Financial Breath Work

You can, and many do, do a Yoga Teacher Training course not to become a teacher of others, but to improve how you teach yourself. One of the ways I cope with a lot of the waves of life is by seeing it all as a game. A thin slice of distance between what is going on, and who I am. Enough space between what is going on and me, to breathe. Detaching allows you to be your own teacher. 

With time to reflect. I did return to reality after my course, but I also started adjusting the direction I wanted to head in my career. I decided I wanted to focus more on investment analysis and pull back from client work. I like talking to clients. I like explaining things. At that stage, I wanted to be involved in the actual investments, so I started shifting in that direction. 

The Yoga course gave me a point to constantly return to. A focus on the basics. One of those points is proper breathing. Breathing is so key, but it is not something we think about even though it is the base of everything. Yoga describes prana as energy, and pranayama is breathing exercises. You are managing your energy flow. 

You can learn to breathe properly, in the same way as you can train to swim or run more efficiently. Most people when asked to take a deep breath will take a big suck of air in, rather than being able to control their breath and draw oxygen in slowly. Developing the ability to inhale, slowly, and exhale, slowly and with control, changes your levels of energy completely. Learning to breathe with your abdomen, so that your tummy comes out when you breathe in and that creates capacity to take in more oxygen. 

One approach to meditation is simply to regularly come back to focusing on your breathing every time your thoughts w(a/o)nder. When you feel yourself going, you come back. 

That is analogous to stilling the waves of money anxiety. Constantly returning to the ins and the outs. Relieving Financial Anxiety is not a question of more, it is about the ins and outs and the relationship between the two. The speed and control in both directions. The feeling that you have the waves covered. You can do this.

Diaphragmatic Breathing

Are or Do

Paul Bloom says people are essentialists. Like Plato, believing that all things have an “essence” that define them. We “are” something. “I am angry” rather than “I am doing anger”. “They are a racist” rather than “they are doing racism”. 

We like the baseball that was hit by Babe Ruth, or the jersey that was worn by Kolisi, Smit, or Pienaar. The value (price?) of the jersey goes up if it wasn’t washed! Like there is a permanent spirit in the object. 

I had a coke can collection growing up that I inherited from my older brother, then expanded. I learnt that if you want a valuable can collection, you had to maintain the integrity of the can, unopened, and in its original state. Wasn’t going to happen... so my collection was just for me. 

We start believing that we can be weighed and measured by our essence. That some people are fundamentally better, with more merit, than others. The toxic view that you can gather data points on people till you can discard them because they are not brilliant outliers. The idea that once you have enough information on a person, you can pass judgement on them and decide if they are good enough. 

My view of privilege is that it is part of endurance. It is building up your ability to endure and strengthen your capacity to absorb challenges. Part of that has nothing to do with you and your essence. 

In stilling your money waves, you have to be aware of the impact you have on others, the benefit you receive from others, and the obligations that you have. Part of stilling waves is realising the waves don’t only affect you.

Thrown Around

If you get the recognition and money you require from what you want to allocate your time and energy to, that is brilliant. 

The danger, and beauty, is that “this too will pass” applies to both good and bad. The world changes. Creative, and destructive, forces constantly renew and refresh the rules. Becoming attached to a fragile external source of recognition and money puts you a false step away from an imploding world. 

Yoga talks of starting the practice, and process, to still the waves. The seven Bhumikas are a map for a personal practice. Financial Yoga would be the same. 

The first step is a desire for knowledge. Then asking the right questions. Doing your due diligence on how the world works and how to still the waves. 

The third step is knowing what to do and doing it. Building a buffer that reduces the impact of the waves. Allowing you to start processing your choices consciously. 

The fourth step is where a sense of control sinks in. The waves haven’t disappeared, but you are in a position where you are no longer being thrown around.

Judo Haraigoshi

Be Still

Stilling the waves is not about the waves disappearing. It is about having comfort with your point of focus. Reflecting on the compounding consequences of the habits that you are embodying and relaxing into. The patterns. The limits. The impacts. 

