Inner Purpose Podcast

Ignoring Your Calling: The Cost of Misalignment at Work and What to Do About It with Anita Čavrag (Part 2 of 3)

• Michelle Dowker • Season 2 • Episode 27

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In this second part of my powerful three-part conversation with purpose coach Anita Čavrag, we dive into what happens when we ignore the whispers of misalignment in our careers.

We explore the psychological, emotional, and even physical signs that tell us something's off. Especially for highly sensitive or neurocomplex individuals, these signs can be loud, persistent, and deeply personal.

We explore the impact of suppressing our true selves, the toll it can take on our well-being, and how guilt and social conditioning often keep us stuck in a life that looks great on paper but feels empty on the inside.

If you've ever felt ungrateful for wanting more or afraid to step away from what's “working,” this episode offers clarity, compassion, and perspective on why honouring your inner truth is not only valid, it’s vital.

Key Topics Discussed:

  • The overlooked consequences of ignoring your inner design and emotional needs
  • Why guilt and gratitude can coexist with the desire for change
  • The importance of radical self-acceptance and how the inner critic hinders purpose
  • Differentiating hedonic happiness from deeper fulfillment (eudaimonia)
  • The physical and emotional symptoms of long-term work misalignment
  • The social and cultural scripts that suppress authentic desires
  • How to define your own architecture of fulfillment
  • The role of cynicism, disengagement, and “quiet quitting” in modern work culture

This conversation continues to unfold with such depth and truth, and there's still more to come. Be sure to tune in for Part 3, where we explore how your perception of reality shapes your experience of purpose and fulfillment.

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Disclaimer:
This podcast is for informational & inspirational purposes only. Nothing shared is intended as medical, psychological, or personalized advice, and should not be used as a substitute for professional support.

Speaker 1:

Hello and welcome back to another episode of the Inner Purpose Podcast. Today's episode is episode two of three separate episodes where I had a wonderful and deep conversation with Anita Chavrag. Anita is a coach for high achieving leaders and founders who've built impressive careers or businesses but they feel unfulfilled and sense it's time for a profound change, even if they're not sure what they truly want. She helps them reconnect with who they really are, get clear on what would actually light them up and design work that aligns with their purpose and their true nature. Her approach blends a master's in psychology, nlp, existential coaching, a decade-long career in HR and a lifelong obsession with the human mind, plus her own lived experience of walking away from a prestigious but stifling path to follow her true calling. We had a lengthy and deep conversation that was rich with so much magic. I've decided to separate our conversation into three different podcast episodes so that you can take in the richness and depth of each one on your own time and then come back for another level of depth with each of these three podcast episodes. I will link each of them in the show notes so that you can continue to listen one after another as you choose. The first of these three episodes is linked in the show notes and you can go there if you want to listen to that first before you listen to this one. However, it's not necessary. In episode one we talked about purpose and meaning. What's the difference between purpose and passion, and what are the things to consider about your work if it's not feeling purposeful right now. In today's episode, episode two of three, we talk about what happens if you don't actually follow your purpose. We talk about maybe some of the existential signs and even physical health signs that can occur when you're not actually following your purpose, when you're not actually understanding how you're designed or what optimal career is right for you, and, if you ignore those whispers, what that can turn into over time, especially if you are a highly sensitive or neurocomplex person. And then, in the final episode, we get deep into talking about reality. We talk about the filters of your unconscious mind and how they might be affecting how you're seeing your level of purpose, how you're understanding, meaning how you might be seeing the options that are on the table and what to consider so that you can align yourself to your most purposeful work and feel deeply satisfied while doing it. So that's a little overview of what to come.

Speaker 1:

In the meantime, let's get started with part two of the interview. Here we pick up where we left off in part one. I hope that you enjoy. I'm not sure if you can speak to this. I know for myself and a lot of the people that I work with we tend to be. You know, we're highly sensitive. Sometimes we're neurodivergent or neurocomplex. We tend to kind of think and see differently than most of the people around us, and oftentimes most of the people around us and oftentimes, you know, we're kind of designed to be like maybe cycle breakers or trailblazers or do things differently than other people. And that can be difficult if we don't have an example of how to break out of the mold, break out of the box and not try to stuff ourselves into what we think we should be doing. I'm not sure if you've come across that or if you experience that or can speak to that sort of thing.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, actually neurodivergence is something that I haven't really studied all that much until about recently. I think I discovered the term only a few months ago. That's not something you study as a psychologist. I think that's a relatively new term that describes people who just think differently, and I think a lot of things fall under that umbrella and sometimes maybe I'm wondering if the term also loses its purpose if so many things are considered, if so many traits are considered neurodivergent. So I haven't personally had much experience with that, but I do know that over the years I've learned to respect my uniqueness and I sort of stopped feeling the need to label it Like I have. For instance, I have really high standards in life and that has cost me a lot because you don't want to do what everybody else is doing, because you want to do it your way, whatever that way is. And you know, maybe I'm neurodivergent in some sense. I know that I took recently the highly sensitive people test and I definitely scored really high right, but I think it just matters.

