Always Sunny
Money, money, money
Must be funny
In the rich man's world
Money, money, money
Always sunny
In the rich man's world
Aha
All the things I could do
If I had a little money
It's a rich man's world
It's a rich man's world (Money, Money, Money, Abba)
Hi everyone. Thanks so much to all of you who stepped into the unknown by ordering the Little books. My heart is bursting with gratitude and wonder.
For me this is really the first time on the long and winding path of spiritual growth when I feel very solid and confident in my articulation of the truth of life. How life works, why we’re here and how to manage it.
On this path there are times of growth, times of quiet integration, times of stagnation and doubt and there are times of accelerated growth, integration and understanding. This is one of those times for me, so I’m very grateful for the opportunity to share what I’ve learned. Something about the air, light, landscape and people in Italy, coupled with the work I’ve been doing on myself for a long time, created optimal circumstances for clarity.
My intention is to have the books out very soon after the new year and then, in the spring, to tour around a bit, visiting friends around the country and sharing and talking about the content of the books. The Little Lectures, if you will.
I was thinking about how when we were kids some of the moms had Avon parties and Tupperware parties. I’m sure these kinds of things still exist, but I realized what a nice, organic way that would be to share these books – sort of like a salon. The publishing industry is nuts. It’s literally an impossible nut to crack. The times when I’ve been in contact with agents or publishers they want to know, not only what the book is about, but what your fan base is, why you’re different than other writers, which writers you most resemble and how you intend to market your book.
Cue the head scratch and me wondering what the heck their job is in getting books into the world if I have to write it and essentially sell it myself.
The Little Books are my babies. The gestation period has been almost a decade. I want to bring them to the world and share them in ways that make sense to me. In ways that are easy and affordable and humane. I want as many humans as possible to understand the incredible power they have to shape their own destiny, to understand how. And I want to meet all of you out there, and many, many more.
We’ve begun by talking about laying the groundwork, cleaning house, if you will. I’ve talked about getting clear in terms of addictions and food and exercise. Moving your body, in simple ways (take a walk) on a regular basis. This is not only good for your health, but it connects you with the truth of your embodiment. Your body is a wondrous thing and I want you to feel and experience all of it. When was the last time you thought about the tips of your toes or the center of your back? Usually we don’t think about any parts in particular until we’re in pain. Take some time on a regular basis to pay attention to all the parts and be grateful for what’s working well.
If you are plagued with chronic pain or long-term health issues, once you begin the work we’re going to do, the excavation work of getting to the root causes of your misconceptions about yourself, things will dissipate. Once you start removing the blockages and distorted feelings, your life will begin to flow and the pains will decrease. Wellness is about integration of body, mind and spirit and our goal is to get all of those parts moving in harmony.
I’ve also talked about the energetic parts of you. I offered a visualization I have used to clear and clean up that part of your being. Again, trust is critical. It may feel ridiculous, it may seem useless, but if you are dedicated to change and to integrating new habits like clearing your aura, dumping out the toxic sludge other people place there, getting your chakras in good working order, you will feel the difference. Patience and time, my friends, patience and time.
Today I want to briefly touch on money. This is one of the areas that all of us seem to have distorted ideas about, ideas which are always drawn from how we experienced money when we were kids. Whether there was too much or not enough. How money was used: in a punitive way? Were there strings attached? Was it considered sacred or was it wasted?
I grew up in a family dynamic where there was really never enough money. We had our basic necessitates, we had shelter, food, clothing, but there was never any extra. Often if we wanted a particular pair of pants we would have to earn the money ourselves (which I did, babysitting) or we had to wait for Christmas or our birthday. There were four kids; my dad worked and my mother stayed home. Money was always in short supply and that seemed to never change over all the years of us growing up.
As a teenager I often took walks in the evening, from our too-small house in the suburbs into town where there were sidewalks and large, beautiful Victorian homes. I loved looking in the windows of those houses at night, imagining what it would be like to live in a big house with lots of rooms, with privacy, space, interesting features. I saw whole rooms devoted to books! Everyone else seemed to have the life I dreamed of.
So for me money was always something other people had. For me money was something I could look at from afar, but not something I could have. And no one in my life gave me any indication that I could earn it for myself, that I could create a life in which I made enough money, that I was even entitled, on my own, to financial abundance.
These feelings of yearning, of never enough, of shame stayed with me for decades. I thought the only way I could access money was to marry someone who had it, which I did, twice. I married lovely men from lives with plenty of money. In those dynamics I always felt like an outsider. I felt no sense of belonging. I was living on someone else’s generosity and it did not feel good. Money is power in this world and in the marriage dynamic one person always has more, thus one person has the power, whether subtle or overt.
I was intrigued, as I grew older and was exposed to people with lots of money, by how much disfunction there was in so many of those families. Shocked, actually, to discover that there was no direct line from the amount of money a person or family had and their level of happiness. I have, in traveling in different areas of the world, noticed that it’s often those who have very little who express the greatest joy. I have also noticed that it’s often people with the most money who are the least generous. Having a lot of money seems to bring with it a fear that it will somehow disappear. Hang around enough with people who have experienced some version of poverty and you’ll see that they’re always the best tippers.
I am, only now, after being a single, hard-working woman in this world for the past decade, coming clear and clean with myself about money. My access to it, that I am entitled to have money, all on my own, and that I can handle it. This is one of the most rewarding feelings I have felt as an adult. I no longer pretend that I don’t understand money. I finally sat down and wrote something resembling a budget, got a grip on what comes in each month and what goes out to where. I am no longer flying by the seat of my pants in terms of money. I work hard (and I have learned to advocate for myself in terms of my worth) and I feel a tremendous sense of satisfaction around being able to afford to do the things I want to do.
But it’s a truth I have to tell myself on a daily basis. It’s a mantra I repeat often:
I am the light of this world.
My soul is the power of God.
I live a life of abundance, including financial. I am entitled to it and I can handle it.
The truth of life is that if you tell yourself something often enough it becomes your reality.
Our relationship to money must be sorted out before we can do the deeper work we need to do on ourselves. Money is, at its most basic, a fact of life on this planet. Money is a necessity. Money is confusing. Money cannot buy happiness, but it can offer freedom. Distorted money issues create direct lines to mental, spiritual and biological illness.
There is absolutely no reason for you to not have enough money to live the life you want to live. It may take a great deal of work to undo the lies you learned as a kid, but at some point you have to come to terms with your relationship to money and get straight with it.
Your work for today my friends. Godspeed and love, xomo