The Money Story the Ads Won’t Sell

I want to tell you something that the ads won't tell you.

The ones that show up in your feed promising you $300,000 a month as an online coach. The ones with the woman in the white linen pants on the beach who looks so at peace, so safe in her body, so done with the struggle.

The ones that say: pay me, and I will fix this broken thing inside you.

To preface, I've had coaches and guides who have genuinely changed my life. Investing in myself and my growth is something I believe in — PERIOD. That's not what this is about.

This is the story underneath the investment. The one that doesn't make it into the ads. Because the ads promise you something specific: that healing your money wounds is a purchase away. That the right program will make the fear stop, make the flow start, make it all finally click.

That's not exactly how it went down for me.

Under the tutelage of an incredible spiritual teacher, I started a business (this in itself is a miracle). Two days later, my husband lost his job, so the pressure was on. I created an offer and put my face all over social media. Every single day, I wanted to crawl out of my skin — because visibility felt like exposure, and exposure felt like danger. I still struggle with it.

But I knew: clients would feed my family.(One must be dramatic). So I showed up anyway.

Month one, I made 5x what I'd made the month before.

I thought: This is it. I figured it out!

Then business got spotty. So naturally I thought “I failed, I should die now”.

Then it picked up.

Then spotty again.

I swirled — god, did I swirl — between "I am worthless and horrible", and "I am magic and money is at my beck and call". Sometimes within the same week. Sometimes within the same hour.

I did ceremonies. I did manifestations. I partied. I danced. I cried until I was hollow. I screamed.

I flipped my lid and caused fights with my partner that still sting when I think about them.

I was trying so hard to heal my way into safety.

And here's the thing — I don't regret any of it. That's the work.

But when Insta told me others were making 6 figures every month, I thought it meant something was wrong with me.

I thought: my childhood wounds are too big. My trauma is too complex (in my defense, have you seen my movie’s teaser??).

I'm a woman of color navigating systems that were not built for me. (This is true. Period.)

Maybe I'm just not cut out for this.

Maybe money was never meant to come easily to me.

But here's what I've slowly, painfully, actually learned:

Sometimes, shit takes time.

Sometimes, the road is rocky. Other times it’s awesome.

Yes, you have to shift your mindset.

Yes, you have to tolerate the discomfort.

But mostly... you have to keep believing. You have to keep working. And you have to be patient. Open and curious to it all.

That's it. That's the whole secret no one is advertising.

Pretty boring, isn’t it?

Here's where I am now.

Most days, I don't believe money has power over me. THIS IS A MIRACLE FOR ME.

It no longer terrifies me the way it once did. I believe that any given day carries the potential for it all to shift. I believe that money is a tool that can expand my experience of this one precious life.

Business is actually… good.

Like everyone else, I have uncertainty at the start of some months. Some days I stay in bed and cry. Some days, I wish someone would just come down and save me (if you're reading this and think you can, please call).

Some days I pray for inspiration and just wait.

But every day — every single day — I am grateful for the work I get to do, for the life I get to lead.

I have a vision for my life that is abundant and full. And I am moving toward it.

Imperfectly, inconsistently, slowly — but I am moving.

If you're in the thick of the swirl right now — if you just paid for a program that promised to fix you and you're wondering why it hasn't worked yet — I want you to hear this:

You are not broken.

You are not too traumatized. You are not too behind. You are not the exception to the rule that healing happens.

You are just in the middle of something that takes time.

And you're doing better than you think.

A Lesson on Abundance

A few days ago, my sister and I were talking about our family and our history, and the ways that we love each other. Every family has its own recipe for love, and in our family, like in many, worry is a love language.

It sounds sweet and harmless. When a father says "I'm worried about you", he's saying that he cares enough to worry. When a mother says that her children's worries are at the tip of her tongue, she's expressing how much of her heart they occupy.

But what happens to children when they conflate love and worry? And how does that affect how we grow up and parent, love, and work?

I took this contemplation into ceremony a few weeks ago. As I dropped into the medicine, I saw and felt a kaleidoscope of visions, vibrations, and voices. In some shape or another, they said "I am bad, there is something wrong with me". The vibration and visions were so overwhelming, I was losing myself, drowning in the cacophony of criticism.

I was enraged. I didn't need to go to ceremony to hear this, I fought years to shed this shit!

I begged for mercy.

But all I could see down the tunnel of mercy was a younger version of me, trying desperately to be seen through the mountain of critique. Because of course, the mercy I was seeking was my own.

The medicine, in her infinite wisdom, raised a mirror for me to see my own mercilessness.

You see, I misunderstood our family's love language for something other than true love.

If worry = love, then I need to be doing something wrong all the time so people could worry about me. I mean love me.

I finally understood the journey.

The medicine was daring me to believe that there's nothing wrong.

When you feel something "wrong" or "bad" coming, it said, don't shrink. Don't prepare.

Open your heart even wider.

Because receiving my abundance is an all-in game.

Abundance is the overflow of flowers in the spring AND the overflow of snow in the storm. It is the tremendous joy of birth and the devastating grief of death.