Speaker 2:

It's important to respect your own uniqueness and not trample over it, not say that, oh, I'm just being too sensitive or trying to fit some kind of a definition in whatever sense right of that word, and when you give yourself that permission to just pay attention to your emotional needs and respect them like you would respect the emotional needs of any other person, right? If somebody told you could you please keep it down, I'm having a headache, right? You would probably respect that, but you know how many times do we have a headache and we keep on working because you know I have a deadline. Right To me, that's what it boils down to Just respecting your own emotional needs, like you would respect the needs of any other human being, instead of thinking how things should be. I think this word should is a really, really. It's a really huge red flag.

Speaker 2:

Whenever I catch myself saying something like I should, I know that I'm not being authentic in that moment. I'm playing some kind of a game. I'm in the script, right? It doesn't mean that you should reject all scripts of life. You should reject everything that society told you, right? If you really truly believe you should do something, I think, then you know it's fine to use the word should, but we often use it mindlessly.

Speaker 2:

I think that's the goal, at least for me, of of this personal development it's not to be contrarian. It's not to always do the opposite of what everybody else is doing, because I'm gonna do it my way, because that's also form of a script. Actually there's a word for that, it's called anti-script. You're like doing everything that's opposite of the script, then you're also kind of a slave to it, right? So true liberty, true freedom and autonomy come from making your own choices from the position of an adult, not a child, not some kind of a parental figure, but making choices from the position of an adult who respects himself or herself just as they respect other people.

Speaker 2:

I don't know if that makes sense.

Speaker 1:

Absolutely.

Speaker 1:

I love that, and I love the points that you've made about how important it is to respect your own needs as you would somebody else, your own needs as you would somebody else, because I, you know, that is something that we so commonly tend to ignore ourselves for the sake of others and working against ourselves is likely that one of the pieces of a bigger puzzle of maybe keeping you from actually experiencing the level of purpose and meaning and passion that you potentially could be experiencing in whatever you're doing, because you're not giving yourself permission and you're not treating yourself in a way that you need to be treated and I also appreciate the point you've mentioned about I use the terms like highly sensitive and neurodivergent, because a lot of people can relate to the descriptors of how these things tend to present and it can get dangerous to start to now label yourself as that as an identity, because then you're just putting yourself in another box.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah, as that as an identity, because then you're just putting yourself in another box and or running that anti-script, like you mentioned, which I hadn't heard that term before. I'm gonna have to go look at that because that's really cool and you're right, it's. You know, it's not about trying to oppose or force yourself to do something that you feel like you should. It's about really identifying. Well, who are you actually, how are you built, how do you respond to things, what are your values? And I think that's another thing that's probably an important key to you know this whole topic of purpose and meaning and passion. What would you say in terms of that, in terms of identifying and understanding our personal values?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I think it's really important to give ourselves the permission to be whoever we are and be okay with that and just look ourselves in the mirror and say, okay, these are my strengths, these are my talents, these are my strong sides and these are the things that are not my strong suit. You know, I am both great and I'm also flawed. At the same time, right, and accept that full humanity, that we have, the full complexity of our humanity. And what I think helps a lot with that is curiosity, just this openness and curiosity to get to know ourselves like a child would or a scientist, because we are all unique. We are all unique.

Speaker 2:

That's a wonderful paradox. We're all nobody's special because everybody's unique. So if everybody's unique, nobody's special, but that's still, you know we are still. Each of us is different from another. There is no other human being like ourselves, right?

