My partner and I just came home from Sapience retreat, and my nervous system still feels a little like a snow globe someone gently shook and then set down to settle.
We spent days experiencing the sacred sequence of life, trusting the process and surrendering to our truths. I kept hearing the invitation:
Be succinct. Be honest. Say the thing.
So here it is:
This one’s about money.
And belonging.
And the way my body has braced against both.
The early imprints: cow-print skirts & claymation
When I was a little girl, I always felt a bit… out of place. I moved from the UK to South Florida with my little accent and my slightly off-kilter style.
My first real friend at school was Julie. She had this warmth, the kind that just lets your shoulders drop an inch. She grew up to become an incredibly creative claymation artist, and over dinner last year I found out she once made a claymation short film with a character who had my name.
We’ve barely seen each other over the years, but when we had dinner, it was like slipping back into a favorite hoodie. The love was still there. Old friends feel like that, like continuity in a world that keeps rearranging itself.
She was with me when I got my first period, right before her dad dropped us off at Warped Tour in Fort Lauderdale. We were twelve. I remember awkwardly trying to put in a tampon for the first time with zero real instruction, just hope and complicated packaging, and thinking, surely this cannot be the right angle.
A few years earlier, around third or fourth grade, my mom would dress me in these unique pieces of clothing, like my cow-print skirt. I loved that skirt. The other girls did not.
I remember getting made fun of for it.
I remember the burn in my cheeks.
I remember the first quiet understanding:
Being different is dangerous.
South Florida, status, and the quiet deal I made
Growing up in South Florida, the currency was obvious:
What car do you drive?
What handbag is on your arm?
Where are you getting plastic surgery first?
I never really felt like I belonged in that world, but I also didn’t want to be exiled from it. My biology, my lineage, my animal body knew: fitting in is survival.
So I made this unconscious deal with myself:
Blend enough to not get eaten.
Around the same time, another story started weaving itself through my life:
Most of my friends’ parents were divorced. Eventually, mine were too.
The common denominator, at least from my vantage point:
Money made things complicated.
Money caused fights.
Money meant distance, endless tears, and long silences in the car.
I absorbed the message:
More money = less connection.
It felt like Biggie had it right all along. “Mo money mo problems” felt like a thesis statement for adulthood.
Elitism, the cool crowd & the allergy I can feel in my bones
In my early twenties I moved to New York, and the story sharpened.
I didn’t just see elitism from the outside; I got pulled into it. I found myself in rooms that read as “cool” from the outside; the right parties, the right people, the right skimpy outfits.
I wasn’t some It Girl, but I did get proximity to that world, and a part of me really wanted to stay there.
At the same time, I was never only that. I’ve always been someone who can float between worlds. I was in a lot of different groups, and you could take me almost anywhere and I’d find a way to belong. Probably a nod to my 10 schools before graduating high school adaptability.
Still, there were some elitist circles I ran in, and it felt like work to hold my place there. I learned the codes. I played the game. I went along with things that, honestly, didn’t always feel great in my body.
I started seeing how money and status could morph into “above-ness” — the unspoken hierarchy in the room, the subtle scan for who matters and who doesn’t.
Whatever I was becoming, I remember praying:
Please, let it not be that.
After years of being out of that world, I’ve grown almost allergic to elitism. My body knows it before my brain does, the tightening in my chest, the slight pull back, the inner eye-roll.
In contrast, humility is one of the most beautiful traits I know.
When I’m around real humility, my body relaxes. I feel this quiet reverence for whatever is beyond us. There’s a grounded presence, a respect for other people’s experiences, a sense that no one is above or below anyone else.
Humility is trustable as fuck.
And it’s something I’m constantly working to cultivate in myself.
The fear of becoming “one of them”
Here’s the part that feels edgy to name:
For a long time, I’ve been afraid to be open about my financial stability and success.
Terrified, actually.
Afraid that if people saw the whole picture, the income, the savings, the opportunities, I’d become “one of them.”
Afraid of disconnection.
Afraid people would project onto me the very elitism that makes my nervous system want to crawl out of my skin.
For a chunk of my early adulthood, I genuinely thought I might be broke forever, and there was a part of me that was… oddly okay with that. It felt safe to be the underdog. Relatable. Harmless.
But life had other ideas.
I’ve been fortunate in this life, to have people who championed my work, my art, my weird, my expression. People who took risks on me and pushed open doors I didn’t even realize were there.
And quietly, over time, my relationship with money changed.
But my stories about money didn’t.
