Minted

I thank #ThursdayDoors and #OctPoWriMo for an important insight I had today. Explanation first, poem next, doors at the end of the post.

This morning I was wondering if I still have doors left on my camera to use for Thursday Doors, since I’m don’t go out much with my broken foot. I live close by a former mint, which has fabulous doors. I remembered I’ve photographed them, but not shared them yet.

My next question was how to use the mint for a poem for October Poetry Writing Month. It made me think of money, because that’s what a mint does: it creates money. Did I want to write a poem about money perhaps? For me money has always meant freedom. I started working when I was 15, and the money was mine to keep, my parents didn’t need it for their household. I didn’t spend it, it saved it because I loved idea of possibilities. With money, you can do things and go places. So those first hundreds of guilders ended up being used for my first holiday abroad without my parents, interrailing through Europe with my boyfriend after I finished high school. It was a great experience, and I think about it regularly and fondly.

Fast forward to me being self-employed, as a coach. I get paid by organisations, and I get paid by individuals. I always struggle with my fee when it comes to people who pay for my services out of their own pocket. I’d secretly feel guilty for receiving their money. I always felt as if their spending money on me, made other things impossible for them. Which made me rather crap at marketing, since it felt like a mental form of robbery.

This morning I understood:
For me: money = freedom
If someone pays me → I take some of their freedom

fallacy alert!

I realised coaching is actually something that increases freedom for people. In the coaching space, people figure out thinks like:
– who they want to be
– who they don’t want to be anymore
– where they want to go
– where they don’t want to go to no more
– which patterns are holding them back
– how they can create change
– how to accept themselves more
– etc.

So even if I’d want to keep believing that idea of money = freedom, they would pay with a form of freedom, to gain a different freedom.

This last sentence might make sense to no one but me, but for me, it made a lot of sense 🙂

I’ll end this line of thoughts with the poem I promised.

Minted

Money equals freedom
If mints can turn
paper into wealth
I can mint freedom
Money is just means to an end

 

Will you join my money spending class?

Will you join my money spending class?
It’s free for those who can’t afford it.

Lesson one

How to spend money in a way that makes you happy
This is where we’ll find out
you don’t really know
what makes you

deeply
persistently
happy

Lesson two

How to be happy?

Lesson three

How to deal with the factors that keep you from being happy?

Lesson four

We’ll go out shopping together
We can skip the mall
It won’t be selling what you want

Will you join my money spending class?
Accidentally, it could be a class on being happy

The prompt for #NaPoWriMo day 7 was to write about money. It made me think about how easily people spend money on stuff they don’t need and don’t even like after a while. And how hard it is for people to spend money on really valuable stuff that can change their lives. The real self care kind of stuff.