When people ask me how I came up with Sex&Money, I always remember one story. Dasha Bashtannik and I are sitting at a game board, I draw a card, answer the questions, and suddenly she asks me:
"Have you ever thought of creating your own transformational game?"
I said I had. What's more, I already had a name.
"Sex and Money."
At that moment I did not yet know that about six weeks before our meeting Dasha had been driving, stopped at a traffic light and, quite unexpectedly, thought of exactly these words. She even put the idea in her notes, but set it aside. She had only just launched her own game, Top Energy, which still needed work, so she had no plans to make another one.
So the name came to each of us independently. And we had met for a completely different reason.
But let me start at the beginning.
Why I became interested in transformational games at all
For fifteen years I worked as an aesthetician. Alongside that I studied body practices, became an Access Bars and FaceLift facilitator, and developed my own facial massage technique, MAGIA.
Over those years I became more and more convinced that working with a person rarely stops at the outward request. A client may come for a massage with a specific goal, but in conversation something else comes up. We start talking about how they treat themselves, their habits, their inner prohibitions, what they allow themselves and what they keep putting off.
I wanted to widen the set of tools I work with.
Together with my friend Tetiana Chebanova I started running women's circles. For these meetings we wanted an additional format that would help participants explore their questions, not just discuss them in the usual way.
I began meeting the authors of transformational games, trying different tools and talking to mentors. What mattered to me was not buying a beautiful box of cards but understanding what happens to a person during a game and how a facilitator can help them through the process.
That is how I came to Dasha.
She was recommended to me as an Access Bars specialist, and I signed up for her training. Later my husband and I came to play Top Energy with her. We wanted to spend time together, try a new format and, of course, see the game from the inside.
I could not have imagined that this meeting would be the start of my own project.
What a transformational game is and why I chose this format
The word "transformation" means change. What makes play interesting is that a person takes part in it for the sake of the process itself, not only for some external result.
Put the two together and a transformational game can be described as a process in which a person, through the moves of a game, explores themselves, their habitual reactions and the changes that are possible.
I like that a game lets you look at a situation differently than in an ordinary conversation. In everyday life we often know in advance what is right, how we ought to act and what needs to be done. At least we think we do. But there can be a long way between understanding and action.
We can spend years reading books on financial literacy and still be afraid to raise our prices. Know that it matters to speak about our desires and still stay silent. Agree that it is time to change something and then find dozens of reasons to put the change off until Monday.
A game lets you step a little outside your usual role. In front of you are a board, a token, a die and a card with a question. You are just playing, it seems, but gradually you start to notice your own reactions. Why did this question meet resistance? Why does one situation seem simple while another irritates or even frightens me? What do I usually do in circumstances like these?
In his work on the psychology of play, Daniil Elkonin wrote that play changes not only the development of a child's separate mental functions but also the child's attitude to the world around them. He was looking at children's play, but it seems to me that the chance to see a situation from another position is just as useful for adults.
There is one more thing. We like giving advice to other people, because from the outside a lot really does look clearer. Applying the same advice to ourselves turns out to be much harder.
In a game a person gets the chance to see their own situation a little from the outside. Sometimes one precise question is enough for the familiar explanation to stop seeming like the only possible one.
At the same time, I do not think of the game as a magic pill. It can help you notice a problem, put a desire into words, come up with another way of acting. But after that it is up to the person to decide what to do with it.
From Tibetan monasteries to the modern Transformation Game
As I was getting to know transformational games, I wanted to find out where the format came from in the first place.
Popular accounts often say that transformational games go back to the practices of Tibetan monks. The game is described as a symbolic path from one quality to another: from selfishness to altruism, from negative states to a more conscious attitude to oneself and others.
I treat this story as just one version of the origins. The documented history of the modern Transformation Game begins much later, in the Findhorn community in Scotland.
In the 1970s Joy Drake began developing a game that grew out of the community's spiritual life. It took shape gradually, through discussions, the first game boards, experiments and watching how people went through the game.
The first public prototype game was played in June 1978. Later Kathy Tyler joined the project, and in 1987 the well-known board game version, the Transformation Game, came out. The story of how it was made is told in detail in the Findhorn community's materials and on the website of its developers, InnerLinks.
