Are you a healer, teacher, spirit-centered business owner living in abundance?
… Or, are you a lightworker doing the poverty mindset two-step? The reason I ask is because I had such a hugh “aha!” yesterday about healers, teachers, lightworkers and money that I simply must share it with you.
The Lobster Tank
Have you ever been in the fish section of a grocery store and watched lobsters in a tank? Have you noticed the way they will pull each other back down into the tank when one tries to scale its wall? It’s this bizarre, crawling-pulling-climbing action that gets none of them anywhere beyond firmly entrenched within the tank.
Well, I’m beginning to see that lobster tank among an ever-decreasing but very real segment of the lightworker community. Let me explain …
The ‘Ain’t Got No Money’ Blues
As caring and compassionate folks, we who are the uplifters of this world, by our very nature, want to help those less fortunate. We develop skills, create services and businesses to sooth, inspire or support others. But the dilemma comes when we have to charge for our services. We see so many with so little and think, “Well, I sure don’t want to be greedy and overcharge! These folks need my help.” So we lower our prices to the point of absurdity and still cringe whenever someone projects their financial frustrations onto us by suggesting we are still too expensive, and because we are healers/teachers/spiritual peeps, we should give them our juju for free. (some martial arts masters have this dilemma too).
Sound familiar?
Stop Pandering!
So the message I got loud and clear yesterday was that I had to stop pandering to the poverty mindset. The mindset of some of those who could benefit from my services, and the mindset within myself that says my time, effort and expertise aren’t even valuable enough to support myself and my family.
Because when you consistently (shall I say, chronically) undercharge for your mastery, you act like a lobster in a tank: you keep yourself trapped because you let the poverty mindset of others drag your a** right back into the tank.
The Corrupt System
Noam Chomsky, commenting on the essence of what an economy is, once wrote something along the lines of this: money just needs to move. You could have an economy based on burying and unburying hills of cash. It doesn’t matter. The essence of it is the movement and exchange. (my apologies to Chomsky scholars for bastardizing this quote). Now as we know, the world economy has been corrupted by greedy parasites who’ve had some impressively creative, subtle (and not so subtle) and hidden ways to suck huge portions of the planet financially dry.
So what’s happened, of course, in the process, is that a lot of peeps have spent a lot of time living in poverty. In fact, after generations of various shades of enslavement, serfdom, cast oppression, sexist oppression, racist oppression and educational disenfranchisement, what you get is, well, a big fat MESS.
We know this. It’s near its end. We’ve got to move forward.
Change Time is NOW
We’ve got to change and we’ve got to change now. And when I say we, I don’t mean the system, I mean YOU. I mean ME. I mean every Healer, Teacher, LightWorker and Spirit-centered biz owner. It is time for each of us to properly value our worth in the world and charge according to the economy we are living within. Look, if your rent or mortgage is $1,000 a month. If you haven’t got health insurance or enough money to take care of your kids with whole, healthy foods, clean, safe shelter, quality clothing and quality TIME because you’re working all the time, then plain and simple: you ain’t charging enough.
What about those who can’t Afford You?
Now you’re probably thinking, “Dawn, what about the folks who simply could not afford my services if I charged $80 an hour instead of $40?” … here’s where the ‘pandering’ comes in. Now, depending on what you do, this dilemma may be more or less, shall we say, intense.
When you’ve got a valuable service that can and does help people in powerful ways, you are doing a disservice to everyone – including the poverty mindset peeps – by under-charging and/or giving it away for free. Look, there are always going to be folks who really have had such a hard time that they can’t get their life together enough to get out of their financial circumstances. This is what things like sliding scale and pro-bono work are for. But by chronically keeping your prices low, you effectively let a few folks pull you back into the tank like a grocery store lobster.
The Law of Attraction and Abundance
Today, we humans are awakening to just how powerful we really are. And if you are a lightworker, you know something, at least, about the power of the law of attraction and the possibility of creating an abundant income stream despite the corruption (which will be ending soon, anyway), and despite the financial conditions you’ve lived with up to now.
