#009 - On Money: Part 1

Just writing this word already feels charged and is bringing up some activation in my body. I’ve been sitting on the idea of writing about money for a while – yet there’s always been something holding me back. Fear, I think. And that fear isn’t completely gone right now either. Fear about being misunderstood, fear of what others might think, fear of being seen as something I’m not.

But if I connect to why I want to talk about money in the first place – there is something around having the courage to share my truth because I have experienced the benefits of someone sharing theirs. Whether or not I agree with what someone is saying – I always appreciate someone sharing something that isn’t straightforward to express. I want to live in a society that supports people to express courageously as I believe it enables us to evolve and do better, as a collective.

I spent a lot of my 20s around the more alternative, creative crowd. Although there is a lot that I cherish about the culture and the people in these circles – ‘relationship to money’ is not a forte in this collective, in my opinion.

A couple of years back – I found myself reflecting on how I wanted to live and what I genuinely needed to feel like my needs were being met. What came up was the desire to have my own place that I could decorate in a way that felt good to me – my own ‘safe haven’ to retreat to from the busy-ness of life and from the noises and energies of the outside world. The desire to be able to travel more and witness more of the beautiful places in the world. The desire to have beautiful items made sustainably with care – that supported local craftsmanship and local creatives where possible. The desire to be able to work with healers and bodyworkers who could support me further on freeing my body, mind and soul from tension and constriction. Being able to attend retreats and workshops that support us to connect to each other with more authenticity – healing how humans relate to each other. The desire to keep eating healthy, nutritious food that was grown without harmful chemicals and in a way that didn’t exploit humans and the earth.

Having these elements in place and meeting my needs so completely – I imagine would support me to express the best version of myself, which would allow me to do my best work in the world. What I mean by this is that it would most allow me to live out my purpose and make my unique contribution in this lifetime – which is ultimately what I feel I want to be doing with my life.

So – I became aware of the gap between ‘how things are’ and ‘how I want them to be’ in that material sense. Of course, there were feelings of frustration about capitalism and lack of access to resources in this process (as there had been throughout my 20s), but there was another part of me that was tired of blaming the outside world and all the ‘baddies out there’ for me not having my needs met. I began to wonder if there was another approach that would yield better results. I began asking myself the question:

“is my relationship with money the cause of me feeling this dissatisfaction and like I’m so far from living the life I want to be living?”

I turned my attention inward after all those years of being angry at ‘The System’ at varying degrees. I began to examine all the ‘stories I held about money’ – and imagining if people who made more money than me might have a different story – and if that was linked to why they were making more than me. I began to shed light to the emotions and feelings I had about money – where did I have a negative energetic about money – and was this causing me to subconsciously repel it?

I’ve spent my life around lots of different ‘money mindsets’ – my dad is a working class ‘True Finn’ (Finnish version of UKIP) voting man who would say things like ‘money doesn’t grow on trees’ and ‘you need to work hard for your money’. The message coming across from him was along the lines of ‘money is hard to come by, work is hard and you need to sacrifice yourself for it’. He would also have strong opinions about what is worth spending money on (technological gadgets, vehicles, sports) and what isn’t (clothes, make-up, anything aesthetic rather than utilitarian…) and make a big racket when he would be involved in buying any of the latter.

I find it harder to describe the ‘money programming’ from my mothers’ side of the family. Living in the Soviet Union – my family had experienced some events that would cause some serious disruption to one’s sense of safety, trust and security in the world. My great grandparents experienced the loss of their farms upon the collectivization of the Soviet Union in 1917. This was followed by a time of emigration within the Soviet Union – following the promises of where there would be work, houses and food available. My grandparents’ education was short and fragmented, not least by the onset of the Second World War and the invasion of Ukraine (by Germany this time) during this time. My grandparents told me stories of hosting German soldiers in their homes during this time – some of whom left them with their few ‘treasures’ upon knowing that they had been called on a mission from which they would not return.

