Love Your Work and Work Your Love

Way back in the 1800's Sigmund Freud said " Love and work... work and love, that's all there is."  I totally agree.  And now after well over twenty years helping people find loving relationship and developing productive meaningful work, I will add that you have to love your work and work your love.   

What Does Loving Your Work Mean?

Once back before I got my master's I was complaining to a friend that I hated my job, that it was no fun and he said,  "It's not suppose to be fun, that's why they call it work."  Well, I totally disagreed with him and that is why I quit that job and went to graduate school.  I knew in my heart that work should bring you both satisfaction and a sense of purpose and anything that does that will be, if not fun, then meaningful to you and in that meaning you will find joy.  What this comes down to is purpose.  If the work you do makes you feel you are engaged in work that has purpose and meaning both to you and those you serve you will feel satisfied and living a life of purpose.

But You Have to Love Yourself First 

In order to find meaningful, purpose filled work you have to love and value yourself first because if you don't, you may find yourself in a job you hate, as I did back a long time ago.  Maybe you did what your parents thought you should do, or went into work the world thought was important or valuable or this work provided a high income, but the old bottom line is this: if you hate it, you hate it.  Misery and depression go hand in hand.  So if you hate your job then get out of it as soon as you can, regardless of what others might say, as they don't have to do it, so make sure what you do is work you love.

Love is Overlapping and Reciprocal 

In terms of love it is the same thing.  When we create relationships of love and caring we are creating love that overlaps everything else and it is reciprical.  When you love others whether this is a romantic relationship, your family, your friends or another kind of love you are enveloping yourself in the joy and protection that love will provide.  But like your work which you have to love in order for it to bring you joy and purpose you have to work your love in order for it to survive and thrive.  

What Does Working Your Love Mean?

As a counselor and life coach I have worked with many people who were struggling with their relationships.  Often because of expectations - the couple had found someone they were attracted to and thought would make them feel loved forever, without much tending and befriending, but tending and befriending is the key component of a beautiful relationship.

It means Tending and Befriending 

Love is like a beautiful garden - filled with vibrant flowers, lucious vegetables and gorgeous sunshine, unless the sunshine dries out the flowers, weeds choke out the vegetables and bugs and other vermin are allowed to run wild, then all you have is a tangled mess no one wants to step into.  So if you want a loving and reciprocal relationship then get busy tending it.  Like that garden, if you want to enjoy the bounty it can bring then you have to spend some time working it.  If you are not doing that then one day you will go into that garden and find over grown weeds, dried up corn, tomato worms eating up what you thought would be a delicious red, ripe tomato for that BLT you have been yearning for and the flowers you imagined for the table are all wilted and dried up - not fit for anything or anyone.  You might even find a rattle snake crawling up your pant leg, since untended gardens like untended relationships can turn nasty without that tending and befriending.

BTW, if you don't enjoy working your love then that could mean it's the wrong love, just as not loving the work you are doing is probably the wrong work - think about it and if you have problems with either of these then give me a call - I'm here to help.

Blessings, Lorraine 


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