For the longest time as a yoga teacher and freelancer, I did not recognize my inherent bias/ subconscious beliefs about money—nor did I think that said beliefs had any correlation to my entrepreneurial pursuits as a businesswoman.

As an entreprenuer, of course I dreamed of someday achieving financial freedom, (obviously?) hoping for success in business as a means to living an authentic and self-sufficient lifestyle—living life relatively on my own terms, like my parents, grandparents, great grandparents, and so many others who had done or were doing the dang thing.

Many years and healthy doses of Abraham Hicks lectures later, it at last struck me that I held quite limiting and negative beliefs about money—perhaps influenced more than most as a part of the yoga community, where making money can easily be looked down upon as “un-spiritual” and as an artist (with the most knee-jerk adjective ahead of said title typically being “starving.”)

From the idea of “selling out” to the many ever-warning that “money is the root of all evil”, at last it dawned on me the double bind—the transparent belief—I had held so long about success.

My dreams had quite clearly always been building to simply this: just being myself, a creative entrepreneur writing and weaving together the many things that I love — celebrating life for what it is, and trying to help, inspire, or uplift others while I’m alive, if I’m able.

Everything is connected.

A previous epiphany to me as a webmaster and blogger was sitting in a room with my yoga students after a class, as people moseyed to put their blocks away, sleepy-peaceful post-svasana.

As I sat on a mat that otherwise ordinary afternoon, a few of my students and I casually chatted about posture (and bad habits we’d developed over the years, hunched at a desk working.) I mentioned a posture corrector I had bought online and loved.

Within a week, half the class had bought it.

I was not an affiliate for this product, and one of my least favorite coined words of recent years regarding social media was “influencer”—implicating all the “followers” that are so easily impressionable.

“Influencer” still sounds subtly predatory to me. But sharing something that I genuinely love with people in the hopes that it will help and benefit them as well seemed a lot more up my alley, ethically.

When one of my students later asked me what yoga mat I recommended, I was not an affiliate of the company. I shared what I shared with all my students or anyone who ever asked what I liked best: the same simple mat I’d bought nearly ten years back, made of natural rubber that, in my opinion, has the best grip, even in the midst of hot yoga classes and lots of sweat.

When it finally struck me how ridiculously simple a blog could be if I could only shift my perspective on “sales”, suddenly I found the success I was seeking.

Sharing what I love is simple. Striving for symbiotic (mutually beneficial) relationships is my goal in all pursuits.

Making peace with the success you seek is an essential first step if you have not yet consciously done so.

From stuck to striving, Godspeed.