So if you know and understand this, do you see how, by keeping your prices ridiculously low for those still in poverty mindset energetically panders to them? Do you see how, by charging a miniscule amount for your hard-earned skills because ‘the economy is bad’ simply feeds the bad economy and the poor choices others make about where to put their thoughts, energy and intentions (to say nothing of their actual money).
Think about it: how many clients or customers have you serviced who will think nothing of spending $4 bucks on a starbucks, or $15+ for a night of boozing, or $30 at the dollar store buying plastic flotsam they really don’t need?
2012
Let’s get some perspective here on what’s of value, what’s not, and where you put your time, energy and money. It’s 2012 folks – time to poop or get off the pot. If you’re a lightworker, your services are needed, but if you charge so little that you are struggling – simply to cater to the poverty-mindset peeps who will not choose to invest in their own well-being unless it’s ‘dirt cheap’ – then you’re doing everyone a disservice.
And of the folks who really, truly want your juju but really truly can’t afford it? They will find a way. Really, they will. Because when people WAKE UP and are truly ready to rise above their inner self-sabateur, there is nothing – and I mean nothing – that will stand in their way.
There are those who will continue to externalize their power – whether you make your healing/empowering work available to them or not. Healing from the poverty mindset is an inside job and when someone is FED UP enough, they WILL make the change. I know. I did it.
As Michael Beckwith said in the movie, The Secret, “From Nothing and No Where, A Way Will be Found.”
An Invitation
To be of highest service to those ready to shed the oppressive shadow of a dying paradigm (manifested as being ‘broke’) I invite you to consider charging what you’re worth – and then see what happens …
Does this piss you off? Does it offer insight or inspiration? What are your thoughts on this ‘money dance’, poverty mindset and the need for lightworkers to model abundance by charging what we’re actually worth? I would love your feedback. Please share your own wisdom or feelings on this subject in the comments below.
Many blessings,
Dawn
I agree with a lot of what you said, Dawn, and you make some great points. Like you said, with folks who truly can’t afford our services there is pro bono work…there is also work for services, which I use a lot.
With so many people out of work and homeless there is a greater need than ever for our services and many people, through no fault of their own just cannot spare the cash. That is a fact. It may have nothing to do with their choices, but more to do with the choices of some of the greedy parasites you referred to, its simply their circumstances. Its where they are at the moment. Its not their fault.
Still, I have found that when I suggest work for services many people are eager to work out that kind of arrangement, it serves everyone and protects their dignity. In fact if I can work in some kind of practical teaching exercise into the work they do in trade for services it is even more effective.
One caution…beware lest we become that which we reject.
Beth Barrows, C.P.H., CPNLPCLC, Reiki and Karuna Reiki Master-Teacher, etc….
Hi Beth, you’ve definitely fleshed out some things I didn’t get into in the post (it was already so long!). Trade/barter is indeed an excellent option, and will immediately show you who really wants to make the shifts and changes and healing within, and who simply wants to hold onto the victimization of externalized power (power being outside themselves).
However, I am not worried about ‘becoming that which [I] reject’. Such is the result of a reaction-based experience, not a thoughtful, intentional unpacking of the mindset of lack, and a genuine intent to raise consciousness and vibration.
While there is no ‘fault’ there IS personal responsibility. And despite the very real evidence of parasitic entities which steal from the masses (banksters, etc), each of us, no matter how ‘down on our luck’ can and do make choices about where to flow our energy. And it is this awareness and intention of where that energy flows that I’m talking about. I’ve lived in developing countries. I’ve encountered many an impoverished beggar – children, nursing mothers, elderly, limbless war victims… I am not blind to injustice and acute suffering. But what I’m talking about are folks who may have limited income, but who are also carrying a mindset that folks who serve and help OWE them something – or that we shouldn’t charge for our work. There’s no real logic to this, since even the most generous lightworker in the world still needs to live within the economic system we’re currently in.
Now if a healer has a community of folks who want to buy his/her groceries, clothe her kids, pay his rent/mortgage and cover transport and overhead costs, well, then of course, this person doesn’t need to charge for services. But until that comes, I do believe that those who are healers and teachers have the right to live an abundant life, to charge for their services and to work out barter or sliding scale or pro bono IF and when needed.