Losing the Soul in work

It was a crazy week at work and at home. I am still not sure all of what or why the work situation happened other than my partner on the other team was stressed out and under the impression that I wasn’t doing my job. It was not a pretty couple of days as I felt dragged suddenly into drama and under a microscope having to defend my work and decisions made.

There were too many people being too nosey and making snap judgments without any facts. Too many people asking the wrong person the questions related to me. No one willing to ask me or my boss what was going on. People just wanting to think the worst and bitch. At first, my boss, not knowing the facts, was ready to call me to task. Then we talked and he got the facts and saw there was nothing wrong. He neglected to tell my partner on the other team, who continued to tell me my boss, agreed with him that I wasn’t doing my job right. Finally that got straightened out but not before my partner and I were called out for not living the company values in how we were treating each other. The supervisor who confronted us was right. Not one of my proudest moments.

At home, I took my oldest to the vet to have a lump in her throat checked out. She also has an obsession with chewing her toe and she was showing signs of struggling when she walked. A biopsy was done on the lump. I got the results Friday and it is benign. Whew. She is now on medication for her hips and back for arthritis. They did a test on her to see just how bad it was, and I cried when they did the simple test. I saw my puppy unable to move her paw back to a normal position, something she has never struggled with before. And for her toe, another round of antibiotics and the last resort of the lampshade. We will be amputating the toe and at the same time removing the lump from her throat. But, the good news in all of this is, she doesn’t have any disease. She is just growing old.

In the midst of all this I started a meditation class. A friend shot me an e-mail about it from her work. It is called “Opening the Heart: Six Boundless Perfections” and was being held at the Clouds in Water Zen Center. For some reason it felt like I needed to take it. I signed up within minutes of getting the e-mail. The first class was Wednesday, in the middle of the crazy work mess. I went to class not knowing what to expect but hoping to find someway to bring me back to center.

The class was wonderful. It brought to me the insight that I have become disconnected. The person I am at work is not the same person as I am outside of work. At work I am rigid, angry, unwilling to change or question things. I don’t treat people with respect but expect them to treat me with respect. Outside of work I am flexible, kind, always seeking ways to change and become better. I question my beliefs and change them as I learn new things and have new experiences with God. I treat people with respect, even though they don’t always do the same to me.

It became a reality and hit me that I wasn’t honoring or bringing my soul with me to work anymore. Something I wasn’t willing to speak out loud or admit until this week. As soon as I shut the engine off and stepped out of the vehicle to start my walk into the office, I left my soul behind, locked in the car. I had lost the joy in my job. It had become a means of survival. I no longer saw it as a school where I learn and put into practice spiritual principles. The meaning was gone and in its place was a big void in my heart. I had no idea of how to fill that void. I must confess I have been struggling with this void for a few years. There were so many things I tried: changing positions, different meditation techniques, going off alone for a retreat to reenergize, training, spiritual direction, and other things. None worked and the soullessness of work just kept getting worse.

Then this class comes along. It was a perfect example of the adage “When the student is ready, the teacher will come.” I had hit a point in life where I was willing to look at this blind spot and finally had the courage to address it. There are four books being used for the class. We don’t need to buy them as he will provide the readings for each week. But, I felt I needed to get three of them. So, I went out and purchased the three. They are “The Heart of Buddhist Teaching” by Thich Nhat Hanh, “Opening the Heart of the Cosmos: insights on the Lotus Sutra” also by Thich Nhat Hanh, and “No Time to Lose” by Pema Chodron. The fourth book I did not purchase is “Bodhisattva’s Four Methods of Guidance” by Dogen.

I finished the readings for class from all the four books and also started to read the whole Pema Chodron book. For the first time since I was 24, I feel like I have my sense of purpose back. I feel like I have found the name of the path I have been trying to travel all these years. When I came out as a lesbian and my dream of becoming a minister was denied by the church, I lost my heart. The void was given birth in my heart that day. I have struggled with a sense of purpose for the last 14 years.

I have a friend who is a Buddhist Priest and she had once told me that I was one of these, a Bodhisattva. I wouldn’t say I was one, I’d say this is the path my soul longs to travel and has been trying to keep me on in this life. This class will teach me the discipline of this path and tools that can be practiced. Those are the things I was missing. It was like my soul was leading me in the right direction but I was stuck in dense woods and stumbling and tripping over rocks and sticks, getting caught in weeds, and attacked by mosquitoes at every turn. I tried to stay on course, not exactly sure what direction I was going or where I’d end up. Every once in a while I’d find respite in a patch of sun that found a way through the dense tree cover.

Then, last Wednesday, a guide who follows the Bodhisattva path took it upon himself to go into the dense forest and look for souls seeking relief, seeking the path, seeking to follow Truth. He found me, near the point of giving up and giving into the darkness of the void in my heart. He reached his hand out to me. I took it. He began to walk and I followed close behind feeling my heart become open and alive again with each tiny, slow step taken back to the path traveled by the Bodhisattva’s, and all their other students, before us.