Hiking Yogini

As we slide into September, I find myself riding a wave of glorious growth and personal development. This isn’t a wave with which I’m completely unfamiliar, mind you. I consider myself a pretty darn spiritual being that’s always questing and seeking to peel away extraneous layers so I can get closer to my true, authentic self and my purpose for walking this earth. However, the thing one discovers when choosing to live this way is that NO ONE IS EVER DONE. Not ever. There’s always more to learn, there’s always another layer to peel away, and there’s always more ways to step more fully into one’s authentic life.

"Peeling Bodies" by Chris Dyer http://fineartamerica.com/featured/peeling-bodies-chris-dyer.html

Although I feel I’ve done some impressive work on parts of my life, like many, there are wounds and beliefs that I’ve let fester for fear of looking at them too closely. I’m quite human in this. Sadly, fear is one of the largest driving forces of our human race and I am not immune. BUT, at least at this point in the game, I am aware of when I’m avoiding. This past year has required me to look at a few places I haven’t visited in a long, long time—all to the betterment of myself and my business.

My business coach, who’s also a Ph.D. in Psychology smart chick that she is, has often said that, “Launching a business is some of the best personal development work you’ll ever do.” And darned if I have a counter argument! Leaving the safety of my corporate job with its cushy salary, 4-weeks vacation, and incredible health benefits was a colossal leap of faith for me. I wanted change years before I believed enough in myself to instigate it because this change required me to face my fears and release a lot of really old, untrue beliefs; beliefs that were directly impacting my ideas of my self-worth.

I’m proud and happy to say that I have steadily managed to peel away and discard a lot of these untrue beliefs. One of the most recent breakthroughs is around money. My parents did many things right, but they themselves were never taught how to have a positive and healthy relationship with money, so how could they teach me? I watched my Dad work three jobs so Mom could be home with the kids. This taught me both the value of hard work and commitment, but it also taught me that making a living and having nice things was freaking hard work all the time. As a child, I never saw ease around making money. And when we had it, it seemed to disappear quickly due to some unplanned event, be it a car repair or the real estate market crashing … there was always something. Thankfully, my folks learned a few things along the way and have managed just fine BUT the lessons of my youth stuck.

I grew up into an adult who perpetuated struggle around money.  I never had enough and after my divorce (in my early 20s) I accrued a very large amount of debt while making very little money. (Seriously, NEVER EVER live on your credit cards—it’s a really bad idea!)  What amazes me is that it wasn’t the secure job that changed my relationship with money; it was the colossal leap of faith which finally allowed me to release my old beliefs around money and get out of debt. Starting my business, investing in myself by hiring a business coach and needing to decide on pricing for my services demanded that I put a value on what I do.

A CEO Emerges

As September is technically the one year anniversary of launching Wellness Scribe full-time, I needed to assess the past year and begin planning for the next. I needed to decide what was working, what needed improvement, and what needs to go. I couldn’t be emotionally charged over these decisions—I’m the CEO and CFO and numbers are numbers. And the numbers painted a very clear portrait—I’ve been undervaluing myself all over the place and it had to stop.

Now, I will totally allow that everyone learns some variation of this lesson in their first year of business. But for the first time, I honestly looked at the festering wound of my self-worth and relationship with money and saw how it was impacting my business decisions and also how easily it could be healed. Fear and old beliefs were the only things holding me back from recognizing and acknowledging that I offer a tremendous service and value to my clients. It was time to release fear and fully step into my role as business owner—I’m not just an employee anymore. The truth is, the things I find easy and fun to do are NOT so easy or fun for many others; and there are a number of things I’m not particularly skilled at that take up a lot of my time and effort. As quickly as I can, I’m delegating those things out so I can spend more time serving my clients by doing what I’m really good at—helping them with their messaging and marketing communications. The fact that I truly do want to see my clients thrive and grow and know abundant success in their businesses just makes it more fun for me.

It’s All Energy

So the lesson I’ve finally absorbed on a visceral level and that I’d like to share with you is that money is simply another form of energy exchange. I perform a service and am given energy in the form of money as payment, or I hire someone to do a service and I pay them. It’s all energy exchange. I value what others do for me and am quite willing to offer fair market value for it. Why shouldn’t I expect the same? This lesson will take some nurturing as I do have a number of folks in my larger acquaintance that sometimes seem to loudly have issues with people who have money (often on public platforms like Facebook.) Consciously or unconsciously they’re making big assumptions and judging. I’m not about to argue that there aren’t many incredibly wealthy people doing some incredibly wrong things. But there are also other incredibly wealthy, moderately wealthy, and average income earners doing some wonderful things. The bottom line is, money isn’t “bad” and having money doesn’t make one a bad person. Just like everything else in our lives, its energy and what we choose to do with it is the bigger and more important question. As for myself, I’m going to apply another tidbit from my business coach:  “The more successful you are, and the more money you earn, the more good you can do in the world.”

Here’s to doing a whole lot of good in the world!

What are your thoughts on money and success? Have you struggled around these issues?