Speaker #0What I've been receiving in those pages is very, very clear instructions to do less, to be still, to sit in silence, if I don't know what to do, to do nothing, you know, when in doubt do less, do nothing, and all of that I would say is about making space for whatever it is that is coming. Welcome to the Regenerative Work Life podcast. My name is Alisa Murphy and this podcast is a space where I reflect on what it means to pursue work that actively brings us more life, brings us more closely into alignment with life and brings life to all of those around us, human and non-human. Essentially, this is a place where I explore what it means to live and work regeneratively. And today I'm going to talk about the first and most essential component of pursuing a regenerative path or making change with any kind of regenerative lens. And this is, I would say, my only kind of non-negotiable. when I work with people who want to make significant change in their careers or who want to start a regenerative business and that is making space for change. This actually ties in very much with last week's episode where I spoke about the concept or the strategy of waiting to receive or waiting to respond. That's quite specific to me because it's based on my human design reading. I'll talk all about that. I talk all about that in last week's episode, so you can go and have a listen to that if you're curious. But one of the really essential components for me of learning to receive and respond rather than always being an instigator, which as someone who was an entrepreneur for 15 years is exactly where I was. an instigator, someone who felt like it was my responsibility to make things happen, that in fact things wouldn't happen if I didn't actively pursue them and make them happen and there's a real kind of forcing energy to that that you can probably hear and so what I'm really working on at the moment is learning to receive, learning to respond and there's a lot of waiting involved. And it's not passive waiting by any means. It's, you know, it's actively making space. It's not easy to do. Not for me, not for my personality type. And I've been really getting a lot of, for want of a better word, downloads. So I do, I have a morning pages practice, which is, was originally inspired by Julia Cameron and the artist's way in her. morning pages and then I've kind of mashed that up with Elizabeth Gilbert's Letters from Love and developed my own practice where essentially I have a kind of one full page to just kind of vent everything that I'm feeling and thinking and then one page where I receive, where I receive words from something outside of myself. Let's leave it at that. And what I've been receiving in those pages is very very clear instructions to do less, to be still, to sit in silence, if I don't know what to do to do nothing, when in doubt do less, do nothing, and all of that I would say is about making space for whatever it is that is coming and again What's really hard about that is I feel like maybe I could do it if someone could make a guarantee, please. If someone can guarantee me that there's going to be something really good coming at the end of it, that this is going to be a worthwhile investment, that this is an efficient way of exploring the next chapter of my work, my practice, my business, then I feel like I could really commit. But of course, my friends, that is not how this works. You have to make space with trust and with faith. And I think that is why so many people don't do it or really, really struggle to do it. Because you are making space for something that you cannot see. You are making space for something that is completely undefined. And you are choosing to trust that it is coming. That is not how we've been conditioned or programmed. That is not how we usually operate. But it is. really, really essential. And I've seen from my own experience with clients, the difference between those clients that really make space for change in their work life, who understand that that change is their work for the period of time where we are together, you know, who are devoting hours a week. to doing this and not in a sort of, you know, hours to write the business plan, hours to do the marketing. That will come with time. But in the beginning, it's just hours to be with it. It's just hours of nothingness sometimes. It's hours of sitting with the questions that come up in coaching and not necessarily even expecting an answer. It's... takes quite a lot of personal discipline to do but I get to see first hand just how much difference that makes and if you contract contrast that with clients who are very busy um who are you know who want the change absolutely you know whose heart is in it but aren't able to find that space And then therefore they're squeezing, they're squeezing the change into the little pockets of time that they can find within their sort of old work life existence. And it just doesn't happen that way. It doesn't happen in an hour every week or two. It doesn't happen even in the same physical space. You know, that's a really, really important dimension of this. And, And, you know, if you want... if you want to feel the difference quite quickly go to a different space I was doing a world coaching session with somebody a couple of weeks ago who um who who did who who walked in nature regularly but had never done coaching um out in nature and absolutely loved the experience um had a lot of insights from that session and one of the things that came up with in that session for her was she's like I need to come here to do my work. Like, why am I doing my work at my desk? You know, in the same place where like, my dissatisfaction and my frustration and my problems are like, I need to come here where I feel this kind of connection and this kind of expansiveness. And she has quite literally moved a chunk of her work out into nature. So whenever she's doing the more sort of big picture thinking, strategic thinking, she does it. out in nature, back to a tree, sitting surrounded by all the kind of the wisdom and the power of nature. That is such an easy shift that you can make. Don't try to find change in the same physical space that routes you to where you have been before. And I am learning that making space can go even deeper because I you know I have done I've done the physical space I you know I do a lot of my work um out in nature a lot of my coaching out in nature um you know I still have to remind myself and come back to it and you know keep that practice up particularly when the weather starts to change but I feel like that's pretty solid um I'm fairly good around the sort of time dimension of space. you know, I have learnt from unhelpful experience that over scheduling just does not work for me. My body will literally shut down, like it just will not have it. I need a lot of space, both in, you know, my, in a work schedule sense and in personal family life and it's even harder to do there with, you know, with three kids and all of the things that they want to do. you know, I really, I have to work hard to make space and I have to say no to a lot of things and that's not easy but I feel like I have, I certainly have the awareness of that and it's it's my intention to make as much space in a time sense as possible but I'm learning that there is a sort of deeper dimension to it which is really internal space so Some of the things that I've been receiving in my morning pages are very clear instructions