Why is it that so many people on a spiritual path struggle financially? And why are so many who undergoing a life transference by forgoing a career in a traditional job to begin an alternative life style or job in alternative health, live life broke? It all comes down to conditioning, misconceptions and personal values and beliefs. Spirituality does not mean poverty.

So often when talking to others working in a healing capacity, I find that they are struggling to make ends meet. Generally they have come from a traditional job and for one reason or another had been or are now working for a pittance, underselling their services and abilities and denied themselves the luxuries of life that they richly deserve. Believing that to be spiritual they cannot charge more than the minimum of fees or in some cases even giving their services away. Unlike the allopathic practitioners, they may not be able to have the support of providing Government Health Care deductions to their clients. And, in many cases, the general public doesn’t have the same level of belief in alternative methods as they may have in mainstream practices. To add to their situation, some practitioners are also often quick to condemn another practitioner who charges higher fees, hence making themselves a further product of their own conditioning and dissatisfaction.

I have worked with clients with terminal illnesses – cancer, failing kidneys, long-term depression. I witnessed them turn their conditions around and I began to question my beliefs about what my services were worth. What did the results these clients achieved mean to them and what value did they put on my part in their process? The questions I should had been asking were – what value did I put on my part and what were my beliefs around wealth and my chosen path? What were my unconscious beliefs and how had I been conditioned to accept this life purpose I was drawn to - and live it less abundantly than I should have?

What value do you put on your services and how do you measure a spiritual life?

I, like many, had an earlier view that we could be either spiritual or wealthy – but not both. My earlier examples were of great people who forwent their comforts to provide great humanities. Biblical references, the monks, indigenous people who still follow their traditional ways were my measure, all of whom had and or were living a life of meagre means. On the other hand there were the rich, enjoying an opulent life style. The opposite of a spiritual life I thought. But then I started to think; if we were all spiritual then by definition we should all be broke. Who would then help the needy? Who would feed, cloth and house the poor?

I started to look at the wealthy and realized there are a lot of wealthy people doing just that; providing “fish” and also “teaching people to fish”. At first hand, and due to the ways I filtered my view of the world, I was only seeing the wealth and not the deeds.

So many affluent people are very much spiritual beings. Brandon Bays, who after a major mind shift and enhancing her spiritual beliefs, recovered from a tumour the size of a basketball to go on to enjoy a grateful and affluent lifestyle as well as creating an organization dedicated to help others recover from illness and unhappiness.