Saturday, June 22, 2013

How can I make money doing what I love?


Request for Guidance and Insight
 
I've always flipped back and forth between my creative careers and my corporate careers. I have a cycle that when I'm in a corporate career all I do is think about creating.... painting, flowers etc. Then when I make a change to do something more creative I feel pulled back to corporate sales where I can make more money and have more stability.
 
I'm a single parent and need to take care of my 6 year old. I'm so tired of the tug of war.  Please help me see clearly!  Thank you!
 
Michelle
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Carla's Response
 
Dear Michelle,
 
It sounds like your key to happiness is to have a creative career that supports you financially.  A commonly held belief is “You can’t do what you love and make a living at it,” but that is only true if you believe it's true.  Plenty of people succeed at generating money while engaged in their passion, so we know doing so is possible.  The question is:  what keeps you from what you want?
 
To gain insights into your situation I drew a card from the Divine Demons deck.  Here is what came up:   Betrayal
 
You can read the full description by clicking on the link above, but these words caught my attention:
 
The key is to restore the sense of power and trust we have lost. By releasing the fears, emotions and beliefs our experiences have brought, we can recover a sense of love and trust and uncover our true selves. And we will come to know that with or without experiences to back it up, we are worthy of honesty, love, happiness and respect.
 
My guess is that early life experiences led you to believe your survival (physical, mental, emotional) was dependent on doing things the way others wanted versus the way you wanted.  In other words, you had to sacrifice your own wants in order to get what you needed.   A simple example of this is, “If I want to be loved, I have to do what Mom wants me to do.” 
 
The way we are treated early in life often becomes the norm for how we treat ourselves later in life.  In your case, the tug of war you feel is the either/or pattern that developed:  either I get what I want (creativity) or I get what I need (financial support).   When you do creative work, you feel like you won’t survive, and when you do money-making work, you feel like you are betraying yourself.   Overall, you probably feel like you can’t win – and you can’t – until you break the patterns causing this.
 
The way to break any pattern is to delve into your past, resurrect the memories and feelings where this particular self-betrayal began, identify the subconscious beliefs that have been running your life, and express/release the trapped emotions (frustration, anger, hurt and un-forgiveness) buried deep within you.   From there you can choose new, more empowering beliefs like, “As long as I am true to myself I will always be supported.”   Once you do this work, I think you will find two things:
 
• the courage to pursue work you truly love
• the faith to commit to it until it supports you
 
You always have the power to transform your life.  For exercises that guide you through this process, go to Transformation Exercises.
 
Best to You,
 
Carla