In working with my own money types, I have come to realize that some of the most important money strategies I need to implement in my daily life are to Relax, Express and Trust. These strategies can be totally different for someone else, but in my case they are meant to help my money “tyrant” trust that there is enough resources, money (and ultimately love) to go around.
Once I internalize this (for we can know something cognitively but not experience it directly), my tyrant can release its deep-seated fear of survival and exhale its gift to the world. Tyrants are often hoarders, and in our culture where about 60% of the population self-declare themselves as hoarders, I wonder how much of our true human potential are we “withholding”, within.
Relaxing and expressing are easier said than done. Yes, we all crave the end of the day when we can come home and relax over dinner (if you first don’t have to make it!), pour a nice glass of water or wine and enjoy the company of loved ones. Maybe relaxing is dancing, exercise, or curling up with a good book. Whatever its modality, craving relaxation doesn’t necessarily mean that it happens. More often than not we (or maybe I should speak for my fellow tyrants), feel burdened by a never-ending to-do list of “life” and so our beloved nightly off-time turns into a continuation of work.
What to do? Well, the consciousness of knowing that the tyrant needs to relax in order to heal does help. There is a certain permission is being told that it is ok, and in fact necessary, to do nothing sometimes.
A second step if this is hard is to create simple structures that “fit” relaxation into your life. An alarm clock can be set a particular hour that reminds you it’s time to turn the computer off. You can “plan” relaxation time into your schedule like any other commitment. Often having a partner to keep you accountable or share this down time with really helps.
And yet a third option, which I find to be one of the most powerful, is to insert the element of play.
I know in my own money biography I can to realize that I had internalized the notion that in order to make money it took a lot of work. (Note the subtlety: I said “in order to make”, not have money required work. I’ve had the gift of very generous parents who’ve often provided, and so I grew up feeling like I had enough). Yet the messages I received around work were different- work is hard, work takes long hours, work requires sacrificing weekends sometimes, etc. It’s not like my parents wanted to pass this down to me, but my paternal grandfather also embodied this way of being in the world so down the genetic line it came.
As a result I have sometimes shied away from hard paid work. I have many times volunteered years of my life. I have organized and lead countless organizations. But I have struggled to commit to a forty hour 5-day week. Fortunately life has helped me develop a flexible livelihood more to my liking and schedule. Yes, it has taken a lot of work to create, but it has also included a lot of creativity and play.
Today, driving home from picking my daughter up and thinking about the to-do list I had at hand, I was reminded my money strategies: Relax, Express and Trust. Relaxing can often be the hardest one for me and so I asked myself how could I bring relaxation into the work I need to do. The answer was: play.
Play helps us find the joy in any activity that we do. By bringing playful creativity to the other tasks at hand or simply having a bounce in your step as you continue on in your day, play can transform a mere job into a fulfilling livelihood. And play can remind us (tyrants) the wise old truth of not taking ourselves so seriously, because in the end we are perfect just as we are, we have accomplished plenty, and paradoxically real relaxation and downtime connections brings us the sustainable joy we crave.