Ellen Hayakawa. - The Inspired Organization: Spirituality and Energy at Work

THE INSPIRED ORGANIZATION

SPIRITUALITY

AND

ENERGY AT WORK

ELLEN HAYAKAWA

The Inspired Organization: Spirituality and Energy At Work

copyright 2003 Ellen Hayakawa.

All rights reserved for all countries. No part of this book may be reproduced by any means or in any form without written permission from the author, except for brief quotations for embodiment in literary articles or reviews. Although the author and publisher have exhaustively researched all sources to ensure the accuracy and completeness of the information contained in this book, we assume no responsibility for errors, inaccuracies, omissions or any inconsistencies herein. No slights of people or organizations are intended. Please send any corrections or omissions to the author. These will be included in the next printing.

Published by Spirit Unlimited

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Bowen Island, B.C.

Canada V0N 1G0

Direct retail orders for books to Trafford or telephone 604-947-0622

Edited by Joan Fleischer

Book design, layout, typography by Alexandra Hass, Rob Wall and Spirit Unlimited One Humanity, book cover art by Josephine Harrison.

National Library of Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Hayakawa, Ellen, 1959

The inspired organization : spirituality and energy at work / Ellen Hayakawa.

Includes bibliographical references.

ISBN 1-55395-684-2

1. Work. 2. Spirituality. 3. Business. 4. Management.

5. Self-actualization (Psychology) I. Title.

BL65.W67H39 2003650C2003-900448-1

This book was published on-demand in cooperation with Trafford Publishing.

On-demand publishing is a unique process and service of making a book available for retail sale to the public taking advantage of on-demand manufacturing and Internet marketing. On-demand publishing includes promotions, retail sales, manufacturing, order fulfilment, accounting and collecting royalties on behalf of the author.

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Contents

To my Mum, Dad and brother, Jim and to my extended family of aunts,
uncles and cousins who have supported and enabled me all of my life.
This includes starting me on my life as an entrepeneur by buying
Brownie cookies from me.

To Jay Kim, who was my loving husband and best friend in life for many
years and who helped me to be who I am today.

To my mentor, Willis Harman. Thank you for passing me torches and
the strength to carry them in your memory.

Dear Reader,

These are very powerful times. This book has come into your hands for a reason. Whatever information we ask for or need for our spiritual growth and evolution rapidly comes to us. Spirit, God, Goddess, Allah, the Source, the One, the Divine, the Great Spirit, the One of a Thousand Names works like this-bringing together the sun and the moon, the day and the night, the masculine and the feminine, the work and the worker, the writer and the reader.

This book explores the theme of spirituality and energy at work as the foundation for inspired organizations. It is a descriptive resource as well as a tool that will help you to achieve the results that you are choosing in your life at work. The steps to creating inspired lives and organizations are:

Understanding our current reality at work individually and collectively

Being the connection between spirituality and energy at work

Living our spirituality, lifes purpose and vision individually

Understanding how energy and time work so we can focus our energy on our lifes purpose and vision

Working with others in teams and organizations where uncovering the inspired purpose of the team and the organization is the focal point for being together

Sharing our stories with others and supporting the work of the spirit.

The most powerful way of using this book is by reading it and doing the exercises at the end of each section by yourself and with your co-workers.

Seeds for all creative works are planted in the lifes journey of the creator, by the Creator. This book has been created because of a profound remembering about my own lifes purpose. In the hours after midnight, the day of my 35th birthday, in a ski hut in Quebec, Canada, I had a dream that would change my life in unimaginable ways. I dreamed I was light. I was inside the light. I was outside the light. I was flowing with the light. I was the light. I had the feeling of being united with Spirit and all that there is. I woke up from the dream with a feeling of deep love, peace and calm. I had a knowingness both about the meaning my own existence and the existence of Spirit or a Higher Power.

Although my life has always been guided, I started to hear Spirit speak to me in an inner voice and with outer signs. Spirit said to me, You are to bring the words spirit and spirituality into the consciousness of people in mainstream workplaces. These words were affirming something I already knew in my heart. I asked Spirit, How am I to do this? Spirit said, You dont have to know how, I will show you the way. At that moment it was as though Spirit turned on a torch for me to follow. Sometimes I briefly lose sight of the torch but I know it is always there. All I do is wait and follow it. This book is a result of observing, listening, experiencing and following that Light.

Shortly after that profound experience, I was privileged to share in the healing process of a co-worker, with cancer. He was disillusioned in his previous job. He welcomed the opportunity of a new job. We had only worked together for a few months when he was diagnosed with colon cancer. I was shocked when I heard the news. I knew that I was being called to support him in his journey.

He wanted to continue working at home while he was having treatments at the hospital. Our manager supported him in his working and personal process, as we all did. Every so often he would come to the office. We would chat about the work he was doing to heal himself. I offered him books about the spiritual journey. He told me that a short while before, he thought that the work I was doing was kind of flakey but that he had come to realize how important it was. He said to me, I expect you to write a book. And I do write this book, in celebration of my co-workers ongoing life, in death. His journey in the light, to the light is the journey of each one of us.

I knew without being told that he had died. I saw a rainbow in my minds eye at the time of his death. When my manager called to say that he had died, I said, Yes, I know. When I went in to work, I was crying. I cried even more when I passed his empty office. My colleagues were bustling around the office as though nothing had happened. Our co-worker had just died!! Was I the only one who felt such profound pain and grief and sadness at his death? He was someone whom I had grown to love as a member of my community at work. I hid away in my office like everyone else-working, and trying to sort through my feelings. I knew that there was something incongruent between my feelings of sadness and grief and what I was doing. I was trying, although not very successfully, to live up to my beliefs that emotion, including sadness and grief, should not be expressed at work. Not only was I operating with this belief system, but so was everyone else. So we remained separate in our offices.