Looking beyond and beneath the numbers to what the fundamentals are. What are the priorities? What are the tradeoffs? What if you are wrong? Is there space for alternative views? It is a different way of looking at risk. 

You don’t get paid for taking risk. You don’t avoid risk by settling for not changing. Risk is simply the fact that life can head off in multiple directions and we don’t and can’t know everything. Managing risk starts with accepting complexity, ambiguity, and randomness, and forming habits and practices that build on what matters to you. 

The waves can continue, but you will be still. You will create from where you are.

Waves of Life

The vast majority of people, even those earning a lot of money, live hand-to-mouth. One way to view meritocracy is that it shifts capital to where it is working the hardest. Another way to view meritocracy is that people who are "better", deserve to live better lives. That how much you spend should be in line with how much value you add to society. For that to be “true”, people need to spend what they earn, and be paid what they are worth. That is not how capital, money, or price works. 

One of the challenges of building capital is that there are always emergencies. There are always events that can stop you and set you back to zero and hand-to-mouth. 

In Australia, they have famously changed national saving habits and built huge superannuation funds. One of the philosophical questions is whether people should be able to access their retirement savings in emergencies. For proponents of Universal Basic Income, a key question stands around whether lenders should have a claim over those payments. Can you borrow against that guaranteed stream of money?

In the early stages of building capital, the waves of life can destroy any capacity to protect, cultivate, and invest in merit. It is hard to grow capital when it is being harassed. It is hard to see each other when we are living hand-to-mouth. 

Stillness v Absence

Yoga is stilling the waves of the mind. I think of Financial Yoga as stilling the waves of money anxiety. I don’t see the point of meditation as getting rid of thought/money waves. You aren’t getting rid of the challenges. They are still there. There are important problems we need to grapple with. Which makes it important to worry, in the sense that it is important to think. What you are trying to avoid is those thoughts being given more attention than they should be. Being aware of them rather than pretending that they are not there. Acceptance of the waves, without giving them the power to dominate you. You want to think of the future. You want to think of the past. You want to consciously, and selectively, connect the two in the present. To compound what is important to you, and to make different mistakes that cancel each other out. Stillness is not absence. The waves are part of your path, and the aim is to create behaviours that draw energy from them.

A Micro-Hydro Facility in Vietnam

Surface Waves

Stilling the waves of money anxiety starts small. Like building relief from a storm when you have no shelter. The goal is simply to get dry and warm. If you can build a buffer of three to six months of what you normally spend, you start to create the capacity to make some path-altering decisions. You build a capacity to cope. You increase your control and focus. “You” increase it, but really it is the power of the buffer/capital. It is the same you. Just empowered. Similarly, yogis talk about Siddhis. Siddhis are seemingly supernatural, paranormal, or magical powers obtained through regular practice. In other words, mastery. But they are dangerous. Other people might elevate you and you might start believing that elevation. It is nice getting recognition. And that sets you up for the waves of anxiety to return. Real meritocracy is a call to see the value of people and their connection to each other through the waves. Building buffers and capital to power us without building barriers to divide us.

Stilling the Waves

 

Not Two

Yoga means everything is connected. Advaita Vedanta is the name given to the philosophical school and means “Not Two”. Yoga has stories to use as tools for understanding very abstract ideas. We think through contrast and comparison, so it is hard to understand if we only see one thing. The Seven Bhumikas are a way to understand this idea of a “seedless state” through a path of developing knowledge. (1) Longing for truth, (2) right enquiry, (3) stilling of the waves, (4) control of the waves. At that point control can seem magical, and the risk is someone backs themselves as particularly important. It is not about you. The last three stages are about you moving on. (5) Detachment, (6) Knowledge, and (7) Liberation. Your money waves will never still if it just about success and funding your hand-to-mouth consumption. Being more. Being better. If you make money to spend money. If you visualise what you are going to buy with everything you earn. If everything you do is for an expected return. How does your daily practice change if instead of a 1-year or 5-year plan, you are thinking of the 1,000-year plan? 

