More on Giving and Receiving

In order to get right with money, we must get right with ourselves; we must establish our sense of self-worth and enter fully into the wheel of giving and receiving. We need not be afraid to receive because we have given, and we are certainly more inspired to give when we feel we are not being taken.

One thing that appears time and again in career counseling is, "How am I going to get paid for it?" Many people, especially those in the public service and helping professions feel guilty about receiving payment. We tend to be uncomfortable with "taking money" from an individual and yet when it comes to "taking money" from insurance companies - for example - we are "OK" with it. In this way we give away our power because most of us are ashamed of the ways we give, and many of us confuse receiving with taking.

When we are willing to receive from another (notice I did not use the word take), others will want to give to us because their true need is to give, rather than to "be taken."

Money is round, keep it rolling.
~Swami Jnanananda Giri

To "keep it rolling" means to enter into the practice of giving and receiving. When we start doing this consciously we actually begin getting paid for our work because we value it, and others receive that which is of value. Our work itself becomes our way of giving back to life. It is an expression of our fullness rather than a need to extract bread from the earth.

~Rick Jarow