Charging People Money For A Group About Not Having Enough Money

I came up with the idea to create a 6-month-long online group for adopted people who feel they didn’t have enough money because I have seen the power of hive mind and collaboration. I have made it my life’s work to learn about my own relationship with enough and money. I spent $13,000 on Martha Beck’s Wayfinder Life Coach program to learn more about how my brain works, and I have a lot of ideas to share.

I believe that if groups gather with the intention of changing something, something’s going to happen.

I decided to charge $20 a month instead of my standard $150 for group work in order to make the group as accessible as possible. I thought I was doing A Good Thing.

These days I love getting triggered (well, part of me loves it). Ever since taking Joe Hudson’s Art of Accomplishment’s Connection Course, I see being triggered as an opportunity to be in vulnerability, impartiality, empathy, and wonder. The trick is to not respond from the triggered place--not easy for someone like me who has a life-long habit of shooting off her mouth without much regard for the consequences. But really, it’s doable, especially when I know how great the rewards might well be in comparison with the short-lived thrill of blowing fire out of my face. The thing is to recognize that I’m triggered (pretty easy), and to take some deep breaths, cross my arms, say I’ll be right back and walk away for a minute, step away from the computer—whatever needs to happen so I don’t punch someone in the face with words.

The next part is to sink into a place of what Joe Hudson calls VIEW (the list I mentioned above: vulnerability, impartiality, empathy, and wonder—I’m pretty sure I cannot repeat that list to myself too many times) and, from a state of VIEW, to ask two questions starting with how or what. (Remember: you are not your tight pissed off self here—you are in what Richard Schwartz calls Self Energy. You are witnessing the situation from a bravely open heart. You are in VIEW.)

Then yesterday I got triggered by three different (adopted) women who wrote to me via social media basically the same question, and in the blur of fury, I forgot what I loved about the whole getting triggered business. I had to lie down on the couch for thirty minutes and let the rush of energy pass through me so I could get to a more reasonable place before I yelled at them in some form or another.

The question all three asked, almost verbatim, was: “Don’t you think it’s ironic that you are charging people money for a class that is about not having enough money?” I don’t mean to be rude, one said. I don’t mean to be disrespectful, another said. Their note to me was an accusation, not a question. There question felt rude, disrespectful. (Remember: I was triggered.)

What triggered me was that part of me felt undervalued—here I was offering information that took a great deal of my own personal resources (time, energy, money) to acquire, and I was supposed to give what I have acquired away for free? Was I not also adopted? Had I not paid for these things? How was my time not of value? I felt so adopted. The second part of the trigger was that I had thought I was being incredibly generous by offering the group at $20 a month. That felt pretty close to free. So to be told that even that wasn’t enough, was a familiar trigger to me as an adopted person (I’m not enough. What I do will never be enough. Etc.)

The how/what questions I came up with while trying my best to be in VIEW and not a place of FUCK OFF:

How much do you value something when it is free versus when you paid for it?

What would change in the lives of some adopted people if I cancelled the course because I could not afford to offer it for free?

Martha Beck teaches about Stephen Karpman’s conflict-driven Drama Triangle. In the Karpman Drama Triangle there is a victim (poor me), a persecutor, and a rescuer (poor you). The thing is, the roles shift. The rescuer gets sick of saying poor you to the victim, for example, and starts to feel like a victim to the victim who now become the perpetrator. The point of the triangle is that it goes round and round without resolution, victim, rescuer, and perpetrator all put on each other’s roles at one time or another and nothing much good happens.

David Emerald reimagined the triangle into what he called The Empowerment Dynamic. Here, the victim becomes the creator (What can I make of this?), the rescuer becomes the coach (Interesting challenge! I know you can solve this. I’m right here for you.) and the perpetrator becomes the challenger (giving the creator the opportunity to work towards creating something positive they believe it).

One of the things that drove me bonkers about the question the women had asked me about charging people who struggled with money is that it was making me the perpetrator while they, the question asker, was acting as the rescuer (I’m here to protect the poor adopted people who can’t make enough money to support themselves in a way that feels good), which leaves the adopted people who are signing up and paying for my group as victims.

I’m not into that dynamic.

I want to be the one to ask the people with money issues questions that might lead to new insights and ways of living. I want to be the coach. If I’m the coach, the three online women become the challengers, while the adopted people become the creators.

That sounds more exciting, more positively charged.

I want us to be able to creatively look at our beliefs about our selves and lives and motherloss and adoption and money and come up with new ideas, new ways of living in our skin, new ways of feeling as we walk through our lives in which money plays such a pivotal role.

I want us to look closely at what it means to feel like we aren’t enough and that we don’t have enough of many things, including money. I want us to look closely at what it would take to feel like we are enough and that we have enough.

Life is so much more dynamic when we join together to confront what makes us feel alone and afraid.

Life is so much more fun when we point our compass towards fun.

I don’t have a conclusion, other than I’ve said all I want to say for now.

I’m offering the groups two different days in case one works better for you—you can also jump back and forth between them as your schedule demands. You can also jump back and forth just to meet new people. We’ll meet Mondays and Tuesdays from 5:30 - 6:30 PM ET. Again, you only need to come once a week, but you are welcome to repeat. We’ll meet once a week for six months on Zoom. The goal is for you to feel more empowered in your relationship with money at the end. And, truth be told, with and in yourself.

If you are interested in joining, you can email me at anneheffron@gmail.com. If you want to give me a hard time about the twenty bucks, go ahead. I could use the trigger practice.