hey there mermaids—
last week, grace and i shared
a conversation about how we channel the flow of money through our businesses & cultivate interdependence with our clients and collaborators.
today i want to share the story of how I’ve gone from chronic under-earning + insecure attachment to money to feeling sovereign in my money decisions + capable of channeling my cashflow where I want it to go.
to do that, i need to rewind a decade and introduce you to my college senior self.
🕰️ 🕰️ 🕰️
in 2013, i was a chronically over-achieving college senior with a 4.0 GPA, a soon-to-be-minted English degree, and a whole lot of questions about what I might do next with my life.
at the urging of one of my professors, i applied to phd programs. and when i got into a school in Chicago, that seemed way more appealing than staying put to work a part-time office job. so i packed up my belongings, moved across the country, and registered for classes.
what i didn’t know when i decided to go to grad school was that i was signing up for a decade of financial instability. my grad program had a set stipend of $22,000 a year for each student. i quickly learned that that was barely enough for rent + food, so i got side jobs at restaurants, on campus, and online to make ends meet.
💧 💧 💧
between 2015 + 2021, i worked 2-4 jobs at time to earn an average of $33,000 a year. which seemed pretty ok! until i subtracted $12k a year for rent, $6k a year for health insurance, $3k a year to keep my car running, and then was left with about $1000 a month for food + travel + clothes + shampoo + birth control + friends + fun + parking tickets + cheap drinks + nice drinks + concert tickets + etc.
and honestly that was fine for a while. but when my car got towed or i got sick or any expense over $100 popped up, i went into full panic mode. and my panic generally lead me one of two directions — to complete avoidance where i wouldn’t open my bank account for weeks while swiping my card with a hope & a prayer… or to anxious-attachment where my bank’s website was open on my computer at all times while I vigilantly tracked (+ shamed) every cent I spent.
🧊 🧊 🧊
while i spent much of my twenties panicking about money, i watched my friends get stable jobs with stable paychecks + health insurance benefits + 401k matches, and i will be perfectly honest with you that i was so jealous.
every boss i’d ever had told me i was really smart, and a really hard worker, and a really great team player, but i couldn’t seem to translate that into earning or having more money.
even after i got my PhD and i quit working in academia, i couldn’t break through that $33,000 a year threshold. i truly felt like i’d never earn more money than that. and i was starting to wonder if i’d always be stuck in the multi-job grind without much hope of having better insurance, supported time off, or any semblance of retirement.
🌀 🌀 🌀
you might think this story is leading to the revelation that everything changed when i quit those jobs and i started my own business…
but let me tell you that the first thing that happened when i quit working multiple jobs and started my own business was that the panic got exponentially worse.
suddenly every fear that i’d placated with a semi-steady paycheck surfaced angrily.
i was not surfing the tidal waves of money coming in and out of my business. i was drowning in my own narratives of how i’d never be able to earn enough to feel supported + successful.
🏄♀️ 🏄♀️ 🏄♀️
so how did i learn to surf those waves? well, it start with building simple systems for paying attention to money, then cultivating practices for regulating my financial + embodied needs, and then creating magical rituals for connecting with abundance + channeling it where its needed.
i just passed the two-year mark of running my own business, and i’d say that i’m finally confident i can stand up on this surfboard and catch the occasional baby wave. i’m still years away from attempting to ride giant swells.
🌊 🌊 🌊
so what does any of this have to do with the Water cohort of Living Systems? well, if you’re still reading this email, i bet something i shared about my money journey resonates with yours.
which means that somewhere in your work or life, you could use more support building the systems, practices + rituals that will help you channel money where you want it to go. rather than feeling like it’s always slipping through your fingers or landing in other peoples’ hands.
together, we’ll craft a ritual for regulating your relationship to money and create a centralized place to track your financial big picture. you’ll learn the skills of clarity, flow + fluidity, so you can feel $afe, $upported + $uccessful while surfing these waves.
