Such a miracle is happening now around Pakvilai Sudhaswin of Oakland, CA and Johnnie Woods of Seattle, WA. Right about now, they should be landing in Baltimore, MD, one step closer to Johnnie’s donation of a healthy kidney to Pak. Kaiser Permanente, Pak’s insurer, will pay the costs of Pak’s care at The Incompatible Kidney Transplant Program at Johns Hopkins.

In reporting this to you, I pray you will add your prayers not just to Pak and Johnnie, but to all others who need healing, and to all who support them. I pray that in seeing some of the many blessings of their story, you appreciate more of the blessings in your own life, and see how you can act more from your own capacity to bless others.

The Richest Blessings of Today and Tomorrow Benefit from the Blessings of Today and Yesterday

No one can pay for Johnnie’s sacrifice of a healthy kidney and whatever it takes to recuperate from the surgery. No one could pay for the priceless innovation and caring that have kept Pak alive so far. In fact, none of us can pay for all the innovation and caring that have gone into creating the best of the world today.

If has often been said that in everything we do, we stand on the shoulders of those who go before us. On the most technical level, the plane that transports Johnnie and Pak stands on the shoulders of over a hundred years of aviation innovation, and thousands of years of dreaming that humans could fly.

The surgery that has been pioneered at Johns Hopkins stands on the shoulders of centuries of medical research and on centuries of teaching and sharing information — including via the Web. The nursing and other care that will return Pak to vital health depends on the wisdom of many fields, from finance to administration to operations management.

All that research and experience have cost a lot of money and time. It’s also cost something priceless, including imagination and heart-felt values that have driven people to give their best to their work, and to keep on innovating without guarantees of success.

It is impossible to count the blessings that return when work is done with love, when money is used for good, and good is done without regard to return.

Several years ago, when Pak needed a biopsy, she was cared for by ultrasound expert Wayne Leonhardt, whose caring heart and sense of humor have led to a lifelong friendship among Wayne, his partner, and Pak. Upon learning that Pak, a dedicated Buddhist, loved Christmas carols, Wayne invited her to his church for a carols service.

Pak fell in love with Unity of Berkeley, which honors the wisdom of all faiths, and began volunteering in the office when she had strength. There she met Johnnie, who worked in the office part-time while studying to be a licensed Unity teacher. Not long after Johnnie learned about Pak’s long struggles with chronic kidney disease, she offered her a kidney and has persisted through the years of roadblocks.

Pak’s faith and meditation practices have been key to dealing constructively with chronic illness, and she has developed mindfulness meditations to help others do the same.  Pak sometimes teaches meditation classes, and she dreams of having the strength to be a stress release counselor for veterans and people with chronic illness.

The Best Role Models for Spirituality and Work Combine Efficiency and Caring

Wayne is a perfect example. The skill and experience he brings to his work attest to years of training and attention to detail. The caring and sense of humor come straight from his heart. Developing his skill and experience have cost him and others a lot of time and money; his caring and humor are priceless and freely given.

What caring and other blessings do you offer through your work? Through the way you spend your money?

Who helps or has helped you become your most caring self?

How are you a blessing to others?

As always, many blessings to you, your work, and your relationships.

Pat McHenry Sullivan

There are Many Ways Meaning Can Enhance All Your Bottom Lines

My book, Work with Meaning, Work with Joy: Bringing Your Spirit to Any Job, came out of months of workday hell on many levels: working in a high pressure corporate law firm during three downsizings, having to do a lot of overtime because my husband was out of work, three family members on the other side of the country were dying, and feeling my own entrepreneurial dreams go further away every day.

Fortunately, I had learned from earlier challenges the power of meaning, particularly from the works of Viktor Frankl, author of Man’s Search for Meaning. If he could find life-saving meaning in the midst of Auschwitz, surely I could find meaning at a safe workplace that I could leave when the workday was over.

Inspired by Frankl, I learned four key principles that can be applied to any tough situation:

• Tasks that are perceived as meaningful get done more exuberantly and effectively and therefore less expensively.
• Work that is perceived as meaningful is less stressful, which leads to less burnout, fewer sick days, less turnover, and higher productivity.
• The clearer our sense of meaning and purpose, the more resilient we can be in hard times. This can lead to higher productivity and ingenuity.
• Guided by our sense of meaning and purpose, we can more clearly see what’s essential to do and what is not. That saves a lot of time, money and energy.

