It’s amazing how our relationship with money colors our emotions and shapes our mindset. I’m a fan of Lynne Twist after seeing her speak. Her idea of shifting away from thoughts of scarcity to those of sufficiency is one that resonated with me, and I’m constantly working to make that shift permanent. Keeping that mindset of appreciation requires consistent reminders: “If you let go of trying to get more of what you don’t really need, which is what we’re trained to want more of, it frees up oceans of energy to pay attention to what you already have. When you nurture and nourish what you do have and begin to make a difference with it, it expands before your very eyes. In other words, what you appreciate appreciates. This is true prosperity.” –Lynne Twist
I recently saw this post: 5 Tips For How to be Spiritual About Your Money. Mindy Crary helps us keep positive about money, even when we don’t have it. I especially like her advice about getting specific about fear. As with any fear, if we hone it down we usually find there’s no fear there.
1. Name your fear. Get specific about fear and keeping drilling down. Once when I only had $50 in my bank account, I started panicking because I believed that I didn’t have enough money. So I got specific: For what don’t I have enough money? I discovered it was about groceries; I had enough until my next deposit for basic bills, but I thought I needed groceries for the weekend. So I drilled down further: Did I really need groceries? Come to find out, when I searched my cupboards, I had all of the makings for lasagna. Never let your non-specific worry or fear take hold of you without questioning it pretty thoroughly, because you’ll find that many times it’s completely unfounded.
2. Quit the comparison. You probably don’t want everything in Oprah’s life, but you might want some things. Use your desires to be a detective about yourself. What is it that is so attractive to me about having a beach house hideaway where I can have 12 people stay at a time? It’s the sense of gathering, community and retreat. How can I get that now and feel those things prior to (or instead of) getting a beach house? Your money power comes back the minute you realize you can have what you want BEFORE you get the thing you thought would bring it to you.
3. Support yourself. No one ever felt better about their money life by punishing and condemning themselves for past mistakes. In fact, you can’t BE spiritual at all until you’re ready to let past mistakes and decisions go. You have to forgive, and be hyper vigilant of that internal voice that tells you bad things about yourself. Every time you have a negative or punishing thought, ask yourself if your best friend would ever say that about you. And then be your own best friend.
4. Bring good energy. Once we dismiss the external world as the reason for not having what we want in the moment, we start to focus on the internal world of energy, emotion and thought. By the same token, we can bring that “internal world” energy to our external world dealings and start to bring the group mind into alignment with higher thought. When I had financial difficulties, I chose to bring positive energy to my dealings with creditors and found those interactions to be some of the most helpful and joyful of the entire ordeal. Imagine hanging up the phone after speaking to the IRS and smiling because the service rep was so darn nice to you! But I started it, with my intention.
5. Give yourself credit for the journey. When you make a choice to lose fear and behave more spiritually about money, it would be great if that once you made the choice, everything fell into place. But it doesn’t; you’ll have good days and bad, and you’ll experience fear and worry along the way. Just remember, you can never return to the place you started; even if you feel like you’re back-sliding, take comfort in the fact that you can never slide all the way back to ground zero. If you are persistent in returning to your choice to build your spirituality around money, you will attain higher levels, even if you can’t see the progress right away.
