Money: What's a Person to Do?
Winter, 2006
I am not alone in my angst and obsession about money. People I encounter, whether clients, friends or family, tell me their version of this malady all the time. Personally, financial worries have troubled my marriage, my sleep and my heart for the last six months. I feel like I'm being stretched between two stakes that are impossibly far apart, for I've said yes to a vocational call that is financially impractical. I have entered a training programme that requires all the energy, time and fortitute I possess, and more money than I'll ever have.
I took this step only after a great deal of resistance, for it makes no logical sense to me. Having lived all my life in Western culture, I’m as rational as most people. My head tells me that I’m being financially irresponsible, that I’m “too old” to undertake something as demanding, expensive and long-term as this training. Yet, I see no future without it. How can I say no to my calling? How can I survive financially? The two questions seem mutually exclusive, like I can have one or the other, but not both. On the other hand, I can see myself losing out on both.
My course started in September. By mid-December, my resolve to pursue training was about to break under the financial strain. A great temptation kept suggesting that I give up training, put my nose to the grindstone and take on any work I could find, keep my eyes on my bank account and try to forget the call I had glimpsed. I knew that psychologically this route was ill-advised. It had become clear to me that I’m being asked to trust life, trust my calling. Failing to do so would hinder my inner growth. That’s a very high price to pay. So is bankruptcy.
One afternoon in December, my husband and I talked about cashing in our RRSP’s and using them to meet our living expenses. That would relieve our financial pressure for about six months. Everything within me told me that this was not the right thing to do. But oh, we both felt worn down by the stress of our ongoing lack of money.
That night, as I drifted into sleep, I heard a very strong, clear voice. “Recognize your money complex,” it said, “and don’t allow it to determine your behavior or make a decision for you.” My eyes snapped open. I reached for my pencil and scribbled the words down in my dream journal. As I did so, something inside me came unknotted. I could breathe again, and I entered a sleep of profound peace.
The next day, I pondered the words that came to me at the border between wakefulness and sleep. I knew they were right. I was caught in a complex—an autonomous bundle of emotional energy attached to an image (money) in my mind. As long as I don’t recognize a complex, it takes charge of my actions. All the signs were there: fear, confusion, a powerful urge to DO something. My money complex had me by the throat. It was about to rob me of sound judgment. I was not in control of my thoughts or my faculties of reason. I felt driven into action by something within me that functions independently of my will. This complex has made decisions for me in the past, causing me to close the door on opportunities because “I can’t afford it”. It has often kept my life small.
In spite of recognizing my complex, I remained trapped between two realities. Financially, I can’t afford the training; psychologically and spiritually, I can’t afford not to hand myself over to it. My opposing needs carry equal weight, but in two different worlds: the outer world and the inner world. What was I to do?
The wonderful thing about this dialogue with myself is that it was devoid of angst. Having seen my complex, I was able to consider my situation without anxiety.
A few hours later, as I puttered about my kitchen, an inspired idea dropped like a pearl out of heaven into the still pool of my mind. It was an answer to my dilemma, and I knew it. The wisdom of it “clicked” within my body.
I shared my thought with my husband. His eyes cleared, his lips curved into a smile, his head nodded. Yes. It sat right with him. We approached a person who was a central player in the plan that came to me. He too said, “Yes. I’ve wanted to support you but I haven’t seen an appropriate way to do it. This is the answer.”
I came within a hair’s breadth of walking away from something that’s very important to me because I wanted relief from the financial anguish. My husband and I were behind two “eight-balls” in our fiscal situation. The inspiration that came to me addressed the larger of the two balls. We’re still behind one, facing a significant shortage of money every month. My ego wants financial security while the Divine Spark within me continues to ask me to do something that makes such security unattainable.
This is not an unusual dilemma for modern women and men. Many of us hear the whispers of our heart and realize we don’t have the money to do what we feel we must do. The challenge is to bring our head into a position of supporting our love, our passion, our calling. Our head knows how to be rational and reasonable, and it’s susceptible to fear. If our head can recognize when we’re in the grip of a complex (often characterized by fear), then it has half a chance to join with our heart. The hope is that we’re strong enough to tolerate the tension, which is caused by the gap between our call and our reality, while our head and heart wait together for a new and workable way to reveal itself.
There are no guarantees, of course. Any time a “third way” appears, it comes as a gift of grace. May you be so blessed in whatever situation is creating your angst.