6.1 | Why Sovereignty Is Your Most Valuable Asset

Hello and welcome to the Waking Up Wealthy podcast, season six. My name is Isha Vela and I’m a sovereign wealth activist and minimalist. And I wanted to start this season by providing the overarching themes you’ll be addressing both personally and professionally this year. Each one of my podcast episodes feels like a transmission that’s connected to what’s happening in the collective. So Today is Tuesday, January 20th of 2026, and in a few weeks we’re going to be concluding the year of the Snake, which has been all about shedding. And it’s been that. It’s been like that for me, in many, many ways. But I think the most obvious way was that at this time last year, I was in the process of getting rid of 95% of what I own, maybe even 98%. And with my two teenage children, I became nomadic. We began our world schooling journey. And everything I own, from my clothing to my medicine cabinet to my official papers, everything fits inside of two suitcases. And at times it has felt very liberating, right, to get rid of so much stuff and to be free. And at times it’s felt really vulnerable to own so little. It’s, kind of like it has felt naked in not a good way. And that has been the case even as I’ve grounded in how abundant I am and how much I do have, despite the few objects I own. So whether you’re shedding things or shedding illusions or shedding people or situations or careers, it can be a painful process to hold yourself through that, because our human tendency is to not rock that boat until it rocks us, until it becomes painfully obvious that that person or that situation or that job needs to go. And part of it is because our ego really desires comfort. Our nervous systems desire sameness. It’s part of our protective, protective mechanism to resist change, especially at the identity level. But what’s also wonderful about shedding is what’s left behind. So when a snake, a snake, snake. A snake sheds its skin, the new skin is incredibly vibrant. It’s shiny, it’s clean. And it has these like, colors and patterns that like, look more intense because the dull outer layer is gone. And so it reveals the smooth new scales underneath. And the new skin looks beautiful, but it’s also slightly vulnerable until it hardens. And so it is kind of the same with human beings, except that what gets left behind isn’t so much visual as it is energetic and vibrational. And it’s usually more, more obvious within the person who’s experiencing the change. And the outer environment, as you probably have experienced, it’s is slower to adjust, but it’s. It will need to if the internal change has been significant. And when it’s been integrated, that is, it’s permanent. And so the good news is that what remains is just more of you without all the conditioning, the expectations and the fear. It’s basically you without noise. Right? So this is what I call the sovereign self. And I feel like we’re experienced experiencing this as a nation and even globally, like the breaking down of systems and structures. we’re talking about like, I think it’s, it’s going to be very messy. And when you think about your own growth, like moments where you’ve found yourself like, like in a breakdown, right? The breakdown before the breakthrough, I think that’s where we are as a nation. And this is really like the pathway to sovereignty is messy and it looks like breakdown and it also leads to liberation. So I want to just like cut to like the, the definition or how I see sovereignty or how I define it. Because sovereignty is a word that’s been used a lot and it’s been overused in the white spiritual community. So much so that it’s eventually like recreated patterns of hyper independence. Like sovereignty has meant sort of like I get to do whatever I want, but I have my own definition. And it’s really so much not about that, it’s quite the opposite. And I’ll share that in a moment. But I wanted to name that. Sovereignty is really the center of my work because it is at its core about intimacy, connection, interdependence and truth. Right? It’s about a relationship, or rather multiple relationships. It is animistic in a way. And so for today’s episode, I’m just going to share with you the five pillars of sovereignty that I predict are going to be the foundation of this, like, galloping energy during the Year of the Fire Horse. And I wanted to start with this sort of my definition of sovereignty from a, from both a somatic and animist perspective. So sovereignty Is the embodied reclamation of your inner authority, the power to lead yourself, steward your resources and move through the world from truth rather than what you’ve been taught, right? Your conditioning. And it’s the liberation that happens when you return to a body led ancestral way of knowing that that you know, kind of like sheds the scripts of hyper individualism, scarcity and self betrayal, right. There’s so many different when I think about it in the money space, right? Because we always want to bring it back to this, this the energy of money or even finance. Sovereignty with money