NO MONEY IS EXCITING
This morning was the last Monday of the always-wonderful teleclass on Money. It seems that money (and maybe everything comes down to this) leads to thoughts about existence. Money appears to be the cure for many forms of pain.
In this last exercise for the money class, we all consider a scene or situation that seems terrible, the worst perhaps that could happen when it comes to money, or lack of it.
Many people have visions of living on the street, or in a field with tarps overhead, with a shopping cart as the only method of carrying things. Cold, no food, no way to bathe.
Just yesterday, I rode in the front passenger seat returning from a beautiful sunny afternoon with family in Seattle (at my mother’s). Since my husband was driving the car, I looked into the bushes and trees and wild areas for a long stretch in the main north-south freeway in this big urban city that I’ve mostly called home base for forty years.
I saw whole group camps in there, people living in tents. Flashing by. It seems like I’ve seen this in every city I’ve ever visited, all over the world. Some maybe more prominent than others.
I saw tarps strung up between trees, another tent, worn trails that looked like hiking trails out in the wilderness, then one person walking along one of them.
We passed so quickly, it’s something not possible to even see unless I was not driving. I’ve noticed the same area for years, actually.
What is frightening about this scenario of what looks like homelessness? In our class, a wonderful inquirer thought about the cold…how terrible to be physically cold.
I think about walking the winding trails near the freeway myself, and notice fear of the people who live there being scary…that they might want to hurt me, they might be mean and desperate.
So together in our class we looked….and today I’m looking again, and thinking of the blue and black tarps and signs of humans living in the trees.
How do I react when I believe the thought that I would get hurt if I had to find a place to stay and didn’t know where? If I was stuck somewhere without money? If all I had was my car, or not even that but only a cart?
How do I react when I believe that it would be dangerous, terrifying, disturbing?
Have you ever noticed that one way you react is that you get mad at yourself for getting into this situation? You get mad at those other people who pushed you into this, or contributed to your demise?
I notice if I wasn’t afraid though, I wouldn’t get angry.
Who would I be without the thought that I made a mistake, I did it wrong, or that if I were walking in those bushes or living on the sidewalk or without any money, I would get attacked or suffer?
What if I really were in the middle of that situation that I imagine, cold and without money and not knowing where I was sleeping perhaps, owning nothing….and I did not have the thought that I failed, or something is wrong here, or that life is not worth living?
This is not about conning yourself into positive thinking, or telling yourself to think happy thoughts and “trust” when you do NOT trust.
This process here is about inquiring and asking myself who I would be without the fear of having a “bad” relationship with Money? Meaning, there isn’t any around to help me.
Who would I be without the thought that I need money to be safe, productive, comfortable or happy?
Free, free, free. Can you imagine it?
When I had no money left, my house on the way to foreclosure, I discovered that I might “have” to (it became—I might GET to) move in with my mother.
I realized what a joy that would be. How healing, what an opportunity. A time to make everything entirely and completely simple. Safe, focused, few possessions, comfortable, excited.
“You know what I love is everyone is all right. Everyone is all right. Find one place where you are not all right. I mean, you have not one proof that you’re not going to be all right when you look to your own life. Can anyone give me an example of one time when you were not OK? Other than what you were thinking and believing in your worst moment…were you OK?” ~Byron Katie
Could this situation be an adventure? What if I’m the luckiest person ever to have had that experience of having no money left in the bank?
But most important of all, what if that situation is now a memory, and right now the adventure is different. The amusement park ride has switched tracks. It is no longer necessary at this moment to be without money. And that could change any moment.
“Wherever you are is the place for surrender. Whatever the situation is that you’re in, you can say “yes” to what is, and that is then the basis for all further action….The desire to renounce the world is again the desire to reach a certain state that you don’t have now. There’s a mental projection of a desirable state to reach–the state of renunciation. It’s self-seeking through future. In that sense, it is ego. True renunciation isn’t the desire to renounce; it arises as surrender. You cannot have a desire to surrender because that’s non-surrender.”~Eckhart Tolle
Identify whatever it is that scares you the most about money. Not having it. Having it. Those other people having it. Those other people not having it.
“Other than your mind, you’re on a very exciting adventure.” ~ Byron Katie
Love, Grace
P.S. We have room for 3 more in next Saturday afternoon’s mini-retreat. If MONEY is the relationship that troubles you…come give yourself a gift of 4 hours looking at your stressful thoughts about it. Who knows what letting go of thoughts of needing, wanting, demanding, fretting, or worrying about money, or ANY relationship, might bring?