Many People Benefit from Meaning in Work and Money Matters, But Few Are Willing to Talk About Its Power

For example, many business executives tout the benefits of running. After a run, they admit, they are much more efficient and relaxed, but few know or talk openly about the benefits of meditation, which could reconnect them with the source of ultimate meaning and wisdom.

One thing that makes meaning so powerful is that when we are connected to something truly meaningful, we are connected to something much bigger than ourselves, including God. Yet meaning also anchors us in what is most unique and true to ourselves.

My husband John instantly comes more alive when he experiences or shares his love of Satchmo, Native American history, Latin and Gregorian chant. I’m immediately more connected to meaning when I look at the clouds, sing old hymns, or listen to classical music. Both of us experience meaning with our cat, in church, in meditation, with friends or family, or in service.

If Lawyers Can Profit By Working with Meaning, Anyone Can

Things felt so un-spirited and painful in the mid-90′s at the job I described above that I reached out through the internet and friends for help. Judi Neal, now director of the Walton Center in Faith and Spirituality in the Workplace at the University of Arkansas,  connected me to Steven Keeva, then an editor for the Journal of the American Bar Association. Steve was working on what I still think is the greatest book on spirit and work, Transforming Practices: Finding Joy and Satisfaction in the Legal Life. (This book, filled with practical applications of spiritual practices in legal practice, is being re-published within the year.)

Steve connected me to Kim Wright, who refused to be just another unhappy lawyer. Her research and networking led her to create Cutting Edge Law,  where you can connect with many people and organizations who promote openly contemplative practices and spirituality in law.

Cutting Edge Law also has a You-Tube channel of videos with people who have been working to bring in more meaning to law, including my own interview on spirituality and work in law and all professions.

It’s been really exciting for me not just to have learned to find meaning in legal work — which led to my new work in helping bring more meaning and joy to all work. It’s also exciting to be a part of and to report this growing movement to bring more heart and soul to law. Here’s one of my favorite articles on the topics.

Where do you now find meaning in your work, finances and other challenges?

What practices help you connect more to what’s meaningful?

I dare you to share your thoughts with others and help increase the power of meaning in everyday life.

As always, many blessings,
Pat McHenry Sullivan

I really want that right now, not just around the ever-present health care financing issue, but around everything else that’s dominating the news today, like how hard it is for many of us to make a living right now. Like how many people we know are stuck in painful jobs they hate but don’t dare leave. Or for those of us who are entrepreneurs, where the next clients are coming from in a time when so many are still cutting back.

Healthcare financing and all our other money or work issues could benefit from some individual and collective deep breaths.

Won’t you breathe with me right now? Just take one breath, then another, and feel your energy rising. As you breathe, listen to the silence. Trust that you’ve got something worth saying, starting with yourself, so make that commitment to hear yourself.

Listen more than speak to yourself. Listen past your own assumptions and beliefs and pet projects into the stillness of your own heart. And when you are ready, share what’s true for you with another.

One thing I know for sure is that whenever two or more of us come together long enough to really see each other, to really listen to each other, we are wiser. Confusion becomes clarity. Enmity becomes dialogue, then collaboration. Money wasted, lives harmed turned into money used well for the best of human and earthly life.

It’s not easy to find money or work wisdom in a noisy, divisive world.

Even in my quiet office with candles burning, it’s hard to put aside all sorts of ideas and assumptions so I can be present to a deeper Presence. Even with years of practice in hearing what really matters most to others and myself around spirit, work and money, it’s hard to hear the one thing I need to hear right here, right now.

The wisdom I find in the silence calls me down from my high horse and holds a mirror to truths I’d rather evade. It calls me to say or do things I’d not otherwise dream or dare, things that risk ridicule or failure or even scarier, a hope and awe that make me tremble

And so, being human, I often run from the silence, and I bet you do, too.That’s why it always helps to have companions on the journey of dealing with what matters, whether on the mundane or spiritual level.

The world is filled with tips and resources for finding wisdom for money, work and other spiritual or mundane issues.

