Money telecourse 4 Mondays starting January 23rd, noon-1:30 pm Pacific Time. Read about it here. Anyone welcome.
Speaking of money.
Last week a lively group of inquirers gathered for the monthly Living Turnarounds private group here in my cottage.
As people did their work, wondering about these experiences with others, noticing the reactions, imagining who they’d be without their thoughts….
….I remembered situations of my own.
The moment a lover is leaving, an uncomfortable request from a sister, a son getting lost in drugs, a grandson triggering frustration, worrying about our kid’s school, arguing with our spouse.
And money….losing it, wanting it, trying to get it, feeling furious about it.
Money is the topic of this month in Year of Inquiry, and I’m also doing a 4 week by-donation telecourse on Mondays starting on January 23rd Noon-1:30 Pacific Time.
Because money, it seems, is a huge biggie source of stress, pain, suffering, worry and fret.
I’ve met people with almost unlimited quantities of money, people who make money in business or real estate, people who inherit money, people who have very little money, people who lost money, or a house, or possessions they deeply loved because not enough money, people who live practically without any money at all.
What I see in reality, is there isn’t a direct tie between happiness and money, and unhappiness and lack of money.
But I’ve really thought it was true, in the past, that my happiness depended on having “enough” money (with “enough” being a little foggy or hard to pin down).
A memory.
I’m in my old house (one of them, I’ve lived in quite a few). It’s a beautiful house. It’s quite possibly my favorite house, besides my childhood home, (and my current cute adorable cottage) that I’ve ever lived in.
It’s big, but not pretentious at all. Built in the 1960s and thoroughly updated from top to bottom. It’s elegant, tucked away with an astonishing 40 year old bamboo wall along a secluded deck, surrounded by old growth cedar trees beyond that. Too dark, some might say. But inside the layout is lovely, with skylights, a big master bedroom with a gorgeous wooden ceiling, two lovely additional bedrooms all looking into lush ferns and forest, a big full basement that can serve as an entire brightly lit apartment.
Large floor to ceiling windows fill the living room space, and the 1960s stone fireplace and mantle. All the doors and closets and windows are stunningly high quality.
I lost that home.
Here comes the thought again.
Like a splinter. All the memories race through. I remember feeling anxious about the monthly payment, worrying about the failed septic tank, fearing a future massively expensive sewer hook-up requirement, terrified of not being able to pay. It’s too much, it’s too much.
Thoughts racing back then, like “we would be better off with something more modest” and other more painful thoughts like “we don’t actually deserve this house”.
As if it shows we’re better off than we actually are. It’s too much, it’s too much.
Images of deciding, with then-husband, to sell it before we get stuck with a big bill. We will sell it and walk away and no longer be terrified of large expenses or big monthly mortgage payments. We’ll be relieved! It will be worth the pain!
Someone comes along who wants to buy this house, never even put it on the market, and things move quickly….
….“Wait. Nevermind! I didn’t mean it! We don’t really want to sell!” I want to cry. But I’m embarrassed to change my mind. I push through. I must be tough. It’s the “right” thing to do.
I didn’t lose it. I gave it away. I walked away from something wonderful, because I was too afraid.
Ugh. This is even MORE stressful.
I made a mistake.
Let’s do The Work!
Is it true, that I made a mistake in selling that beautiful house?
Yes, yes, yes. It was so amazing to find it. There were magical coincidences upon moving in. A car we bought turned out to be owned by a woman who grew up in that house, whose father built that house with his own hands. A famous local mountain climber.
Wow….we own his house? We didn’t even know it when we bought it! This is incredible! We are so lucky! What serendipity!
Pictures of the parties in that house move through my mind. The guests we invited to stay, the meetings–I was not ashamed to volunteer my house to have them in, the strangers we welcomed, the Christmas Eve annual breakfasts for tons of friends and family.
I made such a mistake. A horrible mistake. Surely that’s true?
Can I absolutely know this?
No.
I can’t know more than reality or God or all the mysterious forces involved. I can’t know it didn’t support the people who bought the house, my kids, the divorce in the future that happened only two years later, the collapse of everything that led to all that brought me to here where I am now.
How do I react when I believe “I made a mistake”.