around being extremely conscious about the content that I'm consuming and really reducing that to a minimum. And this is really about because you cannot listen for your own wisdom or guidance or the wisdom or guidance of something beyond yourself. a sort of spiritual guidance you cannot do that in a crowded internal space and most of us are used to consuming a an extraordinary amount of content and hands up that's absolutely me like I I am you know by no means I'm not even close to where I want to be on this I'm still struggling every day with phone addiction I get caught into the vortex and before I know it huge amounts of time has passed and I don't even know what I'm doing um and I'm there's also sort of a more uh I don't know on the surface kind of constructive version of this which is you know I love to learn I love to be exposed to new ideas new people new ways of thinking but that is also content consumption that is also taking up a lot of internal space and I think you know I I see quite a lot of people who are very conscious about kind of social media consumption for example but um are quite addicted actually to you know uh learning new philosophies um doing new courses um learning about different modalities and there's nothing wrong with that at all but i just invite you to be really conscious about how much of that you're consuming and whether right now is the time when you need to be consuming that because I believe that a regenerative path in life and work starts with inner work and it starts with ourselves and listening, listening more deeply both to ourselves and to building our connection with nature around us and whatever specific expression of that feels right to you, it requires quite a lot of peace and quiet and stillness. And then where I am is that there's even another layer beneath that, which is realising just how noisy my own mind is, you know, just how relentless my thoughts are and how can I possibly have space when my mind is constantly telling me all the things that I haven't done, should be doing, could be doing, things that could be improved and fixed and changed, connections that I'm that I can see it's, you know, I'm a naturally very creative person, I'm a natural problem solver, but it can be really, really exhausting. And I think for most of us, I don't think I've met anyone who has a lot of internal space from their own thoughts. And, you know, we really, really have to work at cultivating that. So You can see that space is a kind of, it's a very layered concept and you know, and you probably have to flow between each of these different areas and come back to them at different times. But the really kind of essential point here is that if you are at a point of change, if you are desiring change, and it's, I mean, even if you feel like it is happening for you actually, The space part is just so essential. You have to make space for it to happen. You have to make space. Most of us will not experience it. It just will not happen unless we make space. So just be really kind of really honest with yourself. Are you making space for the change that you say you want? Because it might just be that simple. That might be the block for you, that you are just not making enough space for it. and even if you do feel like there's some momentum and you can get to it through your kind of busy way of being you're kind of always on you're always active like this is this is where i have been this has been my journey of thinking that i am getting there in my doing way, in my active pushing, making it happen kind of energy, and then realising that it was just a sort of a variation of the same thing. I know that's not extremely clear but maybe that resonates for you. You know, if you're in a corporate job and you are really tied into corporate modalities, and this is what I see a lot when people come to me at that stage, And even the way they talk, it's so dehumanized. It's so, it's just full of corporate speak. It's full of sort of, I don't know, efficiency and yet depersonalized, sanitized. It's, you know, it's those, that sort of corporatization is so deeply embedded in them. If you pursue the next stage of your work with that same mentality and that same language and that same sort of you know, back to back, relentless, doing all the time, making it happen, pushing for things, you might find change, but I don't believe it will be the change that you are really seeking. I think you will find something incremental and fundamentally your dissatisfaction will remain. So I guess I'm really inviting and perhaps a little bit imploring you to take this concept seriously of making space. And yes, this is most poignant and powerful at the beginning of your journey, but it is something that you will need to come back to again and again. I'm, I don't know, five years in now and realising that this is still the priority. Making space is the work. It is the priority. It creates expansiveness. It creates possibility. And Most importantly, it allows for us to co-create with something beyond ourselves. And whether for you that is with nature, with God, with the universe, with community, it doesn't really matter. But the co-creation part is so important. This isn't an individualistic experience. and we aren't meant to do this on our own and we aren't meant to be the drivers all the time. That has not worked well on the whole for humanity. Co-creation is necessary and co-creation requires space to receive and connect. Okay there it is, I hope that this reflection has been helpful to you, I hope that something has sparked or resonated and If you want a sort of a concrete takeaway then I invite you to think of just one way in this next week that you are going to make more space, whether that's time or physical space, whether that's reducing the content you consume, whether that's finding really deep internal space inside your own mind, whatever it is for you, is there one way that you can prioritise making space this week? Before I go, I want to mention that in the beginning of September, I will be opening up to new long-term clients who want to work with me to make meaningful and significant transitions. in their careers and I have this idea which I really love of starting with a small group of clients at the same time so this will be one-to-one coaching typically for a period of six months focused on a specific outcome or goal for example launching a regenerative business but with a lot of openness as to the path that will get us there. But I love the idea of potentially starting with a group of people at the same time so that there is the possibility for us to build community into that work so that you can connect with other people who are doing that one-to-one coaching at the same time and if everyone is starting at a similar time there's a strong likelihood that similar topics or themes or challenges will be coming up and I would love to be able to connect you. with each other so that you can have that connection and community alongside the one-to-one coaching with me. So That is the possibility I'm opening up to from September and if that is something that you would like to discuss and explore with me reach out and we'll set up a call and we'll just talk it through together and see if if that feels right for you. So you can reach me at Alisa a-l-i-s-a at regenerativeworklife.com or you can go on the website and I'd love to speak to you. Right, that's it, and I'll see you back here on the podcast next week.
