004: MONEY

I hate money. I love money. It disgusts me. I want it. I need it. I’m too greedy. I’m too poor. I wish I had enough money. I wish I didn’t need it. I wish I wasn’t so irresponsible. I’m ashamed at how much I waste money. I should be able to invest it wisely. I’m afraid, investing it wisely would make me a hoarder of money, and stop the flow. Would make me selfish for hoarding it, keeping it to myself, for a sense of security. I’m afraid of my money running out so that I won’t be able to buy food for my family. I’m afraid of being kicked out of my home if I’m unable to pay the bills. I’m scared that the difference between my and my partner’s views on money and how we use it will cause tension between us, or even break up our relationship. I’m ashamed over how much my parents have helped me and supported me. Given me money. I’m afraid that I’m just another irresponsible, spoiled brat who wouldn’t have gotten anywhere on my own. I’m afraid to ask for more help. I feel like my need for help means that I’m weak, irresponsible, and unable to manage my money properly, just wasting it and needing more. I’m so jealous over people who are wealthy. I wish I had so much money that I didn’t need to worry about it at all, that I could just enjoy. I’m afraid that if I had much money it would contaminate me somehow, and make me a bad person. I’m afraid that people would come to me for support, but I would be unable to help everyone, and they would hate me for it, for having to choose. I’m afraid I would hate myself. I admire other people, who manage their money well, and are savvy business-people. But if I manage my own money well, by saving up, by being savvy, I get a nagging fear, that I’m an awful and disgusting person, for caring so much for my money. I shouldn’t care about money, but I should always have enough of it. I get disgusted by the high cost of some sessions, some tarot readers and what not, but I’m secretly jealous, that they can charge so much and still have clients that pay for that. I feel that the size of my pay check or how much I charge directly corresponds with my worth. If I charge little, I’m not worth as much, but I’m a better person, more grounded and humble. If I charge a lot, I’m worth more, but I’m also an ego-maniac, and a greedy asshole for charging so much. Money, is the root of all evil. It corrupts. Money is a reason for the inequality, violence and environmental destruction we see today. Money makes the heart dead, rotting, and shriveled up as a prune, dripping in black oil. Money makes people care more for comparing what stuff they have with each other than genuinely connecting with each other. Money offers a possibility for supporing others. It opens up doors and enables enjoyment and experiences that you can’t have without it. Without paying. If I had more money I could buy those expensive, high-quality winter boots for my child, so that his feet would stay warm through the winter. If I had more money I could rent that studio space that would enable me to create more of my strange, sculptural paintings. If I had more money I could support charities. If I had more money I wouldn’t need to worry as much. If I had more money I would worry about whether I’m spending it well. If I had more money, I would just worry about needing to have more money. Or having too much money.

(sigh)

These are just a few of the thoughts, feelings and notions that come up for me, as I focus my energy on the concept of money. Can you relate? Do you share some of these, or do you carry different ones? I can see that these notions of mine are full of contradictions. My emotions tangle into a mess, like an overgrown jungle that I can’t fight my way out from. The vines twist around me, they climb up my body and spiral around my throat, making it hard to breathe. It feels like, wherever I turn, I’m making the wrong turn. Too much. Too little. Too balanced. Too careless. Too careful.

So, I won’t even try to fight this jungle of my thoughts and emotions, in particular. I’m in the middle of it. And for now, all I can do is just be here, and let this jungle of emotions and thoughts be here with me. Allow all these feelings and thoughts and contradictions to have their space. Let them stretch out around me, let them surround me. I invite you to do the same.

Think and feel for a moment, what comes up for you, as you contemplate this concept of ours, the concept of money.

Let it all come. Be there with it. Let it all have space. Be in that space.

And now, as you are here, together with all these thoughts and emotions and notions, consider: how are you related to this jungle? Who are you, really? These things may have come through you, but are they yours? Or did they come from somewhere else, or someone else?

I came to realize that a lot of my thoughts and emotions connected to money were colored by the contradictions, the contradicting examples I have witnessed through my childhood and upbringing and the mental models, or the approaches, behaviors and perspectives that I was kind of programmed with as a child.

At first, when I realized this, I felt angry and frustrated. I just want to have a more neutral relationship to money and not connect so many emotions to it. Just to see it as what it is, what I believe it is at the depth of it all. It’s just this tool that we use to exchange, take part in an exchange. And it has grown into many different forms from there. But I’m not angry anymore because I understood that, at the depth, at the core of it all, there is love.