It’s a crushing thought, when you believe it.
People believe they’ve lost relationships, family members, their country, money, jewelry, photos, precious mementos, jobs, houses, cars, reputations, their whole lives as they knew it….
….and they feel devastated.
I felt the flare up, after that very powerful afternoon when all the inquirers came over to do their precious work, as in my mind I remembered again that house.
Never will I get it back.
If only I had been more confident, more aware. If only I had had The Work at the time. I got the book Loving What Is when living in that house. Why couldn’t I have sat down and “done” The Work? Why did it seem too hard to follow? Too confusing and too complicated?
I feel desperate when I believe I made a mistake. Crushed by my own decisions. I did it. Responsible.
So who would I be without this vicious, difficult, despairing thought that I made a mistake? Without the belief I could have done it differently? Or that I want a do-over?
If I couldn’t have this story at all….what would it be like?
Without the thought that I made a mistake with money and gave up on staying in my own home?
I’d relax.
I’d settle down and let the silence of this moment hold me close.
I’d notice I have a cute little place to live, and that house I once lived in rarely comes to mind. I’d appreciate the visions and memories of being so young and agile, and willing to move about and walk away.
I’d enjoy that ultimately my desire is to be peaceful, and this life, like that house, is not “mine” in any permanent way.
I’d remember suddenly all the people I love, many of whom I had not seen in years, contributed to me getting back on my feet again only about 4-5 years later. I had solid evidence of the kindness of the world….and I would have missed this, without that previous experience.
I’d be aware of the incredible freedom of having very few things, of owning little, of starting one’s life all over again from scratch.
I’d remember, without the thought that I made a mistake, the moment quite a few years ago now, when I facilitated a lovely young woman who had lost her house she inherited and decorated with yellow curtains, and her pain and misery of self-inflicted anger. I’d remember how she came to me to question her deeply painful thought, and she helped me by honestly sharing her story.
Turning the thought around:
I did not make a mistake. I made a correction. “I” did not make any mistake. It was done for me, supporting me in an incredible adventure to self-inquiry and truth.
“Just keep on coming home to yourself. You are the one you’ve been waiting for.” ~ Byron Katie
I’m not waiting for a house to come back, or enough money, or the right job, or the perfect partner, or the great success story.
Only to question what I believe is true, when it hurts….
….and open up to a different world, without stories of loss and mistakes repeated over and over again like an alarm that won’t switch off.
Finally, my favorite and most astonishing part of all, when it comes to The Work. This other kind of turnaround:
I am willing to make the same kind of “mistake” again. To lose my house. To make what appears to be a “bad” decision. To think of myself as too small and unworthy. To choose to lower stress, remain out of debt, respect money, do what I think’s best even if I don’t know for sure, even if it means heartache.
Why not. It could happen. (Roseanne, Rosanna Danna).
But even more than being willing, how could I look forward to it!?!
Why is it a good thing I don’t live in that house now, and I made that correction which involved leaving it?
Sometimes, this takes some important concentration to begin. But here it comes, I can see the examples:
I don’t have to clean a big house, or vacuum all that carpet. There are no enormous expenses with a very tiny house like the one I live in now. When my kids are home, or family or friends are over, we’re all together in this little cottage, because there’s no other place to go. There was no suffering about who got that pretty house in the divorce. The people who moved in were thrilled.
Nothing changed in my location, I live so close by. It was very tucked away and isolated and dark, now I’m out in the bright open street facing south. Visitors to the old house had to park several blocks away and walk. I would have never lived here where I live now, and found this place where I can live all the rest of the days of my life into old lady age without ever moving or “downsizing” again.
I’ve had fabulous neighbors I would never have met.
I might have continued ever-thinking that houses are required for happiness.
Who would you be without your terribly painful thought that something or someone got away, and you lost it, or made the mistake that caused it to happen?
Perhaps feeling the abundance of what is permanent….which isn’t a thing or a person or a place or a condition. Excited for the taste of having nothing from this earth stay with me forever, which is where we’re all going eventually anyway.
Questioning that thought that I made a mistake, and lost something?
Priceless.
Much love,
Grace
P.S. If you notice a stressful thought or two or eight-hundred about money, join the 4 week money class.