It’s OK To Ask For Money

Five months earlier, I could see this day coming. Even though I hated to, at that time, I had put my cottage up for sale. I only had enough money at that time to last about five more months.

To last until now.

Five months earlier, I did The Work on my deep grief and terror at having little time left to turn my life around financially. I was living off my savings, and my savings were draining. I was sinking as fast as the Titanic.

I had borrowed money from family, I had sold everything I could sell, I had done part-time manual work for cash. I had become willing and applied for a job at Starbucks. I had done a temp job at a hospital.

I knew if I purchased absolutely nothing but the basic necessities; food, heat, electricity and my house mortgage, I would be out of money by January.

My kids became eligible for Free Lunch at school.

I started working at a dance twice a week, trading my help for free entrance. I found out the school had special services for clothes, back packs and other items for my kids for school, based on my enormous drop in income.

A friend suggested I apply for food stamps. I refused….and later started to cry while thinking about it.

I could hardly believe I was eligible for food stamps. But I was.

Five months earlier, I had come to the conclusion, after doing The Work and questioning my long-held beliefs about failure, success, work and money, that I could sell my house.

It felt so, so sad. But I didn’t know that for sure. It looked like the most practical step, the necessary step. It was the worst that could happen, and I questioned that Worst Thing and found, maybe it would actually be OK.

I would go live with my mom. I had put my house up for sale.

The selling price was less than what I had paid for it with my former husband when we were still married, only two years before. It was now worth less, and I might barely make enough on the sale to cover the original loan.

I knew when I put my house for sale that I would make no profit, but at least I would be out of debt, and free and clear of the obligation. And I wouldn’t owe anymore.

I would prevent total and complete financial disaster.

I thought, by putting my house up for sale (which I did not want to do) that I would avoid THAT MOMENT.

But here was that moment. This terrible January morning when I had 2 days to pay my mortgage, and only $64.

As it had turned out, over the past five months, quite a few people had made offers to purchase my cottage. For very low prices.

The market was plummeting downward. “Sorry, but we need to offer you fifty thousand dollars less than what you even owe on the property….You will foreclose even after you sell, because you’ll still have a loan to pay off!”

All during this time of house-selling and keeping the cottage in pristine order so people could come look at it, I was also applying for jobs frantically. I went to many interviews. I was a job-interviewing expert.

As I sat there looking at the mortgage bill and knowing, I had no money to pay it, I had the thought that there was only one way I had not received money yet, that would be acceptable to my integrity.

A gift. Winning the lottery. Something weird and unexpected.

“I cannot ask for a gift of money”. 

Too shameful, humiliating, embarrassing. I would never do that, I couldn’t…

I sat and did The Work on this concept. Is it true, that I can’t ask for money? Who would I ask anyway?

What would people think? It made me feel sick to my stomach.

I cannot ask for a gift of money.

Is that true?

No. I CAN ask for a gift of money. But the embarrassment….so demeaning, so low.

Are you sure? Are you sure that you can’t ask….for fear of rejection, horror, people turning away, people being uncomfortable?

Yes. My answer is yes. I can’t ask. It is absolutely true. 

I had never asked for a gift of money my entire life, not that I remembered. Never. I had always, it seemed, believed this.

When other people asked for money, I thought they were really reducing themselves to the lowest level. They were at rock bottom. They were a mess.

Who would I be without the thought “I cannot ask for a gift of money”?

I’d probably ask right now. If there was any time that was the right time, knowing that I have done everything I possibly could, sold all my assets, looked for a job or income with all my might, and become willing to sell my home…this was probably the time.

The turnaround: I can ask for a gift of money.

I couldn’t find examples. I felt stuck. I did not know when someone, including ME, could ask for money and feel OK about it. I had no examples.

That night, the man I had begun dating about six months earlier took me to the movies. He knew I was bad off financially, but not how bad.

We saw “Cinderella Man” starring Russell Crowe.

Right in the movie was an example for “I can ask for a gift of money”. 

The main character swallowed his pride, took off his hat, knowing he had to do it to feed his own children, and went around a room full of distinguished looking businessmen, holding out his hat for donations.

I sobbed.

I told my new boyfriend about doing The Work on money, and the truth of my financial situation.

I told him that I still couldn’t actually ask for a gift of money….but at least I was open to the possibility that there are some situations when its OK, when it is done in integrity.

I was late for that January mortgage payment. Late payment #1. On the way to foreclosure. Only two more months of late payments, and the bank would reclaim my house.

But something also felt possible, not as closed off….like the awareness that in this world, money comes and goes and flows in and out and really, all would be well.

I loved seeing that turnaround appear before me in that movie. So beautiful.

Two weeks later, I drove (deciding to use the gas in the tank of my car) to the dance where I had been volunteering my work in exchange for free entrance for the past six months.

Now, I had $11 left in my bank account. I had a credit card I had been using for groceries, almost maxed out to the limit.

At the end of the dance, after helping put away tables and clean up and sweep the dance floor, and vaccuum….the woman who runs the dance (who had become a dear friend), and my new boyfriend beckoned me over, where there appeared to be a lot of people hovering…longer than usual at the end of the dance when people usually linger.

People hushed each other and were murmuring. Someone said “this is it! Quiet!….for Grace….”

Someone pulled me into the center of a circle that was forming, right in the middle of the dance floor.

“Grace, we’d like to present you with a gift. We heard of your situation, and we also heard it’s your birthday, and we took up a donation….”

I opened the thick bursting envelope….Tears welled up in my eyes. I could hardly speak.

Bills of cash from people right there in the dance community, checks from family who lived far away, checks and cash from friends in other countries, friends who didn’t live anywhere near me…donations from people who saw me at dance but weren’t even sure what my name was.

My boyfriend had extended the donation, put out the request to the universe, sent out emails….no expectations.

He called it the Birthday Bucket.

The next day, I paid my late mortgage. Two weeks later I got a job, and I paid the next month’s mortgage.

I’ve never needed to ask for any money since.

It’s OK to ask for money.

“Once you can think clearly, without the stress of your painful thoughts, the whole world, in all of its unlimited abundance and glory, will open up for you. A fearful mind is limited; it can see only a very few options. A clear mind can see many more options–unlimited options. It can act efficiently, effortlessly, intelligently, in the present moment, and not be stuck in its deadly stories of past and future.” ~ Byron Katie

Much Love, Grace