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:

1. That I have no idea what is supposed to be the final “product” of my financial planning with people,
2. 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
3. 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.

Ever since I was a little girl I wanted to get married. I fantasized the big wedding, the glorious celebration and the never-ending story of love. Life, however, taught me that things do not always turn out as planned. My first intent at marriage became a fiery explosion; I proceeded to cancel a wedding at 27, and spent many years thereafter mourning what I thought life should be.

Now, five years later, I tried once more and successfully passed through the threshold of marriage, but from an entirely different place. I knew myself, I knew what I wanted and I eventually did get the big, glorious celebration but it all happened in ways I could have never imagined.

What made this time different? By walking through fire the first time around I was forced to look beneath my childhood fantasies and see what I really desired. I was asked not to settle but to use the pain of shattered dreams and broken homes to catalyze a new vision of marriage and the coming together of two people. In sum, I was forced to do my own work.

Much of this work included looking at my relationship to money and ironically I became a Money Coach making a living helping others look at their money relationship as well. (Yes, we do teach what we most need to learn!) It’s been an amazing 5 years of exploring money archetypes, having money conversations with myself and others, and ultimately making peace with money and seeing it as a loyal friend.

For me personally I discovered that I had a combination of three main money archetypes: the Martyr, the Tyrant and the Fool. My Tyrant dominated my money world keeping me tight and constrained. I liked keeping money “in” and suffered when money went out of my balance sheet. My Martyr often gave her services away, not liking to charge full price for her sessions, and yet secretly feeling resentful and depleted because by not having enough resources come in, she couldn’t fulfill some of her other needs. And then my Fool would sometimes come and shake everything up with a moment of impulse saying, “Screw this!”, spending unconsciously on workshops, bodywork and clothes to make up for this lack of nourishment I felt inside. It was indeed a vicious cycle, egged on by past and inherent money patterns that kept me in a cycle of feeling stuck.

Slowly and surely, and by working with others with similar patterns (again, Life gives you want you need!) I came to understand that my Tyrant needed to relax and trust, my Martyr needed to set boundaries and speak her needs, and my Fool needed to slow down and understand that impulsive behavior was only a Band-Aid.

All of this led me to the understanding that one of my deepest need was to be seen. I hear this often in my work- the need to be loved, the need to be valued and the need to be seen. They go hand in hand. But as my therapist wisely said, we won’t be really able to receive these needs (yes, it is OUR responsibility to know how to receive them!), until we value these needs deep inside. Food for thought…

I spent weeks before my wedding sitting with this, in meditation, in my walks and at home. What did it mean to value my needs?

One day it just hit me. Valuing my needs meant opening myself to the vulnerable places that deeply WANTED this. I needed to connect to my little girl who felt awkward and out of place and sometimes not seen. I needed to feel my deep longing and make that ok. And then, really only then, would I allow myself to open and receive.

The insight washed over me like a breathe of fresh air. I connected to my little girl many, many times in my pre-wedding weeks and vowed to include her thoroughly in the wedding, yet a little unsure how. She wanted spontaneity, she wanted to be seen, and after speaking this over with our officiant I let it go. I trusted it would happen in the way it needed to.

Our wedding ceremony was magical in so many ways. But my favorite part was this- right before we said our vows our officiant (who happened to be our therapist and new my deeper process with my little girl) instinctively said, “Elizabeth and Zayin, why don’t you take a moment to turn to your community and take everyone in”. It was like magic to my ears. I turned to the crowd with a smile and drank in everyone’s presence, love and encouragement. They were there supporting me, seeing me and as a result of deeply seeing them, I felt seen. I got what I wanted, in the most unexpected moment and in the most unexpected way. I felt complete…..

Now, weeks later all of this starts to settle in. My Martyr feels at peace. My Tyrant no longer has to hold on so tight (because ironically it wants similar things), and my Fool has slowed down. I have been shown next steps in my career and Life, those I never would have expected but I trust are right.

What made this rite of passage so magical? The work I did before it. Marriage became the celebration of a process completed and the start of a new passage with myself, witnessed by another. I don’t look to Zayin to complete me. That, I have found, within myself.

This Valentine's Day come hear Bloom's very own Money Coach, Elizabeth Husserl, speak to the intricacies of the relationship between money and love. She will offer simple steps to begin to untangle the two and help shed light on how our relationship to money can be an ally instead of a source of anxiety as we create the love we want in our lives.

Yet in my experience our shadow also holds some of our greatest gifts. It is there that we find important keys towards understanding some of our greatest blocks and where we can unleash unimaginable streams of vitality and potential.

