made the central focus about you bringing more love into your life instead of ticking the career and finances boxes. Thanks so much Donna.
Following pictures does not even allow us to feel where are we because when we try to do this we relate always to the picture. We only look one way. We delete the rest from our vision camp.
Pictures of how life ‘should be’ is a sure fire way to distract us from any true purpose in life.
“I felt getting a job had to look a certain way and that I needed status so I looked important in it and that it paid well without my having to do very much.” This made me laugh as I could really feel the illusion we live in, any job is important because without one the all does not work.
I love that saying about there being no top or bottom of the ladder. The key is to make sure you are on the ladder, engaged in life, and working hard. It does not matter where others are, or how high you are, as the blessing in work is that the body loves it and it engages us with the world and most of all people.
There are many things we use as an excuse in order to not go out to work, yet the more we commit to ourselves the more we understand that work is part of the body’s natural rhythm and that the body wants to work, that it’s part of supporting ourselves.
So true Sally, and seeing this work ethic in soul-full children as they are growing up is amazing. ‘Excuses’ simply come from our spirit.
I am very gently finding my self-worth to work. As I have felt the impulse to work, sometimes I would get a little impatient but that recently was my downfall and an essential part of my unfolding. There is no rush or hurry to study that I feel will support me in getting a job as this leads to exhaustion and illness. I am learning to surrender to me and make that priority instead of going into drive is what I am practicing and then see what happens as I bring the future towards me and not the other way round.
“In growing me, I automatically grow my career without having to go into a driving force.” I agree with this. I have and am going through a ‘growing spurt’ presently at work. There is certainly a lot to appreciate in how much I bring — the quality I lead in providing an abundance of support to all I work with — listening to what is needed and delivering it. I also have learnt, which is just as powerful, was to look after me first if that support I provide and worth is not returning itself back to me.
Quite the opposite of what you make a successful career: that you career will flourish when you first start to commitment to yourself, i.e. connecting to your essence, your beauty, by being more in your body.
It is about the equal love and importance to each part of our lives and to each person in our lives.
No coincidence! Filling time with meeting friends for coffee and you felt lonely but committing to life and taking a job as a receptionist where you meet lots of people brought purpose and light into your life.
I love this part about there not being a bottom of the ladder at work, but rather just where you need to be for you and your life is where you are. This takes away all the need to push and drive to be what we are not, and gives space or room to experience ourselves just as we are.
Getting a job is one of the best ways to commit to life. We have this belief that it has to be well paid and needs to be seen to be ‘successful’, but the best job I have ever had and still enjoy is working in a supermarket. I went there 8 years ago thinking I would be there for 6 months or a year, before moving on to a more lucrative and dare I say it… more respected job. There was a huge amount of arrogance in me, and through this job I have learnt humility, commitment to life, and that it doesn’t matter what job you do as long as you bring all of you to it in every moment.
Yes it is not until we are willing to commit to ourselves that we can also commit to work and all the different areas of our lives that call for our active engagement with whatever needs doing. The beauty is that once we commit to this then we are given the energy to perform whatever role is required.
Isn’t that amazing Helen. That just highlights how we get our energy from how we are in all we do. I know I work a solid 8-10 hours now with a short lunch break, whereas I used to need my morning tea and need my lunch and the last 2 hours of an 8 hours shift were a real struggle.
We undervalue work so much if we only make it about earning money for paying your bills and for (early) retirement as it is our natural way of expressing our love for all the people in the communities we live in. It is the way to evolve ourselves as a person but too as a society, and all of humanity.
I could relate to this after having children, it was like having one foot in two camps but never really solid or grounded in either. I’ve always worked, either full-time or more part-time when babies were born but like you it wasn’t until I met Serge Benhayon that I really understood the power and truth of committing to life in full. Now I love committing, not with any perfection, really my body loves commitment because whenever I don’t it tells me loud and clear.
it is very helpful to have a job to get into a rhythm in life and most jobs involve people in one way or another, so it is also a great learning field to be with people, to cooperate and to teamwork.
I have to say I felt a bit like I was reading about myself – as in – I was totally happy to hand my life over to someone else and take a back seat. What I’m learning is that it actually feels incredible to take charge of your own life and not be reliant on others for your own sense of steadiness and worth – and yes – commitment is the answer.
I too started very late in my life to have a job and once I started I wondered why hadn’t started stared earlier, and have ever since built myself a very solid relationship with work and dearly enjoy it and do not want to miss it. What I have learned is that we are made to work and bring our all to society, and I can very much confirm it from every fibre of my body, so it is never work as such that is the problem when we do not like to work or even hate the work we have and it is very much worth looking deeper why it is so, as you have done Donna, to then be able to change it and being able to bring our all to the world.
I agree Esther, we are made to work and give life everything, work is how we grow and how we learn – it’s such an enriching and important part of life that tends to be portrayed as a compulsory prison sentence rather than the incredible opportunity it is.
