You may have seen that I’ve got this crazy unusual very expensive big dollar retreat in November for only ten people, with some very special celebrity-type guest presenters who would come spend time with us.
Well.
The whole thing started with a challenge from a co-conspiring fabulous group of like-minded creatives in business that I’ve been hanging out with this past year.
A couple of them said “why not put together something very wildly unexpected, exclusive, focused…something you might not ever have dreamed of normally.”
Boy. You got that right.
I would have NEVER dreamed of creating and offering a 3.5 day retreat that cost thousands of dollars.
Notice how I said “thousands of dollars” and not the actual amount (I’ll tell you before this Grace Note is over).
The reason?
It’s embarrassing!
Who died and made her snooty miss fancy with big dollars flying in and out of her hands like there’s no tomorrow? Where does she get off thinking she can contact celebrities, pay them to come to work with a little group, and actually afford their fees?
She’s not part of the rich, high-end wealthy club who knows the sort who wouldn’t blink an eye at this price…who does she think she is, anyway?
(The Voice says this with an appalled tone, like it can’t BELIEVE it’s even hearing about this ridiculous thing).
Gosh. Could we have a little stressful belief here about Big Money?
I’ve done The Work on poverty, panicking about having nothing, losing almost every asset I owned and all my savings, being eligible for food stamps.
That was embarrassing enough.
But this is ALSO embarrassing.
I should include everyone, I should only offer events that people can afford, it’s most helpful to the planet to offer low priced healing events, it’s best for the world to charge as little as possible, charging a lot makes people mad, I will be rejected if I offer services that are high in fees.
Wow. Intense list of thoughts. The feeling is painful on the inside. Shame, discomfort, potential rejection, I will disappoint people.
My old tactic?
Stay away from money. Try to work with it as little as possible. Never mention it. Never want it. Ignore it. Pay no attention to it. Live on as little as possible. Resent having to pay, charge, receive or work for money.
Ooooooh, time for inquiry. This should be fun!
Charging high fees means….people will be disappointed and angry with me. They’ll reject me. They’ll be jealous. I’ll lose friends or customers.
Is that true?
I have visions of myself finding the best furniture for my little bedroom online. Finally, after lots of searching and putting in measurements to google, or words like “ranch style furniture” and trying over months of searching to find the right thing. Finally it is found! The right measurements, the right colors, the right height and depth, the right groovy beach cottage type style! Woohoo!
OK, what’s the price, I’m ordering it.
Oh. Wait. It’s Pottery Barn furniture.
What the hell is wrong with them? Why do they have to charge so much? Where do they get off? I will never shop at Pottery Barn! I don’t trust them! They are wrong! They should let me buy what I want at waaaayyyy cheaper prices! Selfish!
So who would you be without that belief that someone or someplace, any place, shouldn’t charge what they charge?
Including ME?
Who would I be without the belief that high ticket prices MEAN you’re too exclusive, elite, trying to be special? That it means you are separated from the masses, from regular people with “normal” amounts of money? That you’re preventing people from your service, disappointing them?
Without the thought that you’re wrong, or you don’t belong, or you’ll be rejected if you’re exchanging this kind of money here and there?
At first, I’m not even sure who I would be.
I remember walking through an art gallery where everything cost prices like $40,000….for one painting.
If I just came from another planet and had no reference for numbers, their meanings, money, the amounts, choices and sums and chunks of money moving from here over to there, in infinite formats?
I’d see every kind of possibility exists here for money changing hands. Big money gets spent for strange things, like a rare comic book….or for one night of gambling. Small money gets spent for the lessons of a lifetime, for experiences that are so valuable they affect the rest of someone’s life.
What if I just really had no idea what this amount meant, or that amount, no stories about it? No concern for being rejected, judged, or that it’s terrible if anyone was disappointed with me or the total?
“There is no ‘money’ thing, is there? It’s just another metaphor to prove suffering, just to prove that there’s not enough. To prove that if you had something external to you that money could buy that THEN you would get what you wanted. Which is security. And the only security really is truth. There isn’t any other.” ~ Byron Katie
Without the belief that Pottery Barn should lower its prices so I can be happy, I just notice if I have the money, or don’t have the money, and I choose to put the money towards that furniture, or some other furniture, and it doesn’t really matter.
“For many people the mere mention of money can bring about the immediate loss of awareness. There’s a fear that coagulates around that money idea, the fear of survival. There is also an egoic trait that is one of the most essential traits of the ego…’not enough’. It’s one of the most deep-seated ego traits. Every ego has it. The ego never feels it has enough. Money can become anything in the world of form, so it triggers this insufficiency, the feeling of not-enough, of the ego.” ~ Eckart Tolle
Without the feeling of insufficiency, or leaving people out, or that there is some place I don’t belong that I shouldn’t be going to (that fancy area) or that other people shouldn’t be triggered with THEIR deficiency stories…I notice it’s all so much fun, and I have no idea what’s really going to happen.
It’s a playground. An abundant one.
Much love, Grace