There is much discussion in the A Course in Miracles community surrounding charging money.

Some take a firm stance that anything related to teaching the Course should always be free. Others who are devoting their lives to extending the teachings of the Course occasionally charge for programs or ask for donations.

I’d love to give a peek “behind the scenes” as to why I have integrated paid programs into the many free offerings that I share.

My hope is that this will help bring the Course community to a place of releasing judgment, instead of attack and solidifying judgment.

First of all, it may be helpful to read exactly what A Course in Miracles says about charging money. Check out the Psychotherapy pamphlet here. It is clear that within the context of psychotherapy (according to the Course, we are all therapists and clients in every relationship we enter), these teachings should be offered freely, and that at minimum, “no one should be turned away because he cannot pay.”

I would like to first begin by sharing how I meet this teaching in the Course:

• My “From Anxiety To Love” podcast is available on YouTube and iTunes for free.
• Every Sunday night at 8pm Eastern for the past 6+ years, I facilitate a LIVE study group call where we dive into the teachings of A Course in Miracles. There never has been and never will be a fee for this group. You can join us here.
• All of the content on my blog (including video blogs, written posts, and podcasts) is yours for the taking!
• Webinars and videos on my Facebook page and YouTube channel are freely available.
• My 3-part video series on “Undoing Anxiety with A Course in Miracles” is available for free.
• Plus more! (I’ve done more free online events than I can remember! Spiritual book giveaways, free trainings, etc.)

I am wholly dedicated to continuing to produce free content for anyone who may benefit from it. If you have been following me for a while, you know how much I love to give!

From an outside perspective, it can be difficult to grasp the amount of time, money and resources it takes to produce free content. Here’s what you don’t see “behind the scenes:”

• Every email subscriber on my email list, I pay for.
• Composing email blasts & creating posts for my website takes many hours to do.
• To do a webinar (or Facebook Live using the BeLive app) subscriptions costs are involved.
• Many hours go into recording a podcast, editing the episode, and then publishing it on a hosting service (episode editing costs and monthly hosting costs are involved in this).
• It costs money to design, maintain, and host a website (fees are paid monthly or yearly).
• Every edited video I produce involves a significant amount of time and money.
• It sometimes takes me, at minimum, 45 minutes to publish a post on Instagram!
• Responding to comments on my blog, social media, and emails takes a lot of time (I currently have 2503 unread messages in my inbox. No joke! (I’m sorry if you’re awaiting a response from me lol! 🙂 )

I’ve always used money out of my own pocket to pay these expenses, and I’ve never asked for a fee for any of these things. All of these things I will continue to offer freely.

As I’ve been called to invest more time in sharing content for a wider audience, my need for support has grown. I could literally spend every moment of the day doing the above tasks and still not produce everything that I feel called to share.

This might be surprising to learn, but I’ve been a one-woman show for 8 years, for the most part doing everything myself. This is no longer do-able — when I get busy, certain projects (like my beloved podcast) have come to a halt to the dismay of my listeners because I am unable to devote the time needed to edit and publish this content. I have wished many times that I could clone myself for help!

I have felt moved to integrate some paid offerings into everything I already do, as this will enable me to have funding to hire the help that I need to manage the emails, publish posts, update and maintain my website, produce and edit content, and hopefully turn more people onto the healing pathway of the Course. I do not charge money for personal benefit (my part-time job covers my living expenses), but any monies from sales will be used to further extend the teachings that have helped me so much. I truly enjoy paying people what they are worth for the support they provide.

No one “needs” anything that I do. All you need is to listen to your own Inner Teacher. That’s it.

But for those who feel inspired to make an investment and work with me in a specific format, I’ll be integrating paid offerings into what I do as well.

I do not charge money to teach you the Course (my ACIM study group is for teaching the Course), and I do not charge money to listen to the Holy Spirit for you (if a teacher tells you that only they can do this for you, run!). I charge money for some programs or services in order to pay the support team I’ve been called to hire to help me in my mission to share these teachings with the world. Although A Course in Miracles is my operating system and I cannot exist apart from it, my programs are also influenced by mindfulness meditation, my two graduate degrees in Counseling, my decades of work as an educator, and my life coach training.

I honor that our perspectives may be different on the issue of money, but I hope this gives a glimpse into the behind-the-scenes work. I love you and be well!