As a kid, I loved watching my mother and her best friend share everything from recipes to laughs to prayers to tips on sewing and how to handle us kids. As a business plan writer and teacher, I love sharing resources and ideas for how to turn a dream into thriving reality. As a writer and speaker in the field of spirit and work, I’m passionate about sharing tips and resources from all the world’s faiths for all types of work.

Here are some favorites you may try:

Go to the place where you feel most attuned to your wisdom source. For most people that’s the bathroom (no.1 according to a survey of business executives, especially the shower), a place of worship (not necessarily your own religion) or nature. If you can’t actually go to your wisdom place, go there virtually. (www.workwithmeaningandjoy.com/ww_-_retreat.pdf)

If you are under time pressure or are uncomfortable with meditation, run or do whatever else that helps you get your body, mind and spirit into a non-competitive zone. Many lawyers I know find that answers that eluded them during hard thinking come easily on the run.

Work off your anger or frustration safely, like our grandparents did while chopping wood or beating rugs over the clothesline. Some friends and I one had a great time working off some political fury by smashing yard-sale chipped pottery against a concrete wall. By the time we had carefully swept up the shards, we had a lot more energy that we could focus positively.

Tomorrow, by request, some tips from writers and speakers about how to get your most meaningful points across in a noisy, crowded world.

As always, many blessings. And come back again real soon,
Pat McHenry Sullivan

“Tao” means the way, path or guiding principle for working with faith, integrity and meaning in a mysterious universe.

The concept of way, path or guiding principle is central to all religious faiths and secular philosophies — not just the ancient faith of Taoism. We may get lost in ethical fogs or illusion, but through prayer or other pathways, we can find our way back to what most matters. We can find wisdom through patience and by reconciling seeming opposites, like our need to earn money while also caring for others.

In any true tao, paradox is the norm. Example: sometimes the best way to deal with a time crunch is to take more time for prayer or meditation. In the timeless space of ultimate reality that is beyond words or even thought, we generate new insights for the challenge of the moment.

The “Dow” is a rapidly changing bunch of numbers that has been endowed with the perception that it offers great financial wisdom.

“The Dow” stands for a constantly changing index of stock prices selected by the editors of the Wall Street Journal, published by Dow Jones & Company. It’s supposed to measure the financial worth of “the market.” Stocks up, Dow up; stocks down, Dow down. Dow up, good; Dow down, bad.

The Dow is not an intelligent creature. It’s “subject to panics and irrational exuberance and sour moods and churlishness and massive misjudgments. To judge whether an economic plan is working or not requires time and wisdom – neither of which are found in the daily results of the Dow Jones Industrial Average,” writes Joe Campbell. http://2parse.com/?p=2307.

Stock prices make no accounting of environmental or human costs of production or benefits of goods and services. Often the higher the stock price, the lower the human or environmental benefit. And often, stock prices have little or no real relationship to the actual production of goods and services.

Yet many individuals, driven by many media, are obsessed with stock numbers. Jon Stewart satirized this by suggesting that Obama should wear a visor showing the latest stock prices whenever he speaks. http://www.thedailyshow.com/video/index.jhtml?videoId=220253&title=The-Dow-Knows-All. That way even the laziest viewer could stay focused on “what matters” without having to move focus from Obama to the latest stock numbers.

The Dow is often a powerful catalyst for decisions that take us away from true prosperity.

Can you imagine having to run a business with your eye constantly on stock market prices, not on the true worth you are creating for customers? And knowing that by squeezing costs — no matter the harm to others or the earth or even your own company over the long run– you raise your perceived value and access to capital?

Well, that kind of consciousness has run rampant the past decade, and everyone has suffered from it.

The health care crisis is just one example of how harmful stock price obsession can be. As health insurance whistleblower Wendell Potter reports, “I knew that 47 million people were uninsured, but … in the financial medium, what you think about are the numbers … and whether or not you’re going to meet Wall Street’s expectations.” http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/07102009/transcript2.html?print

On June 24, 2009, Potter testified to the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation that as a senior executive at health insurance companies, “I saw how they confuse their customers and dump the sick – all so they can satisfy their Wall Street investors.”

The impact of this is an awful truth: between us and our doctors are not just health insurance executives but also Wall Street investors, forcing the health insurance companies to force doctors to cut costs so investors can make higher profits.

