Money or meaning? (Wrong question.)

Did I ever tell you about…

one of the moments that started Soul Craft, twenty years ago?

It began in a dusty secondhand metaphysical bookshop in Brisbane — the Harry Potter kind, with tottering stacks and that gorgeous old-paper smell.

I picked up a couple of books that detonated my whole world — one of them The Celestine Prophecy, the other The Seat of the Soul.

I’d grown up in a deeply religious church, raised to trust that life was held by something greater than me. And these pages didn’t take that away — they added a whole new dimension to it:

That we get to partner with life. To co-create. To have a say in what we build.

I stood in that shop with my heart pounding, feeling something wake up in me. A sense that I wasn’t only meant to receive my life — I was invited to help shape it.

Something opened that day and never closed again.

But here’s what I wanted to build from that — and it wasn’t quite what people assumed.

I wasn’t trying to run off and become a full-time mystic (though honestly — some days, the appeal is real).

What I wanted was a whole, beautiful, inspired life.

A business built around what I love. Great money — not for its own sake, but for the freedom and the choices it brings: health, travel, beautiful spaces, time with the people I love, the ability to be generous, to fly my parents places, to live where my soul wanted to live.

I wanted meaning and money. Depth and freedom. A soulful life and a prosperous one.

And the world looked at me and said: pick one.

You know the messaging. We all absorbed it.

Follow your passion and you’ll be broke. Do what you love or make good money — not both.

And underneath it all, the more insidious one: that people who chase money are a little ruthless. A little less kind. That you have to trade some of your goodness for your abundance.

That never quite sat right with me.

You’ve heard me say it a hundred times: money is neutral. It just makes you more of what you already are. Generous people become more generous. Kind people, more kind. It’s not a corrupting force — it’s an amplifier.

Which is exactly why you never have to choose between having a soul and having a full bank account.

That both/and has been at the heart of Soul Craft since the beginning. Making it real for women — showing that it’s truly possible — has been the mission from day one. And I wanted to live it myself first, so I’d know it in my bones.

But here’s the part I most want to talk about today. Because I’ve watched this happen — in so many women I adore and have coached over the years.

Wanting more of something — more income, more visibility, more impact — almost always asks us to grow. To stretch past who we’ve been. To become someone a little bigger.

And that edge can feel genuinely threatening. The nervous system reads NEW as UNSAFE.

But when we reach our edge, we don’t usually say “I’m scared” — or “this is asking me to become someone new, and honestly, that feels terrifying.”

We reach for something far more respectable.

We say: “money isn’t that important to me anyway.”

Or — “I don’t want to lose my peace. I don’t want to become someone who’s anxious and striving all the time.”

And I love these, because they’re sneaky — they’re half-truths. Peace matters. Calm matters. Money isn’t everything. I teach all of that too. Which is exactly what makes them such good hiding places.

Because here’s what I’ve watched, so many times: a good, soulful woman starts to grow — and the growth stirs up anxiety, that fluttery not-quite-safe feeling.

And rather than recognise it as the natural discomfort of expansion, she reads it as a sign. See? This isn’t for me. I’m choosing peace instead.

The whole beautiful both/and gets collapsed into a noble-sounding either/or — “I’m choosing peace over money” — when really, the nervous system just got scared and grabbed the nearest respectable exit.

Now — sometimes “money isn’t important to me” is genuine wisdom.

And sometimes it’s fear, wearing wisdom’s clothes.

Only you can feel the difference. But here’s the beautiful part: that edge, that discomfort, isn’t a stop sign. In my work, it’s the opposite — it’s a doorway.

You don’t have to grip harder or push through it. You get to turn toward the fear instead. To invite it in.  Not to fight it, not to fix it — just to meet it. To put a hand on it, almost, and say: I see you. You’re welcome here. And watch it soften, the way almost anything does when it’s finally met with acceptance instead of resistance.

(More on that next week — it’s the heart of how Soul Craft has evolved, and where I most want to take you.)

Because you can absolutely want more — and keep your peace. You can desire abundance and live a soulful, calm, meaningful life.

You were never meant to pick just one.

Here’s what I’ve come to see, after all these years:

Learning to hold this paradox — money and meaning, drive and soul — was really my first doorway into something much bigger.

Because life isn’t either/or. It never was. It’s day and night. Sun and moon. The tide going out and coming in. Masculine and feminine. Wanting something fully and holding it loosely (you heard me on that last week). Being whole, exactly as you are — and still growing.

The most alive, most integrated people I know aren’t the ones who picked a side.

They’re the ones who’ve learned to hold both.

That deeper paradox — the one that changed how I hold not just my life, but my self — is exactly where we’re headed next week.

It’s the most surprising place this both/and truth shows up. And I have a feeling it’s the very thing you’ve been hard on yourself about.

But for today, just sit with this:

Where have you been treating life like a choice between two things you love — when you were always allowed to have both?

Share it in the comments below — I read every single one, and always respond. ♡

Lots of love,

Carmen xo

PS: I shared this with my email community first — a few days before it appeared here. The email is where I write most personally, and where you’ll always hear things first. If that’s a room you’d like to be in, come join us. ↓

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