Chaos + Creative Friction = Career Shift?

“You who are the source of all power, whose rays illuminate the earth, illuminate also my heart so it to can do your work.” Ancient Nordic prayer

A recent post by Adam Kayce at Monk at Work, What do you do in a crisis of confidence?, was the type of juicy inquiry which gets me writing in a never-ending whirlwind about personal transformation and right livelihood. It begs me to address one of my favorite teaching topics which is Using chaos as fuel for transformation.

It’s often in times of crisis or chaos that we enter into what Adam refers to as a crisis of confidence. Not that we need a huge event to make us question our existence, meaning and purpose of our work, but a good ole chaotic episode can certainly take us to a new deeper level of evolution within ourselves. This place, a very tangible and tasty one, is where I believe creative friction or what Jean Browman at Cheerful Monk refers to as creative discontent.

I define this creative friction as a volley of various levels of consciousness within our own being. The battle for supremacy between the egocentric and the cosmocentric. It’s that combined voice that can sway our inner work as we deconstruct our own individual purpose on this planet and what our most meaningful work or contribution is; a voice that can so easily be influenced by desire, and the need for concrete answers and affirmation that the work we are doing is significant.

That being said, we are all human beings. There is an innate desire to do the right thing, and be purposeful in our work, so questioning our motives, decisions, and whether we are acting from “ego” per se, is just part of the inner dialog. Whether we are on the right path, or have made appropriate decisions toward right livelihood is always bound to beckon some attention within our consciousness. It’s when the deep dialog is triggered by chaos or crisis that we have to pay most attention. Because that, to me, is when the greatest opening for rebirth occurs. Not in reacting to chaos from a place of fear, but instead from a place of wisdom.

So, back to my original title of Chaos + Creative Friction = Career Shift? We have all experienced a crisis of confidence. The question is, when is it just a nudge of the ego, and when is it necessary to do more inner work to embrace that creative friction that just might set the stage for great transformation in the form of a career shift? I think it comes down to Intuitive Intelligence; that gut feeling in our body combined with our personal experience and trust in a higher intelligence within ourselves.