First you must be quiet enough to listen to your heart. This can be difficult when financial stress keeps us up at night or we quickly fall into a shame and fear spiral at the mention of money.
First you must be receptive enough to listen to your heart. This can be hard when so many voices (both inside and outside of us) tell us to be grateful for what we have, that more than this is fantasy.
First you must be brave enough to listen to your heart. This can be difficult when we feel hopeless and angry at ourselves for past behavior and past choices.
Let’s say that you take the plunge and ask yourself your heart’s desires. Let’s say you are quiet enough, receptive enough, and brave enough to listen. What might your heart say?
Here are examples of what I’ve heard others share:
- I want to share my art work widely and curate my legacy of what will be left after I pass.
- I want to focus on my own creative work and create immersive artist residencies.
- I want to be a pioneer in animal chiropractic and help ease pets’ suffering.
- My partner and I want to move back to her grandparent’s home country to get in touch with her roots and for me to experience living abroad.
- I want to prioritize time off for rest and to be a present parent.
- I want to be free of financial stress and have the option to live outside of the US.
- I want to be in a supportive partnership and be a parent.
- I want deep meaningful friendships.
- I want to own my time and be free of toxic work situations.
- I want to know I’ll be able to stop working at some point.
- I want to do meaningful work and be a supportive pillar for my family and community.
Listening to Your Heart is Worth the Risk
Once you are aware of your heart’s desires, owning your power with money is a natural next step. It may take years to set everything up and that will be time and energy well invested. Or it may all come together much quicker than you expected, way before you feel ready. Regardless, just being on the path to your heart’s desires is joyous.
Knowing your heart’s desires acts as a filter because it makes it easier to say no to things that don’t satisfy, or even work against you, like a job that leaves you ill or a lifestyle that causes stress.
Owning your Power is Declaring that You Have Agency
Yes, while extractive capitalism, political corruption, climate collapse and countless other systemic issues are the definition of disempowerment you and I STILL have choice. Our bodies themselves guide us to well-being, even when the best they can do is look for things to dull the pain like drinking, compulsive shopping, or denying that societal collapse around you affects you.
Any action you take that brings you closer to aligning your money with your heart’s desires matters. Things I’ve seen others do include:
- Opening a separate checking account for their business
- Tracking their spending for two weeks to see patterns
- Updating beneficiaries on their retirement accounts
- Looking up the cost of a graduate degree
- Deciding to stay with a paid off car rather than purchasing a new one
- Hosting an open house to sell art without needing a gallery showing
- Reaching out to a mentor learn about their book writing process
- Switching to debit cards from credit cards to avoid further debt
- Automating savings
No action is too small. If you’d like support on this journey I’d be happy to meet for a free 45-min Discovery call or you can learn more about Bosque Money community coaching.
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