Sovereign Partnership, Soul Business

What does it mean, to love your business so completely that you want it to be itself, even if that makes you uncomfortable?

Does loving it in this way mean that you let it choose its own path and destiny, no matter what? What if your business morphs into something utterly alien to you and the values you hold most dear? What if it devours you, enslaves you, drives you into debt or drink, or worse?

These are practical questions. The fear that your business will gallop off in the wrong direction, dragging you over thorny ground and ripping you to shreds, can keep you from making those choices and decisions that are best for it, and for you.

Your business is a collaboration between you and the soul of your business. You and your Business Deva are both sovereign, within your partnership. The soul of your business can offer inspiration and guidance; it can lend its power and the power of its allies to help grow your business. But it cannot determine the direction that your business will take. Only you can do that.

If you’ve abdicated your sovereignty in this — or any other — relationship in the world of your business, that is a choice you’ve made. It may be an unconscious choice, one driven by unexamined stories or beliefs about power and powerlessness, among other things. Or it may, quite simply, be that you’ve misunderstood the nature of your role in the world of your business. 

In the collaboration between you and your Business Deva, you are the only one who can act in the physical world. Your choices shape the world of your business. While your Business Deva holds the pattern for the perfect unfolding of the life of your business, that pattern unfolds according to the choices and decisions that you make, day to day.  

If (for example) your business is expanding so rapidly that the quality of your service to your clients and customers deteriorates, or your marketing strategies make you uneasy because they slice across the grain of your values, then you have both the power and the responsibility to correct course. You aren’t helpless to effect change — you always have the power to choose the path that you and your business will take.

Your business doesn’t bolt headlong in directions that aren’t right for you — you choose its path; you guide its growth; you do what you believe is best for it. Since you’re human, you’ll do the very best you can, given the current state of your own skill and understanding. Your choices won’t always be perfect. They certainly won’t be immutable. You’ll change course, you’ll refine and reshape the world of your business throughout its life, and yours.

Your relationship with your business is much like your relationship with your child. Your child is a sovereign being. He is born of you, but he is not you. He has his own life, his own gifts and challenges, his own soul’s purposes. You honour his sovereignty. You pay close attention to his innate abilities, to the natural flow of his desires. You encourage and support him in becoming fully himself. You won’t do this perfectly, but you’ll do the best you can. Because you love him, and you want him to grow up to be himself, strong and tender, sovereign and free.

Because you love her, you won’t let your five-year-old play with fire, no matter how fascinated she is by the zip and flare of a match or the dance and crackle of flames. Nor will you allow your thirteen-year-old to drive just because she really, really wants to. Your job as her parent is to discern what choices she is ready and able to make — and to define and enforce the limits of her discretion. Your role is to nurture her gifts, the skills and knowledge that will help her step into her power, and the courage and confidence with which to choose her own path wisely, when she is ready.

Until then, you’ll guide her, provide for her, and set the boundaries within which she feels safe and secure enough to play, explore, and flourish. You have a particular role to play in your child’s life. That role changes as you and your child grow together. 

Similarly, you have a role to play in the life of your business. You are its leader and guide, in the physical world. You make the choices that shape the flow and direction of its life. And your role will continue to evolve, as both you and your business grow together.

If you’re feeling inadequate or powerless in relationship to your business, resentful of its demands, exhausted by it, or unhappy with it in some way, here are some questions to explore. Stay loose, in this exploration. Meet it with a spirit of curiosity and experimentation:

• In what ways do you feel sovereign, in relationship to your business?

• Where — and to whom — have you abdicated your sovereignty?

• Are you allowing someone or something else — the marketplace, your own stories and fears, received ideas about what your business should be — to override your ability to make clear and sovereign choices grounded in love, anchored in the communion between you and the soul of your business?

• If so, identify the places where you’ve relinquished your power to choose. Tune into your true desires. What do you really want? Choose that instead.

  Take stock of how the world of your business feels, right now. Then, take back your sovereign power to create a new story for your business.