Today a family member gave me the “gift” of showing me a part of my shadow. I say “gift” in parenthesis because at the time it did not feel that way. In fact it led to a pretty big blowout at the breakfast table. But in the aftermath of walking away and as the emotions begin to settle down (when extreme feelings get stirred, you know you’re on to something!), I began to realize that there was more there to be explored.

My first reaction had been out of defense (and to be fair, her delivery was not the best, but then again, who’s perfect), and because of that we did not get very far in our initial exchange. When I calmed down and started discerning what was mine and what was hers, I asked myself the important question: what truth lies in what she was trying to say? (And I knew there was some, if not I wouldn’t have been so shaken).

What I came to was this- she was speaking to my money archetype of the Tyrant, the part of me that is rooted in scarcity and as a result tries fiercely to control. And what happens is when I begin to feel that there is not “enough” of things- not enough time, not enough attention, not enough of resources to go around, I react with anger and impatience and my delivery of requests becomes harsh. Anyone who knows me can vouch that I have been working on this for many years. I inherited this harshness from my father, and he from his father. (Yes, we do have financial DNA, and yes it can change. You should see my father with my daughter now- total melt!). This is contrast to my mother’s side of the family who was taught to inherently trust in the “plenty” of things.

If the Tyrant is not your main archetype is can be difficult to handle or be in relationship with. They can feel tight and controlling as if it were always trying to get their own way. In fact another archetype (like the Martyr, predominant on my mother’s side) may accuse the Tyrant of being totally self-interested and keeping everyone else’s needs at bay. In reality however, the Tyrant is the most fearful of all of the archetypes because they are masking a deep pain. Something happened in their past that internalized a belief in scarcity and not-enoughness. Whatever they experienced was too much to bear; what was an emotional wound got internalized as a material deficiency and as an adult the tyrant aggressively tries to constantly satisfy his or her needs, at the expense of relaxing and allowing life to naturally do this, in more unexpected ways.

The wisdom of this archetype is that it actually makes requests (or demands), and lots of them! This per se is not a bad thing. It’s great to tell the world and others what you need, but what I learned to today was that only is the delivery of these requests just as important as the sheer act of making them, but so is the place from where these requests are made. (Scarcity vs. Enough-ness)

Inner Economics is a big part of what I do personally and as a living. I am in communication with my different money archetypes all day long. I have worked with my Tyrant, I have cultivated my Fool (its total opposite) and I have chosen not to feed into my Martyr. As a result my relationship to money is much freer, ever embracing and more interesting than ever before. But what I had not realized was that my impatience, a natural way with which I meet the world, came from a place of scarcity and much less, that this was a place where my Tyrant still lived. It was a part of me that I still had not seen.

However difficult, I am grateful from this lesson today. It reminded me of a friend’s comment 8 years ago that also changed my life forever. This feels like of one those times. Life throws a curveball but they are meant to shake you up to loosen the habits that have been internalized and habituated for a long, long time.

May you too embrace what feels at times may feel hard and hurtful. I promise you there is probably something there.  May it be gold…

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.

Embracing intensity is one of the hardest things we’ll ever learn how to do. When the going gets tough we often fight or flight. I’m of the “flight-ing” type. When a situation gets overwhelming hard I can feel my body tighten and I long to escape to my favorite place in the world- under the covers. My whole physiology seems to want to close (out of habit and protection) and many times I give in. Nonetheless over the years I have found the courage and gained tools to stand up in difficult moments. I learned that intensity won’t kill me and that even though my heart may feel like it’s breaking but it will survive. I know I will be stronger in the long run, and yet… I find embracing intensity is still one of the hardest things to do.

So just imagine the 17 months I’ve had to practice with my daughter Ixchel. Not only does a baby push all of our edges to the max, they have the special talent of knowing how to find those hidden buttons that challenge us to our core. For me it’s been the car seat.

In normal circumstances I don’t mind if Ixchel cries. I know it’s just one more way of her communicating to the world. In fact I know crying helps “stabilize” babies by allowing them to find an internal rhythm that re-organizes their world until the desired change is made by their caretakers. Crying has its wisdom. I can totally hang with it if I can reach out and hold her. Now that’s the catch. There are moments when I can’t.

