Based on recent conversations with friends, I thought I’d share the following excerpt from the book, Freeing the Soul from Fear by archetypal psychologist, Robert Sardello. I’ll allow this piece to stand alone for now and will make reference to it in a future post. Don’t worry if it doesn’t all make sense immediately — the idea is to circle around it several times, gleaning deeper insights with each further reading.

Money Fears

The predominant myth within which we all now live is an economic myth. What we do, how we live, and what we value are largely determined by monetary worth. Money, no doubt, has always had enormous power, but now it overshadows all other values. The fears surrounding money have to do not only with survival but also with the loss of identity associated with not buying into this myth.

The difficulty with the economic myth, as with all myths based on a divisive illusion, is that it leaves out the soul. Statistics, polls, gross national product, inflation rates, production growth, and measures of the global economy form the abstract fabric of this way of organising the world. There is nothing for the soul to relate to, nothing in the outer world that reflects its own mode of reality, which arises through sacred images.

The fear hiding behind all of the vacuous statistical rhetoric of the economic myth is the fear of living without a sacred view of the world. Economics, a word that means ‘care of the household,’ can be a sacred matter; it is not economics per se that constitutes fear, but the sort of economy that depends on the fetishising of material wealth. Still, we must ask, what gives these numbers such power?

The myth of modern economics cannot hold people together as a community, and the world begins fracturing into those who possess and those who are dispossessed. Separation always forms a basis of fears, and in the case of economics, this separation is between those who have socioeconomic power and status and those who do not.

Economic fear also has a great deal to do with how people are treated in the workplace. Corporate culture treats individuals as units. This attitude has infected nearly all of work, whether one happens to work for a corporation or not, and it relies on fear. Here is a description of layoffs in a large corporation:

The way the layoffs were handled was legalistic, efficient, and demeaning. They hired two security guards to make sure things didn’t get out of control. In the meetings where people were told they were being laid off, the vice president read from a prepared statement, the same statement for each employee. Next the employee was escorted to his or her desk where they had little time to pack up, and they were escorted to the door. This was carried out in front of the rest of the company.

The picture reveals the way in which fear has become an unavoidable part of the corporate life. The layoffs described were evidently orchestrated to make the rest of the employees afraid. When corporations treat individuals in this way, soul has no place in daily endeavours. Work is diminished to the banality of keeping the economic machine running efficiently. Our talents and abilities are utilised to accomplish what someone else wants in the world, usually higher profits. The creativeness of our spirit and the depths of our individual soul often have to be relinquished, which results in working in fear. Creativeness and individuality interfere with efficiency and productivity, even though in the long run these qualities contribute most to a lasting, viable business. These days, however, business looks toward short-term gain as the way to perpetuate itself. Receiving a salary is often the only compensation for forgetting who we are.

A first small step — something each of us can do to assure that we do not sell our soul for work — is to perform a daily exercise, to build up the forces of the soul in the context of work that does little to nourish it.

Exercise: Imagine a scene that is typical of your job. You may, for example, picture writing at a computer, or teaching a class, or preparing a legal document — whatever your job consists of on a daily basis. Then, when you have this inner picture and have stabilised it, dissolve the picture into a ball of light. Then let the light re-form into a figure, the figure of a man or a woman, say, or any other form, such as a troll, or an angel, or another sort of being. Then ask this being, “What is your work in the world?” Do not be concerned if you feel you are making up an answer out of your head. Just let it happen. What does this figure say to you? After your conversation is completed, thank this being, and let the figure again dissolve into a ball of light, and then let the light return to your own image of your job. Then open your eyes. Doing this exercise periodically may produce quite interesting results. For example, you may find that while your job may seem the same day in and day out, the soul and spirit dimensions of what you are doing may change frequently. Being present to such change will bring new life to your job. You may also discover that what you think you are doing is something quite different from what your soul and spirit are doing.

In the past, when economic fear based on class distinctions came to dominate the whole of a culture, the situation was ripe for violent revolution. The intention of an exercise such as this is to bring about an inner revolution, the goal of which is to preserve soul. The difficulty in being treated with brutal anonymity lies in the fact that one can become forgetful of being more than a mere function. But if, under the rather dire circumstances prescribed by the economic myth, we keep an inner liveliness of spirit and soul, the possibility of creating a genuine, embracing myth remains open.

The many times I have done this exercise with groups of people has shown me that, indeed, a new myth is attempting to emerge, and that this myth has to do with being of selfless service to others. The reports from people who have done this exercise attest to this. One person, who works as a writer for a popular children’s television series, imagined a scene of himself as sitting at his desk, writing scripts. When this task became an inner figure, he saw an angel who said that his work was to bring courage of heart into the world. The writer was amazed and a bit overwhelmed, and viewed what he had been doing for years in a completely new light. Another person considered her job as answering telephones all day long. When this job became an inner figure, she saw a grandmotherly figure inviting people to dinner, and a group of people sitting around the table having a delicious dinner. When most people do this exercise, they most often experience images having to do with service. The soul apparently, feels most free from fear when it imagines doing something for others. The soul feels the call of the genuine need of others.

While it might seem strange to approach such overwhelming economic fears by suggesting we exercise the imagination, the goal is not to solve the problem of money and its power in our culture. It is simply to provide a way for the soul to keep from getting lost and forgotten in the presence of fears surrounding money. If we can keep soul connected with our jobs, our re-imagined work life will go a long way to alleviate financial fears.

Copyright © 1999 Robert Sardello

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Thea is author of the inspiring memoir Running into Myself. Buy a copy from Amazon UK, Amazon US or, better still, order a limited edition signed copy direct from her publisher here (also ships worldwide).

“Thea’s personal journey is utterly compelling. I couldn’t put her book down. Thea manages to make Greek mythology not only understandable, interesting, and relevant to our lives today, but shows how it can be utilised as a tool for self development. She introduces ideas and ways of thinking that broaden your mind, and lights the way for others to follow.”

— Melinda Messenger (TV Presenter)