In my inventory of assets, resources and self-worth, I registered a lack of enthusiasm for making money. When I sat down with the inventory later, exploring how I felt about that list, I noted the same disinterest.
At the same time, I realised that in order to become financially independent and as a result feel more safe, confident and free, I would need to significantly increase my income.
I wondered what was keeping me from just going for it. Why am I not charging properly? Why am I not offering my talents and expertise to places with (more) money to pay their workers? Is this purely idealistic or is there more at play? Am I in some way sabotaging my own success?
I took these questions to a dear friend, who, like me, works as a coach. She kindly offered to explore my attitude towards money and making money with me in a session.
‘What do you think about when you hear the word “money”?’ She asked. ‘What comes up, what associations do you have with this word?’
I was rather shocked to hear myself say: oppression, power, misuse of power, showing off, soulless, empty, void of deeper meaning, nuisance.
These were really strong words and feelings, which did not come up when she asked me about the word ‘value’ nor when she asked what money could be spent on. I associated ‘value’ with beauty, something produced with care and dedication, with warmth. And I could immediately see how money itself can be used to provide shelter, nourishment and care and to be generous.
As we further unpacked those negative associations, we discovered that it was not so much the money itself that I had problems with. The resistance and repugnance was related to work places. Places that I, though not on a very conscious level, connected to paying people – or not paying people. Hiring them or not hiring them. Places where some make much more money than others. Places where some are much more powerful than others. Places where some misuse this power.
I was suddenly reminded of certain employers, team leaders, companies and organisations I had worked for. I remembered the collective, the world many of my previous work places belong to. It was only ever in retrospect that I realised quite how much inequality and oppression had been present there. A realisation that can sometimes still make me feel nauseous.
So this is what was happening. Negative experiences with what I shall describe here as ‘the corporate world’ were impacting my attitude towards (making) money. Without realising it, something inside me was trying to protect me against such experiences. It was trying to keep me from entering that realm again and potentially getting hurt.
That is why I was reluctant to offer my talents and experience to other places; part of me was afraid of power dynamics in all shapes and forms: rejection, manipulation, oppression and harassment. But what my bruised and wounded self did not realise: I have a choice now. I am not powerless and I am no longer who I was even a few weeks ago. I can show up with more awareness, knowledge and strength. And also: my therapist has sent me on a self-defence training which is really empowering. I can now set boundaries and stand up for myself much better than I used to. I am, to reference Brené Brown, learning how to brave the wilderness and show up with a soft front, strong back and wild heart.
Perhaps you remember the intention I set for this month. It came about very intuitively and was inspired by a physical heaviness I felt as I read over my inventory. I wrote: ‘I could not quite put my finger on it, but the heaviness made me think of a stern authoritarian person imposing their will. There was no wisdom or kindness in this persons reign; they were concerned about being in control because it helped them feel safe. There was an element of fear in their seriousness.’
After the coaching session, I wondered if this ‘stern authoritarian person’ was indeed my own protective mechanism at work. Perhaps it was.
At the same time, it also feels as if that ‘ruler’ represents others. People, both men and women, whom I have worked with in the past, some very closely, others only in passing. People who, almost literally, left an impression on me. A memory, that my body has held onto. As trauma-expert Bessel van der Kolk says: ‘the body keeps the score.’
And so when I made that inventory of ‘work’ and ‘making money’, my body was reminding me of unpleasant and sometimes even painful experiences with power and the damaging ways it was exerted. No matter how obvious it often was that people behaved the way they did out of a deep insecurity, trying to control their environment so they would not feel unsafe or unloved; they were hurting others.
We all react differently to such power dynamics. In my case it disturbed my balance. I did not shrug and forget about it, I absorbed the shock and stored the memory. Added new experiences to it, did not let them go. This might sound foreign to you. Exaggerated. Victimised. I would understand.
What helps me to understand this reaction and not judge it, is knowing that this is simply how I’m wired: very sensitive to whatever is going on around me, always picking up information. I have to make a real effort not to notice, hear, feel, smell, see everything all the time. And also, as I noted in my inventory earlier this month, experiences in my childhood have further encouraged this sensitivity, turning it into hyper alertness. There have been actual situations, when I was little, where I was powerless. Too young to properly process them or walk away, those experiences were traumatising. This is why I might react strongly to situations in the present that others don’t even notice.
It takes time to unlearn this instinctive reaction and replace it with a conscious response. But I am committed to healing, not least so I can start helping others who are dealing with similar demons.
At the same time, those exerting power in damaging ways have work to do as well. No one else can do this work for them. But we can hold up a mirror. Speak up. Draw a line. Set boundaries. Leave when we must. On which note, I will wrap up this post with a poem, written by Mary Oliver.
The Journey
One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice–
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
“Mend my life!”
each voice cried.
But you didn’t stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do–
determined to save
the only life you could save.
My rising sign 