Discussion
One of the primary spiritual principles is that there are no coincidences. When I was recruited to write the course on money and energy, I knew there was something I needed to look at and learn as well as teach. Not long ago, I was a struggling, single mother with a private practice in psychotherapy in a place where there were more psychotherapists per capita than almost anywhere else on the planet. My income was barely covering my expenses. The economy had been depressed for a couple of years and my son had special needs that took money to address. I lived on every cent I brought home and was in a chronic state of anxiety regarding money.
I can recall visiting my parents in Florida twelve years ago. I sat them down and asked directly if they would be able and willing to bail me out if the occasion arose. I had to know I wouldn’t disappear down the rabbit hole of poverty and homelessness.
A mere ten years later, I and my partner had created enough money in our lives that I could discontinue my private practice and start what I laughingly refer to as a nonprofit writing career and pay others to work for me. Today I have friends in the same sinking ship I was once in and I suspect they envy me, but if they were to ask how I succeeded, I wouldn’t have known what to tell them—until now. Let’s explore this together.
According to Roman and Packer in Creating Money: Keys To Abundance (1988), “Money is energy, and energy exists in all realms. The spiritual laws of money are universal energy laws that create abundance: the principles of ebb and flow, unlimited thinking, giving to receive, appreciation, honoring your worth, clear agreements, magnetism and more.” But what exactly does all this mean in concrete terms? To explore this, I asked my partner how he thought we had altered our economic destiny so much in such a relatively short period of time. He thought about my question for a moment and then said he attributed our success to our willingness to take risks. Not roll of the dice risks, but rather a willingness to put everything we had on the line. Yes, desperation was strong motivation, but so was our ability to put aside all the egoic thoughts of glamour and quick fixes, as well as our egos’ fears of failure and humiliation. We just rolled up our sleeves, did the hard work and waited for the rewards.
We had to abandon any ideas of impressing our friends and family, who as soon as they were told what we intended to do, immediately went into fear mode and told us all we had planned could go awry. We had to set aside our own reservations about scarcity and tell ourselves we could afford to put all our savings into this venture. We would attract more money. We would survive. We put aside our fearful thoughts and took the leap of faith. Did we immediately see the benefits? No way. The change was gradual and cumulative, but it happened.
To validate what we did, the literature on creating money and wealth supports much of our experience. According to Stephen Covey in The 7 Habits Of Highly Effective People (1990), “You always reap what you sow; there is no shortcut.” He goes on to delineate qualities necessary for effectiveness in the world, “I am referring, for example, to the principles of fairness…integrity and honesty. Patience, nurturance and encouragement.” He points out that these, “Principles are guidelines for human conduct that are proven to have enduring, permanent value. The glitter of the Personality Ethic…is that there is some quick and easy way to achieve quality of life…The Personality Ethic is illusory and deceptive.”
While Covey addresses the hard work we had to do and the tolerance we had to posses, Roman and Packer in Creating Money: Keys To Abundance speak more to our spiritual experience. Without a deep understanding of what it is we wanted to do, discovered after much research, we would never have been able to make and execute plans when the opportunity arose. And plan we did. My partner and I decided to parlay my life’s work into a larger venture, a treatment program for people in recovery. We had managed to put away a few dollars between us and when a fixer-upper property came on the market six months later, we purchased it. It took months of scrubbing, painting, sanding and constructing followed by designing a treatment program, printing materials and marketing before we began to turn a small profit. We persevered and slowly our efforts began to pay off. Roman and Packer in Creating Money: Keys To Abundance (1988) tell us, “The path to lasting wealth and abundance is to do your life’s work, follow the spiritual laws of money, work with energy and magnetism before you take actions and live a life that is loving and joyful to you.”
At that point, if I had squandered the little money that was beginning to trickle in, on fancy cars or more expensive clothes or anything else my heart desired, I would not have gotten ahead. Instead, even though we had done without for a long time, I chose to let the money accumulate in safe investments. In Mindfulness And Money: The Buddhist Path Of Abundance (2002), Kulananda and Dominic Houlder point out that, “Craving is the desire to possess things that you like, and to include them in your ego-identity in the hope of getting a sense of security from having them as part of you.” Although I did crave material things, I had learned frugality from my family and it worked well for me at the time. It was only by saving the money I was beginning to make that I could advance to the next step. As Joe Dominquez and Vicki Robin say in Your Money Or Your Life: Transforming Your Relationship With Money And Achieving Financial Independence (1992), “Financial freedom is the experience of having enough—and then some.” For the first time in a long time, I was closer to that condition.
Eventually, my partner and I had enough clients to expand to a second home. A few years ago we decided to move on. We sold the business and transferred the money we made into income property that someone manages for us. My partner is free to follow his dreams and I have been able to invest my time in what I love best, writing. Even after we had turned out lives around financially, I still suffered from feelings of scarcity and a fear that there would never be enough money, as crazy as that may sound. I decided to reprogram my ancient thinking. By reciting affirmations whenever I found myself thinking in a negative way, I changed the way I perceived money. Out of this, I realized it did not matter how much I had in the bank, I would always feel anxious and poor unless I made a conscious effort to change my mind-set from one of scarcity to one of abundance. Otherwise, even with enough money, I would be miserable and miserly and would never enjoy all I had earned. Suze Orman says in A Courage to Be Rich (1999), “This is not to say that there aren’t people with a lot of money who feel shame, fear or anger…Although they may have a good amount of money, they’re not rich in the sense of living a full, expansive, and contented life. And often such people are unable to hold on to their money.” I am sure you have all heard about the person who struck it rich on the lottery, but managed to lose all the money within a few months or a year. The statistics say that the majority of people who win money end up squandering it or losing it down the road. Have you ever wondered why? I believe it’s because they never changed their beliefs and feelings about money and wealth. Without doing the fundamental work on ourselves, money can literally and figuratively slip through our fingers.
After doing my homework, I finally saw that the only way to keep the channel open to feel better about having money, and therefore to receive it, was to give some of my money away to causes I supported. “The better people felt about themselves, and the more they kept their hands open to receive by relinquishing money, the more their financial situation improved.” Suze Orman suggestsing The Courage To Be Rich (1999) that giving money to something you support, even if you don’t have an abundance of money, not only benefits you, but also the planet. What could be more affirming to our integrity and grace? And it’s that sense of our own power and worth that will attract money into our lives. What Suzan Hilton says in The Feng Shui Of Abundance: A Practical And Spiritual Guide To Attracting Wealth Into Your Life (2001) echos my own experience: “Personal finances rarely seem fun and creative, yet trust me when I tell you that money is one of the most creative energies we have! Unfortunately, many of us equate money with cruel and unfriendly experiences, and we unconsciously resist abundance...if you step back and look at money as creative energy that will flow easily toward you, it's much more interesting, and a lot less intimidating.”