I’ve been wrestling with this bad boy for quite some time but luckily the awarenesses are piling in. I have struggled with scarcity issues off and on for decades. My last full time job was in 1987 and I only worked full time for a short period. Given that I am far outside the bounds of traditional security and income, I have been forced to face this limitation repeatedly. I have taught several courses on abundance and had an extraordinarily free and abundant life despite many periods of minimal income. Yet this is now the barrier that I recognize most frequently keeps me from knowing my own unlimited nature. It took me decades to release seeing external love as the source of safety and love in my life. That false belief is gone. Now it has been a very long time since I looked outside myself to believe I am love, loved, lovable. So I see I must now release my limiting beliefs about money.
This awareness has just dialed in big time in the last week. I woke up before dawn a few days ago and asked to be guided to an answer to my question about what was confining me. I picked up my handy dandy Way of Mastery and read about the time Christ spoke to a rich man who had asked him how to get to the kingdom of heaven. He responded, sell everything and follow me which the rich man declined to do. So do I have to be a poor beggar to be free of this? Me thinks not. The book goes on to say it is not money that is the problem, it is the attachment to money. BINGO. Now I must have read and/or heard this numerous times yet I suddenly got it, but really. It went on to explain the Buddhist practice of renouncing all and living with just a robe and begging bowl. DOUBLE BINGO. How had I never gotten the significance of this before? Don’t ask me but luckily I got it now. Here’s the deal kids. It is a huge and very prevalent belief that money is the source of safety and well being in our lives, yes? Can you even consider the possibility it is not? Don’t worry if you can’t because I have been puzzling on this one forever and just got it. So why do Buddhist monks give up everything-to prove to themselves that the Divine is their Source, God, the Universe, whatever you want to call it. Luckily, I don’t feel the need to be so radical. My mentor Karl took it to that degree. He had nothing left, no money and only a can of beans to his name that he was really looking forward to eating only to return to his trailer to find out the can was missing and never found. Did he panic? No, he surrendered. He said fine, you want me to starve, fine. I surrender this fully. Now mind you this was not a mind trick, he meant it and low and behold from that moment forward grocery bags appeared on his steps, people would fill his refrigerator and so on. He had learned the lesson of inner safety, of really trusting. He had released his attachment to money and all his needs were met.
I remember saying to someone almost two decades ago that some investments I had were the source of my security and she said, no they are not. HUH?!? Didn’t get it that round but do now. See if you can catch this. If money is your source, you can lose it and therefore it is possible for you to not be safe, right? Yet we are all Divine, children of an unlimited Universe or God if you prefer. So how can we ever not be safe? I hear you protesting- what about war, crime, etc? That’s not safe. Can our bodies be destroyed? Yes, they can yet our Essence can never be harmed. If one surrender’s one’s live to the Mystery, all one’s needs will be met. In the situation of war or crime, our vibration will protect us, remove us from dangerous circumstances in alignment with our soul purpose. With the challenge of scarcity, if we remain attached to money, we will never feel truly safe as all money, no matter how much, how large the amount is, can always be lost. There is no safety there. Now understand I am not saying there is anything wrong with money. I love the stuff, I just try not to take it too seriously and have often been rewarded with surprising gifts of abundance. Still I have never felt fully safe. I am certain when I shift my inner beliefs about scarcity my outer reality will shift to align with my new inner understanding. Outer circumstances is ALWAYS a reflection of inner reality as my own experience has proven repeatedly.
I remember walking around Bombay India. We had the money for one year in our money belts, money that while very small for a western yet might be a decade or more earnings for many in that country. We were living on $30 a day for both of us for hotel, food, local travel or other expenses. For a Western $15 a day for all one’s expenses is minimal yet in India we were rich indeed. Interestingly, I rarely experienced a sense of lack despite our strict budget. People in Bombay were living on the sidewalks and in the streets, cooking over campfires. We would step over their sleeping bodies yet felt very safe, no sense we would be harmed. I have also read that people in these very poor countries do not have the driving fears about money Westerns tend to have despite having so much less. But I digress.
