Next week another wonderful group is going to begin to examine beliefs that are upsetting about money.
If you’re really worried about not having enough, for example….it could be very liberating to question.
You also may be opposed to giving money for a class about money, even though you’re aware that “spending” some time taking a deeper look at your relationship and thoughts about money might be REALLY powerful.
(If that’s the case, and you’re really low on income right now, write to me by the way. I don’t refuse people if they want this work, there is room in the class, and they happen to be unemployed or some other difficult circumstance).
Thoughts about money are often that it is limited, there isn’t enough, and you may hurt….later….unless you’re really careful. So it’s hard to let it go.
Trouble is, if it’s hard to let go of, it may be also hard to receive.
Let’s take a look today at one of my favorite investigations on money.
Why do you want more?
What would more money give you, if you had it?
Even just a wee bit, but perhaps a LOT more, it doesn’t matter. You have your dream, and it involves more money. Maybe for you, you’d like more money that is all clearly yours, your bank account, your own resources, a fund just for YOU and no one else.
You earned it, you deserve it, your ideas created it.
Now, don’t you go and start feeling guilty. Don’t think you’re a selfish first-world nervous ninny, or that you should feel grateful instead of grabby.
You feel the way you feel.
There are no rules. We’re entering this work from the point of view of reality. All things possible. Everything capable of change, right in this second. Nothing static. No guarantees. Wild mystery.
And money, it appears, is a form of exchange here on planet earth. You trade it for other things. You express what you care about with it. You use it for what serves you.
So what would more money give you? Or different money, if you’re clear that simply more isn’t that interesting?
In sitting with this deeply over time, I found the following qualities I believed would be present, with ample money: assurance, support, safety, comfort, insurance against difficult times in the future, fun, adventure, happiness, generosity, excitement, joy.
Yowser, that’s a lot of expectations on money.
Without any money, the opposite qualities come to mind, in this world of duality:hunger, pain, sickness, abandonment, threat, discomfort, worse times in the future, seriousness, boredom, narrow life, unhappiness, not able to be generous, neediness, panic, grief.
Time for inquiry.
Is it true that with money….the good stuff…..without money….the bad stuff?
No. I’ve seen very wealthy people who are totally worried and anxious and insecure. I’ve seen very poor people who are excited, joyful and open. I’ve been both myself! (What a trip).
How do I react when I believe my thoughts about money?
My body is flooded with stress, anxiety. I begin planning. I work until midnight. I feel competitive with time…like I’m racing against a limited amount.
Must. Get. There. Before. I. Die.
I remember being a child, who didn’t have to worry about money or food or loss. It seems so long ago. I think of the world as a hard-ass, complicated, tricky place when it comes to money, work, payments, receipts, calculations, amounts moving from here to there.
I want to give up. Deflated. Worth less.
Who would I be without these thoughts about wanting more money, needing a certain amount of money, or that money represents safety, security, ease in the future?
Really. This is a huge big incredible leap into another paradigm. A world without negative, busy, anxious thought. A world with room to breath and look around.
Without the thought that I want more “money” (safety, joy, excitement, adventure, comfort, insurance) or that I don’t have enough?
Instead of nerves, my body is flooded with sweetness.
Eyes wide open. I see my hands, the edges of the frames of my new purple reading glasses, I feel the chair beneath my thighs, my heart beating.
Without the idea that more would be better….I would be stunning really. I take the deepest breath and notice it’s enough. Something is very exciting here. This moment.
“On the surface, this is about finances. But beneath that, this question comes from the feeling that your life can be taken away from you. You think that money protects you from total loss of control and if there isn’t enough of it, unseen forces will overwhelm you. Rather than tackling the money issue, it’s time to create a safe place inside you.” ~ Deepak Chopra
If little piles of colored paper with faces on it, and round metal pieces of various sizes, had nothing to do with my future security, my happiness, a sense of adventure, comfort, care, worthiness or safety….
….I notice the joy of having what I have. Starting with lungs that can breathe. A house, a beautiful office, a driveway, a yard, an entire world full of adventures right in my own neighborhood. I have connection, intimacy, joy and fun.
And within, within, a vast space of silence, vibrating emptiness, thrill, ease, fearlessness, courage, creativity in this colorful moment.
Unlimited.
Without any rules about money or beliefs about money, I can get up and walk and knock on the next door and ask for work. I can ask people questions who have a whole lot of money or who have very little money. I can lie in the sun on the grass and stay there as long as I like. I can find a place to live where there is no need to give money in exchange. I can feel the spectacular energy of artistic creativity pouring out of me in the form of service, writing my book, ideas for inquiry.
I turn the thoughts around.
I want more of me, here now. I want myself. All my thinking, all my feelings, everything welcome. I want my thoughts…I love my thoughts. My thoughts bring me assurance about myself.
Maybe money wants more of me, too. Maybe it’s waiting for my next move, with joyous anticipation.
How can I bring myself assurance, with my own thinking, instead of wanting this thing called money to bring assurance to me?
Wow. I can give myself adventure, support, safety, comfort, generosity, happiness, joy.
“When you are concerned with making money you want the future more than the present. Whenever you want the future more than you want the present, true intelligence cannot flow into what you do, because it can do so only when you are totally aligned with the present moment. So, instead, what you do is ego, or it comes from ego……Whatever you do in your daily life – driving from here to there, trying to reach someone on the phone, doing this or that – you always are going toward somewhere. That’s inevitable. But the question is: Is that purpose in the future more important to you than what you are doing in the present? If it is, then it is a form of ego. The ego always looks toward the next moment for some kind of fulfillment.” ~ Eckhart Tolle
In this moment, I give abundantly to myself by staying here, with this sparkling, peaceful, mysterious present moment.
“We join spokes together in a wheel, but it is the center hole that makes the wagon move. We shape clay into a pot, but it is the emptiness inside that holds whatever we want. We hammer wood for a house, but it is the inner space that makes it livable. We work with being, but non-being is what we use.” ~ Tao Te Ching #11
If you’d like to join a group on the phone or skype, look at an exercise each week to help uncover those fascinating and sometimes exceptionally painful concerns about money, then write to me at grace@workwithgrace.com. We start next Wednesday 4/16 at 5:15 pm Pacific time.
The emptiness inside holds whatever you want.
When you know this to be true (and you do) then who knows what can happen, right now, with money.
Much love, Grace