means treating it in a way, treating it as living energy, right. That reveals patterns, that expands capacity and that acts as a portal into deeper agency and responsibility to circulate reefs that nourish you, that nourish, nourish your lineage and also the wider ecosystem you belong to. And this is really important because you know, when we talk about wealth we think of it in a, in a personal way, personal wealth, building, you know, growing your personal assets or personal finance. And I really want to think about it in the broader a field of ecosystems within ecosystems, right? Like it can be your family or your chosen family or your community or you know, your nation, right? So really think of it as, as like circles and circles that kind of ripple out from you. And sovereignty is a form of power. It’s the power with, not the power over, right? So this is a really big deal now because we’re seeing a lot of power over and shifting to sharing power. And it’s like I said earlier, interdependence. And I think of it like a mycelial network where each node is powerful alone, but then even more powerful in connection, right? It’s about standing in your fullness while remaining in relationship. And that last piece, right, that’s that piece around standing in your fullness while remaining in relationship is the tension between the individual and the collective. And that tension is full of complexity, based on the needs and wants of the individual and the needs and wants of the collective. Right? So it’s not necessarily a competition, but it’s like a negotiate a negotiation. And negotiating that tension is something that you probably already do every day to some degree. And it’s something that you in a lot more of an intentional way and, and with more focus this year. And I think that, you know, we’ve been in the process of like global consciousness shifting from this individual me, me, me, scarcity and survival culture to a culture that embraces the sense of like enoughness, sufficiency and we orientation Balancing the needs and wants between individuals and community, that’s going to be ongoing since those needs shift from moment to moment. Right? And that interpersonal skill of negotiating between the me and the we requires emotional maturity. It requires regulation, and it requires the capacity to hold complexity. That interpersonal skill is going to make or break the success of any group of people, right? It could be a group of two people, it could be a family, it could be a small community or a bigger collective or even a national collective. So I wanted to dive into the five pillars of sovereignty and let’s begin with the money stuff. I want to begin with the money stuff, right? So there’s economic and financial sovereignty. And this connects directly to wealth resourcing and the capacity to participate in financial environments without coercion. So let’s, let’s break them down. They have like subcategories. So the first subcategory would be the economic sovereignty. So a collective or individual’s ability to control economic systems, resources, production and trade without outside domination. So that’s, that’s a big deal because you’re probably thinking like, oh, but I didn’t, I don’t control any of this, right? And we’re, the truth is that we’re all born into financial systems, whether it’s the, the one in the United States or in other nations. We’re born into a financial system we didn’t choose and then we’re taught to survive in it. So it makes sense that as we shift from scarcity and survival to abundance and thriving, we begin to question the existence, the permanence of those systems. And while simultaneously imagining how do we create new ones that respect that autonomy, that freedom and choice, right? Like we’re really, I think, stepping into that choosing of like, oh, I don’t choose this. Well, what do I choose instead? And this ties into financial sovereignty, both like the personal and the national, financial sovereignty, meaning the, the independent decision making around how money is earned, how money is spent, how it’s invested, and creating financial systems that align with your values rather than extraction or fear. Right? So this is what, this is what I desire to co create. really thinking about like, yeah, how do we, how do we spend? Right. Which ties into the minimalism, how do we make it right versus, you know, thinking about like, do we earn it from a nine to five, right. This has been the standard versus, do we exchange labor for dollars even? and when we invest it, what are we really investing in? And so this whole category, this first pillar also includes Monetary sovereignty, which is having control or influence over currency creation, interest rates, inflation tools and the whole container of the financial system. And I know for sure neither you nor I have had control over currency creation, especially not at the national level. But I want to invite you to think about what kind of currency you would create if it was up to you. And maybe, maybe it is exchanging labor for labor. Right. Like an exchange model. But