Speaker 2:

So I think that's like kind of radical self-acceptance when you can look at yourself and not feel the sting of judgment, but just acceptance for who you are. And sometimes that's difficult to do on your own and it really helps to have another person. This is why they say love heals. We heal through our relationships. Being loved and accepted by another is really healing. But you can also do that with a therapist or with a coach, and they do say that that's the most powerful part of any kind of work like this coaching or therapy, because you're being accepted without judgment, and that is something we that's the luxury we don't really always have.

Speaker 2:

We always have this like inner critic, actively, like this voice of the inner critic in our heads, and it's difficult to be honest with ourselves when all this time there's this other voice that's just waiting for us to say something stupid or to trying to catch us doing something wrong, right and criticizing us. This is why I think we it's not easy to be honest with ourselves because this internal, this inner critic, is relentless. And so working with another person or just being in the presence of another person who can soften that internal judge, can make us more honest about who we are, and then we ever would be honest if we were just alone in a room in front of a mirror, which is a paradox, right, you would think that you would be more honest when nobody's listening, but you are listening, your inner critic is listening. Nobody's listening, but you are listening, your inner critic is listening.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I love this, that you bring this up, and I mean, first of all, we're all human, yeah, and being human comes with. You know this whole perfectionistic thing that so many people get caught up in. Right, I have to be perfect in everything. I can't have faults, otherwise there's something wrong with me. I feel like that's a bit of a socially conditioned, maybe, coping mechanism, survival mechanism and understanding. You know the non-duality of we have strengths and we have weaknesses and all of us do, and like that's the ultimate shadow work right there, right, to accept, you know, all of you, so that you can become whole. I think that you know hiding those pieces away that you don't want to accept or look at takes up so much energy, yeah, and it probably keeps you from a lot of these other things that we're talking about in terms of accepting your design, accepting who you are, and it's funny that you've mentioned I have a little note on my computer screen.

Speaker 1:

I put it up here a few years ago after I went through a program. That sort of was a bit of an initiation, and I wrote down there's nothing special about me, yet everything is special about me, right, we're all human, we're all the same in that regard, and just like a snowflake, each of us have a slightly different blend of shapes and flavors and what we think, and flavors and what we think how we express ourselves. Yeah, that acceptance piece is so, so important. I love that you talked about that.

Speaker 2:

That's a beautiful metaphor. The snowflake right. When you look at a bunch of snowflakes, they're all the same, but they're not right, being a snowflake is nothing special, but each one is unique.

Speaker 1:

To me that's the most beautiful paradox, and I also know that the whole analogy of snowflake in society, some use that sort of analogy of a snowflake to describe people who might be like too sensitive. Yeah, yeah, that just kind of goes to show that what one person sees one way, another person is going to see it another way. And that whole concept of oh, you're too sensitive. I think that reinforces a lot of that inner critic that you're talking about. It reinforces a lot of the shoulds that we think that we should do it this way because this, you know, people are telling us that we're too sensitive or too different or whatever.

Speaker 2:

Too sensitive? What does that even mean? Too sensitive according to whom? According to what criteria? Like is there a universal benchmark for how much sensitivity is appropriate? Very good questions.

Speaker 2:

And you know, I think it's even dangerous not to be sensitive. Like if you have low threshold for pain, you're going to react pretty quickly, right? If you don't, you know you're going to suffer some damage before you realize you're being hurt. I think there is.

Speaker 2:

You can think about sensitivity as a negative trait, or at least not a very useful one, because you go through life and you get easily bruised or hurt, but at the same time, you're more attuned to what suits you and you can more easily recognize what doesn't, and so you can regulate yourself, your life. You can build a life that's more aligned with who you are than if you're just like going through life unaware of your sensitivities or just not paying that much attention to what fits or what doesn't fit. You're like really robust and you're really strong and you can handle anything, and you just like end up being rough, and that's how you win battles in life, that's how you achieve goals just by bulldozing your way through life. I think you know you can end up pretty bruised and hurt that way and not even realize it, and then one day you wake up with even medical problems, right?

Speaker 1:

Absolutely. I think a lot of it might be. You know, when someone is saying too sensitive, I think there might be a bit of a socially conditioned paradigm about what they've been taught is acceptable or not acceptable and I think that kind of speaks to that whole like shadow work. Again there's something that they're not accepting and that's going to cause some level of friction at some point. And I think the same can be true about if you are a sensitive person. I think that the more that you can accept that and work with it, it actually opens up your capacity and resilience so that you don't get overwhelmed by being a highly sensitive person. Actually the science proves that to be true.

