UP #90: A New Conversation About Money, Reciprocity, and Resiliency with Mandy Sandbach

“Of all the things that human beings make and do for each other, it is the unquantifiable ones that contribute most to human happiness.” —Charles Eisenstein

There’s a commonly held belief that money is at the root of all evil. Until recently, there was a large part of me that believed this to be true. But I now know that money can also be at the root of immense good in this world.

The problem with our cultural machine is that it doesn’t support life. As a result, the bulk of the world’s monetary wealth belongs to people in systems that inculcate, suppress, control, and numb our minds while transmuting, pillaging, sickening, and destroying life. The greatest world riches belong to the corporate players in destructive systems such as animal agriculture (i.e. Tyson, Perdue, Cargill), biotechnology/GMO’s (i.e. Monsanto, Dupont, Syngenta), pharmaceutical giants (i.e. Novartis, Pfizer, Proctor and Gamble), mainstream media moguls (i.e. Time Warner, Viacom, News Corp.), junk food giants (i.e. Pepsico, Nestle, ConAgra), chemical/pesticide companies (BASF, Bayer, Dow), environmental rapists (BP, Exxon, Koch Industries, ), banks (where to even begin…), and politicians (all of them—bought and sold by corporations). These are just a few in the endless list of players who reap the financial benefits of our culture of death.

At great expense to the Earth, the profiting puppetmasters of this dysfunctional cultural machine go to great lengths to ensure its survival. As a result, the concept of money often gets a bad rap. To make matters worse, our hand-me-down belief systems create notions of scarcity that prey on the survival fears of our primitive reptilian brains. It’s lunacy!

But you see, this entire mess is not the fault of “money”, because money is simply a nominalization. It isn’t real. The paper and metal that represents “money” is real, but money itself is a mere concept that we attach significant meaning to. And oh, the dysfunctional, stress-filled relationship we’ve created around this crazy concept.

You see, money is not at the root of all evil. Consciousness is. And what is evil anyways? In my world, it’s simply a label for the separation from one’s true Self.

If we get real with ourselves, we can see that the consciousness we attach to “money” is at the root of so much suffering. Money could be sticks, stones, or garbage from the street. Instead, it’s become little more than fluctuating numbers on a computer screen, or occasionally, metal and paper. The relationship we’ve been taught is real is often what creates so much angst around money. In essence, our collective consciousness around money is yet another metaphor for our separation from truth and life.

Because of our death-affirming culture however, we often feel as though our hands are tied. Ironically, because of the deeply entrenched modern cultural system, we must support the death culture in order to survive—at least to some degree—unless we live in a self-sustaining cabin in the woods where we can’t be found by the moguls who “own” vast swaths of the Earth. In order to meet our basic needs, we need money to buy the food locked up by grocery corporations (unless we grow our own or have year-round access to farmers markets). We need money to pay rent to the landlord or bank (aka “mortgage”). We need money to pay for water, hydro, internet, and transportation. The hypocrisy of the human experience is enough to make anyone who cares about life want to act out in rebellion (guilty as charged). No wonder our collective relationship with money is so painful.

But what if we reframed our relationship with money? What if we mindfully live our lives in the kindest way possible—where our choices align as closely as possible with life? What if we do work that leans towards life, or better yet, honours the life-affirming cry of the soul? What if we actively engage with like-minded,