what I think what is really important for me and just in the general energy of what I am about is I want to be clear that I’m not here to complain about what’s wrong. I’m not gonna rag on capitalism. There’s a lot of nuance there. I’m all for commerce. and yes, there’s a part of my brain that is well grooved for complaining. And I love to get into the like, co. Co misery. But I’m really like. I think that when I’m in my leadership, I’m here to look at the solutions, to focus on the world we’re building versus A, the one that we’re leaving behind or B, the one that is fed to us. Right? Like the future casting that is fed to us. I’m just like not into that. I’m looking forward, not back and kind of going back into. As part of financial and economic sovereignty, we also have resource sovereignty. So this is like, this is a huge deal because you know, corporations are buying up water rights, so they’re buying rights over natural resources and how they get distributed or how they are extracted from. So resource sovereignty I think is really the. It’s a huge piece that maybe we don’t talk about more. and of course this is so important because without natural resources, access to natural resources and natural resources themselves, we don’t have an economy. And we are we are not sovereign. We don’t even have human life if we don’t have natural resources. Because everything that exists on the planet, every product, whether it’s a food product or an object, it exists because it was derived from a natural resource. Can be your car, your car is derived from natural resources. Like the metals, the rubber, the leather, building materials. Right? Are, are natural. And even when there aren’t, they are maybe oil based, clothing can be petroleum based, which is also a natural resource. Or cotton. All right, so I’m just gonna like leave that one there and just kind of pause for a moment because that feels like very much the. Wow. That. That feels very like, just kind of appreciating. And I hope you’re appreciating with me in this moment the way that like natural resources and economic, monetary, financial sovereignty are so tied into one another. Then there’s the second pillar which is personal and individual sovereignty. So these speak to autonomy, internal authority, psychological boundaries. And this has been the bulk of my work as a somatic practitioner. It involves trauma resolution so that you can like go deeper into the layers of what is your actual truth, what are your needs, you know, what are your desires, where are you in the present moment and can you stay present with yourself while being in relationship? And then I have this. This personal and individual sovereignty is broken down into six subcategories. I labeled them A, B, C, D, E, F. So A is bodily sovereignty. And this is about having full authority over your body, your health decisions, boundaries, consent. And this involves whether, let’s say whether or not vaccines are mandated. Right. This is sort of the, an argument that has been. This is one of those situations where there’s tension between the individual and the collective well being. Right. obviously with a round body, boundaries and consent, having full authority over your body. We see like rape culture. Me too. Movement Epstein files. That’s something that’s very much like in the atmosphere right now. woman’s. A woman’s right to choose. and it’s still something that I have to negotiate at my age is sort of like how I show up in my body and giving consent if I want to, you know, receive a hug or not. Like it’s still something I negotiate at my age. and something that I, that I teach my children all the time. And then B subcategory B is emotional sovereignty. And that is the ability to regulate, feel and respond instead of react. And it is about not merging with other people’s emotional feels like really feeling like yourself even as you are connected to another person. And this is really challenging for me because I, I do have some, I do have some skills, so to speak, that allow me to feel other people and I have to be. I have to have a lot of time alone in order to feel myself because I do merge with other people very unintentionally. it’s something that just is versus something that I have to unlearn. It is actually a skill that I’ve developed to be able to feel other people, not just from a place of trauma, but that’s actually like to help me communicate with people and telepathically etc. So something that I need to take care of on an ongoing basis. But and you can sense just by, like when I talk about the ability to regulate feel and respond instead of react. We already know how important the skill is and will continue to be. And if you’ve been alive for the past six years, you’ve probably eclipsed people out of your life due to their inability to manage their emotions. Or maybe you’ve been. Been the one to be eclipsed. Right. Like it’s been me. Like, sometimes it’s been me. but yeah, like, we’ve just, you know, if. If you’ve been doing this inner work of emotional sovereignty, then when you come in contact with people who are