Posts Tagged ‘Money Feelings’

Recently someone asked me why I didn’t include fear in my book Build Your Money Muscles as one of the basic emotions that people act out through their money. I explained that fear is the cover-up emotion, the emotion that people default to when they are unsure of themselves and their future.

Fear is often used as an excuse for not moving forward. Yet those who are willing to work through their fear and risk what might seem like failure are the people who are most successful.

Fear in the Current Economy

There’s no doubt about the fact that we are living in uncertain times. The recession, unemployment, foreclosures,
lack of available credit, and debt problems in Europe all add to an environment of uncertainty.

Even though large companies are earning healthy profits, the uncertainty is keeping them from adding jobs or making big investments. Instead of hiring people, companies are buying machines that allow them to replace people.

The news is filled with fear-producing stories of people experiencing financial difficulties and dire predictions for our economic future. However, if you decide to live without fear, you can.

Is this really possible with so much fear in the air? Absolutely.

The Choice Is Yours

Fear is never a requirement. It is an option. You get to choose whether to live in fear or in peace.

This period in our history provides a great opportunity for you to make the choice between fear or peace. The fact is that fear is never a solution to any problem, but rather a mechanism for avoiding action.

I don’t believe that you can just wish or tap away fear. I think that you have to make specific changes in your habitual thoughts, beliefs, emotional responses, and behaviors in order to develop confidence in your ability to survive and thrive no matter what’s going on in the world.

Yes, economic times have changed, and few people can continue to behave the way they did a few years ago and remain financially healthy. Fortunately,a growing number of people are choosing to save instead of spending freely and are beginning to see the value of developing practical financial habits.

Awakening Your Inner Voice

Now more than ever, getting in touch with the part of you that can see (or sense) the bigger picture is important. That inner voice is part of your human equipment and, if you can hear it, can lead you to your true life’s purpose and a way of life that supports your true needs (not those stimulated for you by endless advertisements).

The problem is that fear muffles the sound of the inner voice, often in many subtle ways.

A few years ago, I invested a lot of time, money, and energy into a project that I thought would be profitable. Although I was encouraged by knowledgeable advisors to move forward with the project, and although I was passionate about the subject matter, I have to admit that I was motivated by my fear of my economic future. I thought the project could offer me a level of security I didn’t already have.

Instead of making a lot of money, I lost a lot. As I was putting the project together, there was a nagging, quiet voice that questioned what I was doing, but the voice was overridden by my desire to secure my future in order to allay my fears.

In other words, I defaulted to fear and lost much more than I could have imagined. If someone had said that I was motivated by fear, I would have denied it. Only now, as I look back, can I see it — and avoid the trap in the future. As I said, fear works in subtle ways.

I’ve lived long enough to know that no matter how much trouble I might get myself in to, I can get myself out, which serves to overcome fear. I feel blessed that I’ve reached a point of inner peace and would like to share some of the techniques I used to get here.

So I’m going to hold a teleclass on August 24th called Live Fear Free in the New Economy.

This teleclass will

• Help you make fear a creative rather than destructive force
• Discover marketable talents you have that you never realized can support you
• Teach you techniques for activating your inner resources
• Lead you through your fear into a more peaceful place

For more information about this almost-free teleclass, visit http://LiveFearFreeNow.com

Here’s a question I received recently: “How do I break through my financial set point? I seem to be stuck at my current earning level and no matter what I do, I can’t sustain a higher level for any length of time.”

Your financial set point is actually an income and/or net-worth limit that you have subconsciously established for yourself. Feeling stuck at this set point is a common dilemma that I’d lke to address here.

As a review: Our finances are a result of our thoughts, beliefs, emotions and behaviors, with the emotions acting as the creative force behind our life stories. So, when trying to alter a financial condition, it is necessary to examine the emotions behind the condition. (This is fully explained in Build Your Money Muscles.)

If you have trouble breaking through to a new financial level, one of the feelings you may be acting out through your money is constrained, which is related to a sense of being trapped — one of the five main money feelings. Read the rest of this entry »

I hear it over and over again, “I don’t have enough money for _____________ (fill in the blank).” The lack may relate to funds for expanding a business, improving one’s wardrobe, fixing one’s house, or perhaps just paying the rent and monthly bills on time.

