For love, not money

Nursing is a vocation, you do it for love not for money....

This is what I have heard on repeat for a lot of my life- isn't she admirable, doing a job for love not money, helping others even though she can barely look after herself, because its a vocation.  What a 'good' nurse I was. 

And I did do it for love, not money, and because I wanted to help people.  But perhaps also because I needed to feel loved, and those patterns of having nothing myself and giving to others fitted into my perception of what a 'good' girl as well as a 'good' nurse was.  That's how I felt valued.  Those were the patterns that were keeping me stuck and disempowered and they extended through all areas of my life too.

When I finally learnt to love and value myself,  it became harder for me to work as a nurse in the same way.  I still wanted to do the work for love, but in a healthy way, yet it became impossible to love myself at the same time- low pay, no breaks, lack of respect. The patterns ran too deep.

When I became a healer, the same patterns were still there, that same idea that it is done for love so it cant be done for money, those spiritual teachings that tell you that it is wrong to charge for spiritual work. 

So I see many amazing nurses completely burnt out, and many amazing healers spending the rest of their time battling with universal credits, part time jobs and stressing about whether they can feed their kids or pay the next bill.

And so those that do it for love, not money, are not able to step into the fullness of their roles or embrace all of their power, or actually do what they are here to do... so that means less love in the world!

I was thinking today about so many people I know who are amazing at what they do, but who feel overwhelmed with responsibilities, and all that there is to fit into a day,- plus holding down 'normal' jobs as well as doing the majority of their other 'work' unpaid and unseen.  Meeting in the dream world, at sacred sites, working on healing the earth, dreaming a new world into being, I think in another place or time they would have been the shaman, the mystic or the seer, who also brought back healing and wisdom to the community... 

And maybe they wouldn't have been paid as such-and would simply do it for love not money, but they would have been supported in other ways by the community- not just by receiving all that they needed, but also respected too. 

Today in the Western world, with the emphasis on logic and reason- those that work in the unseen aren't always respected or supported in the same way, in fact sometimes the opposite.

I know these patterns are within society as a whole.  But I also know it all starts within and we can all help to undo these patterns by finding them within ourselves. 

And so today I started thinking about what it would feel like to be fully supported to do this work.  If I could allow myself to fully step into all the magic and the power and embrace it all... and the feeling I found was fear. 

And so I wonder how much I have created this life and this feeling of being unsupported, overwhelmed and having so much to do, because of this fear- and again this lack of respect, value and love for of all the magic that exists within and all around me. 

Perhaps its a deeper layer yet. 

And perhaps this world is so full of things to distract us from the magic that is within and all around us to keep us small and disempowered- but if we can find and heal this resistance within ourselves, then maybe it's another step closer to discovering and embracing it...for it to be supported and respected again in the wider community too.

So that we don't need to choose love OR money and we can bring more of both into our lives to create a better world.

We have a retreat this May which is all around this topic- affordable and in a very magical place in west Cornwall- you can learn more about Dreaming with the Wild Rose Retreat here