Speaker 1:

Right the whole, integrating the things, so that you are whole and accept all the parts of yourself. And I think that sometimes when we allow ourselves to listen to all those socially conditioned messages of you're too sensitive or you should be doing this or say, for example, oh, that's just selfish to focus on what makes you happy and your purpose and your passions, especially if you are in a position where you know from the outside, looking in, people are saying you're successful, you're doing well, like you should just be happy with what you have. Meanwhile, maybe you know you're not taking into consideration how you're designed, or your passion or your purpose, or you're not working with who you are or identifying what you actually want, and I think that's another piece of it is. Sometimes there can be maybe a bit of guilt or shame around that of like yeah, but I should just be happy.

Speaker 2:

Oh, yeah, I'm so glad you mentioned that. That is so, so common. Yeah, the shame, the guilt for wanting something else, even though our life is pretty good by the usual standards. Yeah, we live in times when you can wake up in the morning, open the news and read about wars and disasters happening in some remote place, right, and at the same time, you have your cozy Western life where you, you know, work from home or you ride in a I don't know in a nice car to get to work. You sit in your comfortable office. You know it's mind-boggling, right. And then you have to admit to yourself that you're not happy, while being aware that there are people dying. I understand why people feel guilty and where this is coming from when they just like, when you juxtapose those two facts, it's kind of mind boggling, right.

Speaker 2:

I think gratitude can coexist with wanting more, right, you can understand that, in the greater spectrum of things, you're living a good life. You're actually lucky to be alive and healthy and have a job and have, you know, a good income, like the fact that you are a competent, smart person. Right, it's a luxury, in a way to be, to not be fulfilled with our work, which we chose, which is actually, you know, cozy, well-paying job, whatever it is, whether you're running your business or if you're working for someone else. So it is, in the greater spectrum of things. It is a problem that most people still don't have. Unfortunately, they're dealing with other problems, but that doesn't change your reality. You're not those people. You're not living there. You're going through what you're going through right now.

Speaker 2:

I think I mentioned before the very reason why you can even notice that you're not being fulfilled is because you fulfilled all the other needs, more primary needs, right For safety. For, you know, all of your material needs are met, and now you have the space to think about what makes me truly happy, what makes me alive, what do I really really want? Right? This is something that humans, by the way, workers of the world have been fighting for. Like. This is a battle that you know, unions. We are here thanks to those people.

Speaker 2:

Right Now, we're in a position where we can actually ask ourselves after we've achieved success but is this what I truly want? It's something to cherish, right? And I think it's possible to, at the same time, understand how privileged you are for even being able to ask that and be grateful for all the good stuff that you have, appreciative of that stuff, and because this is not either or it's both and right, and at the same time recognize that your soul, or whatever you believe in your heart, your mind, craves something else. That's how I think about it, not like as a mutually exclusive thing, but as both, and I love that and again that goes back right to the non-duality.

Speaker 1:

Both things can be true at once. And you know yes, it's true there are people who are struggling, whether it be, you know, there's people dying, there's people at war, there's people who are struggling to make ends meet, for example. And you know you can be on the other side of that and have moved up the hierarchy of needs to the point where now you're successful and you're achieving the things that those people would love to achieve. And now you're questioning well, it's still not enough. And what are your thoughts on this?

Speaker 1:

This just kind of came to my mind, especially if you're questioning this from the lens of this isn't enough, because I want to be making a meaningful difference, and I feel like I'm not making as much of a meaningful difference as something in my soul is telling me that I want. In that case, is it really selfish to be thinking about how can I fulfill my purpose? And instead consider it I want to fulfill my highest level purpose so I can make a bigger, more meaningful difference. You know, it's going to make me feel better and I'm making a difference for others.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, if you're driven by the need to make a meaningful difference, a bigger impact than you are already making, that's one of the most selfless things you can do. Right, you're sacrificing everything you've built. Right, you're considering dropping your entire career so you could pursue something more that makes a bigger impact, or? I mean, that is the definition of selflessness, right? This isn't just about how you're going to express yourself in the world. It's, this is about the world. Like, what trail are you going to leave? Like, what impact are you going to have on the world? It's about others. It's not just about you. I mean, we're meaning making machines and we can't just live for ourselves. We are wired for connection and for, yeah, for giving right.

