Money Fairy Tales

Once upon a time… they lived happily ever after.

As I was reading the biography of one of my favourite childhood authors, I found it enlightening to discover to what extent her children’s stories with their autobiographical feel were heavily edited.

I shouldn’t have been surprised. As humans, we often have a tendency to shy away from discomfort, pain, the “not so fun part” of our human existence. We cling to our carefully constructed illusions and present them to the world as the reality, hiding our uncertainty, struggles, pain, confusion, our yearning for something different, something better, under a veneer of “all’s good”.

And sometimes (maybe more often than we care to admit) we do the same with money.

We believe the fairy tales told us by those who want to sell us their products and services, yearning for that illusive something that will bring a greater sense of perfection and wholeness to our world. 

Or we tell our own fairy tales: maybe we use money to create a carefully curated lifestyle, sometimes at great expense, but still cannot shake the nagging sense that something is missing, that there must be more.

As humans we are hardwired to tell stories: to make meaning of our world and experience. We tell stories in the conversations we have with family, colleagues and friends. We create stories on social media, sharing those parts of our lives we are comfortable for the world to see. 

We create stories around how we are using our money, and those stories range from beautiful love stories, through all the genres to horror, and even outright fantasy.

How do we portray ourselves in these stories? Are we active participants, agents of change, protagonists living with a deep sense of awareness about our passion and purpose in life? Or do we see ourselves as helpless victims, with life happening to us and it having an uncontrollable effect on the way money flows into and out of our lives? What are our money stories revealing about ourselves, and what are they hiding?

We live in a society where talking about money is often taboo. Sure, we discuss money.  We have long conversations around the braai about the petrol price, the way our tax money is used, crypto, or the hottest new investment tip.

But how often do we share our struggles? The way money seems to have such an effect on our mood and state of mind. The way we lie awake at night thinking about bills to be paid or how our latest salary increase doesn’t quite seem to match the rising cost of living. The paralyzing fear that we might be getting poorer instead of wealthier. And if that is the case, what does it say about us? About who we are? About our place in the world?

What about those of us who are business owners: when sales don’t reach projections, when all our efforts at growing the business seem to take so much time and energy, and yet the cash flow seems to wait elusively around the next corner. While this intermittent trickle of money that flows in the one side and gushes out the other side seems just enough to keep us hanging on by the tips of our fingernails for yet another month, hoping, praying that it will get better. And that little nagging question at the backs of our minds: “what if it doesn’t get better…?”

How deeply is money, and how much we have of it, ingrained in our sense of self and our identity, our sense of worth? 

Are we brave enough to take the first steps to explore this? Or do we rather skirt around the real issues and pretend we’re ok? Is it easier to take a superficial look at others’ lives and continue telling ourselves fairy tales about our own and their lives?

What could possibly happen if we were to create the time and space to have honest and often hard conversations around money? How would our own lives, our families, communities and society change if we start doing this regularly, intentionally?

At My Journey 2 Freedom we are passionate about helping to create safe spaces for these beautiful, hard conversations. To tell the real stories about our lives and money, not fairy tales. To explore ways to write the next chapter of our lives and money actions from a place of purpose and intention. 

We’re regularly told that these conversations are life-changing and deeply empowering.

Are you ready to join us?