🎙️ 80. Introducing Office Energetics: Creating Inspiring and Purposeful Workspaces

podcast

Jul 16

the spiritual 9-5 podcast transcript

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Episode Published on July 16, 2024

Transcript

Intro to the Intro

Here’s an underrated take – something that we quite often take for granted is our physical environment, most especially at work or in our home offices. Today’s episode is the first of 3 episodes about bringing feng shui to work, or something that I like to call Office Energetics. Which is really just to say: being more intentional about the spaces that we work and exist within, and crafting environments that feel good and inspire us.

Today is a solo episode where I tell you how important our physical environments are, most especially when we are working. I’m going to tell you about how powerful and inspiring a work space can be. And I’m going to introduce to you Office Energetics––what it is and why it matters.

The working world is shifting to a remote way of being and working and doing, and yet there is so little guidance or support for the remote or hybrid or disparate teams, and individuals in them to cultivate awareness and intention in their space. So, that’s what we are doing here today.

Intro music 🎶

I believe that working can be one of the most spiritual paths that we walk. Whether that work is turning your passion into a business, or sitting behind a desk for 8 hours a day, or anywhere beyond and in between. And yet we often take the way in which we show up to work for granted, even though it's where we spend the majority of our time.

Here on The Spiritual 9–5 podcast, we talk about that. We talk about entrepreneurship. We talk about the 9-to-5. We talk about what it's like to be multi-passionate and talented and inspired and also utterly demotivated. We are here to support you in your work, whether your work is sacred to you or just something that you do to get by. We are here to help you see and know yourself a little bit deeper, and to inspire you to show up no matter what it is that you find.

I'm your host, Marie Groover, and like you, I am as multi-passionate as they come. I'm the founder of two businesses that are here to bring the soul back into the office. I, too, work a 9-to-5 in corporate tech. I'm a surfer, a writer, a philosopher-artist, if you will, and I'm so excited to bring you this episode today.

If you haven't, please leave the show a 5-star rating, and if this episode resonates, consider saving it and sharing it with someone you think it would resonate with, too.

Intro music fades 🎶

I want you to think about walking into your first job, or conference, or event simply to recall your first impressions of the space.

What did you think? How did you feel? How did that first impression impact you? How did it inspire you or move you to show up?

I remember the first time I walked into a Microsoft office as an employee. It was a whole vibe. The way the space was designed, the artwork, furniture, the windows, the colors, the coffee cups with the Microsoft logos on them. Y'all, that was my favorite part [laughs]. The conference rooms, the cafeteria, the open concept, so much more.

I remember being so impressed and feeling so proud that this was where I was going to work. I remember feeling welcome. I felt like I belonged there. I felt inspired. I felt like I could easily talk to and connect with other people who were free roaming the office or refilling a coffee or grabbing a snack, and at my desk, I felt plugged into something bigger than myself. I felt productive. I knew what I was there to do, and I felt proud to be there to do it. I was excited and inspired to be in the work, and there was a felt sense of purpose.

And by the way, this was not happenstance, but we'll get back to that.

One of my clients recently got a new job, and when she was interviewing for it, she recounted the space that she walked into.

The founders of her company are outdoorsy people. They are mountain bikers, so they have mountain bikes in the office, and the office has a kind of rugged but modern and very outdoorsy feeling. It was adventurous. It was welcoming. It was authentic. And instantly, before even her interview, before she even started her interview, she already loved the space, and she already knew that she wanted to work there.

Not only did she see herself fitting into the space, but she wanted to be the type of person who would work there. There was meaning associated with the experience of being in that office. There was meaning associated with showing up to work in that space on a regular basis.

Now, I'm going to say that again, that not only did my client see herself fitting into the space, but my client wanted to be the type of person who would work there.

That is pretty profound, and I remember feeling this when I started at Microsoft too, when I interviewed at Microsoft. So when I interviewed at Microsoft, I interviewed at a different location than the location that I actually lived at, lived, lived in, and worked in, lived at, and worked in. But the space that I interviewed within, I remember feeling the same way. Before even the interview, I walked into the office, and I knew that I wanted to be the kind of person, the type of person that worked at Microsoft.

