Well Dear Ones … we’ve chosen another of those hefty topics that has my levels of resistance pushing back with all their might. For me this exemplifies a good opportunity to learn and grow and expand.

The Elephant in the Room – and no, we are not talking about that recent television commercial about the elephant in the same room with an obviously loving couple who are faced with a relationship challenge. The elephant we are discussing here today is MONEY. It was originally inspired by a post Mike read earlier in the week. We hope you took the time to read the post on the cost to attend TED conferences. If not, here’s the link again: Robert Scoble.

(BTW: for more info on TED conferences please go here. Mike and I highly recommend them! Rather than watching television, we often find ourselves listening/watching TED talks! Always educational. Often times highly entertaining!)

Back to topic. Let me get down to the basics here – from my perspective, of course. Many relationships/marriages are shattered by issues of financial stress. Dr.Phil hosts programs on this topic regularly. So does Oprah. So do many others. And you just need to step into any book store to find self-help books galore on the subject. In today’s society the number one topic and the number one fear – even more significant than health/illness issues – is that of financial lack.

Now, before we continue, here’s what I’d like you to do. Envision yourself in a room of ultimate possibilities. Anything you want can occur in that room. Magic and marvel are natural extensions of your life here. Your dreams become tangible in your imagination and you absolutely know they are on their way to you! Nothing is impossible.

Now I want you to think of money. What emotions surface within you? Do thoughts of financial lack arise? Do you feel fearful or worried? How is your body expressing those feelings? Tense? Scared? Confused? Angry? As you continue to focus on the lack of money in your life and how it makes you feel, look around you at this room. Does it still feel like a place of magic and marvel and filled to the rafters with infinite possibilities? Or are you noticing the gray of the room, the sense of oppression. Let’s put a face to those not so pleasant feelings. Because I want to keep this post relatively light and positive, I want you to envision that oppressive feeling and gray colour as – you guessed it – the elephant in the room with you! The more you think of money and it’s negative impact in your life, the larger this elephant is getting. It will continue to grow and grow to gigantic proportions until the elephant in the room is the only thing between you and the walls that are closing in. Where is the flow of magic, the joy of life, the opening to infinite possibilities now? An elephant is filling that room, standing between you and what you want – what you know at your deepest core that you can have and who you can be.

One more step before we move on. Use that imagination yet again and picture that room as your life. Wherever you go, whomever you interact with, whatever you intend to do … that elephant goes with you. It’s so big it blocks your view, causes you to take steps around it in order to even get from point A to point B. Its noises drown out the voices of your loved ones. In your car it’s there. It’s with you at the grocery store; in your office interfering with the project you’re working on; in bed between you and your partner or between you and a good night’s sleep, its snore keeping you awake. Picture this scenario as you imagine it going everywhere you do – everywhere!!!

Let me emphasize again here that I do not want to discuss the negative aspects of this issue. I have chosen today, instead, to ensure the focus of this post is one of a positive approach. There is hope!

This week an e-friend and blog colleague Samantha Standish has been bold enough to talk openly on the same subject – money – yet from an amazingly refreshing and inspirational perspective! Thank you so much Samantha for the conversations and personal growth your courage has sparked!

Please check out Samantha’s various posts – preferable in the following order:
Pre-Money Blog
Getting Crystal Clear About Money
How to Mentally Talk Yourself Up
Come Fail with Me

If you only have time to read one of the above, may I suggest it be Getting Crystal Clear – it’s long and it’s well worth your time!

As Mike would say – take the time to read her posts, then come back here … I’ll wait!

Ah, welcome back!

This wee excerpt is from Samantha’s post that grabbed me immediately:

“Individually, we place value on a human activity, object, or event, and then we represent that value through units that we call currency. The money is a way to quantify the value that we believe is present in the activity. This means that all of the power of money is in your hands. It has always been in your hands. It will always be in your hands. This also means that if you have money troubles, and money disappeared tomorrow, your troubles would remain because money itself has no power. It’s just a unit of measurement. It’s your conscious valuation of yourself and your activities that has the power. Thus, money isn’t the cause of your money troubles. How you value yourself is. Unfortunately, almost no one is taught this, even though it’s the basis of how we structure our society. Of course, I believe this is going to change. That’s why I’m writing about it.”

Value. Self-Value. That is the entire concept – clean, simple, profound. Increase your personal perception of your own value, your own worth – in your own eyes, not in the eyes of others. As that value increases, so too will your financial situation. Samantha’s article had me reeling with the impact of her very wise approach.

