Embodying Quaker Testimonies in our Money Relation

Let’s explore how we can embody Quaker testimonies in our money decisions. Examine how earning, saving, spending, giving and investing can help create beloved community and care for the planet. Through interactive exercises, creative activities, and spiritual inquiry, we’ll examine money stories, question assumptions, and tap into creative solutions. The workshop Embodying Quaker Testimonies in…

Workshop Description

Let’s explore how we can embody Quaker testimonies in our money decisions. Examine how earning, saving, spending, giving and investing can help create beloved community and care for the planet. Through interactive exercises, creative activities, and spiritual inquiry, we’ll examine money stories, question assumptions, and tap into creative solutions.

The workshop Embodying Quaker Testimonies in our Money Relationship brings together interactive exercises with deep inquiry. We’ll explore how the way we earn, save, spend, give and invest can help us move into the more beautiful world we know is possible.

My objective for this workshop is to bring both fun and curiosity into money so that each participant is better equipped to live out Quaker testimonies in their money life. We’ll explore the money stories we grew up with and how those continue to influence us. We’ll look at the ways we earn and save, spend and give, and how we invest. Finally, we’ll close by centering into our own endless inner abundance through a creative exercise.

Money can often hold a lot of shadow because the extractive status quo feels so solid and confining. However, we always have choices. The exploratory nature of this workshop aims to open a door to new ways of experiencing and relating to money.

Each day will start with an overview of the topic for the day along with an invitation to worship for 20 minutes with a query. I’ll lead a discussion on the topic from my perspective as a solidarity money coach and investment manager. Then we’ll go into an interactive exercise. Each session will close with a check-out and worship of 10 minutes.

Money stories and our current money relationship
Query: What was your earliest understanding of money?
Exercises and materials: Two blank sheets of paper and coloring pencils for a money biography and a current money relationship drawing

The Inflow of Money – how do we earn and save?
Query: How comfortable are you receiving?
Exercises and materials: Writing paper to write a letter to money and have money write you a letter

The Outflow of Money – how do we spend and give?
Query: How can you savor each money exchange?
Exercises and materials: We’ll have a gifting exercise using real money. We’ll need plain white envelopes for a third of the participants.

Growing Money
Query: How do you experience interdependence with creation?
Exercises and materials: We’ll cover how we invest in ourselves, our family, our community, and our planet using a string of yarn.

Experiencing our inner resources
Query: What part does creativity play in your life?
Exercises and materials: We’ll go out to gather materials from nature and make a collage of our endless inner creativity.

This workshop will not cover technical parts of money like budgeting, insurance, taxes, or investments. It will also not cover systemic questions like capitalism or monetary policy. However, during the workshop we will be co-creating resources for people to continue to educate themselves on alternative economies. Amongst these resources will be a podcast project on “Visionary Finance through a Quaker Lens” that is currently in the works with Friend’s Journal, Pamela Haines book “Money and Soul”, and Kate Raworth’s book “Donut Economics”.

The focus of the workshop is on our lived experiences with money and bringing creativity into this area of our life. I want to meet people where they are and give them tools to move closer to their ideals in their personal life, community life, and in relationship with our planet, using money as a tool.

Leader Experience

Diana Yañez has led over fifty workshops on money at nonprofits, employee resource groups, and for her own business. Her focus is on creating a container to have gentle and empowering conversations around a topic most of us avoid: money. Diane leads with metaphors, play, and curiosity in order to shake up assumptions that drain people’s energy and replace them with a sense of agency.