Speaker 2:

Earlier, before we started recording, we talked about the phenomenon of bullshit jobs. I'd just like to briefly mention that, with the rise of productivity, we have just invented so many roles that are just tiny. They're a tiny cog in a big machine, right, and people can sense that. People can feel that that the work they do is kind of like I don't want to say pointless like it's work that does produce real value, but just in the great scheme of things, maybe it's not really that important. And when you get laid off and you realize the company doesn't really need you, not just that they lay you off, they completely cancel out the whole position, like they just eliminate the role, right. That makes you wonder.

Speaker 2:

And a lot of people are doing these jobs that are kind of administrative or clerical or they're just like one tiny piece of a bigger, you know, chain of things and that really, I think, leaves a mark when you know that the work you do is just this tiny, tiny piece and it's hard to hide that fact from yourself. Like, on some level people feel that and there's a really big rise of disengagement at work. Very few people are actively engaged at work. I think more than 80% of people are actively disengaged at work. Like that tells us something.

Speaker 1:

It sounds kind of like the term quiet quitting. Is that kind of?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, there's definitely that Quiet quitting is when people just kind of give up, they decide they're not going to try. I mean, they still do their work, but just enough to get by. That's, I think, what's usually meant by quiet quitting. I think it's also because you know if you get laid off you might get a severance package, whereas when, if you quit, you're not going to get anything. So sometimes people wait to be laid off so they can leave with a good severance package and start doing something else. But it just shows our alienation from work, from the work itself from, and that alienation leads to the alienation from ourselves, right, and it leads to cynicism.

Speaker 2:

I've met so many people who are really cynical about the companies they work for or just the world where they think about company culture. All of those are just buzzwords, that doesn't mean anything. Yeah, yeah, they can say whatever they want, but tomorrow they can just fire me. And this is not company culture, it's transactional. I'm here for the money, just pay me and leave me alone.

Speaker 2:

A lot of people reach that point because they get disillusioned by these narratives that companies produce about togetherness and employee well-being and all of that, whereas nothing changes the core facts and that is, that the job that you're like, the work that you do, is not really that important or meaningful, right, and nothing can compensate for that realization. There's nothing that can really compensate. Maybe money can in the short run, maybe the fact that you have a good work-life balance and that's the period of your life when you prioritize family or something right, so you can compensate in the short run, but I don't think it's really possible to do so in the long run. If you do, that means you really need to distance yourself and be completely emotionally separate from your work and really deeply cynical about it. I don't know, very heavy, yeah, in so many areas.

Speaker 1:

I mean having worked as a naturopathic doctor, I've seen what it can do in terms of health and symptoms.

Speaker 2:

And what if something that, like maybe you know, sticks with you to this day, something that you've seen? I'm trying to think off the top of my head here.

Speaker 1:

The first thing that comes to mind and it trying to think off the top of my head here. The first thing that comes to mind and it may or may not be kind of related At one point I was working a lot with people with autoimmunity. You think about autoimmunity. The immune system is looking at some aspect or system of your body as not self and it's trying to protect yourself by attacking that part. And I see energetically that oftentimes somebody who does have autoimmunity there might be this tendency that there's something about themselves that they don't accept.

Speaker 2:

Wow. So like something about them is considered a foreign body by their immune system.

Speaker 1:

right yeah, Wow, and so like emotionally or energetically, you know, if there's.

Speaker 2:

You know we've been talking earlier about how important it is to accept how you're built, who you are, what your preferences are, what you really want no-transcript who have contacted me did talk about their physical symptoms like weight gain, hair loss, you know stuff like that, not full blown like diseases, but just annoying physical symptoms of various severity that they themselves kind of brought into connection with their unhappiness at work.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I mean it makes sense. All of these things can be associated with, say, for example, stress and stress hormones. Right, if you are, you know, ignoring yourself, or you know not happy, suppressing part of yourself, feeling dissociated, it's going to cause stress and it can cause symptoms like that. And that kind of takes me to a question you know you've mentioned about. You know they realize they're not happy. What does happiness mean?

Speaker 2:

That's a great question. That's a huge question. Happiness is such a broad term and we use it all the time. But I mean to define happiness. That's a really ambitious project, like I can tell you what I mean by happy, what I think people mostly mean by happiness. I think we usually mean feeling good most of the time, just like the absence of pain and the presence of pleasant emotions. But in the context of work, I am not sure that chasing this type of happiness I would call it hedonic happiness. Right, the feel good happiness. I mean, if you feel it, that's amazing. If you have a kind of a job that provides you with that, that's amazing. But that feeling is fleeting, it's not always in our control and you know you can feel happy when you eat a lot of chocolate. Right, it's the dopamine that creates that happiness.