We need a tao or way to deal with the realities of money that is more meaningful, conscious and beneficial.

Countering this trend of 24-hour Dow obsession are a number of movements that will be discussed in future posts, especially socially responsible investing and conscious capitalism. All mean that we don’t just buy based on price and momentary gain, but we invest longer term in products and services we care about, that provide real good to us and others. We invest more in smaller, local companies that we can know better.

Any tao of money management will require us to relax self-will and be more engaged in something bigger than ourselves, which is a lot more conscious and engaged process than the 60′s definition of tao as “go with the flow.”

When we’re open to it, guidance to find and follow our tao is everywhere. Some of my favorite gems come from Jon Stewart’s 2004 commencement address to our common alma mater, William and Mary:

• So how do you know what is the right path to choose to get the result that you desire? And the honest answer is this. You won’t. And accepting that greatly eases the anxiety of your life experience.
• [The] truly exciting thing about your life, is that there is no core curriculum. The entire place is an elective. The paths are infinite and the results uncertain.
• Success is defined in myriad ways. [It] will come from your own internal sense of decency .
• Love what you do. Get good at it. Competence is a rare commodity in this day and age. And let the chips fall where they may.

What wisdom guides you on your path?

As always, many blessings and come back real soon, Pat McHenry Sullivan

Right now, far too many people “go naked” (industry terminology for people without health insurance). Congressman Zach Wamp of Tennessee would have us believe that ½ of all people who “go naked … just take the chance of getting sick. They end up in the emergency room costing you and me a whole lot more money.” The Congressman also believes that the attempt to extend health care to all is “almost a fast march to socialism.

There may be huge philosophical differences between those who believe access to health care is a right and those who think it is a privilege. There’s no way I see to settle that argument without getting past industry lies that are mouthed by politicians and reported extensively by “the news.”

Here’s one truth: the Amish and some other groups don’t buy insurance because they don’t believe in it. Instead, the Amish care well for each other through richer or poorer, in sickness and in health. A few people do gamble on health. But most people without health insurance simply can’t afford it and/or can’t get it because they have pre-existing conditions.

A huge insurance industry lie is that government-run programs (like Medicare) are the worst things that could happen to us.

Former insurance company executive Wendell Potter reports that the industry has used scare tactics for many years to get us to distrust government-run programs. “If there were a broader program like our Medicare program, it could potentially reduce the profits of these big companies. So that is their biggest concern.”

Michael Moore’s 2006 film “Sicko” hit the nail right on the head, says Potter. Yet the insurance industry warned Congressional members that if they talked about or endorsed the film, “we can make things tough for you … by running ads, commercials in your home district when you’re running for reelection, not contributing to your campaigns again, or contributing to your competitor.”

Personally, qualifying for Medicare by turning 65 is one of the best things that has happened to me and my husband. The only thing between us and high quality care (even for pre-existing conditions) is a telephone call or e-mail as needed among us, our doctors and other providers, like the labs or pharmacy. Cost of a recent visit, including 4 knee x-rays after a fall: $20 co-pay to the doctor; another $20 for x-rays. Waiting time: a few minutes. Approval or paperwork required: none.

Our experience is common for people with good Medicare choices and in England, Canada or other countries with government-run healthcare. That belies the insurance industry’s horrifying pictures of government interference, while glossing over the fact that for too many people, insurance company paperwork and denials of care are huge barriers between patient and doctor.

Business lies can be very difficult to unmask, because they are so rooted in unconsciousness and distortions.

As an insurance industry V.P., Potter was insulated. “I knew that 47 million people were uninsured, but … what you think about are the numbers … and whether or not you’re going to meet Wall Street’s expectations. …[you can only] stay there, if you don’t really think that you’re talking about and dealing with real human beings.”

Potter’s wakeup call came when he went home to Tennessee and visited an occasional offering of free medical care at the fair grounds in Wise, VA. He talked there to people who had come from at least 6 states as they waited in long lines for care in horse stalls and other improvised clinics. “They could have been people who grew up at the house down the road from me. It was like a lightning bolt had hit me.”

Potter returned to corporate headquarters, trying to process it all. One book that helped him get clarity and leave his job was President John F. Kennedy’s Profiles in Courage.