I wanted that. The feeling was palpable. I remember before Microsoft, years before Microsoft, I worked at a tech startup, and I felt the same exact way.

I remember walking into the space, and it was so modern and edgy and fun and clean and cool and minimal and hip. And it was in this really cool location in downtown or midtown Atlanta, and I wanted to be the kind of person that worked not just at a startup, but at that particular startup.

And this is important because the spaces that we choose to work within have meaning associated with them, or we associate meaning with them, but they also seep into our beings and into our way of showing up consciously and subconsciously, which we'll come back to in a second.

My client. Back to my client. When my client and I were talking about her experience, she mentioned to me that when her business reaches a particular level, when she gets to hire people, when she gets to have her own space, that she would love to emulate a similar environment and vibe for her employees.

She wants them to feel something. And she wants them to be excited and proud and inspired to walk into their workspace. A workspace that she one day will create. And this opened up such a fun conversation because I get the pleasure of working with people on and in their spaces on a regular basis, particularly their workspaces.

So offices, hybrid setups, remote employee guidance, individual home offices, desk setups, and more.

You may not know this from listening to the podcast, and this is a recent offering and development, but because I get to work with people on their spaces, I know that your environment, your physical environment, plays a huge role in how you feel and in how you show up consciously and also unconsciously.

And because of my experience now in working with people and working with experts, I understand how important optimizing your environment is, especially at work, because work is where many of us spend the majority of our time.

And yet, isn't it kind of funny how work or even our home offices can sometimes be an afterthought? And by sometimes, I mean a lot of times.

Meanwhile, for many companies, where we work isn't an afterthought at all. And it shouldn't be, by the way. Companies, wise ones, will pay upwards of millions of dollars to create a particular feeling or a vibe or an experience in their offices for just this reason.

Because how we feel at work consciously or subconsciously dictates how we will show up and the level for which we will perform and even our ability to perform certain tasks or functions. And through our environments, we can actually influence how we perform in different roles or in different tasks based on what we want to optimize for.

Our environments are powerful mechanisms and tools for optimizing our workflow and optimizing our way of being and optimizing our general well-being, too. I know I'm using the word optimizing a lot [laughs]. But we can use our environments to optimize how it is that we want to show up, who we want to be, how we want to feel, what we want to do, how we want to do it.

And now, as we shift to a remote way of working, it begs the question of what are we doing to be conscious or aware of our own spaces? And are we optimizing them for our own personal benefit, but also for our work and our working experiences and our output? As we've shifted into a hybrid or fully remote approach, I haven't seen companies really paving the way here other than to maybe expense functional items like standing desks, desk treadmills, ergonomic equipment, etc, etc, etc. And I think it's a miss. I think that guiding your employees into optimized home offices and remote and hybrid spaces is such an opportunity that offers an edge. Especially because so many people and businesses are just not consciously aware of or thinking about this in the same way that we do when we think about setting up an office that people physically go to.

So today, we're talking about how our environments affect us, most especially at work or while we work, and why we should care about it. Why we might consider offering guidance to our teams and organizations, and what some of the benefits can be. Our environments are inclusive of our physical surroundings and the materials that we interact with regularly. So like our desks, our desk chairs, the things on our desk, the floors beneath us, the things around our desks, furniture, artwork, monitors, pens, etc.

But our environments are also inclusive of elements like lighting. Whether that be natural lighting like a window or artificial lighting like an overhead light or a lamp. Our environments are inclusive of the sounds that we take in, the smells that we take in, the textures that we feel and experience or that are near us. Life or beings that we share space with like pets or plants or children, that's part of our environment as well. Our partners, the people that we spend time with.

If we physically go into an office, the people that we work with contribute to the environment that we're existing in. The air quality is part of our environment and how close our basic needs are for us, like physical proximity closeness is what I mean. So like, perhaps we have a bathroom connected to our office or maybe we have to walk across our home to use the bathroom or maybe the kitchen is really close or maybe it's really far away.

Maybe there's space to play around, like maybe if you're in an office there's a game room or at home maybe you have a game room and maybe that's really close to you or accessible. Maybe you can even see it while you're working. These are things that will permeate our experiences.