Speaker 2:

What I think sustains people the most is a different kind of happiness and it's I like to call that happiness fulfillment. I use the terms interchangeably, but I prefer to talk about deep fulfillment, and that's different than happiness. Deep fulfillment is a sense of deep contentment. It's more than a feeling, it's a state of mind, it's a state of being. It's more than a feeling, it's a state of mind, it's a state of being. The ancient Greeks had a wonderful word for that. It's called eudaimonia. I think I'm pronouncing it correctly. I hope so. E-u-d-a-i-m-o-n-i-a. Right, it's a beautiful word and it means deep fulfillment, and this is what people feel when their work gives them meaning and presence. It's not tied to how you feel in every given moment, like you can have moments of frustration, of doubt, you can work hard, you can feel tired, but eudaimonia is also like it's almost like an after effect. It's how you generally feel about your work, not in every single moment, but just what your general attitude towards your work is. And this is why I think it matters to define your unique architecture of fulfillment, like what really? What do I need to be truly fulfilled at work? What factors, what elements need to be present and work to design your work life around those factors, build them into your work life, and the natural consequence should be this deep sense of fulfillment.

Speaker 2:

If you have work that, if you do the work that you're really good at, that you really like doing, you're going to enjoy doing it right. If you're doing what you're good at, if you're doing what you're naturally good at, not just what you're skilled at. I think that's an important distinction to make, because you can learn skills, but what kind of? Comes naturally to you. So, if you can do that, if you can spend a lot of time doing those activities, if the work you do aligns with your values right, values are what is important to you, your principles about how life should be and how people should treat each other is there, right? There is an impact and it's a positive impact and you can see it, you can measure it, you can, and it's an impact that is important to you. It's not some trivial impact that other people value, but you're just disconnected from it, right? So it's important that you value that impact that is going to give you a sense of meaning and purpose in your work, to give you a sense of meaning and purpose in your work.

Speaker 2:

And then your work really needs to fit the larger scheme of your life. Like our work, life doesn't happen in a vacuum. If there's friction between work and private life, then you're going to have problems, right? If you, for example I don't know you have these emotional needs, like you want a lot of connection with people, right? And your work is just isolating, you spend a lot of time alone. This is going to take a toll on you, or vice versa you prefer to work alone and your work requires you to be in constant contact with people. That is probably going to wear on you.

Speaker 2:

And then the context of your life. If you, for example I don't know you're the kind of person who likes to travel a lot, be active, and your work just keeps you tied to your desk from nine to five, right? It's not going to be a great fit, right? So I think all of those factors, you need to take them into account when you think about what would be a great choice of career for you or a great job. I kind of diverged from, like what was your question?

Speaker 1:

All of that was great and it all of that stemmed from that initial question of happiness. What does that actually mean? Yeah, yeah, and I loved, yeah, I loved what you said about it's not just about just always having that hedonic, like it's not always rainbows, sprinkles and unicorns, right, you can't be always just riding a high, you know, that's not the way life works. Yeah, and I think that's something that maybe some people might mistake. Right that you know, just like we have strengths and weaknesses, human nature is not just about good vibes. Only, that's a bit of bypassing the fact that there are moments of happiness. In terms of like that hedonic happiness, there are moments where you aren't going to feel that way. And what you mentioned about the eudaimonia, that like the fulfillment underneath of it, even if you're not necessarily in like an ecstatic place, what came to me, as you were saying, that is like a sense of inner peace, of with what is where you're at that aligns.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I realize I also use the words meaning and purpose interchangeably, but they're not exactly the same. Purpose is more about the impact and what is the effect of your work, but the sense of meaning can come from doing things that make sense to you. Right, it doesn't have to have a huge noble purpose, right? Or it doesn't even have to have a purpose. People can feel a sense of meaning when they do activities that are just meaningful in and of themselves, right, just doing the activity for the sake of doing it. So, a sense of meaning and especially a sense of purpose. But if you have both, that can really sustain us.

