Our matriarchal inheritance

This post is part of Mindful Money week. Do check out my previous posts.

"It is important for women to get wealth in our hands.
As western women we have the opportunity to claim our birthrite, to create wealth, doing something that we love. 
It is our birthrite but not necessarily our destiny." 

Sage Lavine

FACT: The majority of women for the majority of western history have had no money of their own. They have been excluded from the power, status and freedom that money brings.

FACT: Women have been systematically prevented - by laws, morality, religion and social mores, from having the right to earn, be financially independent, inherit or save.

It is little wonder that we women can be scared of money and feel under-confident around it today.  This is our story. Our ancestors' story. This is our collective unconcious.

Our bodies have been bought in marriage with dowries, domestic servitude, prostitution and slavery. The fear of destitution has kept women in unhappy, abusive marriages for centuries.

We have given ourselves to mothering and householding, some of the most demanding work around, for free, for generations uncounted. Our sense of lack of deserving for putting real value to our work is endemic and has been reinforced from every side.

Now you may well be a feisty independent woman, with your own bank account and income and a partner totally committed to your blossoming. Scrub that! If you're reading this blog I know you are!  (Even if your inner confident girl is curled up and having a little sleep right now.)

So what's all this got to do with you? You've never been a slave or disinherited for being female...

But wait - most of us still, to some extent, hold the underlying inheritance, cultural, and epigenetic, of women's financial weakness.

Hell, research consistently shows that women are less likely to go for promotion, ask for a rise or apply for the highest paid jobs. In the wage earning community women. Women still earn 79% of every man's dollar. FOR THE SAME JOB.

This is not about man-bashing. I am a deep lover of men. (Some men especially, Mr DA ;) xxx) Nor is it a whine, blaming everything on history.

But it is part of our cultural and historical conditioning, an innate part of our thought processes. If we don't see this clearly, then we blame ourselves for our weakness, our stupidity.

And does that empower us?

Nope, it puts us back in our box. Like the abused blaming themselves for the abuse perpetrated against them.

Take a few moments to reflect on the women in your family, your grandmothers, mother, aunts... What financial power or independence did they have? Did they know their own worth? Did they value themselves. Could they give and receive, equally, with joy and love? What was the power balance in their relationships? What was their currency: guilt trips, emotional manipulation, love...?

Mine is one of creative rainbow mamas, strong, creative women on both sides devoting themselves totally to motherhood, leaving their soul work and immense creative ability to become hobbies and something which decorated their houses and adorned their loved ones, but went no further. The scope of children narrowed their worlds and something was felt as lost... Their gifts were not shared with the greater world, that would have benefitted hugely from them. And they from it...

For me, my need to contribute financially to my family, even to a small extent has been a vital part of my sanity. The more I am financially dependent, the more I feel lost in myself, in the world. To earn for my work is my creative conversation with the universe and the world beyond me.

And you? What is your matriarchal inheritance?

Name your price

Do you know the Universe's favourite joke?

It's a one liner. Told ad infinitum. Even though I don't seem to find it hugely amusing.See if you recognise it!

This little routine goes something like this:
Me I want to write a book (teach a course, paint a picture...)

Universe: great, let's get to it.

Me: ta -da! Hurray! Get me! I just wrote a book!

Universe: congrats! Now name your price!

Me: but oh, I don't want to make it too expensive, it's not really worth much!

Uni: Great! Name your price!

Me: but I've spent hundreds of hours on it. If I priced it on a per hour basis I'd need to ask for a lot more.

Uni: Great! Name your price!

Me: look, this is the going rate. I'll charge that.

Uni: Great! Name your price!

Me: but I'm not that good. I'm only starting out.

Uni: Great! Name your price!

Me: ok, this is my price.... A few minutes/ hours/ days later.... Ummm, no I'm worth more than that.

Uni: Great! Name your price!

Me: yes! I am going to charge my worth. This is great product. I am a good person. X charges X for theirs, and they are rubbish. Up it goes!

Uni: Great! Name your price!

Me: but then everyone will think I'm greedy. And that it's over priced. They'll see that I'm a sham. They'll feel ripped off. They'll hate me. Yes, that's it, they'll hate me, and they'll tell everyone what a bad person I am. And then no one will buy it. And then we'll never have enough money

Uni: Great! Name your price!

Do you recognise this?

