Circulation

Back to school vibes … I will always look at this time of year in terms of momentum, how that looks will change but there will always be movement. 

This year I chatted with my financial planner … Now that I’ve had a year and a bit to get comfortable with owning a home and the costs surrounding that, we chatted about changing my savings - I had turned them off and I essentially turned them back on. 

In the process of doing this, my brain started to shift … 

I see all these “level up” and “quantum timeline jumps” on my for me pages and I think I always assumed those shifts would be monumental, as I was looking back over the last three years, I was amazed at where I was - where I am. It’s not that I became an upgraded version … I didn’t … I became a more authentic version.

I let go of things I didn’t need to carry, I found my courage, took a leap of faith, quit a job without a safety net, found a job - where for the first time in a long time I knew no one and no one knew me … I created a website and wrote a blog, followed by another and three more years of others … I left a place I loved for a place that’s mine and suits who I am and what I’m building. I have shifted my philosophy with money which somehow also shifted how I think about relationships.

I moved from asking questions about what makes me feel safe, what I need from work to feel energized, why do certain people stay with me to wanting to understand what makes all the things connect … to circulate. 

I like movement … motion … I need it. What I’ve started to connect is the movement happening within my life. I know - it sounds utterly obvious and yet it took me how long to get here?

I’ve joked that my fathers love language is gift giving … In a lot of ways - it’s also one of mine … I love to spoil my bebes, I like spending money on experiences, on upgrades that provide value … Money isn’t just meant to accumulate …  I’m starting to answer the question “if I put my money here, what comes back?” Sometimes the answer is experiences, sometimes energy or wellness, sometimes it’s time, sometimes it’s more money … If I can’t answer the question or the answer isn’t much - the question becomes, why am I spending it?

Don’t misunderstand - I don’t circulate everything. Investments, savings etc. these are part of the infrastructure I’m building, one which allows me to circulate in the ways that are meaningful to me. 

My money is starting to move with intention. 

To be clear - I don’t always get this right. I am so much better. It’s also important to note ‘meaningful to me’ … where and how I spend needs to make sense to me and no one else - especially if I’m functioning in a way that isn’t asking others to give me money to bail me out. 

Time is a valuable commodity to me - freeing that up so it can be used in more meaningful ways, ways that align with my skills, my strengths - that’s important to me. Driving a high end car, less meaningful. I do not understand or appreciate the differences between models, engines, and extras enough to reap any value. 

As I looked back over my three year journey … I realized the change in language  … moving from a place of discovery, peeling away layers, more questions than answers, lots of hard questions and honesty that wasn’t always easy to a place of awareness. I moved to recognizing the breadcrumbs left along the way to seeing how movement is connecting all the things, where and how they move together, how they support each other and ultimately how they support the underlying operating system that is me. 

My elements help me function - water, ground, fire they are a core part of how I think, feel and am. My pack is the community I choose - they are essential to who I am because of who they are. Lastly my north star … it lights my way but is the compass I use to direct my movement. 

None of these stand alone … They move in and out, around and through me. Fundamentally I believe in movement - love, energy, money … these move - through me, my pack, what I build etc. 

Circulation isn’t unlike reciprocity - it needs give and take, push and pull. While evidence is aligned with my becoming or progressing, reciprocity fits well within my relationships - with myself, with others, my career, money … it asks whether there is movement between the things. 

Circulation is the movement itself. My elements can exist independently - but as a living being - I exist because they move. Water and fire - movement is in their nature … Ground gives movement a place to land .. Pack requires reciprocity to remain healthy - care, love, support, attention, contribution, presence. My north star gives movement direction - a path. 

Circulation lets everything live, breathe. 

I wrote once about ripples … actions that create reactions that we might never see, or know we caused. Now I think another layer to that is what circulation becomes when it moves beyond me. 

I talk about creating legacy - not prescriptive or fixed but the foundation that my bebes can build upon - use to create or build something of their own, something authentically theirs that builds on the roots they were given. 

So I guess my new language includes defining circulation as how things move with me in the mix … ripples are how it travels beyond the original act and legacy is what keeps moving after I have let it go.