What I find interesting is the direction this tool developed in. A game originally tied to spiritual search and the exploration of one's life path took on a form in which a participant could literally move across a board, meet different situations and watch their own reactions.
Over time all kinds of games appeared.
Some are about money, entrepreneurship and financial decisions. Others help explore relationships, self-esteem, calling or emotional reactions. There are games for one-to-one work, group formats and tools for business. They differ in methodology, in how deep the psychological work goes and in their aims.
The idea itself is close to me: sometimes a person understands their habitual pattern of behaviour better when they can see it in action, not only hear about it.
But a board and a deck of cards do not by themselves make a game a good tool. There has to be well-thought-out logic behind it. You need to understand why a participant takes a particular action, how the elements connect and what helps them make sense of the experience.
That is exactly what Dasha and I would have to work on.
Why sex and money ended up side by side
When I first thought about a game of my own, I already knew which themes I wanted to explore. But why sex and money?
For me these are two important areas of human life in which our relationship with our desires is easy to see.
Money is tied to what we want to receive, how much we value our own work, what pay we consider acceptable for ourselves, whether we can ask and receive. Sexuality, too, is tied to desires, pleasure, boundaries and the ability to speak openly about what suits us.
Sometimes a person talks easily about how to earn more but finds it hard to name a price for their own work. They may want new opportunities yet be afraid to put themselves forward. Or they may have got used to thinking that pleasure has to be earned first.
Of course, financial problems are not always about personal beliefs, and difficulties in relationships cannot be explained by a single cause. But exploring how we react to money, desires and our own needs can be very useful.
In the interview with Dasha I put it like this: "Sex is orgasm, money is orgasmic energy."
For me it is a figurative description of the two themes I wanted to bring together in one game. I was curious to see how a person handles their desires, where they hold themselves back and which habitual decisions they repeat in different circumstances.
That is how the name gradually became a concept.
How Dasha helped me create the game
I knew what I wanted to make, but I did not know how to turn the idea into a complete game tool.
So I asked Dasha to be my mentor. By then she already had experience of creating her own games, running festivals and guiding other authors. I put my trust in a specialist who understood the methodology and knew which problems we would have to solve.
Dasha prepared a structure for the work: sessions, materials, video lessons and assignments. I did not just need to write my thoughts down on cards; I had to go through the whole path of creating a game.
At first it all seemed huge and almost boundless. I remember feeling that I would never finish this project. We were aiming at about six weeks for the main framework, and I found it hard to imagine how to get it all done.
Gradually it became clearer.
I filled the game with my own ideas and practices, and Dasha helped bring them together into a system. We discussed the order of the game's stages, the structure of the board, the meaning of each sector and how one element should carry on from another.
Because writing a lot of cards is not that hard. Making them actually work in a game is another matter entirely. So that a person reading the question recognises their own situation in it. So that after thinking it over, it is clear what to do next.
I could come up with a practice that seemed interesting to me, but that was not enough. I had to check how participants would take it and what place it held in the whole process.
So I went through the exercises myself many times, reread the materials and kept returning to particular wordings.
Dasha knew the mechanics of transformational games well, and I brought my knowledge, my experience of body practices and my own view of working with desire. We were not trying to make two identical games. We needed to create a tool in which my approach would take a clear, working form.
That was when I realised how much work stands behind a finished game. From the outside a person sees a board, cards and a box. Inside are the methodology, the testing of the practices and many decisions the player does not need to notice.
Why Sex&Money has real game money
One of the questions Dasha and I settled almost immediately: if a game is about money, there has to be money in it.
Not just talk about earning and financial beliefs. Participants have to act themselves, see the consequences of their decisions and watch their game balance change.
That is why Sex&Money has a whole game economy. Participants earn and lose money, can borrow and can buy assets. Financial decisions become part of the overall process.
But we did not want it all to come down to reading cards and discussing impressions.
Dasha had a lot of practical experience, and she had noticed a pattern: a person can read a useful recommendation, agree with it, write it in a notebook and calmly move on. But will anything change after that?
That is where the idea of checking a practice with a roll of the die came from.
After doing an exercise the participant rolls the die. A 2, 4 or 6 means the practice counts as lived, and the bank pays the player. A 1, 3 or 5 means the practice stayed at the level of theory, and the player has to pay.
