In working with clients – and myself, the work is so often in unpacking the stories I have created (let’s focus on me) that shape how I act and show up in the world by default. One story I have been working on for what seems like a very long time is around money. Those looking at the title and waiting for the discussion around sex will have to wait for a later post…

One truism that came from my training as a Coach around money was simple; ‘everyone is crazy about money.’ I know I have my own weirdnesses (see below). Money is such a beautiful example of something that does not exist outside of our own minds, shaping the world. It is one of the most profound of cultural constructions, and I think we are still trying to come collectively to terms with it. Just read The Dawn of Everything, please.

I picked up a strong moral (read ‘unexamined rules’) compass along the path of my life around what was the right way to view money, wealth, work. As I was growing up as the youngest of 5, with my mother going back to work when I got to school age – and my father picking up all the extra opportunities for generating income that he could, I learned that money was hard. I learned that time was traded for it. That the trade of money for time had an impact on how much time with my parents I got – and how they were when I got their time. I hold nothing against them; I know they were doing their absolute best to make everything work – however I did integrate a message that money had a relationship with connection and at the extreme – abandonment. Either money or connection were available; never both.

As I grew up, I gravitated towards looking at the world through a lens of scarcity that arose from this perspective. I wanted connection and, therefore… I integrated my parents’ focus on working hard and diligently through long hours to generate results. It has been a successful strategy. It also has a downside; breaking out of that model to open up time and space to focus on life outside of ‘work’ has been a struggle for me. It has taken a while for me to be able to see that I am living from a story of how things are (by assertion). And there are many things I want to do with my remaining breaths and heartbeats that do not involve working for a living…

Developed in early childhood, this background vibe of money=abandonment has been persistent and has many reflections. I was bought up in a Catholic family and for a long time ‘Money is the root of all evil’ lived inside me as a truth. I then learned the actual quote was ‘the love of money is…’. This did not actually help when so much self-help literature and well-meaning support was suggesting I embrace ‘loving money’. Through my lens, it simply added evil to abandonment and did not give me access to anything new. The foundations were still firmly rooted. There was actually a more fundamental layer I needed to get to that I am (I confess) still in process on. (vulnerability alert – I am afraid that this post is just exposing my dumb ignorant stupidity that I have not shifted this story yet. However I am not letting that fear stop me.)

In the last few years I have massively shifted my experience of money – and still there is some upper limit and dysfunctionality going on. I have concluded it is time to do the work to shift that – permanently.

Yesterday I had another conversation with my coach around this subject, and I caught a glimpse of something different. Writing this post is a practice for me in teasing open the gap in the curtains that bit further.

I like having money and being able to navigate my world without having to get lost in the minutiae of managing it moment to moment to have my life work. When I do work with money and can no longer avoid it, I do it as fast and efficiently as I can – it is not a place I like to dwell (abandonment feelings lurk…). So there is a root of desire there; want. Another mantra from my childhood ‘I want doesn’t get’ drummed in at a young age arises. The tension here is that desire is somehow tainted as a bad thing, especially around money.

The ‘aha!‘ moment for me yesterday was to realize that there was something behind the façade of desire that I was missing; the ground of desire. Was it coming from love, or from fear?

I believe that this world has enough for everyone. We experience scarcity in the world as resources are very unevenly distributed, perpetuated by dysfunctional systems of distribution. The world is finite, yet it has enough to meet everyone’s needs sustainably. Nothing however large is sufficient however to satisfy everyone’s greed. Nine billion living like Bill Gates is not going to happen on this planet, or like multi-million dollar bonus bankers or CEOs. Greed is insatiable, infinite. A desperate attempt at filling an unfillable hole carved out by fear. Desire from fear, toxic desire = Greed. The dance-macabre of a zero-sum game follows where satiating individual greed is inevitably at another’s expense. The world is clearly far more than this; if this was all that was at play we would have destroyed ourselves and each other long ago.

How about Desire from Love? What if my wanting for my wellbeing is inseparable for wanting for others’ wellbeing? Desire in this sense is a compass directing towards a better world; for myself, for others.

So here is my practice, ongoing. To look at my desire; to allow it, to explore it, to choose it and look at the ground on which it is standing. Here there is access to Love even around money. I am curious to find out where this next thread of the journey leads. Watch this space…

27Apr23