So uh maybe there's water and food that's easily accessible, maybe not. And it's not just the stuff around us, but the amount of it is another factor to consider when you are taking in your environment and becoming aware of your space. The amount of space or spaciousness you have is another factor.

The colors that surround you is another factor and there's more. There's so much more that contributes to your environment and thus the way you feel when you are in it. When taking your environment into consideration, you can always check in with your senses and that's where I recommend we begin.

So sight, sound, touch, taste, smell–knowing that all of your senses are never not sensing. All of your senses are always sensing, they're always taking information in. So your environment is everything that your body or mind may be taking in consciously or not consciously and your body and mind are always soaking in what's around you like a sponge literally. Again, whether you are conscious about it or not,

All of these elements affect us consciously and mostly subconsciously because, again, we're always taking in our environments via our senses. I know I just said that multiple times. I'm going to say it one more time because I really just want to nail this one in.

We are always taking in our environment consciously and unconsciously through multiple mediums, not just our eyes. So the quality of our environment actually affects us greatly and we can use this knowledge, this knowing, to influence us in the ways for which we would like to be influenced.

If we value peace for example, we can optimize our space so that we get to experience both consciously and unconsciously a greater sense of peace.

If we want to be productive, we can optimize our space so that we get to experience productivity and actually be more productive.

If we have specific goals, we can optimize for those specific goals like losing or gaining weight or writing a book or spending more time with family or having greater work-life balance or finishing our to-dos every single day or getting a promotion or finding our life partner. The list goes on.

Because our environment influences and contributes to the way we feel, and the way we feel dictates the way we behave or how we act, and the way we behave or how we act dictates our results, and therefore we should take greater note of our environment and the way that we feel.

Because our results are like a feedback mechanism for the loop that is our constant human experience.

External results, external experience and evidence, shape our beliefs.

Our beliefs shape our thoughts.

Our thoughts shape our feelings.

Our feelings move us into action.

Our actions create results.

So having influence over the elements of this human feedback loop, the one that creates our lived human experience every single day not inwardly but also outwardly is important.

Cultivating an environment that contributes to who you want to be and what you want to accomplish and how you want to feel and the quality for which you want to live is actually paramount.

So don't underestimate the power of awareness and the curation of conscious environments and spaces to really support you in achieving your goals. Like I said earlier, where we work is where we spend the majority of our time. I say this all the time. We work so fucking much especially here in the U.S. and the environments that we work in should absolutely not be an afterthought.

Okay, that lays some groundwork. The reason I'm laying this groundwork is because I want to talk to you today about Office Energetics.

Office Energetics is a workshop that we offer through my business Essential Teams in partnership with my lovely friend's business Home Energetics. So it's myself, Marie, and my friend, Jacey, who partner together and deliver this workshop.

Don't worry this episode is not here to sell you this workshop, although, I would love to deliver this workshop to your team. [laughs] Jacey and I would be so honored to work with you and still this episode is not about selling you the workshop but instead it's sort of like a mini workshop. It's the first of three episodes that are all about feng shui and home or office energetics.

So, this episode I'm kind of giving an introduction. I'm laying some groundwork. The next episode will be with Jacey Herbert herself, where we will super casually talk about some principles, general principles of office energetics, guidelines we might say.

We'll dive into some common questions within this body of work and within our experience delivering it to corporate teams. We'll share a little bit about that experience. We'll share how people feel about the experience and then the following episode we'll be with a feng shui teacher whose name is Steve, Steve Kodat.

Steve will talk to us much more deeply about the principles of feng shui and how you can use them in your home, work, business, or team. Steve is a professional. He's been doing this work for a really long time. He actually owns a school where you can go and get certified if this is something that interests you.

And so why are we talking about this stuff? Why are we dedicating three episodes to talking about this? Well, if you've been listening at all, you already know, but I'll say, first of all, because our environments affect us deeply. Because we often take for granted our environments, especially our working environments.

Secondly, I don't think companies are providing the right level of support and guidance around remote work environments.

And third, I want us all to feel good while we work. And I want us to have a high quality experience of existing where work is a huge part of our existence. So why not be conscious where we can be conscious and intentional where we can be intentional and why not reap the benefits from that?

