Yesterday I was thinking about money. Not unusual of course. I wonder if there are many human beings who don’t?
The part that is different about my thinking, when I think about money, is that it seems that whether there is a bill due, a payment to be made, a payment to receive, or imagining upcoming future payments….I simply do not have the mental stressful thinking I once had about it.
I have done The Work on money about 500 times. Well, maybe this is an exaggeration.
Exaggeration is common when it comes to money:
- I’ll NEVER get out of debt
- This will take me years and years to pay for, I’ll probably be dead
- I don’t EVER get what I want
- it’s sooooooo hard to go to work
- This whole system is set up with such inequality, it is ALL UNFAIR
- I’ll NEVER understand how to get lots of money
- I am trapped, stuck, stupid, desperate, hopeless when it comes to money
Stressful thinking can enter so quickly and take off like a rocket, that it is helpful, whether you consider yourself worried about money or not, to consider all that you believe about this thing called money.
Five and a half years ago, I got divorced.
Before that, I didn’t work full time for ten years, but I always worked part time. I actually did editing for several companies as a freelancer, and for one company as a part time employee only a few hours a week. All work done at home. Incredible for a mother of babies.
My story was often “I didn’t work for ten years! Terrible! Lazy!” and also “The rug is pulled out from under me (divorce)! I can’t afford anything! I can’t I can’t I can’t!”
Two years after my divorce, I had zero savings, no job at all (everything had “ended” or closed for ALL the part-time work I had been doing).
I had used my credit card for three months to pay my mortgage and for groceries. My children were eligible, it turned out, for free lunch at school. I could have gotten food stamps but I felt like such a failure to even qualify for them.
I felt like I was on the Titanic and it was going down, fast. I had no way to pay my bills and nothing left. I had borrowed all that was available to borrow from family. I had been to job interviews everywhere….and I was finally open to working at an entry level job at any restaurant or fast-food place. I had been soooo judgmental of those places.
The whole time, during this period, I had The Work. I did it like crazy. I felt the panic inside, I identified all the judgments I had about money, myself, divorce, survival…
I became willing to be doomed, to stop fighting, to surrender. That was actually all I had left. No choice. Except to question my very negative, painful, horrified thoughts.
“You don’t get to vote on what is. Have you noticed?”~ Byron Katie
So yesterday when I was thinking about money, I remembered all this. It’s like the mind showed me all these pictures and images of that experience. I remembered being willing to move into my mother’s house and live in her basement, to stop fighting that or seeing it as terrible.
I remembered recognizing that my relationship with money was a gift one evening, after inquiring into my thinking with a facilitator.
Nothing else could have even come close to helping me walk a path of spirit, willingness, openness, trust. Nothing else could have allowed me to stop arguing with reality, to stop seeing myself as a loser.
“Placing the blame or judgment on someone else leaves you powerless to change your experience. Taking responsibility for your beliefs and judgments gives you the power to change them…..I am the perpetrator of my suffering – but only all of it.”~ Byron Katie
In January, it will be four years since that time I completely hit bottom financially. As it happened, I didn’t lose my house to foreclosure, barely.
The amazing thing is, I now have zero debt except for my house mortgage. I didn’t win the lottery, I didn’t rake in piles of money, or get a huge high-paying full time job.
I just kept questioning my beliefs about money when I had them. Even though it felt like I was ready to scream (that was the best time, in fact).
My practice grew with people from all over the world, people also wanting to question their beliefs. I felt creative and put together classes on the work I myself had done around money…and many other repetitively stressful topics.
Waiting for money to be different, for someone else to change, for my body to look “better” or for society, jobs, bills to be other than they are BEFORE I feel happy is very painful.
It stopped mattering what was going on with money. All that mattered was what was going on with the inside of me.
The turnaround to number six in the Work, on this topic, goes like this (write and ask me if you’re not sure what “number six” is): I am willing to lose all my money and assets. I look forward to losing all my money and assets.
“When the ancient Masters said, ‘If you want to be given everything, give everything up,’ they weren’t using empty phrases. Only in being lived by the Tao can you be truly yourself.”~Tao te Ching #22
Love, Grace