dysregulated, it’s. Your body is communicating to you. Like, no, that’s not who I am in me anymore. And we’re not doing that anymore. Then C. Moving on to C. C is psychological sovereignty. And so psychological sovereignty is holding your own beliefs, your clarity about what’s right or wrong, if you think in that way. Right. but also holding your values and your decision making even under pressure or conditioning. Right. So we have the pressure of systems, but we all. The overarching governmental system, let’s say. And then we also have the pressure, or conditioning of family systems. Right. And sometimes we. Or cultural. Cultural pressure and conditioning. And so, you know, how, how independent are you to, you know, to be able to make decisions from this place of clarity of what you stand for in your own decisions. And it’s just huge because we, we’re often unaware of how much our everyday decisions are influenced by family culture, media. And this influences decisions about making money, how we are in relationships, politics, everything, even the way we buy. Right. Many of our ways of seeing the world are manipulated and coerced. And that’s part of what we have been shedding on an ongoing basis, maybe especially last year for you. When I think about, like, how this ties into minimalism, you know, when I was just talking to someone the other day about, like, when I did like a buy nothing, summer, and I noticed that, you know, I noticed that when I buy clothes, it’s not just about the practicalities of covering my body or about like, maintaining a certain comfortable body temperature. I really, like, noticed, like, oh, what was my aim when I buy this article of clothing? What is my aim? My aim is to h. Attract someone or feel attractive or, you know, am I trying to communicate something about who I am in the world? So that was, that was something that I, that, that I noticed that summer. And that. That in this past year is kind of like, yeah, Like, I have enough. My. My clothes serve a function, but there’s also. There’s also pieces that are, like, where I notice, like, the influence of media and how you look and how you present yourself are also very much like, it’s. It’s kind of like a. A script that. That once in a while kind of, like, touches my brain, you know? yeah, and just what it’s wanting to name here, like, something that I’ve noticed, like, in the context of consumption and minimalism, like, many people who maybe came from not a lot of money and then became high earners become minimalist, I guess, like a percentage of them after realizing they don’t feel fulfilled by the things they wanted or were groomed to want. Right? They got all the things, and then they were like, it’s not all that. I’m still, like, I’m still me with my problems, right? It didn’t solve the problems that media said it would solve. So I. I often hear people say, I. I need money. I need money. And so in a. In a previous episode of this podcast, I remember talking about, like, I think the title of it was, you don’t need money. And so I want to ask again, like, what? Well, what do you really need? Right? When you say you need money, what do you really need? Let’s focus on what the actual need is. Is it safety? Is it basic foundational safety? Is it belonging? Is it connection? Because sometimes we buy things because we want to belong, right? A lot of brands are about, like, an identity. And what is your identity without. Without the things, right? Or, you know, we. We want the connection through belonging. Okay, well, what have you just had the connection? All right, so I’m still in this category of personal sovereignty. So D is the subcategory somatic sovereignty. So somatic sovereignty is staying rooted in your body’s truth and internal signals rather than outsourcing your power or collapsing under stress. And many people struggle with this. I struggled with this as well. This is why burnout is so prevalent. And, you know, I’ve had my own experience of overriding my body’s natural signals to either rest or slow down. I’ve been like, no, I need to get it done, or I’m in a hurry and my body’s like, no, slower. And these. In these moments, we are colonizers to our own internal experience. Like, even the simplest thing, like, I need to go to the bathroom, or I’m hungry. You’re getting a signal that you need to go to the bathroom or that you need to Eat something and you don’t do it because you’re in the middle of working on something. And that’s okay once in a while, but sometimes we do it regularly. And so we’re, we’re overriding. and our culture is fast. Our culture is demanding. And I know that most bodies are much, much slower than what the culture is asking us or the pace the culture is asking us to move at. And then this, this urgency is often, I believe, rooted in white supremacy. Right. The sense of, like, it needs to be done now, it needs to be done fast. That’s not like, when I tap, when I feel into that, it’s so not who I am. It very much feels like from my white ancestry, my, my indigenous ancestors did not move very fast at all. All right? So moving