Stopping Your Too Much Not Enough Money Stories

moneyintheskyYou may have seen that I’ve got this crazy unusual very expensive big dollar retreat in November for only ten people, with some very special celebrity-type guest presenters who would come spend time with us.

Well.

The whole thing started with a challenge from a co-conspiring fabulous group of like-minded creatives in business that I’ve been hanging out with this past year.

A couple of them said “why not put together something very wildly unexpected, exclusive, focused…something you might not ever have dreamed of normally.”

Boy. You got that right.

I would have NEVER dreamed of creating and offering a 3.5 day retreat that cost thousands of dollars.

Notice how I said “thousands of dollars” and not the actual amount (I’ll tell you before this Grace Note is over).

The reason?

It’s embarrassing!

Who died and made her snooty miss fancy with big dollars flying in and out of her hands like there’s no tomorrow? Where does she get off thinking she can contact celebrities, pay them to come to work with a little group, and actually afford their fees?

She’s not part of the rich, high-end wealthy club who knows the sort who wouldn’t blink an eye at this price…who does she think she is, anyway?

(The Voice says this with an appalled tone, like it can’t BELIEVE it’s even hearing about this ridiculous thing).

Gosh. Could we have a little stressful belief here about Big Money?

I’ve done The Work on poverty, panicking about having nothing, losing almost every asset I owned and all my savings, being eligible for food stamps.

That was embarrassing enough.

But this is ALSO embarrassing.

I should include everyone, I should only offer events that people can afford, it’s most helpful to the planet to offer low priced healing events, it’s best for the world to charge as little as possible, charging a lot makes people mad, I will be rejected if I offer services that are high in fees.

Wow. Intense list of thoughts. The feeling is painful on the inside. Shame, discomfort, potential rejection, I will disappoint people.

My old tactic?

Stay away from money. Try to work with it as little as possible. Never mention it. Never want it. Ignore it. Pay no attention to it. Live on as little as possible. Resent having to pay, charge, receive or work for money.

Ooooooh, time for inquiry. This should be fun!

Charging high fees means….people will be disappointed and angry with me. They’ll reject me. They’ll be jealous. I’ll lose friends or customers.

Is that true?

I have visions of myself finding the best furniture for my little bedroom online. Finally, after lots of searching and putting in measurements to google, or words like “ranch style furniture” and trying over months of searching to find the right thing. Finally it is found! The right measurements, the right colors, the right height and depth, the right groovy beach cottage type style! Woohoo!

OK, what’s the price, I’m ordering it.

Oh. Wait. It’s Pottery Barn furniture.

What the hell is wrong with them? Why do they have to charge so much? Where do they get off? I will never shop at Pottery Barn! I don’t trust them! They are wrong! They should let me buy what I want at waaaayyyy cheaper prices! Selfish!

So who would you be without that belief that someone or someplace, any place, shouldn’t charge what they charge?

Including ME?

Who would I be without the belief that high ticket prices MEAN you’re too exclusive, elite, trying to be special? That it means you are separated from the masses, from regular people with “normal” amounts of money? That you’re preventing people from your service, disappointing them?

Without the thought that you’re wrong, or you don’t belong, or you’ll be rejected if you’re exchanging this kind of money here and there?

At first, I’m not even sure who I would be.

I remember walking through an art gallery where everything cost prices like $40,000….for one painting.

If I just came from another planet and had no reference for numbers, their meanings, money, the amounts, choices and sums and chunks of money moving from here over to there, in infinite formats?

I’d see every kind of possibility exists here for money changing hands. Big money gets spent for strange things, like a rare comic book….or for one night of gambling. Small money gets spent for the lessons of a lifetime, for experiences that are so valuable they affect the rest of someone’s life.

What if I just really had no idea what this amount meant, or that amount, no stories about it? No concern for being rejected, judged, or that it’s terrible if anyone was disappointed with me or the total?

“There is no ‘money’ thing, is there? It’s just another metaphor to prove suffering, just to prove that there’s not enough. To prove that if you had something external to you that money could buy that THEN you would get what you wanted. Which is security. And the only security really is truth. There isn’t any other.” ~ Byron Katie

Without the belief that Pottery Barn should lower its prices so I can be happy, I just notice if I have the money, or don’t have the money, and I choose to put the money towards that furniture, or some other furniture, and it doesn’t really matter.

