Letting go of the need for money

After reading The Moneyless Manifesto by Mark Boyle (aka the Moneyless Man) I've become more and more convinced that learning to live free of the burden of money is a goal worth pursuing. My goal is not to do without money altogether but to become less reliant on it, and less stressed about getting more of it! I'm far from actually achieving this but here are my thoughts so far.

Firstly, don't get me wrong. I'm not one of those people who think money is bad. To the contrary, money is an excellent invention that allows us to trade more freely and efficiently. However I've found that the more I have to rely on money as my only means of trade the more tied I am to an economic system that I take serious issue with.

Without getting too carried away on my bandwagon my main concerns with our society's current reliance on money are:

• The monetary system is no longer based on anything real. In fact it's based on debt. (If this sounds absurd you should take a look at the very informative animated film Money as Debt which explains this concept in simple terms). This means that in order for the system to keep working the majority of us need to owe money to the banks and pay interest on this debt. All too many of us have willingly taken up this yoke and in fact it is considered a fact of life in this day and age. 
• The monetary system is controlled by an elite group of bankers and politicians who invest our life savings into all kinds of morally corrupt activities such as resource extraction, weapons manufacture and polluting industries. This unjust and environmentally irresponsible behaviour goes on in our name, even though we may disagree with it. If you have money in the bank you are contributing.
• Reliance on money, and especially my obligation to repay any debt owed by me, keeps me chained to a 9 to 5 lifestyle that allows little freedom of movement. Instead of spontaneously moving through my life and taking up opportunities as they present themselves I am forced to maintain a rigid schedule dictated to me by my employer, or if I am lucky my clients.

Letting go of money is a frightening prospect for me. But the more I think about it the more I realise that the security we look for in money is really actually located in community. When we live in a supportive network of good folk who care about us we will always be ok. And when we put energy into these people, loving and supporting them through their trials, then we are investing in something real. This investment will pay off big time when we ourselves are in need.

Plus, we seem to have forgotten that there are other things we can trade besides money. Our time, skills and the products of our labour are all things we can share and trade with others.

Learning to let go of money is something I'm learning slowly. I know it requires a strong community as well as the willingness to live my life without many of the consumer 'essentials' that are marketed so strongly by the media, such as fashionable clothes, the latest technologies, books and music. Luckily our society is so wasteful that many of these items become available second-hand very quickly after they are released!

Have you tried becoming less reliant on money? Please let us know how you're faring...

Letting go of gender equality

I know what I'm about to write isn't going to go down too well with some people, but hear me out. Feminism has done a lot to provide freedom of choice for women and that's something, as a woman, that I'm very grateful for. However in the process we seem to have got stuck in the mindset that women and men are equal and to me this is a great shame.

In both eastern and western philosophical traditions we encounter metaphors for masculine and feminine energies in their most elemental form. In the east we have the receptive and inward going Yin balanced by the active, forceful Yang. In the west the nurturing, life-giving elements of Earth and Water are representative of the feminine, while the more active elements of Fire and Air represent the outward going force of masculinity. In both traditions we see depictions of gender balance, rather than gender equality.

For me, gender balance creates a harmonious way of relating where both parties are supported by the other. It does not mean that the woman no longer expresses the creative and active elements of her personality or the man his inner feminine qualities. Remember the Yin-Yang symbol: each element contains a little of the other. However, in our culture women are no longer Yin with a little Yang; instead, most of us are full on Yang, pushed by financial circumstances or our own drive to prove ourselves into a manic, stressful busyness that leaves us depleted and irritable. Too often we no longer have time to nurture and support our loved ones.

In a partnership based on gender balance the man's natural inclination to be assertive, decisive and goal-oriented can manifest more productively with the gentle encouragement, faith and trust of his partner, while the woman's gifts of inner knowing, intuition and nurturing are able to come to the fore when she is not so caught up in the outer world of action and accomplishment.

Now some will no doubt feel ill-at-ease about the words I'm using here. Am I advocating a return to a co-dependent state where the woman is reliant on the man to protect and provide for her? Well my answer to that is 'hell no!' There is no point, or even possibility, in going backwards here. What I'm talking about is a natural transition. We women were unhappy and oppressed being dependent and so we've worked hard to become independent. However as an ecologist I know that independence is an illusion. In nature interdependence is the natural way, and as we too are a part of nature this is also a healthy state for us.

Nature also teaches that the greater the diversity within a system the more stable and resilient it will be. When women strive to become like men we lose diversity and that means less stability and resilience in relationships, families and communities. This is because two beings of the same kind must compete to survive, and this creates power struggle and conflict.

The concept of gender equality is a hard one to let go of, particularly for women but for many men too. This is because it feels like we are going to lose our power, however I believe this is an illusion. Our culture has forgotten the true strength of the divine feminine, a strength so different from the masculine power we are taught to strive for. While the masculine pushes, climbs, acts, fights, the feminine supports, contains, gives sustenance. The Yin is the source of intuitive knowing, of wisdom and of the true strength which arises from gentleness and humility.

My journey toward this way of thinking began with the books of David Deida. He's written many books but one of my favourites is Intimate Communion: Awakening Your Sexual Essence. It's good one to start with if you're interested.

I suggest one caveat here: some women are born very Yang and some men very Yin. This can usually be seen very clearly in their natal astrology chart where there will be a predominance of planets placed in Masculine or Feminine signs. However even in these cases I believe the principles I am discussing here remain the same. 

I for one am enjoying rediscovering the power of the feminine. Perhaps you are too... If so please share your experiences.

