If I had a dollar for every time someone asked me how I went from living in a meditation centre to becoming a mortgage broker... well, I might have ten bucks or so!
But there is often surprise or confusion about how someone who spent six years meditating and tuning into the subtle could now work with something as gross or mundane as money. It is as though, through meditation, I should have transcended the need for money or, at the very least, stopped spending my days focusing on it.
But the truth is that money and spirituality are not opposites. In fact, I think they are deeply intertwined.
I get it. When we picture someone living in an ashram, we tend to picture a renunciant, free from desire and living with only the basic necessities. Maybe a shaved head and a thin mattress on the floor, with very few personal possessions. And although I have, at times, had a shaved head, my spiritual life was not developed by rejecting the world, but by embracing it.
Over time I have come to understand that spirituality doesn't exist somewhere outside ordinary life. It has to include the world we actually live in. Our work, our relationships, our homes, our bodies and, whether we like it or not, our money.
If we take it one step further, and hang with me here, money is energy. We earn it, spend it, save it, borrow it and give it away. It moves between people and through almost every area of our lives.
Money can also be power. Not in the sense that if I have money I am more powerful or important than you. But in the sense that having at least some of it, or perhaps enough of it, can give us a greater sense of security in ourselves and in our world. It can give us choices. The opposite is definitely true as well. Financial insecurity can create a very real feeling of instability.
And it's through this understanding that I intentionally choose to support people as their mortgage broker, because a person's finances and their home are directly related to some of our most fundamental needs: shelter, stability and security. In yogic language, these are base chakra concerns. They are about feeling grounded, supported and safe in the physical world.
But money has a wonderful way of bringing our inner world to the surface too. Fear, desire, comparison, attachment, ideas about success, ideas about what we should have achieved by now. All of it can become tangled up in something that, on the surface, appears to be simply about dollars and cents.
We don't need to sit cross-legged in a meditation hall for these things to reveal themselves. Just try buying a house!
The inner and outer worlds are constantly meeting.
I spent six years in a meditation centre learning to pay attention to my inner world. Working with money hasn't taken me away from that. It's just given me another place to practise it.
Want to chat about your own property goals?
Whether you are looking to buy your first home or want to ensure your current finances support your sense of security, I’d love to help you navigate the practical side of things. You can explore my mortgage broking page or book a time directly into my calendar.