The simple practicality of bringing it back to us, to how we live and care for us in our bodies, that’s what changes everything and work is very much a part of that. I love working and a few years ago that is not something I would have said, and the more I’ve learned to appreciate and care for me, the more I’ve found my work and my approach to it changing. It’s about committing absolutely to all of who we are.
We are so lost in life when as from young we do not connect to the purpose of life. We then can commit to a way of living that is far from what we are capable of and this can start already at a young age. We do not see that what you can learn at school will be of benefit in your life, for instance learning to read and write and doing maths are some of the basics that can help you through. But when we are committed to have no purpose in life, why then would you go to school to start with! From this attitude we can have that feeling that school does not serve us and has not supported us, but actually it is from our own commitment, from our own choice that we have made it as such.
There is only one life and work is an integral part of that. The term work life balance for instance will let us to belief that they are separate but they are not. If we go into this belief then we have different hats on at work and in ‘life’ whatever that may be. For me life is life and work is simply one of the expressions from my essence I bring into this world. No difference to cooking or cleaning at home, or working behind my computer writing this comment. It is all one and the same.
The fairy tale of growing up and being Mrs. someone is very disempowering for women and impacts our commitment to offer all we have to life. This is part of the current model that has women being less, being passive and compliant, rather than knowing we are the ones who can bring about change in society through our sacredness.
Could it be that there is a reluctance to live from this sacredness because it has been forcefully suppressed for so long through the ages. Look for instance in how the world is today. All big companies and (religious) institutions are mostly led by men, all laws are thought out by men, the education system is based on the military order, male invented and so on. I fully agree that we do need that sacredness back into our societies as that will free us from the shackles that hold us in these male energy driven societies we all still live in today. But it is not only for the women to start living their sacredness, it is also for men to understand that they are completely lost without it and currently make them do what they do in majority without them feeling to be part of a grander whole.
So beautifully expressed Nico, what you have shared honours what both women and men bring and that when we choose to live this again the many blessings will change the way systems operate. I know for myself the belief that I was here to marry and bear children was very strongly reflected in family all around me. I had a family member whenever I would see them ask me from when I was like 12 when I was going to get married.
What you say Aimee, we all have to work together and live from the innate qualities we all hold within, qualities we at times are surprised by we have them as there where not lived in our lives before for a long period of time but are so needed to bring the real change we all are looking for for ages.
Something I’m realising is it is important to not judge ourselves or be hard if we haven’t lived our innate qualities for a very long time. Even if we haven’t expressed or shown them, like sacredness, they are always there waiting to come out again.
What is shared here is so important, that withdrawing from life which can be seen in some as not working and being driven in work are the same sides of the coin, in both cases the care of the person is missing, and so as Donna shares here it’s about being us in work first and foremost and bringing us with our skills.
That is a great point, Monica, that withdrawing from life and being driven in career being the two sides of the same coin. So true – ‘we’ are missing from them both.
This is sweet, that there does not need to be a push for a high achieving picture perfect career for one to feel fulfilled and whole in their work, because this feeling of contentment actually comes first from just being ourselves.
Every job, no matter where it is perceived on the ladder, is super important. The people at the top, need the people at the bottom, and vice versa. Its not a competition, and its not worth comparing… just consider what the Board Room would look like if the Cleaning team did not do their job for 1 month!
Those wake up calls to show us where we are actually at can be quite confronting but nonetheless great teachers of what we need to be aware of and learn from.
So many of us struggle with committing to out jobs, families, relationships… life. Why? Because on one hand we have never been taught the true meaning of commitment and on another, we have never really asked.
I used to believe I was committed to life, however, through the Teachings of the Ageless Wisdom and Universal Medicine as presented by Serge Benhayon I came to the understanding that my ‘commitment’ was for recognition to compensate for my lack of self-worth and not to life itself. Like you, Donna, “I now know that there is no bottom or top of the ladder, it’s about committing to being ME first, then working in places that need my skills and expertise with a whole lot of ME in it!
In the 70’s it was common to have the pupils guided into where they would be best suited. So, the less academic students were herded into childcare, the middle stream was herded into office work and the more able students were encouraged to go onto further education and university. The interview with the ‘guidance counsellor’ was particularly interesting because no matter what you said you wanted to do the path was already set for you, and there was no leeway from that path.
When women hand over responsibility to their partner they abdicate having commitment to themselves and to life. I am finding we need to have purpose and responsibility every day or we drift through life like a rudderless boat. It was awesome to read and feel the empowerment and growth in self-worth that happened for the writer through the process of committing to work.
We are all saturated with ideals, beliefs and pictures of how life should be when we are young we take them on as our beliefs mostly with out questioning them or where they come from. I definitely did this and it wasn’t until I came across Universal Medicine that I started to question everything that I had been told and held as me. I realised that none of the ideals, beliefs and pictures were me, so then the question well who am I?
Finding the real me under all the layers I had buried myself under is finally emerging, and I am nothing like what I have taken on as me. Bubbling up underneath all the layers is a sense of fun and enjoyment of life a deep love of humanity that is in the agony of being so lost. But when I look under the layers they have been saturated with there is also such a pure innocence within them that they have lost contact with just as I did.