EMOTIONAL WEALTH

We live in a culture that knows how to measure achievement. We measure income. Titles. Promotions. Turnover. Productivity. Results.

But many of the things that make a life meaningful cannot be measured so easily. Joy. Connection. Wonder. Love. Vitality. Belonging. Adventure. Peace. Purpose. Aliveness.

Many women become incredibly successful while quietly neglecting the very things they hoped success would give them. We tell ourselves that once we reach the next goal, things will slow down. Once we earn more, achieve more, accomplish more, then we'll finally have time to enjoy life.

But life has a way of continuing. The next goal arrives. Then the next. And the next.

Joseph Campbell famously wrote that people do not really want the meaning of life. What they want is the experience of being alive. I think he was right.

And we already know what truly matters. We know relationships matter. We know health matters. We know connection matters. We know presence matters.

The challenge is not usually knowledge. The challenge is creating a life that allows us to experience those things.

Emotional wealth is the recognition that a meaningful life is about more than achievement, productivity, or success. It is about the quality of our experience while we are living it.

It is about feeling connected to ourselves, to other people, and to the life we are actually living right now. It is about having the courage to prioritize what nourishes us.

A life can be imperfect, messy, uncertain, and still feel incredibly rich.

““People say that what we’re all seeking is a meaning for life. I don’t think that’s what we’re really seeking. I think that what we’re seeking is an experience of being alive.””

— Joseph Campbell

When I think about emotional wealth, I think about aliveness.

The feeling of cold wind on your face on a bike ride. The warmth of the sauna afterwards. The satisfaction of a challenge that stretched you. The relief of finally resting. Adventure. Laughter. Wonder. Connection. Passion. Grief. Love. Longing. The things that break our hearts and the things that make them burst open.

A meaningful life is not a life without discomfort, uncertainty, sadness, challenge, or loss. In fact, many of the experiences that make us feel most alive contain both joy and struggle at the same time. Aliveness includes happiness, grief, uncertainty, awe, challenge, adventure, peace, love, loss, and wonder.

There is no experience of courage without fear. No appreciation of rest without effort. No experience of joy without having known sadness.

Life is experienced through contrast.

Through seasons. Through expansion and contraction. Through certainty and uncertainty. Through challenge and ease.

Perhaps emotional wealth is not the absence of difficult emotions. Perhaps it is our capacity to fully experience the richness of being human.

The privilege of a lifetime is being who you are.

For me true wealth is measured by how alive we feel inside our lives. Not by what we accumulate. But by what we experience. Not by what we accomplish.

But by how deeply we live.

EMOTIONAL WEALTH