Does your nervous system feel at ease receiving from others? How do you feel about asking for help? Does it come easy, feel scary, maybe too vulnerable or do you pride yourself on having it all handled? Who do you hold and who holds you?
Asking for help is directly related to our relationship to giving and receiving. If we are more identified as givers, asking is often perceived as too vulnerable or weakness. This perception helps us to deflect receiving and stay under-resourced inside our comfort zones. Comfort zones are what our brain finds familiar, not what is most beneficial for us. But what if those who are not asking for help are also taking something vital from their community? Interdependence.
I read a book a while back called “Happy Money” by Ken Honda. Some of the big take aways: 1) gratitude when we are BOTH giving and receiving money. 2) wealth is measured by the community we have around us 3) our relationship to how we give and receive money stems from how we learned to navigate both money and intimacy in our relationships in childhood.
His approach to money caught my attention for a few reasons. I was not always acknowledging the gratitude that can accompany spending or giving money. The wealth of community around us hit me profoundly because of my values of building community support for one another and shared resource. And, I resonated with his relational perspectives around our childhoods. I am personally continuously metabolizing new aspects of my own childhood and committed to disrupting patterns that no longer serve me as well as supporting families and individuals to do the same. Together - building new neuropathways, new adaptive patterns, and better ways to care for ourselves and one another.
This month a member of my community and chosen family needed financial support for a kiddo to continue to participate in a summer theater performance. This program lit this little one up and it broke my heart she had been studying her part in the play and may not be able to perform. I felt really frustrated I didn’t have the ability to give them the financial support they needed, but I just couldn’t do it on my own. I reached out to my community and asked to see if everyone could make a small donation. I had tears in my eyes when without hesitation, donations flooded in. One of the elders in my community made a donation and simply said “it truly takes a community.”
How do we create even more interdependence, especially with valuing intergenerational community?
Along side the obstacle of money scarcity is time oppression. There are so many things demanding our time and pulling us in every direction. It is nearly impossible to navigate both the constant input of information and the asks of us. It seems that even if there is a value for interdependence and community care there is rarely enough time to do it. As a result, we often sacrifice care for others or ourselves in the ways we most need because we don’t have the time. How can we use moments to disrupt time oppression and be more present with ourselves and one another?
A few ideas:
1) Disrupt money scarcity…Practice saying thank you and feeling gratitude when you give and receive money (from Ken Honday)
3) Disrupt Time Oppression: Create space or Pauses. Moments to soak in all that is around you and be present. Look up at the trees. Put your feet in the dirt. Smile at someone. Celebrate a child or friend. Find your breathe.
3) Start a Receiving Journal. Write down everything you receive in a day to digest it and let in what you are grateful for in the moments of your life.
4) Practicing asking for help. Start small. Do it everyday!
I’d love to know what works for you…How can you disrupt money scarcity and time oppression? How can you lean into interdependence? What stops you and what helps?