You Can’t Meditate Your Way Out Of A Job You Secretly Hate.

Ohhhhh how we've all been taught better coping mechanisms.

Yes, Meditation is a fantastic tool, a wonderful practise. In fact, I encourage all of my clients to become comfortable with being by themselves in stillness, so their body and mind can settle and they can gain access to powerful insights, inspired ideas if you will, which are the literal roadmap for their life.

But using meditation as a band-aid solution to address where you're living out of alignment with what you really want to be doing in your life? Hmmmm, it's ineffective. Yes, it's arguably a better approach than a meth pipe or a bag of coke, yet another bottle of wine, or a string of meaningless sexual encounters, all of which only perpetuates a chase, a temporary high and then a plummet back to reality. But nonetheless, the truth remains.

You really can't meditate your way out of a life you secretly hate.

That job that pays for your lifestyle but is destroying your soul? Hmmmm, yep. Meditation cannot fix that. Meditation helps. Oh boy, does it help. But real talk, it's like trying to fill up a bathtub with the plug removed. Life doesn't get better for you until you start to address the parts of your life that you've accepted as being good enough.

Take your career, for instance.

Can you honestly say that you wake up out of bed most days with a sense of excitement for what's in store?
Can you honestly say that when you are around friends and/or family, you are bursting with joy, and simply cannot wait to tell them all of the magic that's been happening in your life because what you do each day is literally your favourite thing in the world?
Can you honestly say that, if it came to it, you'd be happy to spend the rest of your life doing exactly what you're doing now, knowing that when your final day came on this earth, you would look back and feel 100% confident that you had the courage to follow your dreams, and do exactly what you wanted to do in your life in the way you wanted to do it?

If you can answer these questions in complete confidence with a resounding YES, then there really isn't any need to read further. But if not, why not? These ideals might appear silly, but they hold a stark truth. Many have been conditioned to sacrifice their own happiness just to create a life where they give the impression they're happy. And so, they look for an outlet to make it better.

Work harder. Work longer hours. Yes, have another coffee. Forget about how tired you actually feel, push through that. Don't listen to your body. Yes, you absolutely deserve the drink at the end of the day. Have another. Oh and when you wake up in the morning and the last thing you feel like doing is going to work, keep pushing through, because one day you will be able to put your feet up, relax and enjoy life. Yes, the weekend is coming. Just a few more days now, you'll be able to relax...

This has been normalized, celebrated and even championed by many as the best way to live. It produces results, sure. Done with consistency, it can create a lavish lifestyle, affording beautiful items: cars, homes, clothes, holidays, dining experiences to name but a few. And fuck yes to all of that, if you so desire.

The challenge with this approach is that it encourages a person to ignore their mind, their body and/or their soul in favour of results. Their message is simple. It doesn't matter how you get there, just do it, and do it as fast as you can. Yet this approach has many people pushing themselves to the point where:

• anxiety and depression become a part of their existence, and they treat this with medication to balance out how they feel, instead of looking at the real reason why they became anxious and/or depressed in the first place and addressing that.

• they get sick and they go to the doctor to get a pill to make the sickness go away, instead of looking at why they're sick in the first place and making some changes.

• their relationship breaks down, and they are forced to separate or even divorce.

• they're just not looking forward to getting out of bed on a Monday morning (or any morning for that matter), and are sitting there wondering if there should be more to life, or worse, if their is something wrong with them... they say to themselves, "Surely, I should be happy by now! Or at least happy-er..."

• they remain single, because they're so deeply engaged to work that doesn't really light up their heart and soul that nobody wants to be around them long-term - their stress and their inability to be truly present whilst being with another human driving potential partners away.

• they hit a proverbial wall in someway not mentioned above, and they eventually get to a point where they look for a way to manage stress, to help them keep going, essentially to improve how they think and feel.

With these being such a common experiences in our world today, it's not really surprising that meditation is celebrated as a valuable tool to help people calm themselves and quieten their mind. And, it works. It's highly effective because it gives people a moment to truly press pause out of their busy life-style.

But here's what meditation cannot fix.

• It cannot fix the job you secretly hate.

• It cannot fix the 10, 20 or 30+ years you spend in a career that isn't really what you want to be doing.

• It cannot fix the denial of your own talents and gifts, ignoring the deepest desires of your heart and the calling of your soul towards that which brings you joy - whatever that is for you - a new business, creative pursuit, working on something that truly matters to you...

Yes, working hard to become successful can help you create a beautiful lifestyle, and I'm so here for that. But why sacrifice the journey? Why sacrifice yourself? Why miss out on the beautiful experience that comes with being so deeply aligned with work, where each day is a joyous expansion, a creative expression, an inviting nod to go deeper and learn more, where passion and purpose is embedded into each moment?

I'll be real with you.

This life... You can't get it back.

You can't rewind the clock and get back these years. You can't get to 65 (or earlier!) and sit back in your chair and feel like you've lived the life you truly wanted to live if you've forced yourself to work in a job that you were good at, instead of working in a job that you loved.

The truth is, you can be successful doing anything you want.

In which case, why wouldn't you take the thing you love more than anything else in the world and figure out a way to get paid to do it? Why settle? Why put your dreams on hold for safety, security and a life that looks good on the outside whilst the real you is trapped deep within?

Yes, it's certainly appears easier to keep pushing through, because that's what you know. But it's not the life you really want, is it? And that unsettled feeling? The incessant need to be always on the go? It won't go away until you start to listen to what your mind, body and soul is urging you to do. The mind won't quieten (no matter how much meditation you do!) until you are willing to be true to yourself, and follow your heart and your soul, in a way that feels good for you.