The Ethical Imperative of Joy in Work & Purpose
How do we have the Joy and the MONEY that comes from the exchange of the JOY
It’s middle of the Gregorian calendar and the summer solstice was commemorated a few weeks ago. Internet friends were in ceremonies and gathering with loved ones and I am grate-filled there are others recognizing the healing energy of ceremony and togetherness. I’m finding my own way back to ceremonies in community as I deepen my spiritual practices and my walk.
I saw social influencers counting their accomplishments since we’ve just completed half a year. I heard economists discuss economic reports after reports revelling over strengths and weaknesses. And I was instantly reminded of how the technical world can make life feel so rigid and mechanical.
On most days, I’m just like anyone else who will tell you they are on a healing journey. Healing from what exactly, the list feels unending and ever growing sometimes. But I am reminded that I am always on the Healer’s Journey, even in the moments when I’m not consciously aware of it. In every single moment, life is expanding through me.
Every Monday, Spirit Nurturer Jas and I meet and start our week with each other’s energy. We’ve been doing this consistently and ritualistically for almost two years now. We’ve grown creatively together in this space we’ve curated. We’ve been adding energy into each others lives in a wholesome and balanced way, just by showing up and being committed to each other; a sakihood. We always come back to a vision that we share for our life and for the life of our fellow siblings. This has always been the core of why we showed up in these calls, between the two of us, we showed up for this connection and for the enrichment we will contribute and receive.
We started with one call a week and we kept this consistent. We were responsible with communicating changes and we respected each other. Soon this would turn into full blown Councils and creative projects together. We started Money Circle as a way to bring all of our feelings and desires about money into a conscious space where we can use the highest spiritual wisdom to help us clear our own blocks to our Inherent Abundance.
Just this Monday, Jas and I were talking about our purpose and figuring out what our purpose is. I was reminded of the ways I was pulled by this question on my path. I externalized my purpose in the beginning, money was conflating the way I though about work and what work I should be doing. This question, what is my purpose, haunted me for awhile. But like everyone else, I have a living cost that I need money to pay for and I started working for money.
Don’t get me wrong, I was working and paying for my own bills and that was freedom that I liked. But as someone hypersensitive, it took awhile to learn how I work, what I’m good at and what I like. I was always encouraged to be well educated, but I wasn’t encouraged to pursue my creativity. But on this spiritual walk, I have learned that it doesn’t matter what the societal structure is like or even the family consciousness, the core essence of me, has a purpose; to expand the nature of life through my consciousness.
It was only after I dedicated myself to learning about the people who are my Ancestors, these Coolies from British Guiana, did I feel complete in knowing my purpose. It wasn’t a goal or a destination, the purpose of my life, doesn’t just include me. It includes an entire lineage that I’m still learning about. The passage of my Ancestors were because of inhumane caste structures that still exist and I relic on this, knowing that they made the choice to leave everything they knew for a hopeful dream and vision. It was these contemplations with my Ancestors that helped me release ideas of purpose rooted in an individualistic linear process.
I was embracing my Ancestors and they were helping me unravel the purpose of my life, they were helping lift the veil for me to have the inner clarity of knowing the purpose of my life. That my purpose is connected to their essence and strength. That the prosperity of my life is the fruit of their labor. In these moments of insights with them, it helps me to embrace my life with more reverence for living.
I’m not saying money isn’t connected to what I do, but I saw that when my purpose was rooted in my relationship with my Ancestors, I started relating to the experiences of my life differently. While money is still a tool of use, I’m expanding my relationships with it and what I am crafting as my work. I’m doing all this in a way that feels Sacred to me from the lessons of my Ancestors.
I know they didn’t die in vain, I’m alive and it’s a Sacred thing. Their life and history is full of lessons, guidance and wisdom. As their descendant, I’m learning what makes us special and how to be proud of our contributions to the consciousness and evolution of Earth. I come back to this knowing of the JOY of my life rooted in my Ancestors strength, when I feel I’m getting stuck in the social structures that are like hamster wheels. I’ve been in the moment of needing to do something asap, because bills are due and money is short. I know what it’s like to work multiple jobs because I have bills to pay and a kid to raise.
There were so many knots in my body when I decided that I needed to figure out how to make my own money working for myself. My parents are entrepreneurs and worked for themselves to get to Canada, so the spirit is in me, but that doesn't mean I don’t have to walk through my own inner challenges to see what I am capable of. But it’s not a new story needing to recalibrate Joy when we decide to work for ourselves but feeling stuck and unable to make it happen. How do we have the Joy and the MONEY that comes from the exchange of the JOY.
And I really had to go deep with this lesson because, when we create as creative spiritual beings, we are creating from our energy source. This source is a space we have to sense and feel and learn to discern with our subtle sensitivities. From this space, JOY is expressed in many ways like feeling tired from the energy and time being used to create something that is arising organically. Or the JOY is the slowing down my mornings with incense sticks and bush tea. Or the JOY of the silence to be with the swirls of my thoughts and feelings and ask my inner world questions about these feeling spaces. All of this happening through me is from an energy source expressing, I call this JOY, the source of Manifested Desire.
