THE BREAKDOWN: May 24, 2023
Like me, you've likely felt a lot of things within you and around you changing lately. Old systems, institutions, mindsets, the very things that we mistook as unchangeable parts of reality are breaking down rapidly.
The old ways of doing things - of forcing, trying to manipulate reality in order to ‘manifest’, strategically working backwards from a set goal in mind - are no longer working.
This has become especially apparent to me and to many others recently in the coaching industry + spiritual/healing spaces. So many of us have been seeing business slow down, and it's brought a lot of interesting shadows up to the surface to be witnessed + healed.
I started noticing this breakdown + shadow work process within myself last year. As my client work dwindled, the knee-jerk reaction to want to create a new offering, to try and post more sales content on Instagram, to just try harder came up relentlessly. Sometimes I listened to it and created something new or tried to include more schnazzy calls to action in my content, but I could always tell on some level when I was coming from a place of fear + scarcity and when my work wasn't feeling completely authentic to me.
My desire to help + serve others was genuine, but that pesky topic of money (and ya know, survival) seemed to keep getting in the way and pulling my focus + intention.
The Medicine
The second part of my own breakdown-of-the-old has come from my integration process after an extremely powerful + life-changing ayahuasca retreat in Peru over my 33rd birthday last August.
In my 3rd + final ceremony in the jungle, the main theme was:
“We are Creators birthing a new world.”
It was as if these words were written in giant letters across the sky, and as I was taken through a ‘birthing’ process, they imprinted into every cell of my body. This experience wasn't just personal for me - it felt collective, and it felt like a preview of what we are currently in the process of together. It felt significant.
The integration process since then has been challenging, confusing, and at times existential for me because visible reality has often still seemed so very far away from the glimpse I was given of what's possible, of what we are creating and birthing together.
Sometimes it has felt like what I received was just a giant cosmic tease - a glimpse or preview of what could and should be, but without a map of how we can get there or even of what my role is in birthing it into being.
I think a lot of us feel this way right now - like the old story of the world, of business as usual, has lost its appeal and its motivating force, and yet we can't yet fully inhabit or see the new story that is coming into being. And in our rush to escape the discomfort of uncertainty and having to live in the liminal space between worlds, we keep re-enacting more of the same old patterns, just repackaged in different ways.
This is the dilemma I have kept running up against as well, as I've tried to reimagine what my business could look like and how to offer my gifts into the world with integrity.
How do I contribute to the creation of a new world - one that doesn't equate more money and endless, unsustainable growth with success; one that operates from a story of harmony and cooperation instead of competition and separation; one that embodies the idea that all thriving is mutual - while still having to survive in the old one?
How do I show up fully for my life as is it now without perpetuating and continuing to feed the machines of capitalism, patriarchy, colonialism, and separation that need to crumble for us to move into something new?
The Emerge of something New
I still do not have all the answers - for myself or for anyone else (and in fact, I would suggest that if you come across anyone right now - especially a coach or spiritual guru type - who claims to have the ‘answers’ or knows what you should be doing, to walk in the other direction).
But something that has become clear to me is that this transformation needs to go much deeper than just a new program or mastermind or offering. What's being asked of each of us is that we cultivate the willingness and trust to step into a completely new way of being.
For me, this looks like completely transforming the way I do business - which is why I'm moving into a business model based on a gift economy. In this model, I offer my work + services - my writing, my vision, my 1:1 sessions, my courses and teachings, events and circles I hold, etc. - into the world as a gift. Not because I see myself as some altruistic, saintly spiritual leader, but because I deeply believe, and know in my heart, that this feeling of being on the same team as one another is how the world is meant to work.
Operating in this way is going to require a perpetual state of trust and actually living from my deep inner knowing that we are all connected to one another - that my thriving is directly tied to your thriving, and vice versa - instead of just talking about it.
It requires a massive surrender of control, not just once as it would if I were putting a new offering into the world, but everyday, as I offer my gifts freely into the world and trust that the world will feel gratitude for my contribution and reciprocate to take care of me in kind.
You might say that I'm moving to a donation-based business model, or a pay-what-you-wish business model - both of those things are technically true, but they don't fully capture the essence of my intention and what I'm inviting you into with me.
What feels more true to me is reflected in this quote from Charles Eisenstein, whose work on this topic (through his books Sacred Economics and The More Beautiful World Our Hearts Know Is Possible, and through his free articles on his website, in case you're interested in checking them out) has deeply inspired and moved me lately:
“We give because we want to, not because we should. Gratitude, the recognition that one has received and the desire to give in turn, is our innate default state. How could it not be, when life, breath, and world are gifts? When even the fruits of our labors is beyond our contrivance? To live in the gift is to reunite with our true nature.”
As much as possible, I offer my work as a gift to those I serve and work with. This means that in our time together, I give to you parts of myself and what I have - my time, my energy, my attention and focus, my skills, and the gifts that have been give to me by Life itself - without expectation of receiving anything directly in return. It’s not that I don’t want or need anything myself - in fact, one of the deep realizations that emerges naturally out of gift-based economies is how much and how deeply we need one another, as opposed to the goals of self-sufficiency and individualism that capitalism and consumerism instill in us.
Make no mistake that my choice to run my business in this way is not set upon a flowery foundation of just ‘love and light’ or naive optimism. To me, pouring my gifts into the world and into my community is as much a radical, defiant act of resistance to the status quo as it is an intentional act of creation toward the more beautiful world I want to see and live in.
I hope that you will join me in enacting a different way of being and relating to one another - one that is based in deep trust, mutual care, generosity, and gratitude for all that we are given in this life. If you feel drawn toward working with me, I hope that you will receive your session as you would receive a sacred, meaningful gift from a friend. And if you feel inspired to give - in response to a feeling of gratitude for what you have received from me, or as a way to circulate what you have been given - I see you, I thank you, I honor you.
About
I’ve had a deep curiosity and interest in all things metaphysical and esoteric ever since I could remember, but my journey with spirituality and astrology began in earnest in 2018 when I left my dream job creating marketing campaigns for one of the most recognizable brands in the world. After a decade-long career spent climbing the corporate ladder, I finally started asking myself why I was doing it all if I didn’t even want to end up as a CMO or marketing leader.
And so my spiritual journey centered around two main existential questions: Who am I? and What am I doing here? And while I now understand that the way we live our lives IS our answer to these deep, soul-penetrating questions, for me Astrology became the primary gateway into a whole new way of answering them with spirituality, self-awareness, and soul purpose. Before, my lived answers to those questions came from conditioning - who I was told I should be and what I should want to do with my life; Astrology returned me to my own knowing and my ability to write my own story.
That empowerment, self-understanding, and self-trust that I gained from seeing myself reflected in the stars is exactly what I want to give back to the world. If we’re all mirrors reflecting different aspects of Self to one another, I want to be the
one holding up the cosmic mirror, reminding you of your Light and your highest
potential. www.chelseajewel.com
Note
This is an extended article first published on Chelsea's Blog. With kind permission republished.
Artist
Over seven decades, Katsushika Hokusai had produced an astounding 30,000 drawings, paintings, and prints. In his 70s, he began releasing his most famous landscape woodblock print series known as the 36 Views of Mount Fuji, which includes the iconic The Great Wave off Kanagawa. His artworks had influences beyond Japan, inspiring many renowned western artists including Edouard Manet, Claude Monet, and Vincent Van Gogh. Below are some of Hokusai's best vintage illustrations which are in the public domain and can be downloaded for free as high resolution printable files. Enjoy Japan's beauty through Hokusai's talent!