I liked that at this moment there is one more interaction with your own decision. It is not enough for the player simply to tell themselves, "Yes, I've got it." They keep acting inside the game situation and see the result of their move.
The second currency appeared because the financial side alone was not enough for us. When we talked about creating the game we called it orgasms. In the current description on the site it is shown as hearts. This currency is about pleasure and desire, not a literal measure of sexual experience.
So the game has two notional kinds of value that a participant works with at the same time.
In my view, that is what makes the mechanic interesting: thoughts about money and desire get a concrete expression. You can see what you choose, what you avoid, what you are ready to do and how you react to the consequences.
What happens during the game
Before the start each participant puts their request into words. It might be a question about money, work, their relationship with their own desires, or a situation they want to understand.
Then the movement across the board begins. Particular sectors come up, the participant draws cards, does practices and makes decisions. The facilitator guides the process and helps keep the link between the request and what is happening in the game.
The Mirrors have a special place. In them the participant returns to themes explored on the side of desire and looks at them through money.
I like this transition. A person may think their money question has nothing to do with other areas of life. Then they notice a familiar way of behaving in a completely different situation. Of course, everyone draws their own conclusions: the game gives a reason to explore, but it should not impose a ready-made explanation.
Today Sex&Money has nine decks and 280 cards. The board has sectors linked to money and to desire, and a whole session takes about three hours. You can play one-to-one or in a group of two to six, in person or online. These details are described on the official Loresh Games website.
The game also has a digital version. It keeps the game balance automatically, so the facilitator does not have to recount the money by hand after every move. That leaves more attention for the participants and the process itself.
What I hope a person takes away from the game
It matters to me that a participant does not leave only with the feeling that they had a good time or learned something interesting.
I want them to be able to put their own conclusions into words. What did I notice? Which reaction turned out to be a habit of mine? What had I not taken into account before? What action now seems possible to me?
Sometimes a person comes with one request and during the game discovers that what really troubles them is something else entirely. It happens. And I do not see it as a failure. On the contrary, the chance to see the difference between what we demand of ourselves out of habit and what we really want can be useful in itself.
After the game it is worth giving yourself time to reflect. Write down what you noticed, return to the practices you chose, try applying something in everyday life.
At the same time I always keep the limits of the tool in mind. A transformational game does not replace psychotherapy and does not automatically solve problems with money, health or relationships. Sometimes a person needs a different specialist or a completely different kind of help. The facilitator's job is not to promise a universal result but to work honestly within their method.
And, of course, confidentiality is a matter of principle for me. People need to be able to talk openly about their questions without worrying that their personal stories will become other people's gossip.
Why I keep developing Sex&Money
When I think back to the start of this story, the coincidence with Dasha still surprises me. I was looking for a game that would help me in my work with people, and she, independently of me, had thought of the same name.
But a coincidence alone would not have been enough. Then came the work, the training, the practices and the checking of details. The idea had to be turned into a structure, and the structure into a game that can be run again and again.
I wanted to combine my own experience of working with the body and with desire with the methodology of transformational games. Dasha helped build the mechanics that support that aim. That is how Sex&Money came about: a tool that invites a person to explore their relationship with money through their own desires and to look at habitual patterns of behaviour from a different angle.
Now I can see that one game holds much more than the original idea. There is the work on the materials, the search for precise wording, and the understanding of how a participant goes through each stage.
And it all began with three words that two women, independently of each other, had written down in their heads.
"Sex and Money."
And I am still curious to watch what questions come up for people when these two themes meet at one game table.
Would you like to become a Sex&Money facilitator?
If you are a psychologist, coach, consultant or body practitioner, or you already run women's circles and group meetings, Sex&Money may become a new tool in your work.
The game helps create a space where participants can explore their relationship with money and desire, notice habitual reactions and find their own answers. And to you as a facilitator it gives a ready structure: the board, nine decks, 280 cards, practices and mechanics that link the questions to concrete actions.
You do not have to invent a game from scratch yourself. You can learn an author's tool and add it to your practice.
Take the next step: get to know Sex&Money and find out about buying the game and facilitator training through the links below.
I created this game for people who want to help others explore themselves and are ready to grow their own practice. Perhaps the next game of Sex&Money will be led by you.