to category or subcategory E. And this is relational sovereignty. This is, this is emotional sovereignty, except with other people. So this is again, about connecting without losing yourself or merging. This is maintaining agency and relationships, leadership partnerships, family roles, etc. So I think a lot of this has been just from my work with clients, my work within myself is reducing or eliminating the fawn response. Fawn response being like the fear of, being called a bitch. the fear of being bad. Right. the fear of losing love, the fear of not being liked. Right. I think this is a huge one for a lot of people in leadership roles where, you know, in order for you to say yes to yourself, you end up disappointing other people. And, oftentimes when we are in a fond response, we disappoint ourselves because we, we don’t want to disappoint other people. And so we take the hit. Right? So this is what I’m talking about when I talk about relational sovereignty. I wanted to provide an example there and then F. Which is the final cat subcategory of this. Like, personal sovereignty is identity sovereignty. So huge, huge one here too. Like defining who you are outside of imposed labels, expectations, or cultural scripts. And this is something that I was talking about with a friend this morning on my morning walk. And the place where I am now and where they and I both are is that, you know, we were kind of like affirming to one another that, like, yeah, no, I don’t really identify with being a man or being a woman. I also don’t identify with being non binary. I feel like the best label, if I’m going to attach a label, is fluid. But I don’t even, like, I don’t even want the label. Like, I don’t need it. I’m just kind of good how I am. I just need the label when I’m explaining it to other people. But I’d rather not explain it. And then we were talking about our, our like how we, how we do relationship, like quote unquote romantic partnership. And I was just like, I don’t really even feel like I need that or want that. Like, I have a lot of intimate fulfillment in my, my work relationships, frankly. But, my personal relationships m with friend. My friendships are very much like what other people the, in the level of intimacy of a romantic partnership just without the sex. And I can get the sex somewhere else if I wanted it. And I don’t even want it right now. Right. So it’s like, wow, like, let’s try to put that in a box. Right? So this is where like my identity sovereignty has really solidified around my own. who I be as a sexual being in the world and then even as a cultural being. I don’t identify as, I identify as Puerto Rican. But I don’t fit into what all of that means. And I certainly don’t fit into what all of German means. I’m kind of like the secret third thing I like to think about. And I think most people who are multiracial or multicultural or like a secret third thing. And kudos to you. but our culture loves to name things. It loves to, to label things. And naming things has a lot of power because it gives meaning to something. But does that label and its meaning really encompass who you truly are? are your identities a lot more nuanced? Nuanced. And I would say that they are. Most of the time they are. Right. And if they’re not, well, maybe examine that a little bit. All right, so we’re heading into the third pillar. Are you with me? Third pillar of sovereignty. And this is energetic and spiritual. Some of these, by the way, overlap, if you haven’t noticed yet. but energetic and spiritual sovereignty also has subcategories abcd. and these are often energetic and spiritual sovereignty are concepts that are often used in intuitive, mystical or consciousness based fields. And, and an increasing number of people who don’t call themselves mystics are understanding how important this level of sovereignty is. So let’s, let’s break it down. So a would be energetic sovereignty. And these are like energetic boundaries. you’ll notice what the energetic boundary is when somebody gets too close to you when they’re talking to you and you’re just like, take a step back, buddy. Right. Like, this is what a comfortable space feels like for me. It might be different for a different person. energetic. Boundaries are also choosing what influences your field. Like, this can be like curating, curating your social media. Like, who’s in your feed? And do you need to unfriend their asses in order to feel more peace on the inside? yeah. Notice how you feel when you’re around certain types of people or in specific jobs or doing certain tasks. Do you feel drained? Do you feel nourished and energized? then subcategory B would be spiritual sovereignty. And this is claiming your own relationship to the divine, to source to inner knowing without dogma or hierarchical mediation. Lord. Each of these categories is a whole episode, especially when I think about, like, Latin America and religious colonization. You know, spiritual sovereignty is a. Is a huge, like, it’s a split within the Latinx or the Latinx community because a lot of people are in the process of