I posted Lisa Renee’s post about being a spiritual nomad because I almost got it from that blog I posted last year:
SUNDAY, OCTOBER 20, 2013
spiritual nomad:clearing beliefs in limitation
This month I have made almost no money with my work and even my class is a little screwy with people canceling at the last second, maybe not coming back so on and so forth. So I asked myself what’s up. In the past my answer would have gone in one of two directions 1) self worth-the class was not good. Nope, can’t buy that. I KNEW my latest class rocked and was even lucky enough to have one student tell me she was falling out of her chair as the class was fantastic. O.K., that doesn’t explain it. 2) my fault, I did something wrong, I need to control, change to make it work. Now I could almost buy that one but let’s look at what people told me about why they canceled before the class. Class too early, too late, day too smokey, too busy, too tired, too far. So in the past I would have chased a way to fix it but should I make it earlier or later, closer for one but farther for another? Hum, no cheese down that tube, that won’t work and I surely don’t buy that I did anything wrong. As I said I know the class was HOT. So then what explains it. Last night I realized the paradox was too much so I decided to finally look at it. I realize that prior to now I have tried to resolve this issue of scarcity on the material, control level. For example I have changed investments, cut expenses, advertised, developing another web site, taught in different locations, visualized, practiced law of attraction and endless more attempts to get more money to feel safer. I finally realized I have been barking up the wrong tree. The Universe needed to get my attention to help me move through one of the final rings of fear, physical survival. I know, this is a tough one but apparently I am ready and I say I am willing to learn it the easy way, with grace. No need for just one can of beans. The answer as always is surrender and trust. Will I stop doing those material things? No, I will just do them from a different inner place. I get it. Time to surrender the whole game, to take my hands off the steering wheel, to trust even though things have never seemed less abundant, to release the attachment to outcome. I refuse to buy that limitation, to give into to fear, to release my vision and dream because right now income is not showing up. No way Jose, my inner vision is too powerful. Mind you, I know I am still extraordinarily abundant, I just currently lack much income.
I know this post is longggggg but feels so important. Hold on, this story will fit in. When we adopted our daughter we moved to Guatemala to be with her until we completed the adoption. We went there before getting a crucial paper from the INS. (immigration) Our advisor didn’t want us to go but he finally agreed. The day before we left we got the paper but in my husband’s name even though we had been explicit it needed to be in my name as I am a citizen and he was not at that time. So we kept faxing, begging for the paper. No response. I had had my doubts about the adoption and had to work through numerous fears. But once I had gone through enough rings of fear I landed and became absolutely committed without wavering. Especially when I met our daughter I KNEW and I never faltered. My husband was freaking out, worried that after we had already fallen in love with her, we might somehow not be able to complete the adoption. I never doubted again. I KNEW. We kept sending our faxes off until one day someone suggested we might have the wrong fax number. While we were in the process, INS stopped accepting personal calls so fax was our only way to reach them. We found another number to try, re-faxed everything and within hours got a call in Guatemala at the swimming pool from INS! Anyone who has dealt with the INS knows that is a miracle just short of walking on water. All was well and our papers arrived pronto.
So back to money. I see it is time for me to commit with unwavering certainty that all is well, despite outer appearances It is time to trust my own inner nature, my Divinity, my knowledge of spiritual law. It is time to drop my fears around physical survival and trust I will be taken care of, protected, but not by my controlling ego. There is a huge lesson here and I am ready to learn it.
9/20/14 Update: Just read this today from 33 Days of Awakening a quote from Loyalty to Your Soul by the Hulnicks, fits the theme. Time for me to finalize the inner work of releasing scarcity consciousness and await further miracles.
http://www.usmonline.org/pdfs/33days/Loyalty_to_Your_Soul_Chapter_5.pdf