On June 24, 2009, Potter testified to the U.S. Senate that as a senior executive at health insurance companies, “I saw how they confuse their customers and dump the sick – all so they can satisfy their Wall Street investors.”

All of us are called to help create affordable health care.

Please join me in a movement to shoulder more personal responsibility for our own health care. Maybe you’re not so lucky as I am to have free access to a gym and buddies to help get past resistance to working out, but you can get your workout somehow, even if your workout weights are just cans filled with tomatoes. And you can certainly find some live or on-line buddies to help you eat better.

Whatever your political persuasion, please follow the links above to Potter’s interview by Moyers (including the links there to the insurance industry’s attempts to discredit “Sicko”), and to Potter’s Congressional testimony.

I don’t pretend to know the best health care financing strategy. But I know the best thing we can do to create divine care for ourselves and others is to begin with prayer. Then, as we hear the truth in our own hearts, it’s time to share the truth as we see it with others, including our legislators.

As always, many blessings, Pat McHenry Sullivan

You may never have taken formal, witnessed poverty vows as my husband John did at the age of 19 while he was in a Roman Catholic religious order, but it’s highly likely that you’ve taken some vows of poverty, intentional or otherwise.

Religious poverty vows are prayed over, even blessed. They aren’t a commitment to being homeless, starving or dressing in rags. They are a vow to simplicity, and an everyday willingness not to be attached to money or the things it could buy. The intent is to free members of any concerns about earning, saving or investing money (unless they are taking on financial roles on behalf of the community) so they are free to focus fully on spiritual life.

What a contrast religious vows are to the get-rich quick, greedy or otherwise definitely non-spiritual vows that drive so many novels, movies, and financial strategy! Often such vows lead to spiritual, emotional and/or financial impoverishment, as definitely was the case with many players in the subprime mortgage meltdown and other disasters.

My favorite example is Scarlett O’Hara, the self-centered heroine of Gone with the Wind, who during the Civil War became responsible for the survival of her family, home and even three former slaves, plus her rival and rival’s baby. After learning that the Yankees (or as they say where I grew up, damnyankees) have either destroyed or stolen anything edible except some dried-up turnips, Scarlet raises her fist in the air and pronounces, “As God is my witness, I will never go hungry again . . . not me or any of my kin.”

Now that could be a noble vow, but Scarlett adds the commitment to do whatever she deems necessary, including lie, cheat, steal or kill. Though she does become wealthy, she can’t really enjoy it due to the unintentional spiritual and emotional poverty vows which were a by-product of both conscious and unconscious faults like fear, greed, and spite.

Here’s how Scarlett’s unintentional poverty vows might be expressed: I insist on having what I think I want, no matter who is hurt in the process, including my own heart. I will base my business and spending decisions not just on sound business or financial information, but also on such desires as making others pea-green with envy; keeping myself from realizing how much I really love Rhett, not Ashley; and running from the fears that have caused nightmares since I was a child and a lot of grief ever since.

It’s not easy undoing poverty vows. Undoing poverty vows after years in a committed religious order may require years of learning how to make a living, and perhaps becoming totally re-trained. After all, there aren’t a whole lot of job descriptions calling for people who are adept at contemplation and fluent in Latin or Gregorian chant!

Undoing unintentional poverty vows can be even harder. Therapy and coaching can help uncover them; so can reflection on what’s not working around money in your life and considering, “What might I have been thinking when I developed this unfruitful way of dealing with money?”

Here are some unconscious poverty vows to consider:

• I vow not to learn about money and how to handle it well.
• I base my financial decisions on shame, fear, or ___________.
• I choose to base my financial and business planning on hopes and dreams that I have not carefully considered.
• I choose to trust blindly without giving my financial or business dealings the careful consideration I owe myself and others. (The legal term is “due diligence.”)

What about you? Do any of the above vows sound familiar?

And what’s your true abundance vow when you turn around your poverty vows, either conscious or unintentional, then look into your soul for guidance?

My favorite true abundance vow begins with gratitude for all the gifts I’ve gained from being married to a man who brought his financial challenges and gifts to our marriage. The challenges are nobody’s business but our own, but the gifts include these: Not once have I ever known John to act greedy or mean about money. Instead, his habit of simplicity helps pull me off my high horse and enjoy the moment more. He looks so carefully at any gift that in the process, I see more in the gift. His appreciation is so contagious that I seem to gain more in the giving than he gets in receiving it.

