M5: How can your make yourself sustainable?

I have often been told, 

“your work is so prolific”

“you are so articulate”

“if I had your talents…”

I’m sure people mean well when they say these things, but they have always landed badly for me, given the way my mind has grown up. 

“Why”, says my judgmental mind, “when I am so talented, am I unable to monetise all the skills I have honed over the decades?”

It took me a long time to figure out that being practical and financially capable is its own separate skill set. Growing up in a patriarchal family, I was told, "you don’t need to concern yourself about money” all my childhood. 

This was compounded by the fact that my family came from scarcity and I was often told as a child, “you are so lucky - we didn’t receive as many things as you” - almost as blame. This developed for me both ignorance of financial systems, as well as guilt around growing up with enough resources materially. 

When I grew up, I was suddenly expected to earn money and I had no clue what to do! I’m sure that being neurodivergent and unable to comprehend social and economic systems only added to the confusion.

In my thirties now, I am learning to understand how to figure out income and expenditure, how to save, how to manage a financial portfolio - I have only ever earned sporadically, as bursts of events around particular skill sets of mine, whether facilitation, art or performance.

Recently, I also realised that there is an additional dimension to earning as an artist - a fear of showing up and being seen. This is deeply is rooted in developmental trauma. As a child abuse survivor and as a person who has experienced an unstable and emotionally volatile home growing up, I have had to spend a considerable amount of time, energy and resources reparenting myself and learning to value myself. There are sneaky whispers that say “your words don’t matter, your thoughts are fake, or derivative” - that keep me small and scared.

I suspect learning to show up authentically is a lifelong process that will keep revealing layers tied to intergenerational trauma and systemic oppression. In a world that keeps pointing to scarcity in order to create overworked resource-people, it makes sense that there is never a sense of enough. 

Not having enough.

Certainly not being enough.

Yet, in the social change sector, particularly, it is so important to have philosophy, ethics and values clarified as we do our work. What is the change that we are growing towards? If I keep oppressing myself while fighting for other people’s liberation, I am bound to meet scarcity, because we are all mirrors to each other. I must work to reimagine a future not just for my communities, but also, and perhaps first, for myself.

Keeping this in mind, I have been working lately on clarifying my philosophy, values and ethics. My therapist asked me recently, “how can you make yourself sustainable?” And I have been chewing on this brilliant question - 

How can I be kind, both to myself and to my community? How can I build a balance of giving and receiving money, energy, time, creativity, support etc.?

I have come to see that this is a slow, spiralling process, where reading or affirmations are not enough. I must embody gratitude, joy and pleasure, then allow my body to get scared of safety, grieve my trauma, return to a sense of safety, and start over - one step ahead if I am lucky. 

Even though this is tedious, it is the most meaningful work I have ever done in my life and it is the root of all my offerings to the world. Life is never monotone, so even as I work inward, I work outward on building my website and clarifying my offerings.

Nuria’s wisdom on bootstrapping, as well as the community space we built together in this module’s breakout room have given me so much food for thought and community support as I move through this process. 

I am now building my offerings slowly to include - 

1. Tending the Flame - my initiative for Changemakers lab and my safe + brave spaces, where people come together to deepen their sense of safety and connection within themselves and with other people and ecosystems.
2. Embodiment support - lived-experience based peer support space that offers people tools, practices, strategies and resources to deepen into their own processes of embodied experience and integrate body, mind, heart and spirit into holistic experience that feels authentic. I offer this particularly for neurodivergent, queer and ecosensitive folks.
3. Art ceremonies - I offer the process of my own art practice which emerged during my dark night of the soul. I work with my clients to cultivate ceremonies to mark specific events, transitions or people and glean data from those ceremonies to create one-of-a-kind artwork for them to take home and celebrate.

I am also building my thoughts around posts and reels on Instagram that would reflect my authentic self and offer support to my followers, as well as ‘Patreon’ or ‘Buy me a coffee’ accounts that would offer donors glimpses into my process and takeaways to support them in their lives in gratitude for their financial support.

Nuria also sparked many event and workshop related ideas for me, but I want to make sure to take things slowly, one step at a time. 

I am grateful that this time, I have come to the precipice of abundance supported by tools and loving community. Some of the ways I feel supported are - 

• Documenting my progress so I can celebrate the small wins
• Making space to feel all my feelings so I can grow safely and comfortable without tripping my body’s protective system
• Making sure to converse with as many parts of me as are accessible - protectors, managers and exiles alike
• Being held by chosen family, friends, mentors, fellowship cohorts and leaders and other communities of support (especially CATS!)
• Remaining connected with nature, art, movement, and my sense of fun
• Acknowledging the limitations of my marginalities without using them as excuses not to grow
• Remaining grounded by my day-to-day chores of sweeping, drying clothes, cooking etc. 

I have come to realise that fundraising is not just about money, it is also about developing muscle around feeling safe, enough, abundant, deserving and valuable.

Step by step, I grow towards taking space and valuing my gifts.

As usual, I would love to hear from you, my community - 

What are some ways that you celebrate yourself as you dance the dance of giving and receiving?

How do you make fundraising joyful?