I Retired From Chasing Money

I was lying in bed planning everything I had to do in the next week.

A big home project. A program to launch. A full week of clients.

My husband was traveling, so the house, the dogs, the groceries, the project...all of it was on me.

I could feel the pressure building in my chest.

My mind was speeding through everything I needed to get done. My brain felt like a hive of bees. My body felt like it was ready to run a race.

And I could already see what was going to happen.

I was going to fall to the bottom of the list.

This is a very old pattern for me.

Doing gets in the way of caring for myself.

Sometimes out of necessity. Sometimes because I'm genuinely excited about what I'm doing.

But a lot of the time?

It's scarcity.

For years, I put my kids first. My husband first. My clients first.

But the harder thing to admit is that I've also put money above myself.

Make the money.

Don't lose out on the money!!!

Take the client.

Fill the schedule.

Get the thing launched.

Keep going.

There was a time when my body almost seemed to crave this way of living...the rushing, the intensity, the feeling of getting shit done.

Until eventually, I'd crash.

I'd become exhausted and resentful. My sleep would fall apart. I’d get sick. My anxiety would go up. Wine would start looking like the only reliable way to shut everything off.

I wasn't as present with my clients.

My family got a pretty grumpy mama.

And eventually I'd drop everything because I couldn't keep going.

Then I'd recover just enough to start the cycle all over again.

Overwork. Overdo. Crash.

All because somewhere underneath it was the fear:

What if we run out of money?

I don't feel that fear the way I once did. But I absolutely still feel its pull.

And lying in bed that night, feeling that familiar energy building, I had a very strong knowing:

I am not going to put myself last.

I am going to do what needs to be done AND take care of myself.

I'm going to the gym.

I'm going to rest.

I'm going to drink water.

I'm going to walk the dogs.

I'm going to eat well.

I'm going to meditate.

I'm going to stare into space and do absolutely nothing sometimes.

And whatever doesn't get done doesn't get done.

Because I have retired from chasing money at the expense of myself.

I’m not going to live that way anymore.

Something has changed over the past few years.

I have come to hate the feeling of my body and mind being put through the wringer.

As I've found more balance, I don't crave intensity the way I used to.

I crave slowness.

Peacefulness.

Spaciousness.

I want to have energy left at the end of my workday.

I want to enjoy walking my dogs.

I want to eat lunch without simultaneously answering an email.

I want to make money without feeling like I have to sacrifice myself to do it.

And this is where my work with money and my practice of Ayurveda have started to become almost impossible for me to separate.

My money patterns were showing up in how I cared for myself.

The more I've understood what happened to me—the experiences that created my fears about not having enough, running out, or needing to constantly work to stay safe—the less willing I've become to abandon myself because of those fears.

Sometimes I wonder if it was the other way around—as I started taking better care of myself, my relationship with money got better.

Maybe they were never as separate as I thought.

So, I rested more and created better boundaries.

I started paying attention to what my body actually needed instead of continually overriding it.

And my income didn't fall apart.

It increased.

Maybe that's just a happy little ripple of healing.

But I don't think the lesson is that taking care of yourself will magically make you rich.

I think it's something much more important than that.

Maybe the deeper shift is that I no longer believe I have to sacrifice myself, my health, or my well-being in order to have enough.

This is where Ayurveda and wealth meet for me.

Ayurveda has a beautiful concept called dinacharya.

It's usually translated as "daily routine," but I think of it as something much bigger.

It's a daily proclamation of how you want to live.

How do I want my day to feel?

What am I devoted to?

What am I willing to make space for?

Because how we spend our days becomes how we spend our lives.

And lately I've been wondering whether healing our relationship with money isn't only about learning to feel calmer when we check our bank accounts.

Maybe it's also about noticing all the ways fear about money has shaped how we live.

Maybe healing our relationship with money is also about no longer abandoning ourselves because of money.

And that is where #wealthmindset and #livingmyayurveda have unexpectedly collided for me.

Living Ayurveda

This fall, I'm going to explore this intersection even more deeply in Living Ayurveda, a small seasonal mentorship for women.

Not because you need another elaborate morning routine or someone telling you to scrape your tongue at 5 a.m.

You don't...I mean, I LOVE scraping my tongue, and we will talk about it, but it might not be your jam.

I want to explore something much more personal:

How do you actually want to live?

We'll use the wisdom of Ayurveda to pay attention to your rhythms, your energy, your emotional patterns, the changing season, and what your particular body and life are asking of you.

We'll explore practices like dinacharya, the gunas, the elements and doshas, digestion, emotional health, self-compassion, enoughness, receiving, and letting go of some of the grasping that keeps us believing we have to control everything.

Not to become better versions of ourselves.

But to become better caretakers of the lives we already have.

Because I'm becoming increasingly convinced that wealth isn't simply about accumulating more.

It's also having enough space in your life to actually experience your life in the way that you want too.

If you’re curious about what it might look like to live Ayurveda in a way that actually fits your life, I’d love to explore it with you this fall.

If Living Ayurveda is calling to you, let me know you’re interested and I’ll make sure you’re the first to know when enrollment opens.