Value and The Spiritual Meaning of Debt
9. Do you love knowing that someone has received huge value from the work you’ve done, and do you feel that on a regular basis?
There is a fairly large gap between giving, and giving value, yet it’s a subtle difference and can be the key to understanding how to move out of the debt mindset. It’s so easy to get caught up in the ‘dollars for hours’ mindset and valuation of our skills and experience as a monetary figure, but there’s so much more to true value. There are things we all come here with that are unique to us, and that no other being in all of creation can do in quite the same way, and it’s these things that provide the most value for other people. It so often happens that what we believe we value is based on someone else’s interpretation.
Let me try to clarify further by using an example from my experience. I worked in customer service for many years, and in my ‘home life’ gave emotional and physical support to my family. I felt like I was giving non-stop, but what I was giving did not feel valuable to me, as I believed I had no choice but to give. No one else would give this support to my family (so I thought) and I worked the jobs I believed I was suited to (from my Debt Story). I was barely making ends meet, but my credit rating was okay, and I was able to take out student loans for University, which made me feel like I was finally getting somewhere. I kept on giving, working full-time while full-time at school, still offering support to my family, all the while feeling more and more like there had to be something else; there must be another way! I hadn’t really thought about why I gave so much, I just ‘knew’ that it was my duty.
Between my first and second master’s degree, I fell apart, completely. I let go of years (maybe lifetimes) worth of old, old ‘stuff’ that I began to realize had been keeping me in this pattern of giving and not feeling valued in return. As I worked through all this, I started to notice that I wanted to give less of the everyday stuff that I didn’t really feel was valuable to people (‘thank you for buying this ____, Sir, see you again’), and instead give of myself, given to people things that would really help them. I started to connect with the things that I found valuable about my life and my own experience, and realized that those things could also be of value to others. A-ha.
Is there a part 4or a conclusion?