Dear friend,
As you likely know, we’re in the middle of our registration period for a 3-month Art of Money program that starts in 4 days.
But I want to take a pause on that and address something that a lot of us are holding in our minds and hearts right now…
The fires in the L.A. area of California.
Like many of you, I’m feeling the emotions around it all, even though we don’t live in California anymore.
The destruction is heartbreaking for everyone there and for those of us watching who have compassion for what the people and animals are going through.
I began my money work while living in Northern California 24 years ago in 2001.
Since then, our family has been through 5 large wildfires and one thousand year flood in our own town.
Unfortunately, I’m much more familiar with large, devastating disasters than I’d like to be.
There’s no way to sugar coat this level of disaster. It is so challenging on so many levels.
Disasters like this take over your every waking hour for days or weeks, and then once the disaster is out of the news cycles, the long process of cleaning up and healing as a community begins.
I wanted to take a pause here and acknowledge what’s happening in California because I have a heart connection with that place and the people who live there.
My husband and I lived in California for many years. I met my mentor, Tamara Slayton, there. My money work began there, I get a large amount of clients and students who live there, and we have many friends and colleagues who are still there.
Having been through so many large disasters myself, there’s a few things I’ve learned:
- The intensity of events like this are extremely traumatic and distracting, even when you’re watching them from a distance.
- Whether you’re keeping tabs on a disaster like this by checking news and social media, or if you’re very close to it all and watching it unfold right before your eyes, it’s very easy to become dysregulated, or to get out of whack in your body.
This is similar to how intense and challenging money situations can cause us to leave our bodies and become dysregulated, which is why I focus so much on somatic practices in my work.
Here’s a few things I’m doing right now to help ground myself so I can handle the emotions around what’s going on with the fires. Maybe these kinds of things could help you as well:- Humming quietly to myself. It sounds simple, but this has always helped soothe me and bring me back to my body.
- Cuddling with my kitties.
- Taking our dog for long walks out in nature.
- Spending time with my 98 year old friend, playing backgammon, and chatting about life.
- Annoyingly, despite the intensity of disasters like this, you still need to eat, sleep, take care of the kids, take care of the dog, take care of the cats, do the laundry, and all the other normal everyday things that need to get done.
This is the hard thing about hard things:
It’s not easy, but we have to carry on even when things are falling apart.
(That’s a link to one of my favorite books about how to handle hard situations. It’s called “When Things Fall Apart,” by Pema Chödrön.)
The fact that we have to carry on with all the normal everyday things is true of living through disasters, watching them unfold on the news, and dealing with high intensity financial challenges.
Obviously, if you’re being directly affected by the fires right now, “carrying on” will look and feel a lot different than it will for those of us watching from a distance.
I will venture a guess that anyone who’s being directly impacted by the fires right now will most likely not be reading this email, but if you are, know that my heart is with you.
I’ve gone back and forth with my husband many times about whether or not I should write this letter and send it to you today.
As you know, we’re in the middle of a registration period for the next round of my Art of Money program, and I teach the first live class of this round in 4 days on January 16th.
When running a business like mine, you often have to make decisions on the fly. Hopefully, you make all the right decisions and things go well. But that’s not how it always goes. I make mistakes sometimes.
I don’t know if it’s right to take a pause in our registration period here and address what’s going on in California, but that’s what I’m doing. It feels right, and I can’t imagine not addressing this situation.
I’m sending you all my heartfelt well-wishings, and I’ll see you in your inbox tomorrow with some stories and information about how the Art of Money program can help you in life…even (and maybe even especially), when things are falling apart.
