The gates to financial flow
The gates to financial flow
Consuming versus creating frequency
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The pandemic pause has been a long winter for me, economically speaking. I am a self-employed solo entrepreneur, which means I am my own boss and I own my own time. That part of this gig is great. The part that is not great is that if I don’t work, I don’t get paid.
Just two months after COVID closed down travel, events, and gatherings, I decided to close one small business: my online store, selling biodegradable glitter. At the time, I had no idea what a long road of restriction was still ahead of us. But I knew I didn’t want to keep paying the fixed costs for operating a storefront that had zero sales. I did a closing sale to clear out my remaining inventory, and switched off my social media and web presence.
My coaching clients wrapped up their contracts one by one; all were feeling the financial uncertainty and none renewed with me. New clients have been few and far between. Of course, there was no women’s retreat to organize during this pandemic. The TEDx event that I was invited to speak at, to share about Regenerative Purpose, was cancelled. Online opportunities to speak abounded – but they were limited in their audience reach and translated into very few book sales.
The past two-and-a-half years was a season of intermittent fasting, in many aspects of life: food, travel, experiences, investments. I went into lean living mode. Only local travel. Limited spending. Even with my modest, minimal lifestyle in Southeast Asia, I have been spending a lot more to pay for my daily life than I have been earning. I watched my savings dwindle while inflation raged.
Now, the pandemic is over. Things are back to normal. But nothing is the same.
I don’t really know what it is that I do anymore, or even what I want to do. Am I still offering myself as a coach? Should I work with people 1 on 1? Should I relaunch my group coaching program? Do I invest in promoting my book again? How do I promote my services? How do I make an Instagram reel? Am I being guided to focus on my writing instead? Is there another book in me? Maybe I need to focus on getting more contract work with corporate clients? Is it time for me to finally create that online course that I have been thinking about for years?
I restarted my online biodegradable glitter business. But it lost critical momentum while it was switched off. I found my own enthusiasm for it was depleted.
The confusion is deep. And the inertia is real.
At the same time, I feel this growing pressure to get some income streams going. It has been too long now that I have largely been drawing from my reserves, without replenishing them. I need to generate some financial flow to feel healthy.
What to do?
You know this common piece of advice: “you have to spend money to make money”?
There’s a huge part of me that wants to call bullshit on this, or at least say, well, not exactly. You know who I hear saying this kind of thing a lot? People who are trying to get you to buy something. (Sorry, not sorry.) I have been reflecting on this dynamic a lot lately and investigating what it means to me.
As with many so-called “truths” that have been co-opted to try to get people to part with their hard-earned cash, there’s actually a crystalline seed of truth at the core of it. And then there are layers of distortion and manipulation caked on top.
The basic spiritual truth that I see neatly wrapped up inside of this, is the belief that human beings are simply conduits of universal life force energy. From this perspective, the more efficiently we transmit the charge we receive, the more energy there will be incoming. Makes sense, right?
What’s missing for me is an inquiry into the nature of the energy that’s outgoing. I think when we consider the energy we put out, our intention is key. General self-help advice memes often miss this critical piece by making blanket statements that supposedly apply to every person and every situation. But in my experience, the way the universe works leaves room for a lot of subtlety.
The key question for me about whatever is outgoing. If you really examine the energy that you are putting out into the world, is it carrying a bored and hungry consumption frequency, or a creative contribution frequency?
Why does this matter? If the energy you put out is oriented towards consuming, with this hungry ghost energy, it communicates that “you” are coming from a place of lack. You can be consuming material goods, experiences, or trainings. It doesn’t matter what the object of consumption is. What matters is that you acquire it from a sense of not-enough-ness. That makes you a black hole, energetically speaking.
But if the energy that you put out is invested in collaboration, contributed to support your values, or used creatively, then it means that you are an open channel for life force flowing. That communicates to the universe that “you” and your energy field is fluid and generative. This quality is magnetic. The creative impulse of life will be drawn to you, because it knows that the energy moving to “you” will be well-used.
It’s a super tricky distinction to make. And it’s impossible to judge from outside.
A social media influencer might be creating a lot of content, which seems generative. But she might be doing it from a consumption frequency – driven to consume likes, comments, and new followers. A couples’ therapist might invest money to enroll in an advanced-level training, which looks like another form of spending. But she might be doing it from a creation frequency – driven to continue her ongoing education, and make connections with future collaborators that can help her develop her own online offerings. The flip side is possible for both of these scenarios too.
Are you spending and consuming to fill a hole inside (feeling lack and avoiding pain, fear, doubt, shame)? Are you contributing and creating from a state of overflowing (feeling abundant and sharing love, ideas, attention, skills)?
You are the only one who can really know what kind of energy your outgoing resources are carrying as your beacon to the universe. Anybody else would be guessing at best, or most likely, projecting.
This inquiry is alive for me right now. I feel a strong desire – as well as increasing practical urgency – to see more money movement in my life, while not having clarity on what I am meant to be doing or where the income will come from.
I have decided to try an experiment for the next month, with the aim of consuming less and creating more.
My self-prescribed protocol for this is pretty simple. It translates into two things:
taking a one-month hiatus from social media platforms where I have a tendency to numb out into obsessively scrolling – Instagram, and Facebook, primarily;
focusing on daily discipline to honor reserved time for my two main creative outlets: writing and drawing.
Let’s consume less, create more, and get some money moving. Who’s with me?