On Work

In the context of how I am thinking about the nature of work, regardless of our age, state of health, employment status, or stage of life we are all involved in it, simply for the fact that we are alive and breathing. There’s the work of household upkeep, whether we live solo or with others. The work of education. The work we do for money. The work we do on the daily to keep our self fed. The work of caretaking for others and for our self.

Applying mindfulness practice to the field and realm of work is what I consider to be advanced, next-level practice. By which I mean, tough stuff.

The question is, how do we apply our practice to our work? With whatever kind of work we do, job related or otherwise, how do we integrate our practice into it; how do we actively enable our work to be an extension of our practice?

When it comes to working for pay, I’m hard-pressed to think of a job that isn’t taxing, at least once-in-a-while. Whether we interact with other people all day or with a computer; whether we do manual labor or are sedentary, each and every job has its hardships and stresses. Its petty annoyances and large frustrations. Its routine complications and unscheduled upsets.

In the office-type job I do remotely, when I’m hip deep in emails that need responding to, a sea of phone calls that need returning, and a host of computer-based tasks that need my attention; when there’s loads to do and only so much time in the day, developing creative ways to apply my practice to my work is not only what helps to keep me grounded, but is fundamentally necessary to keep me sane.

I consider myself a newbie at doing office work. I’ve been in my current job for a little over 2-years. Prior to that, I worked with babies and young kids, and for one year with middle school students as a teachers aide. That work was way different than what I’m doing now. So I still feel as though I’m figuring out how to apply my mindfulness practice to computer work, a large percentage of which is customer service based.

Here are some of the practices I am involving myself in when it comes to work: 

• Smiling 
• Deep breathing
• Taking breaks (this one is hard!)
• Encouraging & supportive self-talk
• Celebrating small wins
• Shifting my attention and perspective 
• Elevating my mood with simple joys
• Infusing play & regular doses of humor
• Physically moving energy around before & after my work shift
• Letting go

While it may be tempting to dismiss breathing and smiling as worthwhile endeavors when it comes to work, it’s a grave – and common – mistake. Both of these are potent power-house activities. And both are genuinely a practice, by which I mean, to benefit from what they have to offer, we have to actually do them. We have to apply effort. For most of us, smiling and deep breathing are not standard things we do. If you’re waiting for them to happen “naturally,” saddle up. It’s likely death will come first.

Taking breaks in the workday is an aspiration of mine. Translation: I am not routinely doing this one yet. On Friday, I experimented with setting a timer on my phone. In my 6-hour remote working shift, I set the timer to sound at 2-hour intervals. When the timer went off, I stopped working and took a few short minutes to get up and move around. It worked really well for me, so my plan is to keep it up. Without the timer, taking small breaks to get up from the computer winds up being one of those things that sounds like a really good idea, but I never do.

I am someone who crafts and makes use of self-supportive slogans on a regular basis, so it’s no surprise that I am now creating new ones in my line of work. When I start feeling overwhelmed by the amount of work I need to get done, I say to myself (and actually I often sing it): One thing at a time, that’s all anyone can do. And I say it out loud, as I’ve learned for myself it’s important to actually hear myself saying the words. I’ve found that it’s a lot easier for me not to heed the good advice I’m giving to myself when I keep the words tucked inside my head as a thought. Being on my own side is no small thing. Sometimes it changes literally everything.

The next four – celebrating small wins; shifting my attention & perspective; elevating my mood with simply joys; and infusing play & humor – feel akin to cousins on the family tree. They are all related to the same element of generating well-being. And again, these all take practice. If we don’t prioritize actively involving our self in doing these things, it’s likely they won’t take place on their own accord.

The next one is pretty self-explanatory: physically moving energy around before & after my work shift. For me this can be as simple as sweeping the front porch or doing a few light stretches before I sit down at the computer. I’ve also been rallying myself to go for walks after dinner, especially on the days I work. I don’t mind telling you this is often not my preference, as usually on my work days I just want to sack out after dinner. But I’m finding that it’s helpful for me in the stress-reduction department to motivate myself outside to do something physical, however small.

Letting go when it comes to work is something I feel I am maybe starting to get a little better at. The job I had before the job I have now was as a nanny for a family that I was with for 6-years. I loved my job and I dearly loved the family. When my workday was done, the workday was done. The littles went back into the care of their parents and that was that. It wasn’t until the job I have now that I understood what it means to mentally take your job home with you. So many people experience this in their line of work, and now I too am one of those people. It’s a real boots-on-the-ground practice to log off from work and really actually log off from work. I’m a work-in-progress on this one.