Just shortly after reading Samantha’s blog – she did a few more follow-ups to it. Plus that same week I received three different, applicable tweets from some of the folks I’m following on Twitter:

“Sitting quietly, doing nothing, spring comes, and the grass grows by itself ” ~ Zen Proverb

“Letting life just be requires mercy toward ourselves.” ~ Ezra Bayda

“Money comes from Source, not from other people – your clients, your boss, your spouse.”
@kellykimSF

Please take the time to re:read those quotes again. Each one individually can stand on its own. Yet combined, they add value to each other and build a compact and powerful gestalt. Together they can simply and effectively guide one’s daily steps through life.

How so? I began to wonder, incorporating Samantha’s perspective, and taking the above quotes into consideration, how I would answer someone’s question now – today – should they ask me what to do when they are in a financial crunch. Placing myself in such shoes wasn’t hard for me to do since finances has been one of my own most challenging life lessons.

This is what I came up with. I’ve written it in the first person for two reasons: One – for my own benefit; and Two – so that you can feel the personal potency of it as you read it:

What if, in my current state of financial lack, I do not need to DO anything? If I am not inspired or drawn to follow any action in the moment, I am free to do nothing – nothing except live fully in this very moment. There is nothing I can DO in the way of making paper or metal money to deal with my current challenge. Getting upset does not help my state of being. It does NOT match the vibrational frequency a man/woman of financial abundance would emit. Trying to figure out HOW I might correct an apparently uncorrectable problem is NOT my role or responsibility. Since money comes from Source, then from Source I allow it to flow. I am merciful toward myself – forgiving myself for my current dilemma, yet at the same time trusting that Source will provide. The spring – or in this situation, the finances and/or employment – will come … not because I have done something to MAKE it happen (unless I am joyously inspired to take action); because I have done nothing except that which is my role … to vibrate to the flow of Source’s gift … my safety, my joy. Letting go the paddle and allowing the boat to float downstream and enjoying the journey along the way … all is good.

The paddle and floating downstream is an Abraham analogy. One of the wise teachers of our time, Abraham talks often about issues of money in today’s society:

Abraham quote: “…everything that everybody thinks they want, whether it’s a material object or a pile of money or a relationship or a circumstance, or an event, everything that they want is because they think they will feel better when they have it.”

… and: “… know this life experience that you’re living right now? It’s a vibrational indicator. What’s in your bank account right now is an indicator of your vibration about money. What’s happening with your body is an indicator of what you’ve been thinking, of the vibration that you’ve been offering. That’s all.”

… also: “…you can’t in your physical form, experience the expression or manifestation of … abundance if you’re beating the drum of not enough money.”

… plus: “So, if you stand in an awareness that you don’t have enough money, and you talk about it and you feel around it, and you perpetuate a continuing vibration of not enough money, even though you’re asking for more, and even though you may be offering action which should accommodate more–more cannot come …”

… another: “… the money cannot come to you, because you are outputting the feeling of not-enough money while you are speaking your desire for more money. The money cannot come because it’s not coming in response to your words — everything is coming in response to your vibration.”

… Want more? Here’s another: “If you want more money to come … find some way of getting off the subject of not enough money, and the easiest way we’ve ever seen to do that is to get in the mode of appreciating the money that is coming.”

Appreciation of,  and for, any and all aspects of one’s life – even the tough lessons that surface – guarantees that your life will flow more gently, lovingly, and prosperously – yet not if you speak the words of gratitude while holding to the fear and the anger and other negative emotions expressing lack. Feel yourself grateful for the blessings that are in your life – yes, even the lessons – and you’ll find that normally huge elephant in the room with you shrinks in size. The smaller the elephant gets, the more room there is in your life for the good things to come flowing in to fill the now open space!

Live the life and joy you do have and live it fully and with passion! Savour every moment, every person in your life, every opportunity to express joy and love and laughter. Play when so moved. And play especially when you feel you dare not, yet you really want to! Laugh. Dance. Love. Be. Be the best you can be in the moment. All else will fall into place. And all else includes the finances!

Yet do not dwell on those finances. Do not watch out for them. They’ll make themselves known to you! Trust. That’s one of the toughest lessons for most of us – to trust. Trust that Source, or the God of your understanding, will provide you all that you require and so much more than you can imagine. Your role and responsibility is – to fondly paraphrase Eckhart Tolle – to live your life to the max in your NOW. Trust also in yourself. Value your own worth. Trust in that value. The results will be quickly forthcoming for you in ways of wealth far more impactful than money alone. You will become richer in all aspects of your life.

Elephant? What elephant? Blessings be!

In Light and Laughter,

Marcia

BTW: The difference between ‘value’ and ‘arrogance’:
Value: is acknowledging and honouring your self with and for your self – your gifts and talents and skills and personal traits and abilities.
Arrogance: is, believe it or not, not acknowledging your own value! It is looking to others to validate what you hope might be a valuable quality that you see within yourself by showing off that skill for their approval.

Follow this link to read Mike’s View.