I’ll be sharing something personal. It’s about money, and the anxiety bubble that surrounds it.

As someone in the “creative industry” (and I count yoga teachers among them), making enough money is always on your mind. Creatives, particularly when they start out, don’t earn much. Most of them will happily and readily tell you that they “don’t need” that much anyway. They do it because they love their job. Luxuries? Thanks, but no, thanks. Don’t need them.

Luxurious? Yes and no.

It almost becomes a mantra: Live with less, declutter, be minimalist. It sounds good, and it’s trendy. It’s more or less what I’ve done for the past few years.

Now a book recommended by a friend got me thinking.

“The Artist’s Way“ is a book about “unblocking” the artist within, a 12 week course that aims at “discovering and recovering your creative self”. One chapter is about money – and how money in itself represents a major creative block.

The essence of what the author says is that we adopt “attitudes that limit abundance and luxury in our current life”, consequently blocking creative abundance. Gosh: It’s of our own doing. Our self-sabotaging beliefs simply block our creative flow. 

A luxury? Hmm…

So how do we do this?

To all those who want to be creative – be it creating a vinyasa sequence or a piece of writing – the author has this to say:

For those of us who have become artistically anorectic – yearning to be creative and refusing to feed that hunger in ourselves so that we become more and more focused on our deprivation – a little authentic luxury can go a long way. The key word here is authentic. Because art is born in expansion, in a belief in sufficient supply, it is critical that we pamper ourselves for the sense of abundance it brings to us.

What does the author mean by “authentic luxury”?

It could be the single flower on the bedside table. The record from the vintage store. The punnet of raspberries once a week (or when we feel like!). A nice, very special tea set from the thrift store.

The essence of what she says is that it’s all about enjoyment, expansion, creating a sense of abundance. If you have the penthouse, the four cars and only fly first class, you still may not have created any of these in your life.

It’s about creating the right kind of luxury, well within our means:

All too often, we become [creatively] blocked and blame it on our lack of money. This is never an authentic block. The actual block is our feeling of constriction, our sense of powerlessness.

Her words really got me thinking and I started asking myself: What can I do today to create abundance in my life? While I write this, I’m looking at the flowers I bought a few days ago. They give me pleasure every day, just by being so splendid, always there, shining at 5.30am.

They bring a smile on my face. And that’s luxury.

What is luxury for you?

Be well,

Andrea

Image credit here and here.