Wealth Is So Much More Than How Many Pieces of Green Paper You Own.
In the world we live in, money is important. Living life from a poverty mentality takes a toll on one’s mind, body and spirit. But I know people with very little, who live some of the wealthiest lives I’ve seen. They live lives of joy and abundance, and always feel their treasure chest is full and safe. I also know people with millions who have very intense hoarding energy. They hoard their money away, unable to share it because no matter how full their treasure chest is, it never feels like it’s safe or enough. Or, they are so enamored with their riches that they display behaviors very similar in feel to a toddler proclaiming “Mine!” while holding tightly to their belongings.
True wealth is about living a bounteous life. Trusting in the abundance in the world enough to partake in the give and receive rhythms that ebb and flow around us all like the tides.
There Is Nothing Inherently Good or Evil About Money
There are good and bad people with lots of money, and good and bad people with hardly any. Money is green paper. Nothing more, nothing less. It should be approached with as much neutrality as possible. I’m not saying you shouldn’t work hard to save for retirement, or to build a lucrative business. But those things should be done from as centered a place as possible.
If your goal in life is to save every penny for a fabulous retirement and you go about it by working years in a job you dislike, or are selfish and hoard every penny…even if you end up with millions of dollars, you will have had a very limited experience of what real wealth is. You may end up rich, but you will not be truly wealthy. You’ll have lots of green paper, but nothing inside your soul’s treasure chest.
What Does It Mean To Approach Money With Neutrality?
Take a few minutes to meditate on your feelings about money, as well as your feelings about those who have or don’t have it. Do you feel any judgement? Do feelings of envy arise? Do you feel puffed up with pride and boastful about how much property you own or how much is in the bank? Do you feel fear or worry that something may happen to your money or investments? Are you desperate, frustrated or sad because you aren’t sure you’ll ever have any extra money or any property of your own?
If you have money and investments, imagine all of it being burnt to ashes in a huge fire in front of you. What feelings does that image create inside of you? If you don’t have money, imagine inheriting just enough from a relative to pay for the small, humble home you always dreamed of. What does the knowledge of that inheritance feel like? Now imagine the check gets lost in the mail…never to be found. What feelings does the lost check provoke?
If you approach money from a completely neutral place, you know that even if all your possessions are burned in front of you never to be replaced, that you can still be wealthy. That even if you don’t own a house, you can still have a beautiful, joyful home.
Wealth Building Is About Creating, Not Accumulating
It’s about quality, not quantity. It should be driven by a sense of fun, not a sense of fear. To experience true wealth you need to relax into the give and receive energy of abundance. You don’t need to be going, going, going…always trying to get.
The ability to create, the quality of your creations, and the joy you experience during the creation process is what real wealth is about, no matter how big or small your creations become. Having a life purpose (not just a successful career) can bring an infinite amount of joy, no matter how much money is made.
Gratitude Rituals
Gratitude is the best place from which to start awakening to wealth. When you can find peace in your current situation, you are much more present to the gifts the world has to offer. Building a successful business or career is never easy, but the more you can move through the process with ease, the better it will go. It is much easier to reap the rewards of give and receive energy, than to grind, grind, grind, go, go, go…so you can get, get, get.
Finding peace in your current situation can also release you from feeling paralyzed by a poverty mentality, where you never end up going anywhere because you don’t believe you will ever get anything.
When You Gratefully Receive, The Giving River Grows and More Wealth Flows
When you gratefully receive whatever your current reality is providing for you, the giving river grows and more wealth flows. Gratitude rituals are the best wealth building rituals there are. Writing a genuine thank you card is invaluable, not only writing one to someone else, but writing one to yourself.
It’s lovely to get a handwritten letter in the mail expressing sincere gratitude for all of your hard work. Write one to yourself and send it! It feels amazing!
Buy yourself some flowers. Come up with an amazing toast, and raise a glass to yourself and say it out loud with joy. Your brain and your body will work more efficiently and more effectively for you if they know you are grateful for all the hard work they have already done.
Send an anonymous thank you card to someone else. Even when facing the direst of circumstances, when you start looking for things to be grateful for, they always appear.
Buy a box of thank you cards…and if you don’t have money for that, make your own from scrap paper. Send them out or drop them off for people in the community. They don’t have to be people you know personally. Pick up the local paper and see what’s going on in your community. Stop by your local fire department or neighborhood school.
What you see in the world depends entirely on what glasses you decide to put on that day. Put on your grumpy glasses and you will most definitely find doom and gloom. Put on your grateful glasses, and you will find that there are many great and amazing things going on every second of every day…right in front of you.
You Have Everything You Need!
When my daughters were babies we stretched our pennies to buy our first starter home, no easy feat in the Los Angeles area. The only one we could afford was in one of the worst part of town. Three days after we moved in, we were awakened at three A.M. to a man yelling from a loud speaker, “Come out with your hands up!”
We peered out the window and saw two armored SWAT trucks and over twenty SWAT team members pointing large guns at the house next to ours. We laid down on the floor with our babies, hoping and praying everything would turn out ok. It turned out we had moved in next door to a notorious gang member.
I went into serious panic mode for a week. I immediately wanted out of there…but we had spent every last dime we had. As time went on I could feel the negative effects the fear and panic were having on my body and mind. I knew I didn’t want to live in that negative state. I also knew there was no immediate way out of our living situation.
So I made the decision to surrender to my circumstances and make this new house, and this new neighborhood my home. I took my kids out in the stroller for walks every day. I got to know all the neighbors that I could. I even made friends with everyone in the gang member’s house next door and had their kids over to play and make cookies.
There were lovely people that lived in that neighborhood. I had neighbors that watched out for me and my family, that had our backs when we needed it, and that loved and cared for us in a very special, genuine way. I had better neighbors there than I had ever had in my life, and I grew up in a really nice neighborhood.
It was a lesson in reality. So much of our reality really is what we make of it and how we choose to see it. Did I eventually want to move to a different house in a different neighborhood? You bet I did! But while I held the desire in my heart to hope and work for more, I also worked on being 100% at peace with where I was in the present…in a loving home, and grateful for it.
One day we were driving from our neighborhood of tiny old houses across town and through a neighborhood of huge, beautiful mansions. My three year old daughter loudly proclaimed, “These houses are big! Our house is small!” My heart sunk in sadness. I wanted to be able to provide more for my children, but it just wasn’t possible in that present moment. We were barely able to make ends meet where we were.
One of the large homes we were driving past. Our first little starter home.
Then my daughter happily continued, “…but we have everything we need! A mommy, a daddy, a sister and a bed.”
My daughter knew that our family had great wealth, even though I didn’t fully understand it at the time. When you have people to love and who love you, and a cozy place to lay your head at night, you have everything you need.
I have always been very grateful for that first starter house, in that “horrible” neighborhood. Home really is where the heart is, and that house taught me that a healthy heart, and all the unconditional love it represents, cannot exist where there is fear, complaint, anxiety and judgement. That house became a wonderful home, a home we were deeply grateful for. We missed it when we moved, and still think of it with fondness.
Whenever I have found myself wishing I had more money to do things I’ve wanted to do, or to start a business I wanted to start, my daughter’s words always echo in my head. I take the time to remind myself that I have everything I need. When we believe that, and we meet our current circumstances with gratitude, little miraculous opportunities start to appear all around us.
I can help you create rituals in your life that will awaken you to all the wealth this world has to offer.
Call now to receive a free 15 minute ritual consultation.
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