What I Thought I Wanted…

Most of us have a dream life in our heads that we aspire to , right? Well for me it’s always been to have a life of financial wiggle room, time to wander and to be joyful. What I’ve come to understand is, for me the root of having a life of ease is to have little to no financial stress. I have no desire to diminish my taste level or to dumb down my love of tangible material things, but to have the money in order to have the freedom to do the things and to buy the stuff.

As someone who is really into the “woo-woo spiritual stuff” and uncovering the deeper side of existence I am equally interested in buying the beautiful interior designed ranch with all the ranch-y things…horses, chickens and all the fanciness that comes with that life. I also want the Porsche to zip through the country roads and the G-wagon with the trunk compartments to take my kids to all-day soccer games. Let’s not mention the ranch/equestrian /outdoor fashion to boot. I say all this to say that the life of “ease” I daydream about takes money to actually have the life.

On my quest to get the money I’ve chosen entrepreneurship as my path. Although not easy, it has allowed me the luxury of time with my children and about the same financial success as a college educated professional. The level of stress I’ve endured on the financial side has at times been debilitating. The uncertainty of how much I’ll actually earn month to month has been the hardest part of the path I’ve chosen which has led me to what I discovered over the last couple years.

I thought I wanted a man to take care of me financially but I’ve discovered that THAT WAS A LIE! What I really wanted was stability that I did not feel I could provide myself with. I wanted to be able to get a good night’s rest. I wanted to not have to worry…but at what cost? I’ve learned that childhood wounds show up in many forms. One of which for me is Object Relations Theory which is when childhood experiences of neglect, abuse, or inconsistent care shape adult expectations and behaviors in relationships. So basically I was looking for a father figure in a husband. Which brought to the surface feelings of lack, abandonment and insufficiency.

So you see, I THOUGHT I just wanted a man to give me a life of financial ease when really I wanted to be loved and cared for in the way my father hadn’t. Of course everything has a price. The life of ease given to me by a husband meant that I had to relinquish parts of me that I was unwilling to let go of. I had to compromise parts of myself that I wanted to remain the same. The growth was, me coming to understand that THE WORK we seek is magnified when IN relationship with others. I like to say we are only a theory until we are tested. Although embodying who I really am was not a possibility in THAT relationship I learned that alignment on more than a superficial level is a necessity to true partnership. You can only fake for a finite amount of time and then the real has no choice but to show up. So when the real you shows up, you have to decide to work on the REAL YOU. The MONEY is just a representation of the reward for doing the WORK. I thought I wanted MONEY but what I really wanted was to trust myself.