returning to this indigenous way of knowing God through nature. And a lot of us have. Not me in particular. I just grew up in an environment where it was taught that God lived outside of you. And so. And it’s very much like, woven into the fabric of society. So much so that, like, pulling it apart is this really like, oh, my God, needle in the haystack kind of thing. But for me, the, you know, where I stand and where I think we’re going is that what people call the second coming of Jesus is really us human beings coming to the realization that each of us is God incarnate and that part of our sovereignty as a species is really recognizing that that is a fact. Right. And then. And then treating each other, treating ourselves and each other that way. And it’s. This is hard, right? This is the carry, whatever, chop wood, carry water type of thing. Yeah. So this energetic and spiritual sovereignty subcategory C. And you can really feel like how nerdy I’m getting in into this. This is something I’ve thought about a lot, is soul sovereignty. And soul sovereignty is really designing and living your life as it is aligned, with your deepest blueprint, desire, integrity, like following the soul’s path a lot. You know, you may feel like, wow, it’s been a whole process to really understand, to find what the soul’s path is. And then once you say yes to that, like, everything breaks the down. Like, all of. All of what you created just kind of like falls apart and you’re having to start anew. Right. So a lot of people, you Know again, did this whole route of conditioning, they, they connect to their soul. Their soul says, no, we’re not doing this anymore and yes, we’re doing that. And then falls apart. And you have to like, you know, do the, do the thing that ties into subcategory D, destiny, sovereignty, obviously taking authorship of your life path rather than reenacting inherited patterns. So of course these are like, you know, they’re kind of like interrelated. I could draw, I could draw like all of these wonderful Venn diagrams. And I want you to imagine them in your head as you’re listening. And then the fourth out of the five, the five pillars of sovereignty is digital and data sovereignty. This is obviously sovereignty for the modern era. So data sovereignty is having control over how your personal data is stored, assessed and used. And of course with the advent of AI and data mining, we are ever more aware of how we are being surveilled and how moves we make on the Internet are being used to either make us consume more or they’re being used to control us. Right. And so, you know, one of the reasons why I am doing more things faceless on media and channels is because like, I’ve really felt the place in me where I don’t want my image or my likeness out there in the world. And I’ll, you know, I’ll gladly keep up the stuff that I’ve done in the past. It’s just that moving forward that no longer feels like the thing I want to do. And so that’s where I’m taking control over how I show up. Then there’s digital sovereignty, which is the ownership and control over the digital presence, content, platforms and algorithmic influence. And I think that there’s, you know, again, thinking about this as like a, like a movement or where we are in a movement. We are very much in this understanding of how censorship plays out on social media, what that looks like. We’ve, you know, we’ve heard of people, maybe you’ve been a person who’s had their, their, their profile canceled, or taken down. We have face recognition software, we have algorithms that favor white 30 year old influencers, we have hashtags that are being suppressed. Right? So these are all things that we’ve become aware of. And, and some of us have not been as successful building on, building a business on social media for lots of reasons. And you see a lot of marketing people saying it’s not the algorithm, it’s you. And I agree and disagree with that because I think that there’s a way that social media has trained our brains to want more sensation, more unhinged content, more out outrageous stuff. So we’re trained to need, like, to the, the intensity needs to up level. And so I think that people are reaching like this peak point in their, in their nervous system intensity quotient where they’re like, oh, I think I really need to go analog because this has, like, damaged my brain. And I noticed in myself, like, I, I notice my addiction patterns coming up with, you know, with. Just recently, I was doing like a, like a challenge and I was like, whoa, I’m like on this way too much. And I can feel the way my brain is like, freaking the out with the dopamine. Yeah. So I’ll leave it there. Going to the fifth and the last pillar, which is communal and collective. Well, being sovereignty. this is a more emergent category and one that’s becoming more significant as we become aware of how food is being used to manipulate the brains and bodies of the people who consume it. I notice a difference between my brain and my body. Like in Indonesia versus the United States, going back and forth, it kind of becomes like, obvious. and