That's why we're talking about this stuff.

And, you know, little side tangent. [laughs] Speaking about work, I was just talking to a friend about how we as human beings can be so funny and just so cute. We as humans will spend one hour a week in our meditation practice or in our yoga class, or maybe if we're lucky, we'll spend 10 minutes a day meditating or one hour a day to find peace and calm and center and connection and restoration and mindfulness and self-love and awareness and kindness and all of the things that these practices bring us, right? That one hour that we go to yoga every day or once a week or however we do it, and we'll spend, you know, a set amount of time per day on our personal development and our spiritual development. And it's amazing to have that concentrated time.

That concentrated time is so essential and crucial, and I'm absolutely not going to shit on that time. And our whole entire lives can be a practice ground or a playground to see ourselves and know ourselves and cultivate ourselves.

It doesn't just have to be in that one hour yoga class once or twice a week, or in that 10 minute meditation that you do most every day. It can be just every day. And work, AKA what we do for a living, is something that we spend so much time doing, often unconsciously.

Work is where so many people that I know personally, that I work with personally, that I've been able to work with from a client perspective, work the nine to five. If we work at a bar, coffee shop, whatever it is that we do, what we tend to do for a living is something that we often check out of.

We become a different version of ourselves. We become a shell of ourselves. We care a little bit less. We aren't necessarily mindful. We are unconscious.

And why would we not capitalize on cultivating ourselves at work, though? Like, why would we not do that? Why would we spend one hour a week on our yoga practice or doing breath work, but not show up 100% at work, capitalize on cultivating ourselves, cultivating who we want to be through the work itself, through our work itself?

So, for my friends out there who love productivity and efficiency, practicing being the person we want to be, practicing embodying the qualities that we wish to hold, practicing feeling the feelings we want to feel more of, the feelings like happiness, joy, safety, groundedness, centered, peaceful, confident, clear, sharp, fulfilled. Practicing feeling these feelings will exponentially increase our growth and expansion rate.

We will get to where we want to go. We will become who we want to be faster the more we practice them. Which does not equate to more yoga or more breath work or more mindfulness in and of itself, but rather taking these qualities and experiences and overlaying them with our everyday, aka taking your yoga practice off your mat.

Maybe taking your yoga practice into the office, using breath work when you need it the most. Which yes, maybe after a long day and you log into your virtual breath practice or you go to a physical, in-person breath work experience, but it also could be right after a horrid and heated meeting where you and your boss got into a raising your voices match. I don't want to say yelling match because that maybe doesn't seem super healthy, but it happens, right?

Or when you and your partner get into an argument or a disagreement or when your kid reacts in a way that makes you react or that triggers you, using breath work when you need it then, not just in your one hour a week or whatever you dedicate to it, right? It's taking these tools and using them while we work, which is again where we spend the majority of our time.

This is such a freaking life and spiritual unfulfillment hack. And if we're going to be unconscious at work, but then go to yoga once or twice a week or five times a week or seven times a week or whatever it is that we do, if we're going to be unconscious at work, but then practice mindfulness with our family, why would we not use work anyways as a channel for developing ourselves into the person that we want to be, which means that we have to show up in the jobs that we're doing also mindfully, also consciously.

And the question really is, the question that I'm posing in my side tangent, is why would we not do this? If you have an answer by the way, I would love to hear it, but I will digress. I digress.

Back to what I was saying, which I'll ask this question, too: Why would we not be intentional where we can be? Why would we not be conscious where we can be? Why would we not contribute to the cultivation of what we seek where we can?

And Office Energetics is one way that we can be much more intentional and reap great benefits with little effort and a lot of fun.

And that's, you know, this is my individual pitch for why we should care about how our office is set up, and what's laying around on our desk, and what's hanging on the walls, and what it smells like, and what the temperature is, and what it feels like, and how the light looks.

But when we think about this from a team perspective or a corporate perspective, and we think about shifting out of in-person work environments to remote or hybrid work environments, it's not that we lose a sense of control over how our people are going to feel, but it also is that we lose a sense of control over how our people are going to feel because the work-from-home environment is so inconsistent.

And so the ways that we feel connected to the companies that we work for or to the teams that we work with are different.