I understood that many of my emotions and thoughts are connected to a fear. Different types of fears. The fear of being pushed out from the group, if I am differentiating myself too much by, maybe having more than others. Or, the fear of not surviving, because I don’t have enough and I can’t pay, and no one else would take care of me, if I can’t pay with money. There’s a very strong fear connected to different aspects of these emotions, that’s at the root of all the other emotions, I think. And as I understood this, I tried to look in. To sit with that fear. What do you want? And I understood that this fear wanted to keep me safe. So in a way, the fear was, in a way, at the core, it was love. It loved me. I loved, I love myself, and want to keep myself safe, and care for myself, and my loved ones. And I got that with me from my childhood. That I am loved and, sometimes that love was taking the shape of fear. Because of the love, and wanting to keep me safe, my parents were afraid that I wouldn’t be.

(sigh)

But now, as I’m sitting with these thoughts and emotions, and trying to go forward, and trying to create a new approach to money, or abundance, I have to meet this fear and try to transform it, because it is creating walls for me. It is hindering me from doing things and approaching life in a way that I think, I believe in the end is better for all. Me and others included. That I could keep on doing things that deeply resonate and also bring me joy and can inspire others. Because I have a kind of programming in me that says that what I enjoy to do, I can not be paid for doing. The thing that I make a living of should be strenuous and exhausting, not exciting. Why?

Why?

I don’t believe that it has to be that way. But my mind has constructed the idea that it does, so it’s very hard to detach from. And then I go, and I look deep inside, and I see this shaking, fearful creature that just wants to keep me safe. And I have to sit with it, and listen to it. To all these fears. I’m afraid if, if I could find a way to get money for doing something I love, that I would be alienated from the people who haven’t been able to do that. I also have a memory from when I was around five years old. I didn’t want to finish my food, and my mom told me: “You should finish your food, think about all the kids who don’t have food.” And I know she didn’t mean anything bad. And I was so angry at her for saying that, because I just answered back: “Then give them my food. Give my food to the kids who need it.” And, after that, I think I had this notion that, if I have something, someone else can’t have it. There was a connection of me having, and someone else not having. And I couldn’t remove that from myself.

She was just trying to get me to finish dinner, like most parents want do, worry for their kids, not getting enough food or not being nurtured. But now I’m trying to go through this memory again, and see that love, because over the years I realize I acted from another place, from the place of “Oh, if I have something, someone else can’t have it, so I shouldn’t have that much.” And that makes my spending habits quite sporadic because, even if I have gathered up savings I realize that I really have a need to spend it, because I can’t have it. Someone else can’t have it, if I’m having it, but I don’t believe that’s true. It doesn’t have to be that way. I think actually, if I am finding a way to be stable, secure, safe, abundant, I have much more that I can also share.

(sigh)

So, that fearful creature. The fear inside of me. I can see you, and the love at your core. And I tell you now, you don’t need to take on this shape anymore. You don’t need to express as fear. Because that’s not keeping me safe, anymore, if it ever did. I can step in, with love, and I will take care of you, or, we’ll support each other. Let me hold you, and hug you, and give you love, so that you can feel that love and resonate with it and change your shape, back into that which you are at your core.

You are love.

You are loved.

And now when you feel this love from me, you can lose those additional layers of fear.

You can finally breathe out, relieved.

And just, enjoy the love.

Just allow it to come.

Accept it.

Receive it.

Love is wealth. Love wealth.

Enjoy your wealth. Your abundance.

Notice all the ways that it is already a part of your life.

What do you have? What do you actually have now, already, to be grateful for?

You have something.

Appreciate it.

Respect it.

Love it.

Care for it.

It is a flow. You’re a part of the flow.

Like a surfer waiting for the right waves, surrender to it completely when it comes and let it take you to the shore.

It’s all a flow. Interchange, exchange. Numbers that blur in front of my eyes. High numbers, low numbers, that add up. That have to match with the numbers on my account. It’s so digital now. There are cryptocurrencies now. But what are those, but just new masks [for] this concept of money, or this representation for worth.

But at the essence, it’s a flow, and we’re all a part of it somehow.

And it’s no wonder that it stirs emotions and brings up thoughts.

Love and fear. All the extremes and all inbetween.

Like with everything, some kind of a balance is asked for.

And the balance can be found in the flow.

You are one with the flow.