Beth has zero time for people who play the empath card. Partly because she say’s it’s the actual human condition to be affected by other people. And also because in general the worst people play the card (hello, me) and also I’ve sat across the table from other people who say I’m an empath you see, and I think, are you? It’s the same with the card holding people pleasers (what, me again). Ohh you like to please other people? What an unusual desire of yours.
There might be a gender divide, and it might be that it’s harder for women to be direct in meetings, ask for more money, or say anything that suggests they aren’t grateful to be here. I’ve noticed recently that when I try to be strict with the dog, it doesn’t translate, I sound soft as fuck and I’m smiling whilst I do it. Hello socialisation. But men can be empaths too and it’s not the point of the essay.
Even though Beth is right and we both had tears in our eyes when she told me about the four year old boy with autism who can’t make friends at school, there is something different about us. And importantly, she has a job with a cracking salary and I do not. And the differences between our natures have something to do with that. So let’s get to the nitty gritty, the correlation, the direct link between the creative people pleasing empath and money.
Beth is very generous with her money and there’s not a single occasion where I pay. But I have started to feel sick of being this person and holding this position and I want to be a bad bitch now. Outside the deli years ago, she said it’s a shame the world recognises my skills, but doesn’t grant yours the same weight or relevance. And I thought, yes it’s a massive shame Beth! It’s crude to write about money, but it’s weirder not to, so I’m also sick of feeling like I am a victim of the way the world goes round, capitalism and the patriarchy. This is the game so what is actually in the way of me playing it.
People are weird about money. Some of the ones with the most are the least generous and some people think they are worthy of more and some people think it’s shameful to want more, some count pennies, some never check their statement (me again), some manage to always make it work, some earn loads and still buy clothes in Tesco, some save it, some don’t mind about putting it on credit cards, some wake up in the night worrying, some don’t have enough by half, ETC. So it is a very abstract thing to bring up because it is so relative. And it’s also boring! It’s hecking boring to talk about money, but here we go.
When you are freelance you are often setting your own rates. And when you have a self invented job, there isn’t even a day rate that you can base that off - it’s literally pies in the sky of abstraction. The exact sector I fit into is unclear even to me, but I am positioned in a sphere of people where it makes no sense. The industries my professional and social life cross section is nuts, so I watch people set their own rates, and I watch the differences between the people who stayed on a more traditional employment based path versus those who are going their own way, and let’s just say we probably can’t go on group holidays anymore because it’s got out of hand. We are no longer cute huns in our 20’s loosely earning in the 20’s. KNOWWHATIMEAN?
It also gets very complex when you peel back another layer and it’s very hard for judgement not to get muddled up in the hot pot. For example, one friend would tell me it’s about my sense of value and self worth, but another friend who has been a child psychologist in the most needy boroughs for more than a decade, would probably be alarmed by the relatively modest price of my creative writing course. DOYOUKNOWWHATIMEAN?
At this exact juncture of my life I am in danger of losing all my friends because I have run out of steam. That is what I am getting at. You see, in the last decade I have given more time to responding to voice notes than I have to building my business. And I don’t think that’s a bad investment, I am richer for it (IN SOME WAYS EXCEPT NOT IN THE ACTUAL MONEY WAY). But for some reason that is probably a complex mix of my birth chart, human design profile, attachment style, middle child of 4 girls, godgiven personality, formative experiences, education, primal needs etc etc, for some reason loosely connected to all of those things, I have to learn (or unlearn) how to operate differently.
If one of us said to my mother, I love your cardigan, she would immediately unbutton it and hand it over. Take the shirt off my back please. And to be fair, that is the natural order of things for a mother and we are capital letter lucky. But, I didn’t learn for some of those reasons above, that I am separate to other people, that it is not my responsibility, that I can say no and that just because I’m free it doesn’t mean I have to give up my time. Some people have an inbuilt sense of their separateness and I have come to learn these people are often better and less complicated to be around and relate to. Hello Beth.
