Hi Friend,
My partner Kristine (Krissy) and I are offering a new pilot workshop - on accounting.
Wait what? you might be thinking. Since when do you do offerings related to accounting?
OK, so, here's the backstory.
From my side: I used to be utterly and completely spreadsheet (and financial numbers) avoidant. After this approach led to some Serious Problems, I went through a concentrated, determined, and multi-year effort to overcome and learn new skills in relationship to money, financial flow, and accounting. It was definitely a spiritual process - and not an easy one. I never could have done it without a lot of help. And I doubt I could be running my own business now without having done that work - though who knows!
Krissy, meanwhile, loves spreadsheets and numbers. She's got 20 years of experience as an auditor for a school district in western New York. She's helped a lot of people file their taxes. So she's seen and heard all sorts of things about the difficult feelings that can arise - not just from taxes, but from the whole process of accounting, relating to financial flows, and the inherent ways that this evokes the histories of colonization and the contemporary challenges of navigating dominant culture.
Kristine had told me all about her spreadsheet-philia when we first met. I thought it was cool: another place that we were really different but super complimentary. But it wasn't a big part of her life, so I didn't see much of it. When I met her, she was focusing on being an indigenous peacemaker/restorative practitioner and spent most of her time being in relationships, including supporting people in her community. And resting.
And then, this past Summer, my mother had a very bad fall. She was in the hospital for nearly 2 months. At some point in the midst of that, I took over most of the work of her house, including her finances. Krissy graciously agreed to help me. It was the first time I really got to see Krissy do some of what she spent two decades doing before I knew her. I was impressed with how quickly she sorted, categorized, and dealt with a lot of documents that befuddled me. And then, as my mother recovered, I watched Krissy sit down with her and help my mother engage with her taxes. Krissy's no-nonsense, entirely compassionate approach helped to bring my mom from "This is the thing I hate the most in my entire life" to... "Oh, we are actually done!" in a few short sessions.
I was astounded. Not that I didn't think Krissy was brilliant - I knew that! But this is my mother we are talking about. I had never seen anyone - not my father (who loved numbers), or my mother's accountants (whom she likes very much), or any of the other people in her life be able to support her so easily and quickly and in a way that engaged with the depths of emotional issues that were coming up for her.
And then came Krissy. She took a quick glance at my mother's taxes and other numbers.... and she could tell a story from it.
Of course! Krissy said. Numbers tell stories.
And I was like, Krissy, you've got something here. I think you could help more people.
Krissy cautiously agreed. So I, always with an entrepreneurial eye, suggested to a few colleagues of ours who ran organizations with some shared values that Krissy might be able to help them with their accounts... or rather, to transition their relationships with their accounts from frustrated, confused, or just siloized to clear, comprehensible, and integrated into the larger stories of the organization. She signed up her first clients fast.
Which led to us wonder, what about offering a course that brought the head, heart, and hands (skills) together ... around accounting? Throw in the very real historical and colonial constructs. Take this whole thing out of the realm of "blame/shame the individual" and that ridiculous "black blox only understood by a fancy, well-pedigreed expert" version of accounting. Which sure as heck has done a number on me... as well as a lot of other folks.
Krissy came up with a lot of ideas really fast about what that might look like. And then she insisted that I co-teach it with her. I wasn't so sure - did she need me for this one? She acted like I was being ridiculous to even ask the question. So now I, who once was terrified about anything around this topic, am going to be a part of all this, too.
We are starting with a one-off, online participatory workshop to pilot some ideas and, based on how that goes and your feedback, will create a longer-form offering.
Yes, this is totally related to all the other things we are doing around healing from the first harm (aka colonization) and engaging in deeper eco-centered cosmovisions and circular time.... but it is often kept in a very different box/sector/part of our brain.
This is all about a kind of heart medicine. Which in Krissy's culture (Haudenosaunnee Confederacy) is associated, amongst other associations, with the strawberry plant. We are going to talk more about that later - so stay tuned! For now, let's just say that heart medicine entails engaging with our emotions and our heart- and our whole selves, as best as we are able.
We are offering this workshop exactly two weeks after Tax Day - which is Monday, April 29. It's just 90 minutes.
Space is limited.
Interested?
JOIN US
