The premise of the Secure Being perspective regarding doing work you love is that you need to change your fear based mindset regarding work, in order to gain the courage to make authentic choices in this area, and thus begin to move toward aligned work you love.
But the question to clarify is:
What’s an insecure mindset?
Your mindset is the lens through which you see work. What you think work is, and why we do it, and how you fit in the picture.
Most people think work is about making a living. Choosing something you’re good at, and getting paid for it. But that’s a partial understanding, and an outdated one too. This mindset corresponds to the level of awareness our society has arrived at collectively about how to live and work. But even if society is still at this level of understanding, many individuals on their own have gone much further in wisdom than that. They have come to understand the true meaning of work, and how it can be an extension and expression of our joy, not a sacrificing of it.
People around us and society overall sees work in a certain typical way. Have a job and provide for your family. And if you also don’t completely hate your job, then you’re good.
While certain individuals, who most people would consider lucky, or exceptions, have gone beyond that outdated view and further into clarity about what the role of work is for us.
They have understood that we’re meant to do what we love. And if we don’t love it, it’s not for us. And they have pursued that, as the only wise and viable option. They realized probably by doing what they didn’t love before, that it hurts, and so it’s not the right way. What hurts is not the way to go.
These people either intuitively or consciously stood by their own truth, and moved in the aligned direction for them. Even in the face of uncertainty, no guarantees, fear of facing consequences, fear of not having money and so on. They have wrestled with their fears and moved in the direction of their truth. Not succumbed to insecurity.
And eventually they have gotten through to the other side of the shore. To the side of aligned work and aligned living. Where they do what they love, according to their creative nature. It wasn’t easy. Because they had a lot of uncertainty and confusion to face. A lot of fear to feel, and not bow down to. This journey to the other side, from misaligned work to aligned work that you love, is not an easy one. There’s much inner cleaning of old cultural conditioning that had to take place. And a lot of fears to face because of that conditioning.
To jump from: work is about money, to work is about joy, and money is a by-product… is a huge jump to make. But one we must. If we’re ever to cross the bridge to the other side.
The Inner Dragon: Fear of Lack
Now, from the Secure Being perspective, what I’ve come to notice is that there is a major inner dragon that stands on that bridge. Between this side and the side of work we love. This is the core fear, the core issue keeping us stuck. And this dragon lies inside of us, part of our old insecure mindset for work.
This dragon is the fear of lack. The fear of potentially lacking money, it you were to choose more authentically when it comes to your creative life.
I use the word creative life, to denote our work life, because all work is creative, not just artists and writers etc. When we use our innate capacities engaged in activities we enjoy, that’s being creative. You could be a nurse, or a teacher. It doesn’t matter.
Yet this dragon of fear of lack, stands on the bridge between this side of work for money and the other side of living our joy.
We’re stuck in work we don’t love, because our mindset, or understanding of work is still an insecure one, with this fear of lack, as the core of this mindset.
Our insecure mindset, however, is bigger that just the core fear. And it has to do with a few other major elements.
Things like our own worthiness and valuation of ourselves, whether we feel good enough for the kind of work we’d love.
Then it has do with our true source of security. And outgrowing the idea that money is that source, or that our own smarts and efforts is that source. Our true security goes beyond all that. And we need to see what that truly is. So we can be free from our dependence on money, on people, on efforts alone.
As you can see, this fear based mindset for work is a whole mental lens through which we understand this subject. And for us to break free, we need to change this lens. To shift our mindset from an Insecure one to a Secure one.
We need to overcome this core fear of lack, which is a false one anyway. But we must see that clearly for ourselves. We need to discover our adequacy and worthiness for the work that is right for us. We need to realize what our true source of security is, that goes beyond just money and our own efforts. Plus a few other major shifts.
Once we start shaking up this current insecure mindset, we start gaining the clarity and courage to actually listen more to our joy, to what we actually Feel like doing, rather than Have to be doing.
We gain access to our true inner guidance, not just the fearful guidance of the mind, trying to keep us safe, because it has this insecure mindset around work.
I hope this begins to clarify what the real issue is when it comes to our work life. Why we’re still stuck in doing work we don’t love, and how you can begin your journey to changing that.
For simplicity and summary — our insecure mindset is what keeps us paralyzed in safe choices regarding work. And once we begin overcoming it, it give us access to actually honest and authentic choices regarding work. Which as you may come to see, are the safest ones. And lead us to the other side of working for joy.
Work better, for joy not just for money.
Liviu Beschieri