I also grew up hearing about the loss of the savings that my grandparents had put aside for me and my cousins. In an economy where making money was not so straightforward – they had managed to make extra cash through the years by selling the produce from their garden and bringing over special wares from Moscow that were hard to come by in Soviet Crimea. They did “all the right things” – spent frugally, put money aside for the future thinking about their grandchildren. Then one day – the Soviet Union collapsed, bank accounts were frozen and they lost it all. I could hear the disappointment and the sense of concession in their voices upon telling me about this.

The ‘money story’ from this side of the family appears more chaotic and less straightforward. I feel like there is an underlying distrust around money and financial systems that I would have inherited from there. Not necessarily so much that “money is hard to make “– but “it’s hard to make it stay, it’s not something you can rely on being there”. And so perhaps, on that subconscious level – the rationale is that it’s best to just spend it straight away or forget about it, rather than engage in ways to invest it well or to use it productively.

On the other hand – when I was in my pre-teens, my family set up quickly became a more financially comfortable middle class as my stepdad became part of our family and there were two breadwinners again (my parents had separated when I was 5). I went to schools that were academically of a high standard, which *surprise surprise* even in Finland correlates with being well to – do (I believe probably less so, than in the UK for example).

So, especially in high school, I was around people who were on their way to becoming doctors, lawyers and well-earning professionals (many of whom have lived this out in one way or another).

I suppose that – in all honesty – I didn’t quite feel like I fit in there. Therefore, once I came to University, there was yet another change of direction. I was painfully aware of the state of my mental health, which could be described as something like “high functioning depression” – meaning I was able to perform and do most things on the outside, I had friends and people around me – but there was a big contrast between how I was feeling on the inside and what I was projecting on the outside. I knew that I needed to do something to address this – I needed to stop living for the outside world and really get in touch with myself, making choices that were right for me and not for anyone else.

This is when my gravitation towards all things alternative reached its peak. Being largely outside of the pressures of the financial system felt like it provided a freedom that was important to this exploration. Seeing all the things I could source for free or nearly free brought liberation:  ‘I don’t need to spend my life meeting the expectations and requirements of bosses, institutions and corporations in order to survive’. I was able to prioritise myself, my health, my values and what was important to me.

During this time I held more or less the following narrative about money:

-       Rich people are bad and are doing bad things to gain money

-       Money is the opposite of love. If you focus on making money, your relationships suffer and are not as deep/connected

-       Money is hard to make

-       I should not spend money on ‘luxuries’

-       Spending money investing in myself is frivolous / waste of money.

I wasn’t necessarily at all aware of some of these at the time – it’s more in retrospect that I’m able to identify the ‘money story’ that I held at the time. Another big aspect of this story had a gendered dimension, and it went something as follows:

“I will have a comfortable lifestyle where I get my material needs met, a beautiful home etc when I have a partner”

When I became aware of this – it was quite huge for me as somebody who had identified as a feminist for many years. I realized through observing my choices and actions – that I was forgoing having a lot of material comfort and financial freedom because subconsciously I was expecting to have these when I would be in a relationship.

There’s a recipe for a codependent relationship – not to mention all the other ways in which this programming was not serving me. Therefore – I began to change it.

Slowly things began to transition and now two years later I have a job that I enjoy that allows me the time to pursue my creativity and my dreams, I’m able to live by myself in a sweet little home that meets all my needs right now. I feel so much more confident about my professional skills and my gifts – and feel excited about developing them further. I feel more connected and open to the world, as I have let go of much of the Protective,  Judgmental Armour that I had taken on in order to justify and make sense of my position in the world prior. The Judgmental Armour would say something like “I am a better person ethically than all these well off people because they are sacrificing being a good person by working for that company/having that lifestyle/buying that kind of products”. This way, I was justifying to myself that I didn’t have as much as them financially, but I had this invisible ‘good person’ social capital instead. The downside of it was, however, that I would judge a lot of other people and feel disconnected from them.

Next time – I’ll write more about the two groups that have a propensity to having a challenging relationship with money – Women and ‘Hippies’ for lack of a better description. I want to share my thoughts on why I believe we have certain types of programming around money and why it’s important that we are open to changing that.