Bringing Your Soul to Work

Book description

EMPLOYEES TODAY are actively searching for more meaning in the workplace, for work that resonates with their being. How does one dare yearn for something more, when so many workplaces seem aligned solely with financial survival and profit making? How do we get work done amidst the demands and tugs on our soul?
Bringing Your Soul to Work addresses these troubling questions in a way that provides a pathway for readers who want to bridge the gap between their spiritual and work lives. It honors readers' unique experiences and challenges them to think differently, aligning their actions with their hearts.
Engaging, inspiring, and poetic, yet grounded in real life, this book is written by consultants who see the contradictions of the workplace firsthand. Using case examples, personal stories, inspirational quotes, visual images, reflective questions, and specific applications, it shows readers how to use their own experience to grapple with the gritty realities of the workplace. Throughout the book, readers are invited to consider the book's concepts in relation to their own unique situations and, in the case of the applications, to record their responses in writing. They then learn to construct meaning from their own experience, drawing on imagination and practice, as well as the specific circumstances of their work lives.
Addressing what many feel but cannot say out loud, Bringing Your Soul to Work links ideas about soul to the realities of work in a unique way. For all those looking to increase their effectiveness at work and bring more feeling, imagination, and heart into their efforts with others, it will serve as a guide for creating something new and lasting.

Table of contents

  1. COVER PAGE
  2. TITLE PAGE
  3. COPYRIGHT PAGE
  4. PREFACE
  5. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
  6. INTRODUCTION: The Collective Cry for Something More
    1. How the Book Is Organized
    2. Using This Book
  7. 1 The Inner Wilderness of Soul
    1. How We Describe Soul
    2. The Journey Ahead
  8. SECTION ONE: Mapping the Territory
    1. 2 Windows to the Soul
      1. The Window of Our Experience
      2. The Window of Metaphor
      3. The Window of Fantasy
    2. 3 Soul As a Chorus of Inner Voices
      1. Identifying Our Multiple Selves
      2. Working with Our Multiple Selves
    3. 4 Shadows of the Soul
      1. The Shadow Bag We Drag Behind Us
      2. Treasures in the Shadow
      3. Two Streams of Gold
      4. Panning for Gold
      5. Cheryl’s Story
      6. Standing in Our Glory
    4. 5 Playing with Wild Cards
      1. Reacting to the Wild Card
      2. Discovery Through Our Negative Reactions
      3. Learning from the Wild Card
      4. The Subtleties of Good and Evil
      5. The Dual-Sided Nature of Change
    5. 6 Shadow Sightings and Everyday Practice
      1. Space for Ritual
      2. The Lifelong Discipline
  9. SECTION TWO: The Expedition
    1. 7 Finding Purpose in Work
      1. A Container for Our Longings
      2. On Being and Becoming
      3. A Guiding Star for the Journey
    2. 8 Role As an Expression of Soul
      1. What Is Role?
      2. Stepping into Role
    3. 9 Practices for Being Effective in Role
      1. Showing Up
      2. Recovering What Gets Lost
      3. Staying in Role
      4. Working with Ambiguity
      5. Discernment
    4. 10 The Emotional Tapestry of Group Life
      1. The Power of Groups
      2. The Group As an Organism
      3. Scapegoating
      4. Being Co-creators in Group Life
      5. Working with Vulnerability
    5. 11 The Threads of Connection
      1. Cultivating Awareness and Discernment
      2. The Language of Connectedness
      3. Letting Love Flow Through Us
  10. NOTES
  11. INDEX
  12. ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Product information

  • Title: Bringing Your Soul to Work
  • Author(s):
  • Release date: August 2000
  • Publisher(s): Berrett-Koehler Publishers
  • ISBN: 9781605096179