In the car, and especially when I’m driving, I get totally stressed when Ixchel starts crying. It feels like there is nothing I can do. My practical brain knows I can try to distract her, sing her a song, give her a snack, etc. and god-forbid I try. But as the crying goes on and on, I feel myself begin to close. I know it’s my body trying to protect itself from letting in too much pain. Hearing your own baby cry without being able to hold her is torture. The closing begets the tightness which then produces the embodied stress. It’s exhausting! I arrive whenever I am going vowing never to venture out unless it’s naptime when she falls asleep in the car (and then…. I feel trapped).  Ah, the vicious cycle.

Fortunately as the months have gone by it has become easier. We’ve turned her car seat around so that she can see where she’s going. We found some great car snacks that really do keep her occupied. We’ve found music that we both jive to and have some great jam sessions in the car, etc. etc., one of the keys of successful parenting is to have a rotating bag of tricks.

But today as I drove her back from co-op and the crying began right on cue I realized that what had really changed was something deeper. Somewhere along the way I knew learned that as a parent I couldn’t prevent my child’s pain. If fact I wasn’t supposed it. It was bound to happen and it was better if it happened with me! Because then I could also teach her that with pain comes the joy of really feeling alive.

Practicing intensity invites me to step towards those really hard moments and relax. If I relax my body can open, no matter how hard it may feel. In that softening magic happens- we begin to feel safe in our own bodies and our pain can be used and absorbed. Pain becomes nourishment, not in the masochistic kind of way, but in the way of seeing pain as a life energy that expands the edges our being and creates more space. We realize that in the end there is nothing to fear but the fear itself, and living without fear is the greatest gift of all.

Yes, I could respond by saying- get a job, any job! To make ends meet. But unless this was a dire situation (which I would make sure to find out), I feel that this response would only feed into her sense of scarcity. The job market is tight. We all feel it. So what instead are we really being asked to do?

I offered her this- look at it from the other perspective, not by focusing on the “inhale” (a.k.a. the non-existent income) but bringing her attention the “exhale”. In other words, flip the lens around.

When we do this we begin to see that in the circular pattern of breathing and the cyclical configuration of recession and growth are different sides of the same coin. If we want to improve our inhale, we better look at how well we opening up space inside and letting go. If our exhale is short and tight, there is no room for deep breathes of fresh air (which have the possibility of rejuvenating in every waking moment). Or if our exhale is shorter than our inhale, our body is holding on.

To what? Not that is the question! In the world of money archetypes, the “Victim” has its shadow as well as its brilliance. Its wisdom is that it connects us to raw human experience. We know, we’ve lived, we feel. More often than not we gained this knowing through some pretty hard events, in some cases even traumatic. But if we hold on to this trauma, as a belief or stored in our hearts and body, the knowing gets overshadowed by a deeper hurt that keeps us stuck.

I’d ask my client: Where have you been hurt in the past? What are you still having trouble letting go of? What wisdom still needs to be seen? Then I’d tell her to go within to her Inner Economic council and sit with the archetypes to see what arises. Something always comes.

But if nothing does, I’d then say, go to the OTHER aspect of exhaling: What is the gift that wants to be released? (The real gift, our soul’s gift, not just what we’re good at). Life has a way of squeezing us in the process of discovering this gift, but this creative tension comes with a purpose- it helps us discern what has life behind it and what does not.

When we’ve discovered that gift (and here’s the catch- we usually actually know! We’re often just confused on how to deliver it), exhaling helps you direct your resources to where you want them to go.

So to all of us who struggle with the question: how do I sustain myself when I can’t even make ends meet? I’d say, go to your exhale….release, and redirect your resource. See what wants to be let go of and what wants to be delivered into the world.

I just finished reading Charles Einstein’s recent article in Ode Magazine (Sept 2011) titled, “Living in the Gift”. His closing statement was:

“The next stage of human economy will parallel what we are beginning to understand about nature. It will call forth the gifts of each of us; it will emphasize cooperation over competition; it will encourage circulation over hoarding; and it will be cyclical, not linear. Money may not disappear anytime soon, but it will serve a diminished role even as it takes on more of the properties of the gift. The economy will shrink, and our lives will grow”.

This last sentence really struck me: The economy will shrink, and our lives will grow. Why? Because it spoke to the other side of the coin- namely to the door that opens when another door is closed.

If our sight is only set on the first part of the sentence, “the economy will shrink”, what usually follows is anxiety and fear. We worry that our net worth will decrease; we fear that chaos will ensue economic destructuralization, and we are scared of losing any last semblance of prosperity and job security. In a nutshell we see the world as holding on by a thread.