In creating a true abundance vow, I also had to deal with what I’ve learned from my own collection of often-contradictory unintentional poverty vows, like my childhood dreams of wowing everyone who had ever put me down with the huge emerald and flashy sports car I would someday have, mixed with a longtime habit of dreaming big, doing little. And then there are the usual suspects like shame or “I don’t really deserve it.”

Here’s my current true abundance vow. May it inspire you to create your own:

I vow to treat money as an exchange of energy that I use wisely, to the betterment of myself and others. I vow to live simply and richly, basing my financial decisions on a combination of in-the-world research, prayer, and a lot of careful discernment. In this journey of earning and using money more wisely, I give thanks for all the challenges and the beings on this earth who have helped me learn from them.

As always, I hope you enjoy this challenge.

Come back real soon with your thoughts and inspiration,
Pat McHenry Sullivan

The futility of panic as a financial strategy should be pretty obvious from the economic news since at least summer of 2008. Panic in the stock market breeds panic in the job market and the credit market and in the minds and hearts of the people everywhere, ad nauseum, ad infinitum.

Through a body-based therapy called bioenergetics, I learned years ago how the body typically acts in panic. The chest collapses. Eyes close, and intuition or inner sight is shut down. Arms flail helplessly, leading to exhaustion. Or they dangle uselessly, putting out the message, “I am helpless. Someone must rescue me.”

Act with panic while swimming, and your odds of drowning increase. Plus, you make it very dangerous for someone to help you. When a society acts with panic to security threats (like real or feared terrorist attacks) or the current economic situation, the result can be a plethora of expensive (sometimes even deadly) acts based on wrong or insufficient information.

Denial of fear or emergencies doesn’t work, either. During many earlier times when I faced hard economic challenges, I discovered that it’s a lot easier to deal with a problem if I open my eyes and face it, and if I scream out my fear into a pillow instead of trying to whistle that fear away with a happy tune.

Fortunately, there are lots of great models for dealing effectively with emergencies without panic.

Ever been severely injured and suddenly you’re surrounded by compassionate, skilled people, all focused on helping you get through your emergency? Ever been stuck away from home due to a disaster like a fire or earthquake, and here comes a hastily organized emergency transportation system to get you home? Ever been very hungry or thirsty due to that disaster when here comes the Salvation Army with a ham sandwich, two cookies and some fruit punch?

History is full of great models for crisis response. In World War II, when the British navy was trapped in Dunkirk, ordinary citizens created a flotilla of boats large and small to bring the boys home safely. When England was bombed night after night, people in bomb shelters kept their spirits alive by staying truly English, like being fully present to each other over tea served in proper cups atop an oil drum, or a game of darts, or hanging out with each other atop uncomfortable-looking bunks.

If you got creative, what kind of calm response could you find to your financial emergencies? What wisdom might you discover for the economy we all share?

E.g., what’s your equivalent to emergency room triage?

What essential elements of your character and culture can inspirit you through an extended hard time?

What’s your equivalent of Dunkirk, and how are you called to help create financial stability for yourself and/or the larger community?

Here are some examples of how to turn panic into a calmer state that supports clear reflection and wise decisions:

• Affirm that no matter how dire the economic situation is right now, somehow, some time, you’ll get through it.
• Walk or swim to clear your head and energize your body, unleash at least a spark of creativity and confidence, and re-energize your whole being.
• Breathe and deal with whatever feelings emerge, especially grief about the loss of retirement funds or the camaraderie that used to exist with colleagues on the job you and/or they no longer have.
• Pray, not like the kid asking God or Obama or Congress to fix it for you, but in a way that engages you with your source (more about this in a future post).

Consider these thoughts as you repeat the original assignment (see About the Challenge at the top right of this page). As always, bless your journey of healing and growing your relationship with money. Here’s a blessing to use or edit:

Whatever challenge I face now, may I rediscover my gratitude in simply being alive. May I remember that I come from sturdy stock, and as a member of the human race, I am kin to many experts in turning challenges into opportunities. May all my eyes be open to how I can meet my needs at this time, while also serving others.

Come back real soon with your own insights and inspiration,
Pat McHenry Sullivan