Money has always been a challenge for me. My parents always struggled financially while I was growing up, yet we lived in the most expensive area, where 5 acres, barns and horses were commonplace. We rented a house for over 12 years that had been the farm manager's house on a 16-acre farm with a 26 room mansion on other fork of the driveway. That's an interesting visual metaphor of another split. Our driveway split at the top of the hill. To go to the mansion, you forked off to the right. To come to our small, one bathroom home, you took a sharp left turn that also took you past the most wonderful barn I have ever seen. It has since been transformed into a house that was recently written about in the Cincinnati newspaper.
I have always been around lots of money...in it but not of it. I went to a small, private and expensive college in New England, that my parents paid for even though it was a huge financial struggle. Between college and before getting married, I always got by and earned enough money to do what I wanted. I found jobs relatively easily, did what I needed to do to make enough - at one point, I even worked 2 jobs so that I could buy furniture for my apartment. I even saved enough money to quit my job, one time to travel to Australia for 6 months (with a little help from my father for the airfares) and then another time, to work as a cook at a yoga retreat center in Montana for a summer.
Something happened when I got married. I gave up my ability and my willingness to earn money. I have now been married 23 years, and I have worked various jobs and earned "play" money - you know, that kind of money that's not really enough to do anything with except Christmas shop, buy things for the house, go out to eat - oh my god, it's housewife money. Money that I can spend without being accountable to anyone, especially my husband.
Yuck, I've earned housewife "play" money for 23 years.
I have split off from my ability and willingness to earn income and money that is significant in the sense of being a real contribution to my family, being of a level that I can do anything of any real value with. I have split off from the value of money - earning it, spending it, investing it.
The paradox in all of this is that I keep very up-to-date and orderly records of our accounts, spending, bills, and what little investments we have. I use Quicken and have used it for over 10 years now. I don't get it. I can keep great records and be on top of paying our bills, but I experience a disconnect between what the records say and what it really means in terms of our financial health, well-being, success and security. This is where the split is for me.
Money doesn't mean anything to me, really. Actually, I don't want it to mean anything. If I had it my way, money wouldn't be necessary. We could all have and do what we wanted to have and do. Money wouldn't become the focus of our existence and our life. Living true to ourselves, fulfilling our divine purpose, focusing on the quality of our relationships and our experiences would be the focus of our lives, not having to earn money for live by. Quite honestly, this whole money thing baffles me. I really don't understand why we need money and why it has become the focus of our lives. I know, I know....there are all of the logical and rational reasons about why money, blah, blah, blah...but on a purely questioning level, I just don't get it. And I would rather not have to deal with it, earn it, learn about it, be in relationship with it. I wish it would just go away and leave me to it.
This all must sound so simplistic and naive. Believe me, I know. I feel like a little girl around it all, like I just want Mommy and Daddy to take care of it all, or Steve.
I DON'T WANT TO HAVE TO DEAL WITH MONEY. I DON'T WANT TO HAVE TO EARN IT. I DON'T WANT MONEY TO BE NECESSARY. I DON'T WANT MONEY TO BE A PART OF LIFE.
I WANT FOR EVERYONE TO BE ABLE TO MANIFEST WHAT THEY WANT AND NEED WITH EASE AND GRACE, WITHOUT IT BEING ABOUT THE MONEY.
I DON'T WANT MONEY TO MATTER.
TO PUT IT BLUNTLY, I DON'T LIKE MONEY. I HATE MONEY.
That's a strong statement. And it's the truth for me...the underlying truth. Oh, and here's another layer to the split. Out of wanting to be "spiritual" about money and prosperity and manifestation, I have avoided telling myself the trust - that's interesting, I just typed "trust" when I meant to type truth. Hmmm....I have avoided trust - I have avoided telling myself to trust myself, Instead, I have put my trust in what I should be like which is spiritual and la-la-la about money. I have split off from my lower chakras, from the truth in my body and in my belly, from the dark truth of what I carry around inside of me, and from my power and capacity to manifest and generate, whether it is money, wealth, experiences or whatever. In cutting off from my lower chakras, I have also cut off from my capacity to receive. The belly is our container in which we receive and re-circulate the flow of money, creativity, wealth and manifestation in the world.
So not only is my split vertical, it is horizontal also. It is the cross that I bear. Wow, where did that line come from?
The split in my belly is the essence of my life's purpose. It is my personal reflection of the cultural and global paradigm of either/or that we have lived in for thousands of years. It is also the paradigm that is disintegrating along with all of the other structures and paradigms that no longer serve humanity. This paradigm is now evolving into an expanded and higher dimensional paradigm of both/and, inclusion, wholeness and unity. My mission is to contribute to the healing of the split within humanity and especially within women, and to heal the split in the body of the Earth. This is the intent behind the Celtic Camino. We will walk, and as we walk, we will heal the split along the chakras of the Earth that follow the Celtic Camino from Santiago to Rosslyn. As we each heal, and as the Earth herself heals and is healed, the split in the fabric of the Universe will heal also. Humanity will remember who we truly are and we will rejoin our rightful place within the constellations and the families of the Universe.
Somehow even money comes back to the split, to my body, and to my divine purpose here on Earth. I guess I can't really continue to ignore it, because no matter what I do, or where I go, or what I avoid, or what I engage with, it all comes back to the same thing: healing the split and returning to my essential, natural, inherent wholeness.
So what's my money story? Why do I hate money so much? Really? What is the loop that goes around and around that I am caught in like a rabbit in a trap?