And so with a mixture of deft research, bravado, self undercutting, guts and terror, weeks of sleepless nights and feeling sick you name your price.

And then the world ends. Everyone hates you. You never work again...

Oh no, scratch that! What really happens is this... Your customer buys, and pays. Or doesn't. They come back. Or perhaps they don't. End of....tell me again where the drama is?!

Right now I'm here, pricing paintings and invoicing for the blogging course I'm teaching. I'm stewing in self doubt. Wanting to be fair to everyone. Want to break my chronic habit of undercharging. Especially now I am working for a client who really can afford to pay me fairly. And who sought me out...

So, enough waffle, you want a simple equation, for charging your worth? Yup me too!

It goes something like this:
Costs+hoursxstress-goodwill+profit+?!&= your price.

Do you struggle more naming your price, asking for money or collecting money owed to you? Do you have any insight into why? Or are they all equally torturous to you? If YOU have a secret formula, or just a working one, do share it with us.

PS - A random couple of thoughts


You know what comes to me? That on an unconscious level we women balk at putting a price on our service, because it feels like a form of prostitution. We are selling our services to the highest bidder.

How does that sit with you? Had you ever considered it?

The other thing that many of us are aware of is that our creativity, our gifts are not really ours - so who are we to sell them? Mark Silver spoke really well on this in his talk on Molly Gordon's self employment summit. Check out his work on Heart of Business.com

Mindful money week

Do you have peace with money? Or does it make you feel uncomfortable when even the thought of it comes up?

Money holds a lot of emotional energy for most of us.

Everywhere I see people struggling with it:

• Those who scorn money and won't admit that they need it, and then get angry at the world because they are struggling. 
• Those who live in enforced deprivation.
• High flying gurus who are cashing in on $1000 an hour coaching fees, flogging over priced products to the desperate,  promising miracles they cannot provide. The spiritual movement seems as guilty of this as pure capitalists.
• The majority of the world who sell their souls for the highest wage they can get, in work that sucks them dry, that they don't believe in.
• Women who when asked to name their price for their work prefer to give it away for free than value themselves.
• The mega rich who squander their wealth.
• Those who use it to manipulate and abuse.

We're in a very unhealthy state about money - as individuals and collectively. 

We scrimp and save, we waste and splurge mindlessly. We borrow what we cannot afford. We undervalue ourselves, then steal to make up the difference. Or we drive too hard a bargain which impoverishes others.

Richness, and poverty are incredibly subjective terms. Many people who are financially wealthy feel they don't have enough.

We are mindless about money. Often it "makes us feel" guilty, angry, greedy, needy. We become obsessed by it. Or try to have nothing to do with it.

What's that all about? Why all the emotion?

Money is just paper, just numbers... or is it? It seems to hold humanity in its thrall.

Money can become our shadow.

Our civilisation is being brought to its knees by our mindlessness to do with money - the banking crises and credit crunch, bankruptcy in nations and individuals.

So this week we're going to spend exploring money - how we make it, how we charge it, how to feel good about it, how to value ourselves, how to move beyond money...

In order to become mindful, we need to be honest. The only way to see a shadow is to shine your light on it and look.

This can feel uncomfortable.

But get this: THEY ARE ONLY FEELINGS. ONLY THOUGHTS.

Yes, really!

So take a deep breath. And let's get to work.

I'm really excited about this!! I vision it as a way that we can support each other in becoming healthy in our earning - and spending. So that we can make our peace with money. So that we can transition to a new sense of value, of economics, of worth in our own lives - which can seed itself into our culture.

Money week at Dreaming Aloud will have posts on...

• Money and guilt
• Women and money 
• Moving beyond money
• Creating rainbow streams of abundance 
• Selling with love 

This may well become an e course in the future - so consider it a work in progress, which you get to see emerging, for free - and get to contribute to the creation of!

I ask this of you in return - in the spirit of giving and receiving which we are exploring. If what you are reading touches you - please give something in return, whatever feels really good to you - no expectations, no obligation. And absolutely NO guilt!

Giving back could mean ...

• Share the posts whether on Facebook/ Twitter or by email (see the buttons below this post for a quick and easy way) 
• Join the discussion. Add your comments, your questions, your experiences.
• You can support my work financially by donating, buying from The Happy Womb or Etsy, or buying via any of the affiliate links I share on this site.

Thank you...

The ugly duckling is in business

I have always identified with the ugly duckling. See these fluffy grey feathers? They've never quite fitted in. I've never been one thing or t'other.

