Dissatisfaction with Work and Following the Deeper Energy
Insatisfacción con el trabajo y seguir la energía más profunda
A student shares frustration about career direction, the pull of day trading despite years of poor returns, and a persistent dissatisfaction with work. The teacher explores whether the student is coming from a deep enough place to receive the universe's support.
Dissatisfaction with Work and Following the Deeper Energy
A student shares frustration about career direction, the pull of day trading despite years of poor returns, and a persistent dissatisfaction with work. The teacher explores whether the student is coming from a deep enough place to receive the universe's support.
I don't know if this has anything to do with what we've been working on. It probably goes more into my ordinary life and has to do with work. I'm not entirely clear on what I need to deal with, but I've talked to you about this before. In the book we're reading in the other group, the one by Ken Wilber, it describes all the struggles of this woman who has cancer and is trying to find something beyond identification with her search for what to do with her life. She was conditioned to a more masculine way of doing things, and she found that a more feminine approach was much more aligned with her essence. Something started stirring in me around that.
To give some context: I work with music, I play in a band, I also work with instruments with a friend, and I do stock trading. There is something about the intellectual side of trading that really attracts me, but I'm not sure how much of that is conditioning and how much is genuine interest. I'm so confused. I've been dedicating hours every day for years, and I've had good periods, but for more than a year now I've been failing miserably.
There's also something about hating to do only one thing. I hate being defined. When people say, "Oh, you're a musician, so that's what you should do," I hate it when they put me in a box. But lately I've been thinking: maybe I could use those hours to do something where I don't fail so miserably, because it also takes energy from other things. I know this might not directly relate to what we've been working on, but I sometimes feel so much frustration. Usually I'm fine, but there's something where I'm never satisfied with anything I do regarding work. Reading this book sparked an interest, like maybe it's possible to be really enthusiastic about your work.
It also gets mixed up with wanting to make more money, comparing myself to my partner who is doing really well, wanting to have her freedom. She's going to stay three weeks longer than me because she doesn't depend on being in one place, and I have to go back. So it's a lot of things, but I wanted to bring it.
Nothing is off limits here. You're saying this isn't quite what we talk about here, but I disagree. You're sharing about your life, and that's exactly what we talk about, even if people don't usually get into a lot of personal details. This is a perfectly good place to bring up what you're bringing up.
There are aspects of what you're struggling with that touch on the art of living. Some people are masters in different arts. If you want to improve your musical process, it's good to go to people who are masters of the musical craft. Same with business. But here everything is included. We can talk about the struggle, and we can find ways for you to look at it differently.
So what would you say is the deepest struggle? Is it not making enough money? Is it feeling dissatisfied and unfulfilled with your work? Is it having a mirror in the book where you can see how somebody can actually be very satisfied with their work? Or is it something in your relationship?
I would say dissatisfaction with work, mainly. The music side I know is an important part of me. After playing I'm always energized, happy. At the same time, I'm never satisfied with the type of work. What I do with this band in particular is just a job. And in the trading aspect, it's trying to make something else work and failing. So, yes, basically dissatisfaction with work.
Practical advice on where the energy is going
As a friend, I could say: you're putting a lot of hours into trading and it's not giving a return, and it's been years. That doesn't sound like a promising path. It's not like you're building a project; you're trying to learn a technique, and it's been a very long time. I wonder how much your frustration with music is because you're not putting energy into the music you love.
Could be. I just don't believe it would be possible to make money with it. I know it's a belief.
Right now, how much of your total income comes from music?
Everything, actually. Including buying and selling instruments, it all has to do with music.
The deeper source of dissatisfaction
A few things. The dissatisfaction you're experiencing, it's pretty hard to know how much of that comes from your work situation and lack of money, and how much comes from something deeper. In the example from the book, this woman had a change in what she did, but I would say it came after an internal change that was catalyzed by cancer.
What I would recommend is this: prioritize making as much money as you can with anything you're doing that actually makes money. Once that is in place and your energy is fully there, then work on the inner process. But I don't think you're putting enough energy into money-making work, whether music or non-music. If you're putting years and hours into day trading and it's not making money, then that's not energy directed toward money-making work. Whereas maybe writing songs and finding places to play them where they pay you might make more money than the stock market does for you.
