beyond the symbol
Ask anyone what money is, and you’ll hear the same answer: paper, coins, numbers on a screen.
We’ve been taught to see money as something tangible, something you can hold, count, and exchange. Economists define it neatly: a medium of exchange, a store of value, a unit of account. Teachers, parents, and financial systems pass that definition down like gospel, rarely questioned and almost universally accepted.
And for most of us, it’s the only definition we’ve ever known.
But here’s the quiet truth: that definition, while technically correct, is spiritually incomplete.
Because once you define money as a thing, you give it power over you.
If money is a thing, then you can have it or lose it. If it’s an object, you can measure yourself by it. That’s the trap built into society’s definition of money—it makes money appear separate from us. Something “out there” to chase, control, or fear.
This subtle separation shapes almost everything we believe about success, worth, and freedom. It tells us that having more means we’ve won, that lacking it means we’ve failed. Money becomes not just a tool, but a test—a reflection of whether we’ve done life “right.”
Think about how this shows up in everyday life. We casually ask new acquaintances, “What do you do?”—but we’re really asking, “How much are you worth?” We scroll through real estate listings not to find a home, but to measure ourselves against others. We judge someone’s vacation by what it cost, not by how much joy it brought them. We’ve turned life into a scoreboard where the numbers define the game.
Even our language reveals the conditioning. We say “time is money” but never “money is time.” We talk about “making a killing” in the market, being “worth our weight in gold,” or being “dead broke”—as if lacking money equals death itself. The metaphors aren’t neutral. They reinforce a worldview where money is power, identity, and survival all wrapped into one.
And so we live according to the definition, not our own truth. We chase the symbol instead of the substance, trading years of life for numbers that promise safety. We call it being responsible, sacrificing presence for accumulation, and call it progress. We measure abundance by balance sheets instead of the aliveness we feel inside.
The irony is that the more we define money as something external, the more control we think we have over it—and the less control we actually do. Because control always comes with fear.
When money is something out there, every fluctuation feels personal. Every expense feels like a threat, every dip in the market feels like a judgment. We start to believe that our worth, safety, and even our potential are tied to the movement of numbers we don’t fully control. And that belief—unexamined but deeply rooted—creates a lifetime of stress disguised as ambition.
Most of us never consciously chose this definition of money. It was handed to us, wrapped in cultural approval and parental concern.
“Money doesn’t grow on trees.”
“You have to work hard to get ahead.”
“Be smart—don’t talk about money.”
The language of money in our culture is soaked in scarcity and shame. It shapes us before we ever have the chance to shape it. When a child learns that money is both powerful and taboo, they grow into an adult who either chases it or avoids it—but rarely feels at peace with it.
Remember the first time you held a dollar bill as a child? The instructions that came with it—don’t lose it, be responsible, this is important. You learned its power before you understood its purpose. You felt the weight of coins in your pocket and believed you were rich or poor based on how heavy they felt. The physical sensation became the measure of worth.
That’s not personal failure. That’s programming. And programming begins with a definition.
Before there were coins, bills, or bank accounts, there was trust. Two people exchanged goods because they believed in fairness, in relationship, in reciprocity. Money began as an agreement, a shared belief in value and exchange. It was never about the object itself. It was about what the object represented.
Even today, that remains true. The only reason a piece of paper with a president’s face on it has meaning is because we collectively agree that it does. Money, at its root, is a shared story.
That means money isn’t just physical—it’s psychological, emotional, and energetic. It’s a mirror of belief, not just a marker of value. When you really sit with that, the whole definition starts to shift. Money isn’t merely a thing you have. It’s an expression of relationship—between you and others, between you and life itself.
When we reduce money to a number, we forget that it’s a symbol. Symbols are meant to point toward meaning, not replace it. But somewhere along the way, the symbol became the source.
We started chasing the representation of value instead of living from value itself. We began to measure everything—including our self-worth—in units of currency. That’s how the language of finance slowly became the language of identity: “I’m worth X.” “I need to make more to feel secure.” “I can’t afford to slow down.” Underneath every sentence like that is the same message: “I am defined by what I have.”
When money becomes the definition of worth, life becomes a scoreboard you can never win. You buy more not because you need more, but because you’re trying to be more. You save not from trust, but from fear. You give not from overflow, but from guilt. All because we mistook the definition of money for the definition of self.
But what if money was never meant to be a possession at all? What if it was meant to be a participant? What if money isn’t something you own, but something you move with?
When we return to that understanding, money stops feeling like a master and starts feeling like a mirror. You begin to see that money flows in the same way energy does—responding to attention, trust, and intention. It’s not random. It’s relational.
When you see money as a relationship instead of a resource, it asks new questions of you: Are you paying attention to where it flows? Are you sending it toward what aligns with your values? The answers to those questions reveal far more about your financial life than any spreadsheet ever could.
You don’t have to reject the practical definition—money is a medium of exchange and a store of value. But beneath that is the invisible truth: Money is trust made visible. Money is relationship in motion. Money is energy taking form.
That’s not poetic—it’s pragmatic. Because when you define money this way, your entire experience of it changes.
You stop fighting for control and start cultivating coherence. You stop grasping for more and start aligning with flow. You stop fearing loss because you recognize movement is the natural state of energy. Money becomes less about having and more about honoring.
You still budget, plan, invest, and give—but now from awareness instead of anxiety. You become a conscious steward instead of a fearful manager.
Before we can rewrite the story we were told about money, we have to examine the definition we accepted because every story grows from a definition.
If money is something to get, you’ll live in pursuit. If money is something to protect, you’ll live in fear. If money is something to express, you’ll live in flow. The definition defines the experience.
And when you choose your own definition, you reclaim authorship of your life.
Before your next financial decision—big or small—pause. Ask yourself, “What definition of money am I living from right now?”
Notice the energy behind the action. Is it fear, trust, obligation, or alignment? You don’t need to fix it. Just notice. That awareness alone begins to shift everything.
Because the moment you stop unconsciously accepting society’s definition of money, you begin to see what money actually is: a mirror, a messenger, a current moving through your life, reflecting what you believe to be true.
Money was never meant to define you. It was meant to move with you.
Once you see that clearly, you can start to live from a deeper truth—that abundance was never out there in the first place. It was always here, waiting for you to redefine what money means.
Keep pursuing,
JC