“virama pratyaya bhyasa purvah samskara seso nyah” Yoga Sutras

“Seedless state is reached when all mental activity ceases and only unmanifested impressions remain in the mind”

Advaita - Not Two

Things that are temporary aren't real

The Nut of It

 “vitarka vicara nanda smita nugamat samprajnatah” Yoga Sutras

“Samadhi with consciousness is accompanied by reasoning, discrimination, bliss and awareness of individuality.”

What exists beyond the things we are aware of? The unseen beyond the waves of thought and anxiety. You can choose to simply “not care about money” because you don’t think it is important, but understanding it gives you greater control over it, rather than it having control over you. Meditating on things in space and time (Savitarka) allows you to progress to thinking of things outside of space and time (Nirvitarka). To find bliss (ananda) and get close to the seed of complete awareness (smita). The Dutch call the point, “the nut”. The reason. The thing. The purpose.  Siddhis seem like “supernatural” powers, which come from understanding. From developing skills and knowledge that seem stronger than the waves which control the rest of us. But truly conquering the waves of money anxiety is realising it isn’t about you or how impressive you are. Unless you change what you think of as you. Still, invest in skills and knowledge as part of your practice. Gain understanding. Always be learning.

Seen and Unseen

“Drsta nusravika visaya vitrsnasya vasikara samjna vairagyam” Yoga Sutras

"Vairagya, or non-attachment, is that state of consciousness in which the cravings for objects both seen and unseen are controlled by the mastery of will."

Our waves of anxiety don’t deal just with what is in front of us. Worries come from within, from our dreams, and from conscious ideas about what we want, should want, what can happen, what might happen, what we expect, what we expected that didn’t arise, and all the flavours in between. Yogis explain the types of waves through the three Gunas. Tamasic thoughts are the ones that bring us down. Like periods of being unemployed or struggling to find clients. Rajasic thoughts are like periods of being too busy, with no space for self-care or focusing on what is important in the long term, because you are putting out short term fires. Sattvic thoughts are the ones in between. The ones we want to pay attention to. Even though they are also temporary. Thought waves and problems (should) come and go. With changes in the supply of and demand for solutions.

The Eye of a Red-tailed Hawk

The Battlefield

 “Tatra sthitau yatno bhyasah” Yoga Sutras

Abhyasa is the continuous effort towards firmly establishing the restraint of thought waves.

Stilling the waves of money anxiety requires developing a sustainable practice over a long period of time. It isn’t about “get rich quick” schemes and easy solutions. One of the main texts in Yoga is the Bhagavad Gita, which tells the story of Arjuna on the Battlefield. The chaos is going nowhere. The practice you develop is to find that point of calm within the struggle. To cope. It isn’t just moments of silence found in practicing meditation, outside of life. The aim is to develop new scripts, habits, actions and reflections that combine to deal with whatever life throws. To have the endurance and resilience to draw from and see through the chaos. Each day. For the long term. With commitment and focus.

Arjuna

Point of Focus

Some of our waves of money anxiety are memories. Both of our own experiences and those of the bubble we are born into and raised in. These thoughts that push our decisions in various directions may not even be things we are aware of. The Yoga Sutras call memory waves Smriti, and they can be mighty obstacles. Smriti are not all negative. Some generational strengths get hidden beneath dirt, waiting to be rediscovered and polished. Beneath both the positive and negative lies the permanent. The point of focus that lets us unravel all the randomness, complexity, and ambiguity. Becoming aware of our subconscious, conscious and dreams and building a daily practice around that point.

Relative Size of Sun, Earth and Moon

Building a Practice

“Restraining of thought waves means analysing your thoughts constantly, it does not mean suppression of thoughts.” Swami Durgananda (commentary on “Yoga Sutras of Patanjali”). Financial Waves can’t simply be ignored. If you don’t learn to control money, it can control you. Through study and patient reflection, you can develop a system that works for you. Letting go of distortions, delusions, and obstacles. Finding a way to go deeper into problems and resolving them. Rather than letting unhelpful money anxiety become the driving force in our lives. Whether the problem is misunderstanding, accepting false perceptions of others, or deep soaked prejudice from the way the world is temporarily (but doesn’t need to be). Build a practice to concentrate on what matters.

