What are your life currencies that enable you to operate as your best self

Jan Normanton • January 30, 2025

What are your unique life currencies and how much of each of those currencies do you need to thrive well in life

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If you are stressed, consider somatic massage or somatic coaching and know that your body has a whole set of inbuilt ways to help you manage your inner states.

I’ve been a bit well recently and feeling incapacitated and unable to show up for my job and for my life.


It got me thinking as to what is really important to me in life - what are my personal currencies that get me through life, that help me not only to show up and operate in the best version of myself that I can be, but also to thrive.


And I realised my currencies that support me best are my energy levels, my personal energy, my time and my capacity - emotional, mental or physical.


  • Emotional capacity so that I feel resilient rather than overwhelmed
  • Mental capacity so that I feel clear rather than discombobulated
  • Physical capacity so that I feel strong, flexible and can move rather than in pain and debilitated


And being short of all of those last week made me realise these things are really important to me. Not necessarily money or objects or holidays, cars, houses, the usual things. Those things count to a point.



Yet without any of my personal currencies, I can the stress of this and feel the ill effects that stress has on each of those. Stress:


  • can put us in panic mode, making us feel that we have no time or rob us of time when we allow ourselves to get distracted in a myriad of ways
  • is draining of our vitality, life force and energy
  • can create emotional anguish, mental burnout or fatigue, physical pain, aches and illness.


A deficit in any of these currencies means we start to operate from scarcity mode and drop into survival states rather than thriving states.


This is a subjective issue with our currencies being unique to each of us, and ever changing over time. It requires us to get to know ourselves well and, to pay heed to our currencies and needs, so that we remain in credit and don’t drift into deficit states.


So I invite you to have a think about what’s important to you. What are your life currencies and how much of each of those currencies do you need to thrive well in life.

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