Now let me tell you a secret: there is nothing more draining than being what you think you're supposed to be and then feeling you don't measure up. That you're always not quite good enough. When it turns out you just haven't seen yourself clearly. You've been using the wrong classification chart to identify your inner beast.

Excuse me for being thick. But I've just realised something which is a complete revelation to me... I am an entrepreneur.

Well, duh!

You could see that, right? As clear as the nose on my face, I'm guessing.

But me, I was thinking that I was a writer, who painted, and taught, and made chocolates on the side. And I wasn't good enough at any of them, a bit of a failure all round (welcome to my little inner carnival of self doubt.)

I have been in denial. And that has clipped my wings.

I have been repressing something that I am actually very good at: selling! Ha! Bet you didn't expect that! Truth be told, I didn't either. In fact I've been almost allergic to it in recent years.

Then within a week from all sides the scales were peeled from my eyes. Two weekend conferences in a row I, in the words of Maria Forleo, "hustled my buns off", selling Juno by the bag load, as well as lots of cards, books and dials. And I loved it. Felt absolutely on fire. Totally alive and connected. I'm really good at this...I chuckled to myself. I made money and my dear customer ladies went away happy, connected, inspired...

Then four people in a week mentioned entrepreneurship: my friend Sharon outed me first over tea and cake. Then Maria Forleo's awesome videos, the e book I'd Rather be in the Studio, and Kind Over Matter's wonderful new e book Zen and the Art of being a Work at Home Mama (which she is doing as a pay what you can deal!) 

 

She identified herself as being a forth generation entrepreneur and I thought, dammit, I'm a third generation one, of course!

It's in my blood: not just the creative genes which come from both sides three generations back. But yes, entrepreneurship. I see now that I have started about 10 businesses in the past 7 years: pregnancy yoga, chocolate making, freelance writing, wreath making, festival planning, self publishing... But each time I back off when the business needs come to the fore, the need to sell rears its head. I run for the hills: I'm just a little girl, I can't sell, my work isn't good enough, I'm not experienced enough, I don't deserve, please like me...

But something has shifted. I realised that they are all just voices. I wouldn't make my work if I didn't think it was good enough. But being my own biggest critic I'm burning up so much energy. Self doubt is like cutting off your own wings and then wondering why you can't fly.

You know what? The bullshit takes up too much time and energy that could be better spent making magic, having fun, making money...

So long bullshit!

My mind has shifted, and with it my energy too. I started my website as a place to sell my books. The books being the focus, not the selling or business sides. I resented the business bit for taking my time and energy away from the creating. But now I see, that's an integral part of the puzzle, of my identity, it's part of me, part of my work, part of my job. Because if people don't know about me and my work, if I don't tell them about it, I'm withholding something which they are looking for, wanting, needing.

Healing money, that's a whole other blog post. Taking back money from the broken model, from patriarchy if you like. Earning my worth as a woman on my terms, within a loving, sustainable business model. One which cares, which helps to feed transformation on a personal and social scale. Which supports me in being with my family and doing the creative work I love.

Hell yeah! The ugly duckling is in business.

The nearest thing to telepathy...

What's the point in blogging anyway?

This has been going round my head a lot at the moment. On good days I'd list inspiration, information and a tribe/ community of like minded people. Blogging has changed my life, and those of so many others.

But preparing to teach blogging for the first time I find myself in an existential crisis of minor proportions: why would you write your most public thoughts for the world to read? do I have enough followers? How many is "enough" anyway? Do I spend to long blogging...or not enough? Why haven't any of my posts gone stratospheric recently? Do my earlier readers prefer the emotional and mothering outbursts of truthtelling whereas now I'm talking more about writing and art and working... How much is a blog MY space, and how much do I owe you, dear reader, to write what YOU want to hear?

All these thoughts and more...How I wish I had 50,000 page views a day, which (apparently!!) makes you considered a viable "platform" in publishing. How I wish I could be wittier, more succinct, have more of interest to say, to package it better...

I was turning into my own worst enemy.

And then I was sent my sister's blog and it was like fresh air and sunshine. And I got blogging again. Really got what it's all about. The sense of a persons inner world that you have no idea about. The wonder and joy in realising that you are not alone in your deep thoughts, deep concerns. Thoughts that you would never know most other people had - even those closest to you!