When we're constantly in "wrong" mode and "fix" mode, we block abundance because we're bracing for what's next.

Anxiety and fear tell us to prepare for the worst while faith, trust, and love tell us to say YES.

Because we're not being asked to fix it. We're being asked to be with it.

True compassion and peace do not come from fixing what's wrong. They come from feeling what's here.

In our quest to "fix", to cure the pain and suffering of genocide and ecocide, we cannot skip the fist step: feeling the immeasurable pain of it.

Because the truth is, if we can't feel the pain, we can't feel the joy. And these feelings, our birthright, are our portals to freedom.

It takes courage to bring the darkness to the light. But we cannot do it alone. There's a reason we do ceremony in community. To be witnessed, to be held. To be reminded that everything we experience is part of being human.

A THREE-MINUTE PRACTICE

The next time you feel the grip in your body that signals "something is wrong" - maybe it's a clench in your neck and jaw - take a moment. On your inhale, say a long slow three-count YES. On the exhale, let it go. On your next breath, allow a smile to cross your lips. And on the exhale, another YES. Where does the clench in your body live? Go right there and say THANK YOU. Tell your body and your nervous system that this too belongs. I dare you to feel it, and to name it. And if you're brave enough (you are), to whisper a little prayer: "May this feeling live inside me long enough to teach me what I need to learn. And may I learn that this too, is my gateway to freedom".

It's Not Anxiety, It's Compliance

Last weekend, I was away with friends on a very sweet camping trip. Yes, your desi diva/fresa mama was in the woods, and yes I did bring a matching set.
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There’s nothing more relaxing than not knowing where your phone is, or what time it is. I wish I could tell you I was 100% unplugged and one with nature, meditating on the nature of time itself. But the truth is, even in the midst of a relaxing lie about in a hammock, I was jolted up by familiar nags–go check on what the kids are eating. Make sure you did your part cleaning the group campsite. That familiar compulsion to “behave”, contribute, or be a “good and attentive” parent.

Matching set not pictured

It’s an old feeling that my therapists (yes girl, I said therapists, the situation is dire), would call “anxiety”, or “people pleasing”. But if anxiety is the term for the individual than what is the term for the collective feeling of anxiety that has taken over American society? In case you haven’t noticed, we are anxious, and the Trump era hasn’t helped.

America is the most politically and economically stable country I have ever lived in, and yet, I have encountered more anxiety here than anywhere else.

Why is this? Why are we so wrought with anxiety when most Americans have grown up in a culture free of war, debilitating poverty, and military juntas? While individual traumas inform much of who we are, the collective experience determines the current we ride in, so what has made the American current so anxious?

When I think back to how and when my own anxiety started, I trace it back to those first few years after college–when the world was my supposed oyster and I was supposed to be able to explore my curiosities. But those messages of freedom and full self expression were at odds with my reality. I was a non-immigrant woman who needed visa sponsorship just to stay in the U.S. I needed more than a paycheck and a way to explore my curiosity, I needed a path to remain.

We live in a culture that demands compliance with systems but feeds us messages of freedom. “Be Yourself!”, but make sure you make over six figures so you can buy the things you need to free yourself. “Celebrate your culture”, but make sure your English is flawless.

For years I have struggled with the quest to be myself while complying with the rules that govern my community. On a recent trip home, my sister asked why the kids in my community don’t call me Auntie. In cultures of the global majority, children address adults with a special title, as a sign of respect. But in my white community, adults are called by their first names. To be honest, I didn’t even consider asking if I could be called Auntie, even though it’s a concept I cherish. And more importantly, I didn’t even realize that I was complying with the rules of a different culture and community.

That’s what is so insidious about compliance–we don’t even know we’re doing it. Because to many of us, compliance feels like safety.

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​Daily acts of compliance build up inside the body. To me, compliance feels like a rope tightening around my neck and ribs. And yet my body is absolutely convinced that if I let go, something bad is gonna happen. Because the opposite of compliance is rebellion. And if you’re an immigrant, a woman, a queer person, or anyone living inside a system you didn’t create, you believe that compliance keeps us safe.

Compliance is individual and systemic. It’s in our bodies and in our laws. ​
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Perhaps we’re so anxious now because the veil between the truth and the stories of American freedom and democracy are lifted. And in that lifting, we realize that we’ve been in compliance with a system that hasn’t served us for far too long.

Freedom from compliance is a bodily practice, a discipline that is made up of movement and storytelling. Many of us have returned to ancient practices and ceremony to remember our selves. Freedom from compliance is also collective action. It includes showing up at rallies to protect immigrants who are being deported. It includes saying no to invitations that don’t feel right and yes to making calls to your senators.

There is no one path to freeing ourselves from compliance. I carry the traumas of the collective from the countries I have lived in and the ancestors that come before me. And even though “mine” are so very different “yours”, when we are in ceremony together and in connection with our highest selves, we find the truth of our individual beings and a path for the collective whole. And in that truth, we find freedom from compliance.