I don't know about writing songs because in Spain they're really all about cover bands. But at least trying to play more and get paid for it, that I could consider.
The kind of dissatisfaction work can't satisfy
There's a kind of dissatisfaction that work is just not going to satisfy.
Yes. And I started seeing a lot of that since we began working together.
But still, while recognizing that, you can discover that you have a lot more energy for movement, pursuing, creating, co-creating. And maybe your reaction to people putting you in a box, or your saying you hate doing just one thing, is a resistance to really focusing on something and taking a big risk. Not a financial risk, but an internal risk.
Yes. I'm also very resistant to let go of trading. I've built a dream around it. You see people making thousands of dollars a minute and living wherever they want.
That's the kind of thing they sell you. But let me ask: it's been many years you've been working on this. Overall, if you add all the money you put in and all the money you made, is it positive or negative?
I'm not sure. Maybe break even, because I made many big mistakes that cost me money.
It doesn't seem to be a direction for you.
I guess I'm afraid of quitting when maybe I'm near the point where I would start being good at it.
The hook of the dream
That's possible. I'm not saying to quit, but the hours of effort you're putting into that, you could put into work that more immediately gives you money. Follow the money, in a sense, obviously as long as it's work you find some form of interest in. That's where it starts to become an inner process: What are my skills? My gifts? My interests?
And I don't think they're limited to music.
No, but I don't know what they are. I know I have intellectual interests, but I don't know what else.
If you had put all of those hours into another direction that worked, would you supposedly be happier? Or is it specifically day trading that you wanted to work? Is it that you want to be able to make money in the stock market so you can make music? If you imagine you did something else and that made money, what would you do?
I would go back and do that other thing.
So then it's about money, not about trading specifically. You thought trading was the way to make money. That's why I'm suggesting: if you start putting hours into something else where you see more immediate evidence of income, follow the money. Use your discernment, obviously, but find something you have an interest in. It could be something a business would hire you for, or skills closer to the world of practical return. I know you did some years of engineering, so you have that kind of mind. Think of it as: what's available where I have skills, or an innate ability, that lets me see money coming in more quickly, versus something that might pay off in a year or two? Building a business where you start to see signs of things moving is one thing. But if you're learning a skill and after many years that same skill isn't working for you, that's different.
Yes, that makes sense.
Coming from a deeper place
Now look at the sense of the dream. If you had made all this money with day trading, if you could be like all these people making a lot of money: that's the hook. That's the sense that "if I get that, then I'll be okay." That's what's keeping you locked into a form of functioning that's stagnant.
It may be that you make money in smaller amounts at first doing something else, but money is coming in sooner, with more immediate feedback. With music or selling instruments, you're seeing money more immediately. Are there other ways to bring in more energy like that, or something else, maybe completely different, where you see quicker feedback from the universe saying, "Here's money; this is working for you"?
I suspect you're attached to the day trading. You're investing time and effort into it, and it's already giving you sufficient evidence that it's not working. The universe isn't supporting you in that direction. And you're telling me the interest is really that people do it and they live in big houses. That's the hook: what's emotionally getting you. To me, that sounds like you're not coming from a deep enough place. You're not connecting deeply enough. If that's the thing moving you, the universe isn't going to respond, because you're not coming from a deep energy.
One question you can work with is: What does the universe want to live through me, or as me? Although it's just a question and a kind of map, it can open you up to a deeper energy. Assume that because you exist, there is something the universe wants to live as you, through you. That can move you.
Yes.
When you move from that deeper energy, the universe is going to be supportive, because it's what it's wanting. I know this moves toward faith or trust, but that's what I'm proposing: do the experiment and trust.
You mean the universe would be supportive in making me feel more energy, not necessarily giving me more money?
Both energy and money. It might be more indirect. It's not that the universe suddenly throws money at you and makes you rich, but there's going to be financial support for that direction. And more energy, feeling better, more awakening of capacities. Things won't feel like pure effort.
If everything feels like effort, if you don't want to do it but you need to because you need money, that's where you're coming from, and you're not coming from a deep enough place. Occasionally that is what happens and that's what we need to do. But if that's the way you've been functioning after many, many years, then something needs to move.
I'm not sure I experience it as effort or that I don't like doing it, but yes, the universe doesn't cooperate.
This is great. We can keep talking about this.
Thank you.