Speaker 2:

When the going gets tough, when the work is not fun, when you have to work really hard long hours, when it's stressful or whatever problems, you have. That sense of deep meaning and purpose is something that can sustain you much longer than if you have all the other conditions met and you don't have meaning and purpose. Because meaning and purpose gives you this. Why, why should I keep doing this if it's so hard? Purpose gives you this. Why, why should I keep doing this if it's so hard? Why should I keep doing this if it doesn't pay? Well, if you're just starting a business and you're not, you know, getting paid. Well, why should I keep doing this? If it's so stressful, if it's so hard, if it's? You know, you have boring periods, right. This gives you the reason to keep going, even though it it doesn't feel great, because it makes sense to do so. There is a higher purpose, something more important than how you feel in that particular moment.

Speaker 1:

I love that. The word that came to mind is it's like a fuel that keeps you going.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah, I also have that metaphor in my head, yeah that's beautiful.

Speaker 1:

So, with the typical type of person that you tend to work with, where are they usually at when? It's when they are at the prime place to be ready to work with you.

Speaker 2:

Well, they're aware that something is off, like they're not aligned with their work. They don't enjoy their work anymore. There's a deep sense of incongruence I love that word congruence and incongruence. Like what they say, what they do and what they think and feel is not aligned, there is a schism between those right, and this actually is really painful for us. When there's such incoherence, we feel existential despair and I think the best way I would describe these people when they're at the prime to work with me is some kind of an identity crisis where they're not really sure what they want. They have a pretty clear idea of what they don't want, but they don't know exactly what it is that they want, or at least they're not ready to admit to themselves what it is that they want, because it feels foreign, it feels forbidden or just not possible, right. And there's a lot of fear. And even more than fear, there's anxiety about the future. Like how will I make it work? Like what do I do? Should I just drop everything? Try something else? How is that going to work out? So this is, I think, where most of them are Like this.

Speaker 2:

It's dominant emotion maybe is anxiety and confusion and just this deep discontent with their work life, but it's not directed at one specific element. It's just like general feeling of discontent and they're really frustrated because they're so successful and they think they should be happy, they think they should be grateful and they wonder if they're spoiled for even thinking like this. So they don't even permit themselves, maybe the full extent of this emotion because they're trying to suppress it, because, like I mean, what does that say about me? Look at what a wonderful life I have. And here I am thinking about change. And so they're kind of stuck in a limbo. I would say they're stuck in a limbo, unable to move forward from that place. That's not an easy place to be is it?

Speaker 2:

No, no, not at all. Not at all. And sometimes they get understanding from their family and friends, but often they don't. Often the people who are closest to them, who mean well they all mean well try to remind them about how lucky they are and how they should be happy and all of the good things they have. People who are close to us tend to be, you know, they don't want anything bad to happen to us and I think, in general, they want us to stay safe. They want to see us survive more than they want to see us thrive, especially parents. So I think it's really important to be careful who you ask for help or advice about what you should do next. Because, yeah, not everybody can relate to this feeling of having everything technically having everything and still that not being enough for you to feel happy.

Speaker 1:

That makes me think of what we were talking about earlier, about examples and models. Right, if you're looking at people who are showing you an example of maybe just getting by, just surviving, just functional, you can't expect that their suggestions are going to be the thing that are going to help you get from functional to flourishing.

Speaker 2:

Absolutely, yeah, yeah. And if you're at a job where it's part of the culture in your team to complain about work, right, or you just kind of happen to surround yourself with people who are going through the same thing, then it's difficult to see a way out Because that's all you see the whole day, that's all you hear the whole day, and it's sometimes people get to this point where it's really hard to believe that it's even possible to be happy at work. They think everybody, just nobody likes their job, right. So, yeah, I think the circle of people that we're surrounded with is really important and really changes our perspective.

Speaker 1:

So this is where part two of three of the interview ends, because we end up switching topics. If you haven't yet listened to part one of this interview, you can access that through the link in the show notes, or you can go directly to episode 26 in the Inner Purpose podcast and have a listen to that and, shortly, part three of this interview. The final part of this interview will be released in the near future. This one is gold. We're going to get into all things reality in terms of how you're interpreting reality, the lens through which you're looking at things, and what all of that means in terms of your purpose, work and finding peace and happiness and satisfaction with what it is that you're doing.

Speaker 1:

You can find the links to the other two podcast episodes in the show notes once they're published, and you can find all the information to learn more about Anita in the show notes. I've linked her website and how you can find her on social media. So I hope that you enjoyed this second of three conversations with Anita and I hope you come back to listen to the rest and, as always, thank you for being here. Until next time, take care.