And they don't have to be, because we can still tap into that intentional cultivation of what we seek, of how we want to feel, and we can do it in a way that's much more collaborative and creative and inclusive of the individuals who are occupying the spaces because the spaces are our own, right?

So from an Essential Teams perspective, Essential Teams is my business, by the way, we offer team workshops and people development rooted in mindset and somatic coaching, but also rooted in unconventional methodologies like intuition and woo-woo stuff like astrology, human design, tarot, and this, Office Energetics.

And I like to think about office energetics actually as a blend of these things, because earlier in the episode, you heard me say that what we believe influences how we think, and how we think influences how we feel, and how we feel directly influences how we act. And then how we act influences the results that we receive. And then the results that we get back influence what it is that we believe.

So the results, it's like this feedback mechanism and loop, that is mindset coaching, that is belief work, right? That is deep level belief work. And what's cool is that this slightly unconventional methodology of say, taking intuition or taking feng shui and taking energy work, we could even say, and bringing it into the office allows us to almost blend these things together, right?

And so Office Energetics is a workshop that combines feng shui, intuition, corporate culture, psychology, and individual plus collective team or organizational goals, as well as mindset coaching and somatic coaching and all the other things that I get to bring when I show up to a workshop to enable individuals and teams to optimize their virtual or hybrid office space, or their disparate spaces, and optimize their physical desks to feel a little bit more connected and to essentially get more shit done.

To put it super simply, Office Energetics is like feng shui for your home desk or office, but with your team. And it's so much more than that, as I just said, [laughs] but Office Energetics is the most fun workshop that I think we offer. It's one of the most engaging workshops that we deliver because it's fun, because it's different, because it's insightful, because it truly brings awareness and guidance for how we operate in our work spaces, which again is so underrated, especially when we shift into remote or virtual or hybrid work.

And so, because I think this work is so cool, I want to walk us through some of the workshop principles so that, regardless of whether or not you can bring this to your team officially by booking with us, you can at least be more conscious and connected to your own personal space, to maybe your team or your company or to your personal goals, whatever they are. Maybe they're not career related at all, so that you can show up more fully, so that you can feel a little bit more connected to where it is that you're going, so that you can influence yourself consciously and unconsciously to make your path a little bit more easeful, a little bit more connected to self, a little bit more intentional.

And as I share, I also have to add that there'll be so much more in the coming episodes. So listen now, but stay tuned. [laughs] Okay. So some things to consider.

We talked about, and by we talked about, I mean, I hammered into your ears, your sweet ears, that your environment subconsciously and consciously affects you, and therefore that you should care about it.

I haven't really said much else. So the question then becomes, what do we do about it? What can we do about it? And to be very honest, it really all depends on what your goals are.

What I will say is this, no matter your goal, you can optimize your space to enhance your ability and collapse the time it takes to reach said goal. Why? Because again, your environment is priming you all the time. This is like such a hack for collapsing time, getting to where you want to go a little bit faster, because again, you're being primed all the time.

Your senses, always sensing. So with Office Energetics as a workshop, we focus specifically on your desk or your home or hybrid office space.

The way the workshop goes is that Jacey and I show up usually virtually. We introduce ourselves, we introduce the work, we introduce the workshop. We talk a little bit about why this work is important, which goes to say, I've been speaking about this for 25 minutes now. We don't go, we don't spend that much time talking about why this work is important, but we do talk about it just a little bit.

And we show some photos of different office spaces. And we ask folks how they feel when they see those photos and what they think about the spaces. And this immediately connects the dots experientially to how this work can be meaningful and why this work matters.

So you, dear listener, can do this too. You can right now, if you choose to, or later, Google some office pictures, home office, your favorite company's office or workspaces in general, and look at some different photos that come up. You can go on Pinterest and do this, too.

And ask yourself, how do I feel looking at these photos?

And ask yourself, how would I feel if I were in this space?

As you look at different spaces, take notes, and then come back into your space, the one that you occupy for work or for life, and take it in and look around.

What do you see?

What do you smell?

What do you hear?

What do you feel?

Is your office space your guest bedroom?

Does your desk double as the dining room table?