Letting go of your career

Simply because I do not like the word, letting go of my career was less challenging than you might imagine. All that 'careering' gave me a pretty serious case of burn-out and I was all too ready to let the whole sorry burden fall from my shoulders.

Of course it hasn't come without its anxieties, money of course being the biggest one. But the funny thing is, once I set myself afloat at the whim of universal benevolence somehow I've always had more than enough.

Traveling to South East Asia was a good example of this. Within an hour of arriving in the town where I was to stay for the coming month, I had seen a poster advertising for someone to work in a guesthouse for room and board. And after this situation became untenable I sowed the seed to do astrology and tarot readings and this became the seed of a new enterprise that is now bearing fruit.

I do not see this newest venture as a new career however. The difference is that it is done in a spirit of playfulness. I like to earn money from it, but I will not stress myself unduly or turn on the hard sell to do so. This is a world away from the ten page proposals I would routinely submit to potential clients and funding bodies. Phew! What a bore...

And then the stress! Deadlines, regulations, bureaucracy. All tethers I can well do without!

Debt can be an especially strong tie to your career and one I have determinedly refused to accept. It's funny how all these bonds are self chosen - we literally sign our life away with the simple everyday choices we make, from enrolling our child in school to signing that mortgage paper. Every day we enslave ourselves a little more!

Many people pursue a career thinking that it will increase their status and influence within a community or network. Well weirdly enough my networks has grown markedly since abandoning this silly illusion and I find myself continually meeting people with whom I can collaborate in exciting, effective ways.

Letting go of your career is especially challenging when you have come to identify it with who you are. To find out if this is true of you, ask yourself whether you think of yourself as your job title, for example as 'a teacher' or 'an artist'. In such cases you are pretty strongly attached to your career and letting it go might cause you some discomfort.

Note that I do not suggest that you stop doing what it is their vocation to do. A vocation is very different to a career. One's vocation is the gift they give to the world, their niche within the social ecology. But unlike a career it is not something one has to strive for. It just happens naturally as we move with purpose through the world.

Letting go of my career was one of the most freeing things I ever did. It's been over three years now and I've never once regretted it :)

Letting go of being in charge

Until recently I held a job where a lot of the time I got to be the boss. I led teams of people in the garden and although we worked collaboratively I had a lot of control over the process because I was the one with the knowledge and experience. In the end, if there was a decision to be made I generally got the final say.

Just after I left this job I worked in a little guest house called Shanti Shanti on the Cambodian coast. Set on the beach with the waves lapping gently up to the little cane deck chairs, it's a place that should have been very peaceful. But actually it was often anything but! This is because the manager, an eccentric French gentleman, was very stressed indeed! And because he was so stressed his most common mode of communication was growling.

'Spoon, spoon, spoon!' he would shout at me in the kitchen, and then when I handed him a desert spoon: 'No! Spoon spoon!' The interpretation of this for those who are wondering is 'No I want a tea spoon.'

Once day the two of us, the only English speaking staff in this very small establishment, set out to mend a banner who's eyelets had been torn off. My initial idea, which I respectfully proposed, was to make new holes by cutting a small strip from the side, sewing a strong patch onto the corner and then reinforcing a new hole as one would a button hole. This way it would last for a good few years even in strong winds.

But my plan was not acceptable at all! 'Don't complicate things,' was the reply, and I was told to attach the banner to crooked bamboo poles with sticky tape. Of course this did not work! The result looked terrible unprofessional and would have lasted a week at the most, so we scrapped that idea after half an hour of mucking around. A series of new and increasingly wacky ideas ensued til I had spent the best part of my two hour shift on the project, but eventually the banner was up and looking fine.

This was a difficult lesson for me to learn. Of course I thought my plan was best but I had no say in the matter. Instead I had to bite my tongue and do what I was told. I'm sure many similar experiences lie ahead for me and each time I will need to swallow my pride and accept that I am not in charge.

But there is a blessing in all this. For the first time in a long time I was not the one responsible. I could relax and allow someone else to lead. This gave me the space to cultivate a calm and quiet spirit, and encourage the yin qualities of receptivity, gentleness and nurturing. Very soon my boss was confiding in me his fears and frustrations, and in this mode of openness I was able to listen and provide support.

Eventually we got along just fine, he and I. And I learned very quickly how to let go of being in charge!

Letting go of Prince Charming

It's incredible how strongly mythology can affect us at the subconscious level.

I'm an intelligent, independent woman. I've worked hard to become self-aware and I consider myself relatively emotionally balanced. And yet still I find myself caught up in what my friend calls the 'romance narrative trap', the mythology that when we find our Prince Charming (or our Beautiful Princess) we will then go on to live happily ever after.

One of the most dangerous aspects of this myth is that it gives us the idea that unless our partner is perfect there must be someone else out there who is a better match for us. We expect things of our lovers that we would never expect from any other person and we're terribly disappointed when they fail to live up to these expectations.

As a result, instead of loving our partner, we attack them with a barrage of criticisms. We focus on their faults and weaknesses, instead of their many beautiful qualities. They are not Prince Charming, and therefore they are not good enough.

The reality is that relationships were never designed to make us happy. If you really think about it, being 'in love' is generally more of a painful experience than a happy one! The beauty of relationships is that they confront us with our own darkness, they push us to work through our woundedness and they insist upon us being the best version of ourselves that we can possibly be.

Relationships exist to support the ongoing evolution of two people by providing a mirror in which we can see ourselves more clearly.

My lover is full of faults and weakness, just like every other human being on this planet. And just like me. By letting go of the need to find Prince Charming I am freed to love him for who he really is, and to see the unique beauty that is within him.