Awareness of this JOY is Consciousness, this is my purpose. Tapping into this shift, helped me a lot. I needed the “things” that guided me to not be rooted in the pursuit of money. I say this a lot because I took on work just for money in all kinds of ways with gigs and jobs. I was always miserable at every single thing I did, never satisfied with the work or the money. So as someone this sensitive, I had to figure out what my resistance were because I was unable to work and generate money. This is such a personal journey, the Healer’s Journey and to be a HEALED LEADER. But where do we learn our ethics from?
I’m not saying don’t make money, I’m just talking the ethics of it. Because when I started asking myself, what do I want to do with my life, what is my purpose, I also looked to the stars and planetary alignments to tell me what I’m here to do. And yet I was still confused, insecure and doubtful. I kept searching and wondering what I’m here to do, I know I’m here to do something. I was working, I had money and I could do things with it that I wanted to do and I needed to ask myself deeper questions because I was still unhappy.
Talking about purpose also means we have to acknowledge the ways “purpose” is strapped to enslavement, money, economy, commercialization and commodification and the ways we’ve internalized our purpose through these lens. The healing journey for me is a spiral of consciousness evolving. I had to become aware of all the ways I’ve internalized the social structure and participate in it. Joy is such a radical shift for me, because it challenges every fiber in me to prioritize nourishment and what nourishes me from within. It challenges me to rethink what my “work” is on Earth, outside of capitalism.
Re-indigenizing this mind is very powerful, I spend time in nature a lot, with the Earth elements. I sit next to trees and I just become aware of my feelings, thoughts and practice sensing with my body. I reconnect with my Ancestral lineage this way, where together, I bring my deepest questions to the circle. My Ancestors reminds me their purpose was the betterment of life and the future of my life. The elements reminds me of my Mastery Presence, this source of energy that connects me to all of life’s form. Only in these spaces, it is easiest to reach a space a purposefulness in my body.
To come back to my body as the source of purposefulness within myself. Where this energy source is all of life and what creates life in form, this JOY. I can appreciate the beauty of my creativity as a unique expression of this energy. The colors I chose to express a feeling expands the consciousness of life. The words I use to paint an image that helps make meaning out of life is a creative purpose I choose to embody as my part of my crafting. And the “crafting” of my “work”. How do I want to expand life.
I can appreciate what sparks my curiosity. I learn to value the questions I ask myself and the things I wonder about. I can even value the shadows in me, because my relationship with these aspects of me expands life. The way I relate to life and how I enjoy life is my purpose. My purpose isn’t fixed, it evolves with me and my consciousness. The more I learn about myself and value and respect what happens to me, I come closer and closer into alignment with my purpose. I’m free from the static nature of externalizing my purpose with work and money when I start with valuing the source within as a Creator.
I was watching a mentor of mine in a meeting with his mentor. He asked his mentor a question about finding good people for his team. His mentor told him that the first most important principle is Value, do you have shared values? When I value myself as a Creator, my desire is to express my creative being and creative nature. I value who I AM as a Creator. His lesson reminded me that my vision is most important and the people around me have a shared value in the things I value. I want to make money in the things I value, the creations of my JOY and yes, bring that to market. I don’t mind taking dollars for now, but the things we trade for value isn’t static too.
We’ve exploited labor for value, we exploit humans for value, we’ve used beads for value, we use crops for value, we use oil for value, we use precious metals for value, we use paper currency for value and we use digital cryptocurrencies for value. We trade things for value. As I continue educating myself and asking more questions evolving the way I do things, I value the way I am contributing to life. I can infuse all my creations with joy, passion, love and legacy. I can trade these things that I value in my creations for any of these commonly accepted forms of value exchange. I can learn to take my creations and leverage the value I’ve infused in it magnifying my own energy and abundance. Because most people who plan for generational wealth learn to leverage value, or their “equity”, by trading a form of exchange (dollar) for an instrument that will multiply the value of what they’ve created.
Sometimes in my mind, I tell myself it took awhile to get here, to valuing myself in this way where I can live freely and creatively. I’m constantly challenging myself to live more creatively and to find the things that brings me immense joy to work on creatively. I want more creative living from purposeful JOY because this is what nourishes within. Even though I have to take money out of the energetics of what work I do, I still have to know about finances. Those are different conversations, but I have to know finances to build my own system that works for the way I want to live creatively in JOY.
I’m willing to work for this. I’m willing to do what I need to do to figure out the best system I need to create to live from this purposeful JOY. My pursuit of joy, work, the meaning of life, and money has led me to being in many communities for my different needs of nourishment. I’ve been in many business mentorship spaces, spiritual spaces, healing spaces, creative spaces and the ethics of pursuing Joy has unraveled individualistic “what about me” syndromes in me and centered my innate purposeful Being NATURE.
As Jas and I unravel the constraints on our JOY and continue building a creative purpose-filled meaningful life, we offer these ideas as a cleansing wash of consciousness for our money relationship in work, purpose and joy. Notice what resonated in your body, what did it make you think about, what memory came up. Reflect with it, notice the feelings and thoughts, what does it want you to know. Be with that and if you feel enticed, share some of it in the comments below.