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I can remember it like it was yesterday.
I was 17, last year of high school, and I was facing THE question: what am I going to do the year after? What do I want to study? Then, out of nowhere, the answer came to me: 'You will study theology!' It blew me away, as it felt so much like a calling.
Now, for me, at that time, theology was something that old men did back in the Middle Ages. I’ve heard about it in my philosophy class, and I knew that it was what priests were studying.
I also knew that as a woman, in the Catholic Church, I would not have much of a career choice other than … ‘What? Wait a minute! Does that mean that … I have to become a nun? No way!’… And there it was: a huge rush of stress going through my body. There was no way I would abandon motherhood, even for a calling! So right then and there, based on what I knew, what I believed, and how I grew up, I started to barter with myself, and ended up with my ‘vow of poverty’:
‘Maybe, you don’t need to become a nun—you can just work in the church as a layperson? That sounds reasonable! But how are you going to make a living? Well, God will provide, and if I agree to NOT bother about money, maybe, he will let me have children … And right there, unbeknownst to myself, I took ‘my vow of poverty’.
Does that sound reasonable to you? Well, I hope not … but this was the best I knew, back then, of how to make sense of what was happening to me.
Of course, it was not a real ‘vow’, like the ones that real nuns are taking, nor real 'poverty'. But interestingly, until recently, I never bothered about making money—I was always way more into what I could bring into the job, or learn from it—and as a result, money never bothered showing up for me!
So, how does the ‘vow thing’ work?
A vow is a decision you take after a traumatic event—one that brought a significant amount of stress upon you. It is based on your view of the world at that time, and to make it even more difficult, it’s totally unconscious.
Concretely, it means that each time you go against your unconscious vow, your body goes into stress response, in a twisted way to ‘protect you’ at any cost.
So, if it’s unconscious, how do I know in the first place that I have it?
First of all, we all have a habit of taking vows throughout our childhood. It can sound like: ‘I’m not lovable enough’ (you’re 5, and your parents just got divorced); ‘I will never let my family down again’ (you’re 6, and daddy shows some disappointments with your hockey skills); ‘I will never speak in public again’ (you’re 7, and you stutter while reading in front of your class); ‘All rich people are mean, and I will never be like them’ (you’re 8, and your so pretty and obviously affluent class mate didn’t invite you
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to her birthday—you learn later that she loathes your handed-down clothes); ‘I need to work very hard to have some money’ (you’re 9, and you see your mom working 3 jobs to pay the bills). And so on …
If, for example, you have a vow that says ‘I will lose my soul if I become rich’, it doesn’t matter how much you want and try to get out of scarcity, you will never earn more than the bare minimum. It can mean refusing a higher paying job because ‘I’m not good enough’, or flunking an audition (my personal favorite!)/test/interview, or getting sick before you have something important coming up … Think about it: If your unconscious mind believes that the price you pay to become rich is to lose your soul, why would it allow you to do it? Your unconscious mind represents 95% of your mind. Your will power and conscious mind and all of your positive thinking are no match against it.
In real life, if you find yourself in a situation when you might deny your vow and become successful/rich/fill in the blanks, your body experiences so much stress that it/you will come up with all the reasonable excuses you need to never step up.
The real question is: how do I know whether it’s still affecting me now?
If striving and never arriving is your lot, or if making a lot of money and finding a way to lose it is your pattern, if, like me, you regularly end up in demanding and underpaid job situations, or if any of what I said so far rings true to you, then yes, most probably you have a childhood vow that is still running you.
We’ve all known someone, or heard of someone who always ends up in the same kind of toxic relationship—likewise, we are wired since childhood to react in a certain way when it comes to money, and unless you address it, this is not going to change.
The good news is that there are ways to address it. Research is booming in the field of the mind body connection, and it shows without a shadow of a doubt that we can access and release all of our mental pattern through our body’s energy channels.
I will demonstrate it in the upcoming workshop offered by Houston Expat Pro 'Appréciez votre travail sans vous déprécier' (Sell your work not your Soul).
The live event will be in French. But you don't have to learn French, or to be in Houston, Tx if you are interested in this topic. You can receive free content and tips on my FB page .
If you want some individual, loving and specific attention, your best move is to schedule a free clarity session HERE. I will be happy to chat with you about whatever vow that you think has been in the way of your success so far!
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