Yet, when the second part of the sentence is added, “and our lives will grow” we see that the glass is not only half full of water, but that it also is overflowing. As the monopoly of money decreases there is room for us to “see” other things. We will realize that economics is not about money, but about the currency of exchange in relationships and the fulfillment of needs. We will see that true wealth is not accurately depicted by a numerical amount we may possess, but by the overall level of wellbeing we live by and express.  And we will wake up to the realization that what life is actually asking us to do is not accumulate more, but rather shed the layers that weigh us down and offer to each other the unique gift we came to produce in the world. In this process we shall “know” ourselves, and our lives will grow.

Charles goes on to write, “the original purpose of money was simply to connect human gifts with human needs”. What if instead of worrying about money we develop our gifts and discover our needs? What if instead of trying to bailout corporate debt we let certain doors close and structures expire? What if expand our notion of growth to that of the sheer act of generously giving of ourselves? Life would be different indeed. As E.F. Schumacher once said: “Small is beautiful”. When remember that our daily lives are composed by the sum of small things (which synergistically lead to great acts) we live more in the present moment.

Let the economy come back to its due size. Let our communities rebuild. Let us give of our gifts, and ourselves and learn how to intimately receive in return. A better world is possible.

My young daughter began to express a new stage in her development today- her emotional world was growing faster than her physical ability to express it. As a result we have started to see what are commonly known as the “temper tantrums” of the famous terrible 2’s. (yes…already). I can see her brain and thoughts becoming more complex, but she doesn’t have the vocabulary to tell me her new needs. The seven words and five signs she has learned so far do not suffice.

As a parent it is an interesting experience. Her frustration is totally apparent and yet nothing seems to satisfy an expanded sense of want- wants of more exploration, more interaction, or more who knows what! From the books I have read and the advice passed on I know that one of the best approaches for tantrums are to simply let them subside- don’t pay too much attention to them and they will pass. Or others suggest distracting the child and pointing them in a new direction more accessible to their skill level and other needs.

Ok, this advice makes sense. And yet I remain curious. What is this phenomenon really? Contrary to popular definition (a temper tantrum is defined in the medical dictionary as: “a sudden outburst or violent display of rage, frustration, and bad temper, usually occurring in a maladjusted child and certain emotionally disturbed people”), I would argue that tantrums are actually the sign of emotional evolvement. They offer the potential for emotional intelligence and can plant seeds of knowing how to navigate the emotional world if they are seen simply for what they are- raw emotion.

One of my favorite definitions of emotions is energy in motion (e-motion).  I think it speaks to the fluidity of the experience of watching, witness and embodying emotions as they flow through your system. They always tend to pass, and we are always met with something new. The skill then is learning how to be in the constant dance of energy flowing through you- be it anger, rage, happiness, or frustration- without clinging to any one of them or judging one to be better than the other. (You’d be surprised how many other definitions I found that stated tantrums to be a fit of “bad” temper). We don’t live in a black and world. Tantrums are not bad; they are just simply hard. They are hard because they require patience. They ask that we shift our agenda, slow down and tend to them (even if means not trying to change them but simply accepting that they are there are letting them pass on their own). They are hard because they don’t fit nicely into a box. But then again, what really does?

As I write this I begin to see the hidden treasure in all of this. (And I do confess that I was writing with the intention of making more sense of what I’m experiencing with Ixchel). The take-away I get to is this:

• Tantrums are actually an invitation to slow down
•  Tantrums are inviting me to look a little closer in my child’s needs to see new strands of life, and
• Tantrums are a mirror for my own life. Am I expressing the frustrations I too feel when my own growth is not necessarily reflected back to me by the physical world?
  

As soul-centered psychologist Bill Plotkin would say- the main task of a child in his early years in the “nest” is ego formation and taking care of innocence. The ego is forming, a child begins to know more and more who they are, and yet they see the world through innocent eyes and a beginner’s mind.

Can I also embrace the anger and frustration as it emerges in my own stages of growth and maintain the playfulness of a child. That is my work as a parent and that is the gift Ixchel will give me every time she defiantly shakes her head and screams a big fat “NOOO!”.

The challenges…oh, they are many! Do I have the courage to do this in public? Will I even remember my words when push comes to shove? Or more importantly, do I even know how to let my emotions flow through me without judging and without grasping? Truthfully I feel this last point is the hardest one. But I am committed to giving it an honest try.

For those who dearly believe that the revolution starts at home- “be” with your emotions today. See what they are really trying to say.  Accept them for what they are and see where your own tantrums get socialized or repressed and then ask- what needs to be seen? Your soul will thank you, and so will I.