Introduction

This may seem an obvious statement, but here goes, anyway – many people around the world are now suffering in their work in some way. Not everyone suffers, but many do: millions, perhaps even billions. I know about suffering at work from personal experience. I suffered for many years. I have done my time!

And so here is my message to you about suffering. First, suffering can come in many ways. It can come through feeling aimless and bored when the only reason for being at work is to collect the pay cheque at the end of the month. It can come through stress, overwork and burnout. Sometimes, it comes through overarching ambition, when we have tried too hard and for too long to climb up the corporate ladder, only to find it is leaning in the wrong direction. There are always challenges at work and there will always be the inevitable disappointment and frustration. Sometimes, suffering arises through unrealistic expectations, when we are not able to see the truth in a situation.

Wherever there are relationships there can be disagreement. Sometimes disagreement can be creative, sometimes not. When it is not it can lead to manipulation, conflict and even bullying. We can suffer when we are without work for short or long periods.

Whatever our work, there is always the possibility that we can feel exposed to being undervalued, criticized or harshly judged. Suffering can come through feeling trapped in a job that feels joyless or hard – we may feel we have little say in the content or context of our work. We may feel unable to follow a direction that gives a sense of meaning or joy. We may feel that we are incapable of making the kinds of changes to our work we would most like.

Suffering can be physical, emotional, mental and even spiritual. There is the kind of physical suffering that arises when the stress or joylessness of work creates ongoing tension in the body. This, is turn, can lead to ill-health and serious illness. There are degrees of emotional suffering when we feel anger, grief, misery and unhappiness at work. We can suffer mentally by recycling thoughts around failure, insignificance and powerlessness – these thoughts can coalesce into fixed beliefs that say we cannot positively influence or shape our destiny in any way. Then there is spiritual suffering which is more commonplace than you may think. This arises when our work disconnects us from our true essence.

Whatever the cause of suffering, it can easily start in one area and then spread. Physical suffering will tend to lead to emotional, mental and, sometimes, spiritual suffering. For instance, if you have a physical injury that prevents you from doing certain activities, then it can be hard not to have certain thoughts and feelings about this. Suffering can be infectious. If you are long-term unemployed, then your stress can so easily touch those you come into daily contact with. In our celebrity culture where the bright and the beautiful are seen as good, suffering is seen as something bad; something to be shunned and kept at a distance. We read about suffering in the newspapers and that is as close as it should get. Suffering is seen as an illness, as shameful, as something that must be avoided at all costs. When it comes knocking at our door, we feel that we should hide away and not speak of it. ‘Keep a stiff upper lip,’ and all of that.

There is a difference between pain and suffering. Pain cannot be avoided. Pain is something we will all encounter at some point. We may be the most optimistic, affirming person on the planet, yet we will still encounter pain. We cannot keep it at bay forever. Hopefully, when pain comes we will know how to use it to uplift us and allow ourselves to grow and move on.

Suffering can be avoided. When we deny pain, then we create unnecessary suffering. When we suppress the pain of certain feelings, then we create suffering that may take any number of forms. This is like trying to force shut the lid on a boiling saucepan – not a good idea.

The good news is that we can unravel patterns of suffering. The good news is that just as suffering happens, so too can inspiration, joy, love and possibility. Life can be an amazingly rich tapestry of experience and growth. This book has a simple philosophy: suffering happens; there is no merit in suffering; suffering can be embraced and transformed; when we truly transform suffering, then something different can be experienced.

I suffered considerably for the first ten years of my working life from a deep sense of meaninglessness and depression. I could see no point in the work I was doing. I had no real affinity with it. Worse than that, I deeply questioned the ethics of some of the things I was working on. For instance, for some years my day would start with processing paperwork dealing with the export of arms to various foreign regimes. Not the most inspiring work I have done in my life!

There were other aspects of my work that I was not sure about, such as offering huge loans to finance what seemed to me to be rather grand projects in many developing countries. Such loans kept these countries tied to high interest payments and debt for many years. I had very little say over my day-to-day work, it was initiated elsewhere and some of it landed on my desk for processing. It did not matter a hoot whether I agreed with it or not; I was there to toe the company line, and I was not in a position to argue the matter. I looked to see if anyone else shared my feelings of disquiet and unease, but the vast majority seemed quite happy to get on with it. As long as they got paid every month and could drown their sorrows with a few beers, all was well. But for me all was not well – I felt deeply unhappy and unfulfilled.

As long as I remember working in that job I had strong migraines that would just emerge unexpectedly. There were an assortment of other minor ailments – nothing serious, but it went on for many years. I sought relief through changing my diet, macrobiotics, yoga, tai chi, and different forms of meditation. I discovered eventually that the source of my suffering was nothing to do with my lifestyle – it was everything to do with what I was doing. In time, the build-up of tension and stress led me to take time out – around a year, in fact. The physical tension subsided, but the depression stayed. My ten years in banking were at an end, but where next? I could not see a particularly bright future.