Because it used to be the empath people pleasing card was really the false modesty of my god I’m just a really giving gorgeous person and that’s my biggest crime. And honeys that is not what this essay is. Ask all my significant relationships, it’s far more annoying to not know the edges of me and the edges of you. Hello head turned to the left again as I ask what I’ve done wrong to create your bad mood. OPPRESSIVE. The reason this is connected to money is because it is. The pain it used to cause me to tell someone who asked me the cost of a 1:1 yoga class was enormous. So I did two things, I quoted the cheaper option (always) and I backed it up with a further sentence about how I was flexible and would love to make it work by whatever means possible. The means possible was usually me making a further discount for the fella with the well paid job who wanted the luxury of one to one yoga. COOL.
So why is money so emotional for me? Why can’t I say the price without wincing? And why can’t I put up the prices to reflect the energy and skill that goes into my work?
It is the same part of me that doesn’t know how to reply to a text from a friend without saying, ‘we should get coffee soon’. EVEN WHEN I DON’T MEAN IT. I can't always be getting coffee soon and sometimes I want off the ride please.
So why do I think people can’t live without me and at the same time think I need to make my professional fees more affordable?
This is the riddle of having a god complex and also thinking you need to earn your place.
Being a yoga teacher is the perfect job for someone who walks the line between these two lands. I would hazard a guess that most yoga teachers reading this identify. It’s because it gives you a fantastic stage to be a star and feel important and be worshipped, whilst simultaneously allowing you to feel like you are living in service and are simply grateful to be able to share this work with people who need it the most. Like 80% of other newly qualified yoga teachers, I had grand ideals about bringing yoga to the people who need it most. I even taught teenagers in a community centre on an estate on Tuesday evenings for a while. I charged £5 for my other drop in classes to make it accessible to those people who needed it the most and I thought a lot about teaching in prisons and how much of an impact I personally would make to prisoners :). And what happened? I dropped the Tuesday classes after a while because it was the 5th class of that day and I was knackered and didn’t really know what I was doing, everyone who came to the £5 class could have afforded £10 so it actually meant that I lost money on the studio hire rather than making a profit, and the prison thing, well it was a pipe dream.
At the same time I watched as people who posted pictures of themselves in aspirational poses, clothes and bodies were leap frogging me professionally. I’d post pictures of kittens from google and say just a reminder yoga is on tonight! smiley face, and three people including Beth would come. Meanwhile the people participating with the demands of the industry filled retreats and built followings. I began my career with very strong values about never posting my flesh or wearing tight clothes to teach in because that wasn’t what I believed this was about, but guess what? IT was! Doh!
The reason this is relevant is because it is. I over-identified with the possibility of making someone else feel bad so I took one for the team instead. The turmoil I felt when I put my prices up for £7.50. God damn it, charge a tenner past Annie, it’s so annoying to find the correct change. The thing about having principles is: the world doesn’t care and you don’t get a medal! And ultimately, where are the principles coming from because guess what, it’s probably not where you think it is. I should probably go to prison and then hell, but I often think this is true about Activists, but that’s for another alienating Substack soon.
It feels like a process of trying to get cleaner and cleaner until you can see clearly what it actually is that you are doing. I remember a training I did once in yoga life where we had to write down why we were doing this and I wrote scrawls and scrawls about how much I wanted the people who need it most to have access to yoga. And realistically it was because I liked the feeling of impact I perceived myself to have over people (ding ding ding).
So when things went sour it was because I was operating under false pretences. If I’d built something that felt more robust and earnt me quite a lot more money I might not have become so jaded and bitter and I might have been able to sustain it. And I might have got to the prisoners afterall. That’s the bottom line. Being the friend everyone turns to is fantastic in so many ways until you can’t work out what air there is left for you to breathe. KNOWWHATIMEAN? Honestly that metaphor feels like being in a car that crashed into a river.
When I was trying to work out how to get yoga to those who needed it most my ex boyfriend warned me I had to build myself up before I started giving it away. And he wasn’t right about loads of stuff, but he was right about that.
I can relate SO much. I have similar difficulties about money. I had similar grandiose ideas about bringing yoga to 'people who need it the most.' I also dreamed about teaching yoga in prison. People who struggle with PTSD or to feed their kids probably don't need yoga ... hence the classes I offered for newly arrived refugees weren't well attended. I was/am just another white woman in leggings with a saviour complex. I still feel uncomfortable around what to charge, as I know there's so much psychology around pricing and so many people taking advantage.