Money & sex: two pleasures that we all claim to want more of but often sabotage ourselves around receiving.
bacon’s got no hangups.
Whether we consciously realize it or not, our fear of _receiving_ is metaphorically cock-blocking the cash, cooch &/or cock. When we’re not blocking ourselves, oooooh mama that connection brings some GOOODNESSS into life. YUM YUM YUM. More please, thank you.
I have never been able to hold onto money, even when I was making a bunch of it. It’s like it instantaneously disappears out of my hands or I’m constantly throwing it back to others. This has led to the rather untenable financial situation that I find myself in.
Thanks to the serendipitous gift of a retreat to Bainbridge Island I organically uncovered the mistaken belief behind this behavior:
“IF MONEY IS INVOLVED, I’M GOING TO GET FUCKED.”
Now, why would anyone think this? And why is it even worth investigating?
Here’s my best guess to both of those questions for my sitch. First, the backstory…
That’s 14 year old me on the left. That’s a cute 15 year old boy on the right. His family had more money than mine. I ditched my glasses that year. Suddenly a word was used to describe me that I hadn’t heard before: pretty. Whoa. When cute boy asked me out I was amazed, giddy, silly and all of the other things a 14 year old girl is on her first date.
Here’s me after our date. Boo. Cute boy raped me. It was terrifying. But it was a forced blow job, so I thought, well, that doesn’t really count. After it happened he drove me home and never asked me out again. It shredded my self-esteem. My sense of self ruptured. I locked my self-worth away. I continually down played my experience and didn’t speak of it for 20 years. I stopped trusting my experiences.
I spent the next 20 years locking away my heart, my power, my self-worth. The boxes and locks got bigger. The addictive behaviors crazier and crazier. Money continued to be something that I could get but couldn’t hold on to. How was I constantly broke making six figures?
That receiving piece of myself was locked inside that damn box and I kept putting more padlocks on it. I couldn’t really feel my body unless it was really high or really low…but my brain was in control…and control was good because it kept me safe.
Then I started getting massages. I had a job where I was traveling around the world and jet lag was my new BFF. I’d “pamper” myself going to spas. At first, I was creeped out for people to touch me. My family wasn’t a big “touch” family and the only form of touch I really knew was sexual. I was freaked out that the therapist could somehow read my mind in the quiet and stillness…but eventually my body would take over in the session, shut my brain up and I’d leave feeling relaxed and energized. So I kept going.
And something else happened… I began to hear a voice inside of me…I think it might have been my heart that was in the box? I kept getting more and more massages and ended up in massage school. That began a seven year adventure into sensation and consciousness and listening. It was not what I thought I’d be doing when I graduated Lehigh with an engineering and anthropology degree.
Then this happened. My brain realized that it was part of a body and made friends with the neighbors.
And then slowly, the locks began unlocking and the boxes started opening.
And then I started putting the pieces back together.
And then this happened:
But the most striking thing that I realized from this experiment was how my locked away self-worth affected my relationships.
My relationship to my body, intuition and sexual energy…
My relationship to my sisters and women…
My relationships with men…
And my relationships with nature…
These are not the most attractive behaviors and I’m not necessarily proud of them. But looking at them I actually gained a huge amount of compassion for myself and understanding of what my big relationship patterns have been….and change starts with that awareness and compassion.
Then I got to the good stuff..visioning the future that I’m creating.
One strong primary relationship with a man. (Notice, there is no money inside of him anymore. Not relying on a man for financial support subconsciously anymore.) Plus creating with other women in a place of resonance, support and trust – leads organically to money…the money comes as a result of good relationships.
Connecting with nature, self-care and giving myself downtime is critical to my creative process and health. And that connection is extending to the feminine in general. It feels like a huge mystery opening up to me and is deep and powerful and grounding.
It’s an experiment in receiving and I’m looking forward to seeing where this is going. I’ll be writing more on how this unfolds. I realize that a lot of women experience that body/mind split and it’s important information that I feel compelled to share. We are hard wired for joy and healing and letting ourselves receive it is where the magic lies.
I want to close by expressing my huge gratitude to Susan Gibson for giving me the gift of this retreat. I highly recommend attending one of her retreats or conferences when you can. She brings a unique mix of head and heart and is an incredible host and listener. She holds a strong safe space for gentle transformation. I’ve spent tens of thousands of dollars on personal development in the last six years and this method of articulation and visualization through symbols and words clicked it all together. Love you Susan and my Temenos sisters from the October retreat.
xoxo,
kathy j.