Is your workspace shared with other home activities like where you decompress or where you host your friends or where your kids play?

Do you have a dedicated workspace, but maybe you choose to work on the couch instead?

These are all things to take note of. And then again, pause.

How does your workspace at home or in the office make you feel?

How do you feel when you walk into it?

What words would you use to describe your feelings other than fine or good or normal?

Do you feel anxious, stressed, pressure? Do you feel safe?

Do you feel inspired, motivated? Do you feel at ease?

Do you feel tired? Do you feel depleted? Do you feel distracted?

Do you feel a mixture of emotions?

You probably feel a mixture of emotions, and if you do, name them. Name as many of them as you possibly can and see if you can even point to the things that maybe contribute to that feeling.

And then ask yourself, what do you want to feel? Think about a goal that you have and then look around again and ask yourself, how does the space as it stands right now help me to meet that goal?

Now, this practice that I'm walking you through is an excellent practice to tap into your personal awareness, to tap into your intuition, to tap into your creative juices.

You might have some ideas or maybe you already know some changes that you would like to make. Feng Shui, Office Energetics, design, it's fairly intuitive if you take the time to notice what is arising within you when you're in different spaces.

So what do you notice? And again, what are your goals?

Since we're talking about Office Energetics, what are your work and career goals? What are your ambitions in life? What is your life's work? Even if you aren't doing that right now for a living, maybe your life's work is to open a coffee shop or maybe your life's work is to, like me, inspire people to touch the wisdom of your soul.

Maybe your life's work is something that you'll eventually write down and capture in a book. Maybe it has nothing to do with what you're getting paid to do right now. That's okay. Again, ask yourself, how does your space support you in meeting your goals and desires? Does it? And how may it not be supporting you?

This doesn't have to be super deep, by the way.

Your goal could be to write a book, or start a business, or get a promotion, or become the next CEO of your company. But your goal might also just be to feel good at the end of your work day.

It might be to have enough energy to cook dinner for your family. It might be to have enough energy to smile when your kids come home. Your goal might be to cultivate better work-life balance, or to be a better parent, to be a better partner, to work on yourself, to find a new hobby, or maybe to make new friends. Your goal might be to move to a new city or change something about your situation. It can be anything.

My favorite thing about Office Energetics, my favorite thing about using the work of feng shui as a starting point, and I say starting point because everyone is different and only you know what is best for you. And even though there are systems that offer us rules and manuals to follow to optimize the flow of energy or the way we feel, at the end of the day, only you can know what feels good and what feels right and what ignites you.

So my favorite thing about Office Energetics and using feng shui as a starting point is not the woo-woo nature of it. It's not that I believe in the energetic principles behind the work, although it's not that I don't believe either, but it is that when you are optimizing for a goal, say to get a promotion or to cultivate greater work-life balance, when you intentionally make a change to your desk or to your office–maybe you add something like a photo of your family–you are reminded of that change every single day that you show up in your space because you see it.

And something that was once subconscious becomes physically represented in front of you. And it's a powerful thing because we remember to take action on what we want when we can see and feel the thing that we want in front of us.

And this is a super, super high-level intro and practice to begin exploring. Like, if we pair, say, Office Energetics with human design, which I talked about a little bit a few episodes ago, we can actually learn what your best and most productive workspace looks like, what goals and life milestones you are maybe designed for, and the ways in which you may feel better occupying the world. And we can get super specific and granular, and it gets really fun!

So then the general principles, which we haven't even dipped into yet, can go out the window to some extent, and we can get really personalized for you or for your team. So, I'm talking about Office Energetics at a high, high level and introducing it today, but there are so many ways that we can deepen in our practice and that we can get super descriptive or specific on where it is that we want to go and how it is that we want to take it.

But back to the workshop. [laughs] Office Energetics itself is a standalone workshop experience. Essentially, what we go through, what we walk through is this:

Jacey and I do intros,
We cover example photos,
We offer some general principles,
We introduce the Bagua map, which I will not talk about today,
And then we walk through individual examples.

So this is where it gets to be personalized, per person and per goal, and this is where the juices really get flowing for others. The individual examples are always where people learn the most and engage the most in the workshops.