Sure it can be competitive, pushy, all absorbing. But isn't it marvellous, really? This free form of communication, heart to heart, soul to soul, around the world. It is the nearest we humans have gotten to telepathy. What an incredible medium it is! Long live the blogosphere!

What does blogging and the blogosphere mean to you. And how are you feeling about this blog right now? For a previous post on blogging and community see here http://www.dreamingaloud.net/2011/03/weaving-virtual-circles-circle-of.html

Spring into summer

After a couple of weeks off, I'm painting again. Playing with new colours, loving the light blue of a spring sky and the vivid orange of summer.Bright green tendrils unfurling and butterflies flying. Tumbling wisteria blossoms hang like grapes. A swallow at rest. We are springing into summer.

Best children's music

I don't know about you, but most children's music is like fingernails down a black board to me. Take the Doodlebops. Or Barney. Or the cheap synthesiser versions of nursery rhymes sung by tone deaf cheese-mongers. When you are stuck in a car for hours, or putting kids to sleep, you need something which you can all sing a long to. Which makes you all smile and lifts your spirits. 


Read on for our pick of the best which are rarely off the CD player in the Pink House!


Best of real kids music:


Mr Roberelli- a NZ singer-songwriter, very reminiscent of Flight of the Conchords. Full to bursting of joyful and imaginative tunes, catchy feel-good songs you'll find yourself singing all day. You'll no doubt laugh out loud at the lyrics. It's about as far from nursery rhymes as you can get, with odes to knitting, Vincent Van Gogh as a speckled egg and a scarecrow song called Eileen on the Wall - geddit?! Our favorites include: Roman Sandals; Sweaty Betty ( that our daughter sings as "slutty butty!!") and Coulda, Woulda, Shoulda listened to the Buddha. Mr Roberelli won the 2011 Children's Song of the Year award from APRA, deservedly so. You can get it from the JUNO shop.


Until The Light of Morning is a collection of original songs accompanied by baby glockenspeil, guitar, and piano. and the ethereal voice of Essie Jain. Written to appeal to both children and their parents, the melodies are gentle and the words divine:

Fall into dreams
And the night sky will gleam
Lay down
As the moon is crowned
And the stars hang down over your head tonight

I put it on almost every night. It is hypnotic in its effect, gently lulling busy brains and bodies into sleep as it travels from modern nursery rhymes to pure instrumental, intended to mimic the slowing heartbeat. ....for a longer review that I wrote last year, read here.

Elizabeth Mitchell - I highly recommend both You are My Sunshine and Little Bird. She is like Eva Cassidy for kids.I love the fact that her children sing with her in some of her songs, and that she uses many adult songs, including Bob Marley's Three Little Birds and Three is a Magic Number. I have fantasies of jamming with her family!


Rosenshontz. A US duo that I loved during my childhood. Catchy, funny and meaningful songs. Favourites include Daddy does the Dishes, which became a catchphrase in our house!


Other music our kids love
But our kids are not just into children's music. Oh no! They have very eclectic tastes it seems. From all around the world and every genre! Their other firm favourites include:
The Beatles - our evening family dances in the sitting room usually start to the Beatles: Back in the USSR, Obladioblada and Yellow Submarine.


They also adore The Beach Boys - we're talking 'bout good vibrations.
And then a little rock courtesy of Bird - a Thai rock group that we listened to ad naseum at full volume on the music videos that they played on our bus journeys round Thailand, pre-kids. They do great head banging to it! Ditto to a CD of Japanese rock that my husband got from the drummer, who he used to teach when we lived in Kyoto!


Kila - is Irish music with a haunting musical saw. They couldn't believe it when they watched someone playing a musical saw on YouTube - they were totally captivated!


Bruce Springstein - The Seeger Sessions is great folk music to sing and dance to. I can't count the amount of times we have whooped around their bedroom to this at full blast. Their favourite lyrics are: Dan Tucker was a fat old man/ washed his face in a frying pan.

 They also love Indonesian Gamelan that they call bell music. We watched lots of gamelan performances during our stay in Bali - we have shown them videos of the dances and fire dance and love them.

 

The Sun by The Cat Empire. We picked this up when we were back packing round Australia. They were busking on the street on Australia day. They have made it big since then, and our CD is worth a fortune! But we're not selling. The kids love the funky beats - and so do we.


What do YOUR family love? Do share your favourites. It's always great to find new music.