because of the interaction between food and how we function, there’s. There’s a bodily sovereignty aspect to this. I noticed that, you know, just the, just the sheer availability of food, the portion sizes, like, it’s just a whole different ball game. And, and you know, for a while, my kids were complaining in Indonesia, and even me, like, I, I, I had this kind of like, anger around portion sizes in, in Bali, and I’m just like, God damn it, it’s so freaking small. Like, I want more. I’m still hungry. And the, the reality was that my body adjusted to those smaller sizes and it became enough. And it was like a beautiful learning and coming back here and seeing the large portions, portion sizes, I was feeling disgust, but I didn’t say anything about it. And my, my oldest child, you know, they were kind of at the beginning, they were like, oh, my God, so much food. Yeah, let’s like, let’s eat. And then by like week three, they hit a wall and they were just like, no, I can’t eat anymore. Like, I need to just not eat for a few days, they said. And it was because of the. They were disgusted and they were feeling nauseous just being around food, because of how food is treated. So I just kind of wanted to provide that as an example. just around this particular issue. anyway, there are, there are. Let Me see three subcategories to communal and collective well being. Sovereignty. So food sovereignty is obviously the community’s right to grow, control and distribute their own food sustainably. Right. with food prices going up, with food sources being polluted, with transportation costs being part of the reason that drives up or drives the cost of food. obviously tariffs is part of that as well. And the plastic packaging, it becomes like people are really like deciding like well I can, I can resource myself. As long as I have land and fertile earth and seeds, right. Then I can create my own source of sustenance that is, that is pure, as pure as, as possible. environmental sovereignty is having community control over ecological decisions, land use, climate policies and local environmental resources. So this is where like, right, like who owns the land, how is it treated? How do we use it, how do we, or how are we in relationship to it? thinking about that in the, in the context of community. and we, we see a lot of corporations buying up land and deciding for us how they’re going to use it. You know, what kind of pesticides or chemicals they, they dump on it. we see this in, in like, you know, black people or people of color in neighborhoods that have, that are closer to environmental toxins, higher pollution or airports. yeah. And I see more people taking control of their environment and making decisions for, you know, how, how land will be used and cared for. And then finally the last, the third subcategory, the C of communal and collective well being. Sovereignty is cultural sovereignty. And this is the right to protect, express and evolve cultural practices without domination or erasure. And of course the most, the most obvious example of this is genocide. Whether we talk about Palestinian genocide or the genocide of indigenous people in the Americas, this is really, it really was, it really is about the, the right, it is about land and it is about like the, the right to practice and, and to have your culture, without domination or erasure. Yeah. And I just wanted to like after, you know, we have the, let’s see. Yeah, we have the economic and financial. Just to recap, right, we have the, the first. The the first pillar is economic and financial. The second pillar is personal and individual. The third pillar is energetic and spiritual. The fourth pillar is digital and data. And the fifth is communal and collective. And all of these sources of sovereignty, these pillars are of course interconnected. And if we think of them fitting on a map, you may want to think of them as nature based or mycelial. And so I created this mycelial Map of wealth sovereignty, where the root layer is the personal sovereignty piece. This is like the inner network, the inner workings, right? We talk about the so within, so without. This is the within piece. This is the base of the entire system, right? The, the root layer. So here’s where you cultivate somatic self trust. This is where you cultivate emotional leadership, the clear boundaries without using those boundaries to isolate. This is where body led decision making happens, whether that’s in your personal or career life. This is where your identity is grounded in truth, not labels or performance. And this is where responsibility is a form of self solidarity. And this layer answers the question, how do I lead myself from my body and my, my body without the conditioning instead of my body with the trauma. Right? Okay. So from the roots we go to the, to the resource layer, like the flow of nourishment, financial sovereignty. This is again like thinking about it from the lens of money. Okay? This is the resource layer. This is where money becomes part of the ecosystem. This is where you work with stewardship over