One of my newest blog & twitter friends is Christine C. Reed, otherwise known as @TheBlissChick. Christine blogs about creativity, yoga, dance, community, and furry animal friends at www.blisschick.net. She’s given some thought to the tension between what we give and what we sell, and in the end, SHE’S GIVING AWAY OUR FIRST GIFT here at whatareyougivingaway.com! 

Christine and Lilly

What This Chick Gives Away

A few years ago, I was having some difficulty with the concept of money.  To tell the truth, there was (and still is sometimes) a tiny AsceticChick who lived inside me who thought that commerce and money were Evil.

I think a lot of creative types are mistaken in this same way.  They think that the selling of their work is somehow a sullying of the work.  And yet, the selling of that work may free them from the bondage of a job that they hate, a job that takes them from their true calling.  The selling of their work gives them freedom.  This creates happier people — people who do what they love rather than what they Have To or Should — and the end result of that is a much happier Planet.

Two conversations happened that have forever changed my mind about commerce and money.

The first took place in an organic grocery store as I stood picking out some produce.  I was voicing my concerns over the money issue when a man I barely knew said to me:

“Money is just energy.  We exchange energy all the time.  Money is just an accepted form that we put our energy into so that we can exchange it for other people’s energy.”

Okay.  What?!  I had never thought of that.

The second conversation took place in my writing group.  One of the members said, out of the blue:

“It’s not having money that is bad.  It’s what people are willing to do for money that can be bad.”

This has all come up for me again, as I have recently decided to take my blogging work more seriously.

What does this mean?  I’m not completely sure yet, but I know it has something to do with valuing my work enough that I don’t always give it away for free.  There needs to be an energy exchange, as my acquaintance pointed out.

Doing what we love — giving away the gifts we’ve been born with — is all good, but we also need to be sure to respect ourselves enough that we are open to receiving as easily as we give away.

I think there has to be a balance.

For right now, a new part of my balance is introducing a workshop model for which I will be paid.

Creative Dig: Excavating Self Identify & Story through Paint, Clay, & Word is the baby of three women (ha!), including myself, Connie from Dirty Footprints, and Andrea, a clay artist from Cleveland.  You can find out more and sign up here.

Yet, another part of that balance is also continuing to put work out that for free — as in costs nothing — and knowing that the energy I get from that is of a different sort.

For example, a couple of months ago on Blisschick, I wrote a post about normal being boring, and I called forth an Eccentricity Revolution for Wild Women.  Readers really responded to the text of the Manifesto I had written, and I realized there was an opportunity to create a piece of art that could be hung in work, yoga, and creativity spaces to remind us of our essential natures.

Heidi of Daisybones did the graphic design for this piece that you can download for free:

You can also get a high resolution version for your desktop wallpaper here.

I’m wondering: What have you learned about balancing what you give away to the world?

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