Commodotizing I LOVE ME

I am in the process of beginning a psychotherapy group around our relationship with money and I also have been wondering about how money impacts my "I LOVE ME" t-shirt business that I started in my garage to promote a message of self love. I see myself and those around me so focused on accumulating wealth that takes up a lion share of their mind.

What is enough, I wonder? There is something so big going on here with this money dance that rarely gets explored and I wonder about it. Even the most "spiritual" of folks are chasing - money, a big house, creature comforts. I feel slimed when folks commodotize inspiration, love, healing and spirituality. I remember the pastor at church when I was a little girl had a really fancy Cadillac and I always wondered about that car and what led him to choose it when most of the congregation had so little.

How does money impact meaning and integrity in our work? Struck by the movie, The Secret, I was sad and angry that its prime focus was on the accumulation of wealth as the thing that we should be setting our intentions toward. I am not saying we don't deserve to treat ourself well but that becomes an excuse to not really look at our relationship to money and our own obcession with it. Pausing, I pondered the concept of money and all that it represents for us as human beings: power, self-esteem, safety, a daily purpose, entitlement, distraction, luxuries and the list goes on. A far cry from money's original intent which was to free up time to pursue understanding of life's richer meaning. Perhaps a better resource is Jacob Needleman's Money and the Meaning of Life. Check out this brief interview in this Fast Company Article - http://www.fastcompany.com/online/09/meaning.html or another book I want to pick up and is in the mail now; Good Business: Leadership, Flow and the Making of Meaning.

I try not to pass judgement because I am the first to get sucked in but it is hard sometimes as I have also felt really slimed by healers trying to make a buck off me. I am clear, my intention is to remain true to the I LOVE ME message. It is hard to know if I should work with folks whose prime intention is money versus the message. It is hard for me to grapple with those aspects of myself...so it just sit with it.

How very little consideration we pay to the quantity of our life that is consumed by amassing wealth or getting by and how little is spent on the accumulation and cultivation of LOVE. This is what I want to invite those reading this to ponder. I know, I know, it sounds so pollyannaish doesn't it? But seriously, think about it. What is life about? The latest pair of jeans or cool porche or house? or the time to sit and watch the sunset, send a message of love to a friend, or share a hug? I just had a friend quit his job in Hawaii because he had to do something drastic to get on his path. He told me he has had many times in his life where he was penniless and he has no fear of it...I both thought he was nuts and at the same time, totally inspired!

What emotionally and unconciously lives beneath this pursuit of money for each of us and what might we do with our energy if we weren't trying to accumulate wealth or make enough to get by? What does generosity look like anymore? I believe the way we "do" money reveals enourmous amounts about our unconcious fears and desires that with a little attention could free us to make more fulfilling choices and lead amore joyful lives.

The I LOVE ME t-shirt idea was divinely inspired in one of the most intimate and intense spiritual experiences of my life. I was called to be of service to this message of love. It wasn't for my own ego or self importance but a deep and wide expansion of love and peace inside me and in the world at large. The purpose of this blog is to help me keep the message front and center. That said, I LOVE ME is also slowly cracking my own heart wide open and demanding I live this intention of LOVE with deep integrity outside the money dance as best I can.

The pleasure in putting money in its place has started to reveal itself to me. I was just talking to a friend tonight about how pleasurable it is to make the I LOVE ME shirts. I start off by writing an intention for myself on the white board in my garage, something nurturing, while I work with my hands thick in silk screening ink and my screen press, slow and gradual. In this act of creation, presence, movment(sometimes even dancing) and intention of self love there is joy. I suppose I could make more money if I farmed them out to a screener to make but it is the making of the shirts myself that has brought the message home to me. My own courage is growing as I try to to live this depth and joy rather than just marketing it. I continue to muddle thru the intersection of money and I LOVE ME with curiosity and presence wondering where the exploration will take me.