Our Beyond Money Course is self-paced and includes over 40 short videos (1-12 mins each), plus bonus long-form conversation videos, quizzes and dozens of high-quality curated resources.

• Over 4 hours of video content

• Audio versions (downloadable audiobooks) of every video

• Dozens of curated, high-quality resources

• Optional quizzes to lock in learning

So, why learn about money?

And why explore our relationship with it? 

In Philip's words:

Like most people, I’ve had little formal education in the professional fields usually associated with money (economics, finance, stocks, trading, etc). I studied music production in college, and I’ve trained extensively in several modalities of human transformation including Relatefulness / Circling. But in recent years I’ve developed an intense passion for understanding how money works.

Why? Because, like it or not, it’s a fundamental aspect of our lives. And because it can be an extremely fruitful part of our personal growth and yes, even of our spiritual practice.

In fact, money looms so large in our existence that we often develop some pretty wonky ways of relating to it.

Addictions & Allergies

On the one hand, we may have developed what we could call an addiction to money. We might obsess over our finances, worrying constantly about how much money we have, how much we’ll make this month, how we can make more money next month, etc. (I’ve done all of these, by the way). 

We might associate money with our status, respectability and worthiness in the eyes of our family and community. We may even become obsessed with making money, often at the expense of our relationships and our physical, mental and emotional wellbeing.

As the classic observation by the Dalai Lama goes, we might end up “spending all our health trying to get money, and then spending all that money trying to recover our health.” An unhealthy relationship indeed.

On the other hand, we might have developed an allergy to money. Perhaps we feel a strong aversion to discussing money, to looking squarely at our personal finances (I've done this too) or to thinking about money in any meaningful way.

We might feel antipathy towards people who earn or have lots of money, assuming that they must be greedy, obsessed and/or unhappy. We may have negative ideas about “evil capitalism,” “corporate greed,” and so on. 

Being with what is

In my experience, the first steps towards a healthier relationship with money involve looking squarely at our current relationship to it. Do we have addictive or allergic reactions to money? Maybe a little of both?

The key is to not pathologize any of it. Simply to notice how we’re seeing money, without judging ourselves, or defending ourselves, as much as possible. To the extent that we can do this, we can find more capacity to choose.

Money isn't separate

Money isn’t inherently good or evil. It isn’t innately helpful nor harmful. In fact, there are several, more fundamental ways we can look at money:

• It’s simply energy.

• It’s a way to store the work we’ve already done, the energy we’ve already brought into the world (much like a battery).

• It’s a technology for conveying information about value.

• It's a means to an end (or any number of ends) rather than an end in itself.

• lt's a mirror showing us how we see life.

• Ultimately, it’s just another form of light, the shining-forth of the dream that is Reality, expressing itself to itself in every perfectly radiant form, including money.

Knowing (and feeling) this, we start to realize that we have an enormous amount of choice in how we see money, how we relate to it, and how we use it.

And the more we understand, not just this inner, causative dimension, but also what we could call the external aspects of money, the more we can have a healthy relationship to it. These external aspects involve asking questions like:
 

• What are the characteristics of good forms of money?

• How does money function today and what are some of its shortcomings?

• How do we 'play to win' in the current monetary system?

• How is money evolving?

• What is Bitcoin? Is it a scam, an environmental disaster, or something else entirely?

• How can we use this knowledge to improve our lives?

I keep discovering more ways in which having greater knowledge about money (clearer seeing) brings me more choice, and more choice creates more abundance. And I believe we all want to live in a healthier, more conscious, more truthful, more loving, and more abundant world.