About how I found my why and what it will change for me.
To be very honest for at least the last two years I was seriously considering starting my own business. I felt that my job often was a waste of time and hold me back from things I really wanted to do. I took a sabbatical for three months and went on a travel through South America hoping to get a clear idea which of my business ideas I want to focus on.
The alternative path.
What has brought me to this cutting point? When I started with my first yoga teacher training four years ago, a gate opened to another world. The world of spirituality, personal development and a conscious life style. I was very skeptical and resistant in the beginning. Sitting singing in a circle during a cacao ceremony, meditating a week in silence or training twelve hours per day for two weeks in martial arts camp to name a few things. Letting my reservations go I learned to connect to my body, to listen to my intuition and sometimes find a glimpse of a state of being. I learned that these are all feminine qualities (not female), which we all have in us, but especially in the western culture are not cultivated anymore.
Despite this deep longing I feel for these qualities, it’s still one of my biggest struggles to invite these qualities more in my life. I’m so conditioned from my education and job to be independent, rely on reason and numbers and always be in a state of doing. Which are all masculine qualities and are valued and rewarded in our society.
How my calling, my why, came to me.
I thought that I had to make a decision to which of these worlds I belong and which path I want to take. I’m the hippie in the business world and the stiff business lady in the spiritual world. I felt stuck between these polarities, the feminine pole and the masculine pole (not talking about genders here). I didn’t recognize that as everything in life is about balance.
I was fasting over the last week, which really let me think more clearly, when finally this thought came to me: I’m here to contribute to the awaking of the feminine consciousness in the business world. For everyone this sounds like spiritual blah-blah, here we have the translation:
I’m here to help creating employee experiences based on human needs which cultivates feminine qualities enabling companies and employees to stay relevant
If companies want to stay relevant (which means for most companies a digital transformation) they have not solely to invest in technology but also in people. Technology is the enabler, but people create the experience. The feminine qualities such as imagination, intuition and empathy will make the difference in a technological age as stated by many studies. I know that companies are no charity organizations. What we need is to find a good balance here between the masculine and feminine qualities.
I can be a translator between the two worlds.
I recognized that my colleagues and my clients are quite receptive if I put my message in their words and spread it in the right dose. And yes, to have some studies and numbers underpinning your ideas, people love it. Bringing the knowledge and feminine qualities into the business context, let me reach much more people, than in my yoga classes to which people come who are already accessible for it. I can not only reach individuals but also the corporate level, which might led to even bigger changes and more consciousness about how we care for us.
This is what it will change for me. My promise to me.
I will help the people around me, my clients, my colleagues, my yoga students and myself to awake these feminine qualities such as to trust in wisdom, to be more patient, caring and compassionate.
I want to become a pioneer in employee experience. To help companies building employee experiences, or people experiences as I call it, around human needs and that cultivate the feminine qualities.
To know my why, my direction, puts my daily work in a very different perspective. Connecting my corporate job with the spiritual part in me, feels like the right thing to do. Actually, there is no right or wrong. As long as I know my true north, I’m sure that I’m always going in the right direction no matter on which path. The most important thing for me is to trust, commit and go.