Step by Step

Powering Creativity

Money is a blunt incentive. A way of getting commitment when you don’t have a deeper connection to the cause. Like salt, fat, and sugar in cooking, it is the easiest thing to grab at. To turn to more as the default answer. My preference is to get to a point where you take money off the table. If you think of money anxiety as temporary waves, used to push us one way or the other, then stillness allows you to focus on what is truly important and worth identifying with. You don’t want to identify with money. You do want to identify with your purpose. This means internalising disciplines. Internalising ambition. Internalising decision making. Creating buffers to absorb the waves, and engines to power your creativity.

Turbo Generator

You Aren't The Problem

“Yoga” means “to unite” or “to join”. We grow up deep soaking children with the question, “what do you want to be when you grow up?” and tying them to their earning ability. Unfortunately (and fortunately) not all good ideas are good business ideas, and price isn’t value. This means that what gets paid well is merely a temporary reflection of the balance of supply and demand, till they adjust. Tying identity to earning ability unnecessarily constrains who we are. Money making is not about you. Practicing Financial Yoga allows you to build Capital that absorbs the Financial Waves. It allows you to give business problems their necessary, but not excessive due. It allows you to unite with a bigger container. To power ideas and values that aren’t restricted by what you can control. You, aren’t the problem.

To be Without

Tapas means “to be without”. Not in a way that does harm. Similar to the idea of Lent, or the ideas put forward by the Stoics. If you can get used to periods of very little, then they lose their ability to create anxiety. You know you can cope. It gives you a firm foundation from which to build. One way to imagine this is as the opposite of a holiday. If you spent two weeks a year, or a day a month very simply. Coming back to normal feels like a treat. In the opposite way, things we really enjoy can lose their edge if they become something we are used to. The Financial Freedom built through the practice of Financial Yoga is not about a path to more in a conspicuous sense. It is partly reducing the power of Financial Waves to induce fear, by conquering some of those fears directly.

Holding the Flood

Money anxiety has the ability to flood our minds. This can be long-term stress where we don’t know how to overcome the barriers to the income required to fund the consumption dictated by our vision of what our lives should look like. The homes we want. The holidays. The entertainment. The fashion. The signals of conspicuous success. It can be stress about the trade-offs, even if we can over come those barriers. Habitual work for money consuming every morsel of energy we possess. It can also be short term anxiety. More immediate. Where the financial waves make our decisions as we hop from crisis to crisis. With brief gasps of air in between bills, or the rising damp of debt nibbling at our foundations. Before controlled movement, comes calm. Finding a path to stillness.

Holding the Flood

The Space Between

Earning £100,000 a year can still be filled with anxiety if you are spending £120,000 a year. If you are living on the edge of your capacity to borrow and pay interest. If you are pushing forward and up as hard and as fast as you can. Earning R100,000 a year can be Zen-like if you have the self-discipline of a Langa Gogo, spending R80,000 a year a putting some to work. Those are extremes, but the point is the only comparison necessary is spending and income, and the space between. Not other people. Vrittis, are the thought waves of the mind. Yoga creates a system to control these waves. A path of self-restraint that brings focus to the things that are most important. Creating the ability to move with intention, rather than being moved by what the world throws at us.

Being Played

A Grudge Purchase is something you feel you have to buy, rather than something you want to buy. When you do your planning of how to spend your income, Discretionary Spending is what you do with what is left over after your needs are met. Clearly not everyone considers the same things either reasonable, necessary, desirable, or pleasurable. Often the best place to learn about financial planning is not from people with twice as much as you, but from people with half as much who still seem to come away with something extra. The delusion we have is that more coming in solves the problem. What really controls the financial waves is the relationship between what comes in, what goes out, and how much autonomy you have over the difference. That is the difference between playing and being played.