The Real Deficit
Friday, October 26, 2012 at 06:26PM
I had an interesting conversation yesterday with my therapist about the real meaning of the word deficit. No, we did not argue on actual or anticipated monetary amount our country has incurred or the pending fiscal cliff. Instead we went back to the root of what deficit really is and how it is connected to our relationship to power, recognizing that how we relate to power determines whether we walk in the world from a place of enough-ness, or one of deficit.
This leads me to why I was actually in my therapist’s office in the first place. Just recently I expanded my Money Coaching career and joined a local firm to be immersed and trained in the world of financial advising. Although it’s been extremely gratifying experience (who would have thought!) and a really good fit, it has raised a lot of internal questions on how does my masculine relate to the world of money. (Not to say that my feminine doesn’t have these same questions but it was my masculine that really needed to talk). I asked, from what part of myself do I engage others when I do my financial advising? What is the internal power dynamic I experience when I am more fully immersed in the flow of money? What is that really nourishes me in the end?
Anyone that has stepped more fully into the money flow and made a lot of money can attest to a heightened sense of vitality and vibrancy that comes with it. As some in my office would say: “You feel like you are on top of your game”. Money can be almost like a sudden hit of life, a shot of yumminess that makes us feel successful and worthy inside. But is it really lasting?
Most people would say no, but there’s still this underlying value in our culture of acquiring more. Yet, times are changing and people are uncovering the veil. Money doesn’t buy everything- that we most definitely know.
So knowing all this and having many years of experience coaching others in this domain I was humbled to still see how much money still “whammied” me. I could feel the emptiness when it didn’t come in fast enough, I could see my judgment arise when my actual income did not match up to my projections. And even though my premise is always to help people first, an unconscious thread in my relationship to money was starting to creep up on me… and fast!
I did what many of us culturally creatives in the Bay Area do in a time of need- I went to my therapist. J
Without going too much into details I will say my session reveled three main things:
- Real deficit is an embodied experience. It is true that there are times when there is not enough in our bank accounts but more often than not regardless of what we have we can’t always feel enough.
- Feeling enough requires us recognizing where we are parting from- from an external image of what success and worth should be, or from the internal axis of our core. At this place there is a source of potency that anchors us in this world- in our sense of wealth, wellbeing and ultimately our service to others.
- And finally, that this place of potency (i.e. my relationship to my own power-with, not power-over) is equally important in obtaining an experience of enough-ness in the world. Money alone can’t do it (actually if you ever were to ask money, it doesn’t want this role as well!!)
If it helps at all, my place of potency looks like an alchemist’s flask. It’s boiling and bubbling, creating a mysterious witchy brew. When I put my experience of deficit aside when I sit down with someone this is what I connect to:
- That I have no idea what is supposed to be the final “product” of my financial planning with people,
- I can only gather information, put in a little ingredients of my own and taste the final brew (yes, it can be bitter indeed!), and
- Most importantly, that above all, it is the process of mixing ingredients that makes me an alchemist. From this place I can dance with others because I am interested and because I care. And from this place no matter what happens I can look at life’s encounters and say that the flask is already half-full.