During this period of convalescence, and with the support of a psychotherapy group, I began to unearth much that was previously unexamined in myself. I found a new job in an inner city borough in the Housing Directorate, working with special needs and elderly tenants. I had moved from a structured, conservative environment to a socialist, idealistic and rather chaotic environment. This was not without its challenges, but I felt more at home and discovered abilities I did not know I had. I discovered that I was good with people, that I was able to manage and problem solve. I started to trust myself and develop my intuition.

My depression eventually faded and in its place emerged a latent passion for spirituality. I began to attend spiritual and personal development workshops which helped me transform different aspects of my life, but my work still felt out of sync with my heart and spirit. I was promoted to a good position, but this did not really help much. I was feeling the winds of change calling once more. My heart was telling me that now was the time to leave, but my head said stay. Since I was more spiritually aware, I decided to ask my innermost spirit, Higher Self, the Universe (the name felt unimportant) a question: ‘Should I resign from this job?’ I waited, and within 48 hours I received the answer. During a lunch break as I was walking back to work one day there was a guy walking in front of me several feet ahead. On the back of his T-shirt there was the Nike slogan saying, ‘Just do it’. The message hit me like a thunderbolt, but my mind cut across, very quickly discounting the message. I was reminded by a stream of thoughts that I had responsibilities and should not throw everything away because of some random slogan on a T-shirt. As I continued walking, my attention was drawn to a nearby window and there was a sticker with the same message: ‘Just do it’. Okay, that was it – I gave in, I surrendered, and very soon after handed in my letter of resignation.

I can still remember the bliss of that day and how grey everyone else in the workplace seemed. Thus began my next adventure with work. Now I had let go of the ‘safe’ career and, instead, I threw myself into every kind of job that I could find. I painted houses, I did landscape gardening, I sold books, I sold health products, I worked in an office, I made tea. I was noticing when I was in flow and when I was struggling. I learnt that chasing jobs put me in struggle. The more I trusted the process, the more I felt in flow.

During this time I started doing some part-time work for an amazing organization called Alternatives, based in St James’s Church, Piccadilly, London. After a year or so, they offered me the job of full-time administrator. I was not so keen on doing administration, but I loved the organization, so I accepted. I continued doing personal development seminars and discovered interesting concepts such as values and untapped gifts. After a year of admin I was offered a directorship of Alternatives. Within a short period of time two other co-directors resigned and I found that I was running the organization alone. Not having much business experience, I meditated and prayed. Fortunately, the Universe was listening and responded. I was guided to employ the perfect people for the right jobs and take some important decisions to restore the organization to a place of high morale and financial stability and abundance.

As I write this, I have been a director of Alternatives for just over ten years. Here I learnt to play and to be creative. I learnt more about the power of generosity and ‘what goes around comes around’. I learnt about the importance of community and of finding ‘the right tribe’. In 2001 I started to write my first book and now I am a published author: this is my third book.

Writing is something I have come to love dearly – both the research aspect and the creative aspect. Around 2004 I began to get interested in coaching and NLP, and after a few years of training I started a personal and business coaching company which I now run part time. Also, I have been running retreats and workshops for several years now. More recently, I started a podcasting section on my website, where I interview different authors and teachers in spiritual awakening, personal development, coaching, business and work and make them available as free resources. All of the above continue to be a great source of inspiration and joy for me.

This book has been a journey of tremendous discovery for me – researching and writing it has changed my views on work and growth. And this is as it should be – as the Buddha says, nothing is permanent. This book draws on wisdom from a number of sources, primarily Buddhism, Coaching/NLP and Taoism. Although I have presented many stories, ideas and meditations that are Buddhist, this is not a book about being a Buddhist. You do not have to believe in anything that is written herein. I simply encourage you to try on some of the ideas for size and see what happens. I offer this book in the spirit of adventure, compassion and service, in the hope that it will help you find your own unique way to transform suffering and navigate to the limitless possibilities beyond.

You can use this book to transform your own limiting attitudes and perspectives regarding the work you do, and open yourself to new ways of behaving. This will certainly allow more peace, joy and possibility to arise within your existing work. You can also use this book to explore changing your work itself. Changing your attitudes and perspectives on what is possible for you will certainly help. Learning to be more authentic, resourceful, intuitive, playfully creative and in the flow will also help you. You may not know what you want as an end result, so use this book as an aid to your process of gaining more clarity. Let the ideas and methodologies of this book lead you in the direction of your heart – towards the boundless experience of peace, purpose, passion, enthusiasm, giftedness, flow, wisdom, joy and bliss in your work.

Steve Ahnael Nobel, 2011