A caveat here...I am a trained Financial Alchemy Coach. I have worked and worked and worked on my relationship with money, and still I am trapped in a web of story lines that have me by the short and curlies. I am telling myself that this work right now is because I am going to the next level of awareness and healing around my relationship with money. But really, what kind of relationship is it when I hate money and I do everything that I can to avoid it?
Bringing in Financial Alchemy, who is money to me? Money is mean, exclusive, ridiculing, arrogant, and downright nasty. Money thinks that he is better than anyone, not because of anything he has done or earned, but simply because he is money, he has money, and therefore he has authority, position, clout and stature. Money is a preppie, "old money", snobby, horrible WASP-y 20 something guy who is following in Daddy's footsteps, has doors open for him simply because of who he is, is really very ineffectual and nasty, and is only concerned for himself, his position, his money, his security. He treats people like objects. His heart is buried and cut off from his actions and his feelings. He is actually a very scary person in his lack of caring and compassion. He gives me the creeps. I don't like him, don't trust him; don't want to be around him; and really want him as far away from me as possible.
O.K. I know this. I have known that this is who money has been for me. I have worked to complete that relationship and create a new, loving, empowering one. Obviously, this money still has his hooks in me or else it wouldn't even be there for me to write about.
I know, I have some major issues and blocks around money! This is one of the biggest challenges of my life, and I am committed to taking my healing, the healing of my split to the next level. So here is all my issues, out in the open.
Money has been the worst of the worst for me, the ultimate bully, a heartless perpetrator. What is so weird is that I don't have any conscious memories of ever being treated badly by anyone like this. This feels like someone who could have abused me given my reaction to him, but I can't say for sure that any direct physical abuse ever happened to me.
So here's my commitment and my intention:
To heal the split and walk in wholeness, compassion, love and gratitude with my relationship with money, finances, financial sucess and prosperity.
The time is now! I have allowed myself to be victimized for long enough. Who I truly am is Peregrina, and she lives connected to her divine mission, and does not allow a bully to thwart her, limit her, keep her small, or keep her off her path. She is the heroine and co-creator of her life. She walks her walk and heals, clears, and transforms any of the challenges and threats to her fulfilling her mission.
I just re-read the first part of this blog. I know what happened when I got married. I gave Steve the role of my interceptor with money. He could protect me from any harm. He would earn the money. I would no longer have to deal with money directly. He would have to do that. I could keep perfect records but that's not dealing directly with money. That's dealing with the record keeping, the story of what's so around money. And if I just stayed clear of the meaning of the story, and engaged with it only from the waist up, or perhaps even neck up, then the numbers wouldn't mean anything. Money wouldn't mean anything, so that money could never hurt me, touch me, ridicule me or exclude me again. I made Steve the middle man, my knight in shining armour. Too bad I never asked him if he was willing to take on this role or give him a choice. I just unconsciously set up these dynamics that put the responsiblity and burden on him.
No wonder I have just earned play money all these years. It's not real money so it can't really hurt me, or mean anything, or count. It's like playing Monopoly, or the game of "Life." It doesn't really count or matter.
But it does.
My life matters. My ability to earn money, to take my work out into the world and have it matter, matters to me. My work is not just a hobby. It is a reflection of my soul's purpose and for me to continue to do my coaching, lead pilgrimages, be a host of a radio show, and everything else that I do, I have to, actually GET to earn, generate, cultivate, manifest substantial levels of income. Otherwise, I will have to go and get a job. The time is now to take responsibility and earn income, and in Barbara Stanny's words, to become a "high income earner."
It's time to engage with money, be direct with money, and to be the heroine of my own story and of my battle with the dark side of money. I have only related to the dark side of money, and money, like all of us, hasa both a dark side and a "light" side. I fell like Princess Lea of Star Wars. This is my battle. My journey to heal the split. My opportunity to heal and transform myself, my life, my work and my relationship with money.
To confront the dark side of money, I have to connect in with my own dark side, with my underbelly, with the parts of me that are below the horizontal split. I get to, have to re-connect with my gut, my feelings, my truth, and trust what is there for me. I get to embelly all of who I am, and walk home to my wholeness.
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Tomorrow I start a 21 Day course on Money Keys to heal the split between me and money. I am realizing that I have this huge split - a cavern - between me and money. It is fed by shame, not taking responsibility, wishing it wasn't so, wishing it away, spending it anyway, pretense, denial, and living with my head in the stars and knowing that there is a better system, and living from that place rather than being here in this world now.
The course asks us to identify and name our spiritual intention and our financial intention for the 21 days and I have been having the hardest time with this which is in part why I wrote this blog.
What is the spiritual intention behind healing the split? Wholeness, Acceptance, Integration? How ironic is it that it is everything that I have been writing about all these weeks. And of course, why did I think that my relationship with money would be any different or separate from the core theme of my life - healing the split?
How do I heal the split when it comes to my relationship with money? What do I need to be willing to address? to confront? to challenge? to be open to? to own?
It is time to earn my own income that is at a significant level that it is "real" money, money that matters, money that contributes both to my family and to generating my true work, the pilgrimages. O.K. That is very clear. This is my financial intention.
Thank you for bearing with me as I explore my relationship with money. It is my achilles' heel and where the split shows up quite ostensibly in my life. Here I am, a woman who's owning it, a wonderful coach, a certified Financial Alchemy coach, a co-founder of Own It Sister,and creator of WEALTHY Woman Coaching. They say that the work we offer is what we need the most and that the deepest, richest most healing work comes out of our own healing path. I have to trust that my sharing and revealing this only serves to deepen my work and what I contribute and offer to the world.
Here's to healing my relationship with money and owning, re-engaging with my willingness and ability to earn, receive, and generate income.
WooHoo.
Suseya!
Sahara
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