“For many people the mere mention of money can bring about the immediate loss of awareness. There’s a fear that coagulates around that money idea, the fear of survival. There is also an egoic trait that is one of the most essential traits of the ego…’not enough’. It’s one of the most deep-seated ego traits. Every ego has it. The ego never feels it has enough. Money can become anything in the world of form, so it triggers this insufficiency, the feeling of not-enough, of the ego.” ~ Eckart Tolle

Without the feeling of insufficiency, or leaving people out, or that there is some place I don’t belong that I shouldn’t be going to (that fancy area) or that other people shouldn’t be triggered with THEIR deficiency stories…I notice it’s all so much fun, and I have no idea what’s really going to happen.

It’s a playground. An abundant one.

Much love, Grace

When You Think You Don’t Have Enough Money

One of my favorite topics for The Work has been Money.

So many thoughts about money, so many sticky areas of concern, so many feelings about buying, selling, getting, accumulating, or losing money.

Many of the beliefs we have about money are like broken records, repeating themselves over and over, and we don’t even realize it.

Well, I sure didn’t realize it.

The beliefs went by so fast and were so nerve-wracking, my usual way was to ignore, avoid and not get involved with money if at all possible. I didn’t really like even noticing my beliefs. They were so stressful!

Trouble is, when you ignore an uncomfortable situation….it tends to build up and get more pronounced over time.

So when I found myself about to lose my home to foreclosure, out of work, unexpectedly divorced, without health insurance, and unable to pay for my children’s music lessons any longer (in fact, they went on the reduced lunch program at school for families with low income)….

….I HAD to look at my beliefs about money.

It all began with one.

I don’t have enough money.

Now, it’s helpful to review with yourself what you don’t have enough money for. You probably have enough money to eat, have a home, sleep, drink water, get your basic needs met.

Maybe you couldn’t buy that car for sale down the block, maybe you can’t go shopping this afternoon and buy lots of clothes. Or maybe you don’t have enough money for guaranteed security, in case something happens? Medical fees in case you have some, later?

Or maybe you don’t have enough money to keep your house, or to stay home instead of going to work at a job you don’t like that much.

So once you see what you don’t have enough money for….

….hold your disappointment and your situation vividly in your mind and answer the four questions.

I don’t have enough money (in my case, to pay off my entire house loan).

Is that true?

Yes, it’s a fact. It’s absolutely true.

But notice how quickly there’s an emotional reaction….it will always be true, this is terrible, I’m stuck, I hate debts and this mortgage is a big one, I HAFTA get more money, this is urgent, I’ll work harder.

Worry, worry. Push, push. Harder, harder!

For some people, this can get exhausting.

So who would you be without the thought? Without the belief that right now you don’t have enough money?

Look around wherever you are, noticing your environment. See if you’re safe, comfortable, supported.

I notice I am.

It’s even exciting, to feel what it’s like without that belief that there’s not enough of something. To trust this moment, not by thinking positively but by actually noticing what is here, right now, in the present.

Turn the thought around: I do have enough money.

It’s so easy for me to see. I have enough to be here in this house right now (even though I owe money on it). I love living here. Every month I send extra to the mortgage company. I’m paying the most I can. It’s actually fun, it’s a game. The balance drops lower every time I open a statement.

Another turnaround: I don’t have enough of myself….and neither does money. 

Yes…..I see how in the past I haven’t shared myself, I’ve been self-critical, I haven’t been a very nice companion to myself, and I haven’t been very kind to money. I’ve yelled at it for leaving me. I’ve felt both inferior and superior to those other people who have a lot of it, or none of it.

I’ve avoided learning about money, I’ve gasped at items that cost huge amounts of money, I’ve been hyper-worried about money, I’ve been disrespectful towards money.

Kinda love/hate.

After that work on money, I began to make friends with money and to trust that I had just the right amount of it at any given moment.

Funny, money comes around more since I started being such a good friend to it, and to myself.

“I began to notice that I always had the perfect amount of money for me right now, even when I had little or none. Happiness is a clear mind. A clear and sane mind knows how to live, how to work, what e-mails to send, what phone calls to make, and what to do to create what it wants without fear.” ~ Byron Katie

Much love, Grace

P.S. We’ll do some good, awesome work on Money and other concerns in Summer Camp for anyone who wants! June, July and August…come one, come all if you’d like to join with me and fellow inquiring travelers for 1, 2 or 3 months of fun, diving into all kinds of investigations on painful beliefs we carry. More on Summer Camp soon!