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One of my recent obsessions has been trying to rewire the way I relate to money.

I am fascinated by the way we relate to everything: our worth, our bodies, other people, our possessions, and—of course—money.

Specifically, I love observing how we experience money, value, love, and power in our nervous system.

I have been running my business for over six years now. But for the longest time I was afraid to call it a business.

I never thought I had it in me. I did not believe that this was possible for me. And, frankly, I was afraid of the responsibility.

I was raised by people who traded their time and energy for paycheck. I began my work experience by doing the same—until my first “real job,” at JP Morgan on Wall Street in New York, where I saw that I was also giving up my soul.

It was the late 80s and I’d been recruited with fanfare into their Management Training Program and received an offer of employment before I graduated university. They threw a lot of money at me, relocating me to New York and paying for my MBA.

It felt like I won a lottery. Certainly, my immigrant parents felt that all of their sacrifices to pay for my education had finally paid off.

Until the job sucked my soul right out of me.

Then there was a long stretch when I was receiving money via my husband. I was grateful for not having to sell my soul at some other cringy job, but looking back at those years now, I know that I definitely worked hard for his money, too. I was earning it by playing the loving wife (and by extension the loving daughter-in-law), the tireless mother, the hostess with the mostest, all while trying to be perfect.

Until, over time, all the bending over backward to earn my keep sucked my soul right out of me, too.

The only way I knew how to survive—whether to earn love or money—was through self-sacrifice, self-abandonment, shapeshifting and manipulation.

In my late 40s, life ushered me, while I was kicking and screaming, into a new chapter. I had to learn to access love and money by being radically, unapologetically myself. Putting value on my time, charging money for my gift, and stepping into my power was scary and overwhelming.

I resisted every step of the way.

Over 10 years later, I see that nothing—certainly not my MBA—taught me about money more than going through the trial by fire that is the journey toward getting paid for being me.

I learned that money doesn’t come from other people.

Other people are vehicles for distribution of money: we exchange value.

Value is created when we use our energy to make an impact.

My voice, my thoughts, my words, my heart emit frequency.

That frequency attracts or repels.

I attract not what I want, but what my nervous system feels is safe for me.

I attract money (and people) through the tuning fork of my nervous system.

And here is where this work around money really coincides with my work around love and relationships:

Because we attract what we are a match for.

Our relationships with humans are affected by the energy we bring in. What we carry as baggage of thoughts, beliefs, expectations, sense of worth, power, safety and trust is how we show up.

Same with money.

I never realized the extent of my money blocks until I had to ask for money to make a living.

In the process, I confronted many layers of my own worthiness issues, shame of asking for money, fear of being perceived as greedy, all kinds of nonsense about people who have lots of money and people who don’t have any.

Most of what I believed about money—what I inherited from my family and culture at large—ended up being simply not true.

Money is energy. As such it is neutral.

The emotional charge we experience around money has to do with the meaning we assign to the numbers. The meaning we make affects the way our nervous system responds.

We attract and repel money based on our own beliefs, shame, and sense of (un)worth.

Just like love.

We are talking about feeling safe to receive.

The game changer is the work of showing up for life from a place of worthiness, embodiment, and nervous system regulation.

Contrary to popular belief, it is not about doing more. It is about training our nervous system to meet the edge of our comfort zone, and tolerate the discomfort that stepping out of comfort produces. That is how we upgrade our capacity to receive more:  more love, support, wealth, and all the goodness we seek.

In 2018, I received my first 50 euros from a coaching session.

It was not a windfall, monetarily, but I remember the exhilaration I felt: in that moment I understood that I got paid for being me!

For the first time in my professional life, I did not have to perform, pretend, compete, or please for the money.

The person was drawn to my message and exchanged money for something that felt valuable.

Between then and now has been a journey of :

>> Retiring the beliefs that bred my insecurities since childhood,

>> Working through impostor syndrome,

>> Learning to be with the fear of making mistakes and disappointing others,

>> Healing issues around money and self-worth,

>> Rewiring what it means to be a woman my age and what is possible for me.

Getting paid for being me has meant:

I’m prepared to find creative and sometimes unconventional solutions to get my needs met.

I exchange money for my offerings in a way where all parties feel nurtured.

I resource my life with play, rest, dreaming, creative self-expression, and pleasure.

Fifteen years ago life began preparing me for today.

Watching everything I knew and understood about reality crumble, including my own self-concept, was the most frightening thing to live through.

Looking back now, I am in awe of the perfection of it all.

During a Q&A with Kate Northrup during her three-day event, Good with Money, that I attended last May, I shared a few sticky beliefs that I’ve been reluctant to retire. I’ve been deferring some of my power to my husband (an inherited habit), and needed help to break out.

Through a quick somatic exercise, Kate guided me to connect to my solar plexus—the seat of personal power.

With my eyes closed, I was focusing on the Manipura chakra, when I received a vision that I was accepting a crown during a coronation ritual. I’d received a similar vision just that morning on my walk.

The message was clear: it is time to step up.

To accept the mantle of power.

It is my turn now: I am here to serve.

And this calling is much greater than my egoic fears or preferences.

I am endowed with a gift for a reason.

And I am not to hoard it, but to bring it in service to others, without resistance or shrinking.

When I am in service to something greater than me, I become the perfect magnet for all that I need.
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“The meaning of life is to find your gift. The purpose of life is to give it away.” ~ David S. Viscott

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