accumulation m money as a mirror that shows you your pattern so that you can go back to the root layer and work on those money as a portal to agency and liberation. This is where you work on your capacity to hold, receive and circulate. This is where you receive or take in financial literacy. And this is where wealth is nourishment, not domination. Right? Where we, where you look at the flow of wealth as a form of nourishment, resource not. This is the power with, not the power over. Okay? And this layer answers the question, how do I resource myself in ways that expand freedom for all, not just myself, rather than reenact oppression? Okay. All right. And then the third layer, the relational layer, this is the collective sovereignty piece. I want you to think of these maybe as like the, the web, the mycelial web. This is where sovereignty becomes interdependence. This includes the power with instead of the power over. Again, these are like. These are overlapping. This is where responsibility is community based versus individual. This is where you have this ancestral continuity and repair. So it’s like you are, you have awareness of your linear lineage, awareness of your collective trauma. Right? So this layer is where you’re like making little repairs in that web, right? In the fabric. In the result. Sorry, not in the result, in the, in the relational piece. Like the, the in how we be with one another. and this is also in the relational layer is where that personal agency ripples into collective. And that where wealth activism is like a shared Nourishment in this layer answers the question how does my sovereignty strengthen the web I’m part of? Because in white spiritual communities, strength, sovereignty has been about individuality and it has not really talked about at all about this particular layer about how I, me being me and my sovereignty strengthens the web I’m part of. And that those are the, that’s the conversation that I want to have more of. And then finally the result or integration layer, this is like the fruiting body of whatever mycelial network your, your where you were conceiving of here. This is the sovereign way of being. This is where the, the in the, the individual and the collective right that the thing that I named was tension is no longer tense, it’s no longer a thing that needs to be negotiated, but that is more fluid. So this is where everything emergence emerges into its visible form. Right. So it’s like this is what you see on the surface. This is where you embody that spirit led strategy, again, business, personal, however you want to think about it could be strategy and relationship. This is where expansion is trauma informed, where leadership is liberatory, where wealth building is regulated versus scarcity based. This is where creation is purpose driven versus outcome driven or financially driven. And this is where prosperity is really embodied versus something that is like it’s a, there’s a number attached to it. And a lot of what we talk about is on this result or integration layer. And we, we haven’t gone back to those earlier layers. yeah, because we, we want results and we want results fast. But you can’t skip over those deeper layers. If you want the results, you’re going to have to go to the roots, to the resourcing, to the, the relational pieces. And so the results, this, the layer of the, the result of the integration layer asks how does my sovereignty become my way of life, my way of business and my way of leading in the world? And I want you to notice, I think maybe I’m repeating myself here, but in this model managing your, your money nervous system is the second layer and, and distribution of wealth, wealth is the third layer. So I want this to help you understand that if you’re having an issue with results, meaning that if there are cracks in leaderships or if the top layer for example, you have to go, you know, something is not working out in the results, you have to go back to those lower layers to find and resolve the source of the issue there. Yeah. So I hope this episode has, has touched you in a way that is like ugh, this is the conversation I want to have. And if it is, reach out to me. Just say, hi, make a comment, share this with somebody who you want to have these conversations with. Let me know how it’s landing with you. Because I, you know, as I make this shift a little bit into more analog and in person, I want to invite more of that human to human connection because I just, like, that’s what lights me up. And, yeah, I just want more of it. I want to create more of it. And I think that we can all create more of that. I think that’s going to be helpful to everyone. So thank you for listening and I’ll see you on the next episode. Thank you for listening to today’s episode. Remember to hit the subscribe button to get notified of new episodes dropping on the new and full moons of each month. And if you haven’t already, leave us a five star review on itunes to make sure that everyone who needs this transmission receives it. Until the next episode, I’m sending you fierce, fierce love.