Not what we have but what we enjoy, constitutes our abundance. - Epicurus
Regardless of how much or how little material wealth we have, our relationship to money is likely to be distorted. Because money plays such an oversized role in our outer and inner landscapes, it is a powerful metaphor and magnet for our confusions and wounds. And since material resources are generally closely linked to our sense of personal power, freedom, and worth, exploring the distortions in our relationship to money is a fruitful way to uncover energetic leakages or blocks that also distort other aspects of our lives. In fact, Brad Laughlin, executive director of the spiritual organization Corelight, suggests that if we simply focus on clearing every aspect of our relationship to money, by the end of our work we will find ourselves nearly enlightened!
Money has a way of pointing us toward our internal contradictions, where we will invariably find imprints and parts of ourselves in need of attention. For instance, few readers of this book would consciously equate someone's financial status with his or her human worth or value - and it's obvious that such an equation would make no sense to our larger selves, since no person could possibly have any more or less worth than any other. Yet even when we consciously reject the equation between money and worth, we remain subject to its influence on subtle levels, and often this creates discord between different parts of the self - for instance, when one part of the self envies wealthy people and longs for more material privilege, while another part rebels against that value system, resents wealthy people and glorifies downward mobility.
In some spiritual circles, it has become popular to focus attention on peoples' fear of money or abundance, and promote magical thinking about what could occur if we freed ourselves of such fears. It's certainly true that many of us do have resistance to receiving what we want or need, and where such fears or imprints exist, it's important to heal and release them as part of our larger process of opening to universal support. However, the implication that this kind of healing will, could or should lead to material wealth for everyone who does it, is absurd. Attachment to wealth and fear of poverty is just as much a distortion as fear of wealth and attachment to conditions of lack. A truly aligned relationship with money is free of this kind of inner pushing and pulling in either, or in any, direction.
Many spiritually-oriented people misunderstand the Law of Attraction, interpreting it to mean that as we connect to our spiritual power, we are released from limits and therefore become able to create or attract unlimited quantities of material wealth. This misinterpretation conflates two different realms of being, the non-physical realm, which is limitless, and the physical realm in which limits are necessary and inevitable. It also reflects confusion about the nature of spiritual power. True spiritual power comes to us through aligning ourselves with the larger synergistic flow, trusting and resting within that flow, and opening to it - not dominating or manipulating it to try to grab a larger share of goodies for "ourselves." (In fact, the more connected we are to our spiritual power, the less likely we are to care so much about "ourselves" and our material circumstances.)
The physical universe cannot exist without limits, so the concept of "unlimited abundance" on this plane is necessarily a fairy tale and a distortion. A more appropriate understanding of abundance is the one offered by Leslie Temple-Thurston, who says simply, "Abundance is having what you need, when you need it."
On the spiritual level, all of us have access - abundant access! - to this kind of abundance. We can, in the non-physical realm, have exactly what we need, whenever we need it. Yet on the physical plane this is clearly not the case; vast numbers of people do not have the money or material privilege they need, while a very small number of people have wealth so great that it renders the concept of "need" obscene or absurd. This is no coincidence; our human economic systems have been deliberately designed - and/or manipulated - to maintain this kind of inequality. They actively require most people to have less so that others can have much more. It is simply not true, under current conditions, that everyone can have as much as they need - at least not while our sense of "need" is structured by a consciousness of separation, which is, of course, the only consciousness in which greed could possibly exist.
Therefore, it is not only our limiting beliefs and our wounds that keep people from having enough money or resources. We live within a system which actively creates and maintains unequal access to wealth. Yet it is also true that even within the constraints and biases of that external system, our beliefs and wounds do shape our experience, just as they do in all other spheres of life. How, then, are we to understand and work with the highly-charged issue of money?
We can begin by remembering that even here, there is a very important locus of power within us. Although we do not singlehandedly have the power to change the larger economic system, we do have the power to define our relationship to that system. For instance, we have complete power over the beliefs and imprints alive within us, including those beliefs linking our material wealth with our sense of value or worth. When we bring these beliefs to conscious awareness and recognize that they are not Truth, we can dissolve them. Spiritual and social justice activist Nichola Torbett founded a group called "Recovery from the Dominant Culture," modeled on 12-step programs, as a way to help people do precisely this kind of work.
We can also retrieve the parts of our souls that may have been wounded by lack of access to money - or by inconsistent access, manipulated or distorted access, or even excessive access to money (for instance, parents who gave us expensive gifts in place of time, love and presence, or relatives who abused us and then bought our silence with money.) We can release the imprints that make us see ourselves or others as unworthy or "less than" for any reason, including reasons having to do with money - and also those imprints that make us see ourselves or others as "better than" for any reason, or that inflate us with false pride.
It's also useful to dive beneath the surface of the issue and work directly with the many deeper issues with which money becomes entangled. By removing our blocks to, or our misconceptions about, freedom, support, receiving, deserving, love and related topics, we clear the pathways by which what we need can reach us - not only in the form of money, but in all other forms, as well. And as always, our inner teachers can help.
Here are some questions that can help you begin that process.
Self-Inquiry Related to Money - and More
Justice
How do I feel about living amid human injustice? Where there are "haves" and "have-nots," do I feel a need or obligation to be in one camp or the other - or a fear of being in one camp or the other? What is my right relationship to the financial injustice in the human world?
Freedom
How do I feel about having the freedom to do what I most want to do? Do I believe that I deserve it? Do I trust myself to use it in ways that serve my larger self?
Receiving Support
How do I feel about receiving my full complement of support from the benevolent universe? Do I believe that I deserve it? Can I be trusted with it? Do I have fears about what I might do - or fail to do - if I were fully supported? Do I believe that there would be a cost to receiving such support? - and if so, what do I believe that cost would be?
Intrinsic Worth
Do I know, with every fiber of my being, that I have intrinsic worth - that I belong in this world and am valued, accepted and cherished by this world, exactly as I am?
Safety
Am I willing to allow myself to feel safe? What does or would safety mean to me? Are there structures in my being which constrict against the possibility of relaxing into safety? Am I able to receive what comes to me without fear or hoarding, and let it go with confidence that more will come?
Abundance
How do I feel about having abundance - having all that I need, when I need it? Do I feel comfortable with that state of being? Why or why not? Would it feel safe to me to have all that I needed? What fears do I have about what might happen - within me, or outside of me - if I had abundance?
Love
Do I know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that I am loved - by the universe, my larger self and my guides, at the very least? Am I able to fully open to and take in that love? If not, what prevents that opening? Do I believe that others love me for myself, just as I am, or do I fear "hidden agendas," costs, conditions or requirements?
Working with these questions - and doing whatever healing work is revealed to be necessary by your answers - may well be a lengthy process. But as you do so, you will clear up whatever distortions are present in your financial life, as well as open inner pathways for receiving and experiencing more safety, love and freedom.
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