Sapience, sacred sequence, and telling the truth
At Sapience, sitting with my partner, I finally shared what my yearly income actually is. Like, the real number. Not the rounded-down cute version. Not the “oh it’s been a good year” deflection.
Just: here’s the truth.
It sounds simple, but I felt like curling up into a ball. I could feel all those old fears waking up:
Will he see me differently?
Will this change our dynamic?
Does this make me less lovable, less safe, less… normal?
And then something unexpected happened.
Nothing bad.
We were just there. Two humans, telling the truth. Breathing.
It opened something in me:
It’s not the money that disconnects us.
It’s the hiding.
It’s the secrecy.
It’s the clenching around it, that tight little “mine” energy.
I realized I’d been “my precious’ing” my money in this subtle way, like if I didn’t hold it just right, I’d turn into the kind of person I never wanted to be.
But the truth is much simpler and much more inconvenient:
Money is currency.
It wants to move.
Money as a current, not a cage
Currency, at its root, is about flow. It’s a current, a river that moves between us; resourcing, nourishing, allowing things to grow.
Lynne Twist writes about how money becomes deeply nourishing when we let it move in the direction of what we truly care about, our real commitments, our values, our love. When we appreciate what we have and direct it toward what matters, it tends to expand. When we invite others into that flow, collaboration creates a different kind of prosperity.
That clicked in my body like a soft yes:
Oh. Right. It’s not meant to sit. It’s meant to circulate.
When money gets stuck; hoarded, clutched, used as a way to prop ourselves above others it stops being a current and becomes a dam. And dams, in the long run, don’t just hold things back; they warp the whole ecosystem.
On this retreat, I could feel how much my body actually wants to be in right relationship with money. Not in denial of it. Not worshiping it.
Just:
Letting it move.
Letting it support me, my partner, our home, our bodies.
Letting it support the people and projects I believe in.
Letting it be a tool for connection instead of a shield against it.
After all, rising tides rise all boats.
A new practice: putting my money where my mouth & heart are
So here’s what this insight is asking of me; not just as a nice idea, but as an actual practice:
I’m committing to making financial support a regular ritual, not a one-off feel-good moment.
Not just: “Oh, I happened to be generous that one time.”
But: “Every month, as a practice, I circulate some of this current.”
To the people whose work moves me.
To friends and peers whose art, services, and creations I want to see flourish.
To the spaces and communities that feel like home for the nervous system.
From the recognition that if I’m resourced, and my cup is full, hoarding the overflow is actually out of integrity with who I say I am (and boring!)
Life is too short, and honestly too weird, not to share abundance when we are fortunate enough to have it.
Belonging with money, not despite it
Underneath all of this is a very young part of me that still wonders:
Can I be different and still belong?
Can I have money and still be kind, humble, real?
Can I be resourced and still be trusted?
I’m slowly, gently, letting the answer be yes.
Yes, I can be the girl in the cow-print skirt who also has a robust savings account.
Yes, I can be allergic to elitism and still be deeply, unapologetically supported by the work I do.
Maybe belonging isn’t about sanding down the edges or staying small enough to not upset anyone.
Maybe belonging, real belonging, includes being honest about what we have, what we don’t, what we fear, and what we’re learning to flow.
I don’t have a tidy conclusion, just this:
Money is a current.
I’m learning, slowly, to stand in the river without armoring up. To let it move through my life without letting it decide my worth or my place in the pack.
To tell the truth about what’s here.
To stay humble.
To keep my heart open.
To support the people around me so we all rise together.
And to remember that somewhere out there, there’s still a claymation version of me, awkward, tender, a little strange, reminding me that being seen in my fullness has always been part of the story.
Upcoming Group Offering:
December 3rd → Desire Mapping @ Archipelago (Denver)
A 3-hour immersion into intimacy with yourself and/or a partner through the lens of the Dual Control Model and the five senses. We’ll explore what turns you on and what shuts you down, gently mapping accelerators and brakes in your erotic system while using scent, sound, touch, taste, and sight as anchors. Come to know your own body’s “yes,” “no,” and “not yet” with more clarity, safety, and play.
1:1 Somatic Intimacy Coaching
For individuals or couples who are ready to get honest about what’s happening in their bodies and relationships. Together, we work with the nervous system, attachment patterns, and desire:
tending to shame and old stories around sex, love, and worthiness
practicing clear boundaries, requests, and repair (think: NVC, Wheel of Consent, and real-life conversations)
reconnecting to pleasure as a source of power, not performance
Sessions are offered virtually and in person in Boulder, CO.
This is not “fix yourself so you can be lovable” work — it’s remember who you are and build relationships that can actually hold that.