Consumed.
THE WORK – How to Escape Consumerism’s Grasp: On Soulful Sales, the “Good Stuff”, and Life-Giving Reciprocity.
With THE WORK I am sharing transmissions around mystical business, branding and co-creating a new paradigm on Earth. Today it’s all about consumer culture, and what I am learning as I let go of all my material belongings, in preparation for a cross-continent move.
I used to love strolling through Berlin, from shop to shop. Taking myself out on solo-dates into my favourite Kiez, walking down Goltzstraße, passing by Winterfeldtplatz, marvelling at funky bomber jackets and second hand jewellery, and grabbing the odd bargain at Tiger on the way home.
Occasionally, I’d take a trip to Mitte, making myself dizzy spending too much time in the bigger brands’ stores: & Other Stories, Weekday, or, my forever favourite: Kauf Dich Glücklich. In English: Shop yourself happy.
I chuckle at the memory.
I don’t think I was ever a true shopping addict. I liked to buy clothes and pretty things, but I didn’t go overboard. What I remember the most though is the stress of it all.
The stress of making decisions. The blood rushing through my veins as though I am chased by a bear as I set foot in the Sandqvist outlet in Kreuzberg, and I’m flooded with tons of my favourite bags at ridiculously reduced prices. The need to find something, to buy something, to scratch some kind of undefinable itch. I did love these bags. It wasn’t just for the sake of buying. But it wasn’t not that either.
I almost feel a sense of melancholy when I think back to those days.
A part of me still loves to spend hours in small shops, feeling the joy of finding gems of beauty and quality. But I have come to a point where I truly only buy when I feel 100% inspired to take an item home. When I can tune in, and intuit that it is both needed, and desired, not just from a FOMO point of view, but from a place of soul integrity. This way, I acquired – for example – my favourite pair of fair trade, organic cotton jeans that cost me a fortune, but I wear them all the time, and I know they’ll last me many years.
But overall, I have noticed an interesting shift:
I have actively started to avoid environments that inspire consumption.
I don’t feel drawn to city centres, not even to the backstreets brimming with independent shops. Something else has come into being: the joy of simplicity.
The freedom of less.
With our move to Sweden coming up this year, I have started to give away stuff. We will take nothing but a few boxes of personal items – all the rest needs to go.
All that isn’t essential to my existence is being removed. And what surfaces is a deeper understanding of what the essential actually is – for me, and in the big picture.
I see myself holding on to natural fibres, the linen shirts, and lyocell bottoms. I keep my stack of pure beeswax candles, my Norwegian pure wool blanket, the antique French vase I bought years ago on a flea market, that somehow speaks to my soul, whispering a story of the past that I could listen to for hours. Books that have marked my life path. The blanket I crocheted for our rainbow baby before I knew that many months of fertility treatment were not going to result in falling pregnant. The toy goat that I got for my 7th birthday that has been the most cherished cuddly animal I ever owned.
Things with soul.
And it got me thinking: how does all this translate into the online space?
Instagram can feel like a huge, overwhelming shopping mall, with products thrown at you right and left. And just like in the 3D world, you find gems in amidst the noise. People who change your life with their work, people whose offers ooze soulfulness, integrity, and a vision of a future that you want to pour your heart into.
There’s something mystical about their creations. Just like a fine linen dress, their words feel exquisite on your skin. Like a pure wool jumper, their marketing warms your core. And like a book you can’t help but joyously loose yourself within, you want to luxuriate in their presence, their work.
You don’t buy from brands like these for the sake of buying something. Sometimes I wonder whether buying is even the right term. Maybe it truly is more of what often felt like a cheesy description to me: you move into an exchange with them. You don’t consume, you enter into relationship. You don’t buy, you engage in reciprocity. Yes, the exchange may be financial on the surface, but it goes much deeper than that. It’s not a soulless purchase, it is an agreement to share a common field of energy, of truth, of dreaming and of visioning. It is a co-creation, a co-weaving of a story you desire to live.
And just like in the 3D realms, businesses like these are still rare. They’re a preview of what I believe awaits us in the future of a life-giving economy.
And I realise that it’s these very businesses that I have come here to work with. The ones that have been born from love, not greed. The ones that are built on an energetic architecture of integrity, and soulfulness.
This is where I find insight and understanding when it comes to my work. I am a brand designer, after all. Someone who actively plays in the realms of marketing, someone tasked with creating compelling visuals that pave the path for consumption – or so they say.
But is that really true, I wonder.
Of course, an attractive brand does lead to more sales.
But when a soulful brand becomes visible in its true frequency, and its true light, then its attractiveness is not one that instigates mindless purchases. Instead, it speaks to soul, to truth, to the inner knowing of those who are meant to expand into a relationship with it. Its blueprint won’t speak to the masses, but it will be a lighthouse for the ships who are meant to perceive its luminescence.
And yet: no matter how soul-sourced your work is, and how deeply aligned you are with your most truthful mission – we all still live in a world that is deeply scarred by consumer culture.
So how can you escape consumerism’s grasp? And what does that mean for what you offer? For the brand you build?
I think it goes hand in hand with having to get extremely honest with yourself. Moving into the centre of your heart and belly, allowing your senses to switch on and hearing your intuitive voice that knows when you offer something solely for commercial reasons and when you offer something that is truly a gift, an important asset for your people, for the planet, for the future.
It’s about creating a framework of truth for yourself that is of immaculate integrity. And by the way: that doesn’t mean dropping the ball on financial goals, or turning your back on the reality of money and the fact that you need it (and want it). This is not about making less. It is about coming into equilibrium, finding that golden place of beauty, integrity, and soulfulness that has you feel deeply connected, and oh so calm in your being, knowing that the way you consume and sell has been born from a place of love – for your soul, for all beings, for the planet, for life.
If you are curious about creating your own branding in alignment with you soul mission and your business’ life-giving purpose, my books are open for project starting in February 2025 and onwards.
You can find out all about the Mystic Branding Method and my process here: