(by Lori Hops, PhD, DCEP)

Do you feel guilty when charging clients for your energy practice services?

Do you believe your services should be given for free or on a donation basis?

Is it hard to ask for money for missed appointments, late cancellations, or additional time?

If you answered yes to one or more of these questions, you are not alone. It is not just energy practitioners who may feel guilty about charging for services. Service providers in many areas struggle with issues of how much to charge, sometimes cloaked in hidden beliefs which run contrary to successful business practices. 

It helps to identify the beliefs getting in your way, along with contrasting ideas about how charging fair market prices assist your clients. Follow these three easy tips so you and your business can prosper with less guilt when charging for services.

Forgive Yourself: It’s Not a Bad Thing if You Feel Guilty

Qualities of good energy practice may conflict with setting fair fees for service

The very qualities that support your work as an energy provider can sometimes backfire when charging for services.  High degrees of empathy, perception, compassion and intuition may contribute to a heightened awareness of money issues with your client. If you are resonating with your clients’ worries, fears of lack, and constricted beliefs about money, abundance and worth, you may have trouble setting realistic and helpful boundaries for your practice when setting your fees. It helps to examine these beliefs so you can address them directly. Take these three steps to uncover beliefs that block you, finding reasons to support your goals, and moving your energy from guilt to freedom so you can achieve your financial goals while taking care of your clients.

Step 1. Uncover Beliefs About Money and Guilt

Common beliefs about not trading money for services

• Your fees are taking too much from your client.
  
• When being paid, you are benefiting from your client’s pain.
  
• You have a belief in the sanctity of poverty or selfless giving.
  
• Money is the root of all evil, and tarnishes the working relationship.
  
• Helping comes naturally and should be what people do for one another without exchanging money.
  
• You believe service is a sacred act or is a higher calling, and is beyond the mundane world of money.

Step 2. Identify Reasons That Support Financial Goals

Why trading money for services is of benefit

• Money is an exchange of energy, just like other energy practices.
  
• Therapy helps people function better so they can be more productive and possibly earn more.
  
• People spend money on things that don’t help and may harm them. Therapy is designed to help them, as an investment in their wellbeing.
  
• People commit to what they pay for with time and money, and may work harder or be more committed to their wellbeing.
  
• Charging a fair price for services indicates wellbeing is valuable, as is the work you do.
  
• Those who pay your full fee give you opportunity to offer sliding scale or reduced cost to others.

Step 3. Find Ways to Release the Guilt

Moving from guilt to freedom

There are many creative approaches to releasing yourself from guilt and money. Consider these ideas, or make up your own. 

• Reflect on generational beliefs about money including family stories or slogans. Identify family history with access to education, work, opportunity, discrimination, favoritism, and legalities. There may be beliefs based upon differences in gender, age, race, geography, culture and religion.
  
• Read the list of blocks, or make ones of your own. Simultaneously, see if there are areas in your body where there is constriction or distress. Consciously breathe into those places and observe your reactions. Notice any new thoughts, sensations, or ideas.
  
• Use familiar or new energy practices, or other approaches. For instance, you can move energy in the chakras using hands or imagery or both. Dedicate time each week to this goal, so you are accountable to finding a new path and reinforcing positive changes.
  
• Install new beliefs once the guilt or blocks are cleared. It is as important to establish new ways of being, as it is to clear the old, so you can build a new reality for yourself and your clients. Be a way shower, so your clients can forge a new reality for themselves and others.

Want to become more aware of, and resolve your blind spots around money issues? Learn how from Lynn Twist in ACEP’s online training: Clarity & Wisdom: Ethics & Energy Healing. Plus, you can upgrade your ethical knowledge while expanding your clarity and wisdom in these areas: risk management issues in your practice, managing boundaries, expectations and other relationship issues and spiritual competency training. clarityandwisdom.org 8 CE/CME/CNE available.

Author

Lori Chortkoff Hops, PhD, DCEP is a licensed psychologist in Westlake Village, California, USA. She is certified in Comprehensive Energy Psychology and Logosynthesis. Lori is president of ACEP (www.energypsych.org). She is certified in Comprehensive Energy Psychology, and is a Reiki master. Learn more about Dr. Hops at www.drlorihops.com. You can visit her Facebook page for A Tip A Day for Wellness Program at Facebook.com/Lori.Hops.