And then we have an open call for questions and answers, and that's the workshop in a nutshell.

Y'all, Office Energetics is the most engaging workshop that we deliver. The corporate people love this workshop. It's so fun. It's light. It's insightful, and it can be scaled from a small team of one to an organization of 500 plus, 1,000 plus, however many people.

So if you want to bring some workspace design principles to your remote or hybrid or disparate team in a way that will leave them excited and feeling connected, reach out.

Again, this is just not something that many companies are doing and considering, and the thought and curation that goes into a physical office space and how inconsistent that it will ultimately be across an entire remote workforce, it's kind of a no-brainer to just do this. And it's, again, it's just a really fun experience, not to mention it can answer the question of why you may be more productive in an office versus at home or vice versa. Some of you are more productive at home versus the office or think you are.

And not only can it answer these questions, but it can solve for those questions, too. Yeah, I think I'll leave you with that.

Rather than going into specifics or general rules of thumb, I instead will invite you to tune into the upcoming episode with Jacey, and the episode with Steve, to learn a little bit more, which are the next two episodes that are coming.

I think what I'll also do is maybe pull together a call for questions, perhaps on LinkedIn, so that if you have questions about your particular office, desk, environment, workspace, and you want to share a photo or a goal, you can submit them.

And then maybe this is something that we can jam on in an ongoing or on an ongoing basis. In the meantime, I invite you to pay attention to what's around you. Tune into your senses–sight, sound, touch, smell, taste, and notice what you find. Notice how you feel, particularly when you're working, because again, work is where we spend the majority of the time, of our time.

Why would we not use that to cultivate the feelings that we want to feel, to cultivate the kind of people that we want to be? And know that while your environment plays a powerful role in your lived experience, you can optimize it. You have power and control over it, so you can optimize your space, the spaces that you occupy, for the things that you seek at home, at work, and within yourself. And there are really no limits for the goals that you can achieve literally by manipulating the environment around you.

If you're intrigued by this and you want to bring this work to your team, please do check us out at youressentialteam.com.

You can always reach out directly to myself, Marie, over LinkedIn private messages or email, full name, Marie Groover.

If you have any questions that you want to be answered on the podcast, reach out on the website or on LinkedIn or over email as well, and if you're interested in a personal deep dive for just yourself and your personal goals, you can reach out to Jacey Herbert, who owns Home Energetics, for a full assessment and holistic set of personalized recommendations and guidance. I'll drop her info in the show notes.

And of course, you can always reach out to me as well if you just want some consultation, maybe for your team or your workplace situation, or if you want to do maybe some individualized intermixing of experiences, so maybe an office energetics paired with your human design, something like that. If you want to bring something like that to your team, that's also something we can always do.

In any case, if you want nothing to do with any of this, I hope that you enjoyed this episode and that you learned something that you can take away and explore and implement to align yourself a little more intentionally with whatever it is that you seek in this life.

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Thank you so much for listening to The Spiritual 9-5 Podcast. I'm your host, Marie Groover, and I am beyond honored that you are here.

Please follow, save, and rate the show, and if you can, share your favorite episode with a friend. It makes the world of a difference.

Connect with me on LinkedIn. I would love to hear from you what you think about the show or my work, so don't be shy. And I'm always here to connect and support you or your business through coaching, team building, and leadership development. You can find my work in the show notes.

Until next time, big love.

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Shownotes

This episode delves into the invisible ways that our environments impact us -- specifically our working environments. Where we work is where we spend the majority of our time. Therefore, being intentional about our working spaces can matter significantly.

In this 3 part series, Marie introduces Office Energetics as a team building workshop, and offers a mini-deep dive for her listeners. In a world that is shifting to more and more remote or hybrid employment, this series is designed to offer support and guidance that perhaps Corporate America is missing out on.

Takeaways:

Physical environments have a significant impact on our emotions, productivity, and overall well-being

Curating our workspaces intentionally can enhance our feelings of inspiration, connection and purpose.

Office Energetics is a workshop that combines Feng Shui, Psychology and Corporate Culture to optimize virtual and hybrid working environments.

Companies should provide guidance and support for remote work environments (beyond office stipends and ergonomics) to ensure employees feel connected and productive.