Many people function at a chronic non-enough level. Although there may be brief periods of healthy cash flow, these are often followed by the familiar state of lack when unexpected expenses seem to appear out of nowhere or income unexpectedly drops.

Interestingly, I hear the not-enough complaint from people at all income levels. I’ve had clients with millions of dollars of net worth who felt they needed more in order to feel successful. It’s not unusual for me to hear the not-enough complaint from people earning six figures a year.

At the same time, I know people who seem to be satisfied no matter what they are earning. I remember reading a story about a school janitor who managed to save enough money from his salary to help fund a college education of a number of students. He perceived his life as abundant and experienced great satisfaction. Read the rest of this entry »

In my book Build Your Money Muscles, I identify the five main feelings that people act out through their finances. One of those is a sense of being trapped. When I wrote the book, I didn’t understand the depths of this feeling and it’s nuances. Lately, that understanding is coming into focus. Here’s what I’ve learned.

Children often are discouraged from truely expressing themselves because their parents, and others, just don’t get who they are. I can remember my mother’s reaction when, as a three-year old dressed in my favorite yellow sunsuit, I proudly presented myself as a black bear, having covered myself with mud. I learned then, and in many instances afterwards, that it isn’t always safe to let people now who I am.

Perhaps you can remember moments when you realized that speaking or acting freely could lead to punishment or stimulate negative reactions from those around you. As a result, you developed coping mechanisms that allowed you to fit it or be acceptable.

The result: being trapped in a persona that works in the world, but leaves you feeling disconnected and, perhaps empty. This is often accompanied by less-than feelings, shame, and lots of negative self-talk.

Not the best foundation for drawing in a free-flow of love and support — financial and otherwise.

Read the rest of this entry »

In my book Build Your Money Muscles, I identify the five main feelings that are expressed most often through money. They include abandonment/aloneness, shame, deprivation, a sense of being trapped, and anger, which we will look at today.

Anger is a very valid emotion. Yet in many cultures people are discouraged from expressing anger in a healthy way. As a result, anger is often repressed and turned inward. Your negative self-talk can be anger directed inwards.

Anger expressed through finances shows up in a number of ways. Borrowing money without paying it back, nonpayment of taxes, late bill paying, and compulsive spending can all be expressions of anger. (Think, “I’ll show you!”) Underearning and debting are two of the most common ways that anger finds itself in finances. Read the rest of this entry »

When people feel uncomfortable — for any reason — they tend to keep things to themselves. Solopreneurs especially rarely share their financial pain or fear of the future with others.

In addition, with all of the positive-thinking propaganda that flies about these days, no one wants to admit that they aren’t super positive about what they expect for the future. Here again, people often hide their thoughts and feelings, often to the point of dropping out of group activities.

Consider these facts:
1. Keeping fears and concerns to yourself can be self-defeating. Connecting to trusted friends and allies and sharing from an authentic place allows you to feel less alone, which always helps to increase income. This doesn’t mean you have to tell all of your troubles, but you can be honest about having some concerns. .

2. If you share some of your thoughts with others who you trust, chances are that that either they share your concerns or they have a very different way of looking at the same situation and can help you see things from a more positive point of view. In either case, connecting to others allows you to feel less alone.

Why does connecting to others matter? Because feelings of aloneness stand behind most financial problems. From my point of view, you can’t run out of money, you can only run out of people because money is always attached to people. So the solution to a financial problem may seem to be more money, when in fact, it could well be more people. Read the rest of this entry »

Here’s the good news: there are lots of remarkably effective techniques for clearing out uncomfortable emotions that may be keeping you stuck.

The glitch is that you have to be willing to use them. Sometimes the need to protect your identity will allow you to find  reasons to not use simple clearning techniques such as Be Set Free Fast (BSFF), the Power Word Technique, Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT) and others.

Also, people often want long-standing habitual emotions to disappear in an instant. That happens on occasion, but intense emotions frequently dissipate over a period of time.

For example, if you have lots of unexpressed shame circulating through your system and you “treat” the shame with one of the techniques, in the moment it will diminish. The next time a situation presents itself that usually produces shame, such as paying bills or hearing someone criticize you, you are more apt to notice the shame and the intensity will likey be less than before. You would them treated the shame again.

As your awareness grows of the many ways that shame plays out in your life, you will deal it differently and begin to establish new feeling habits to replace the old emotional responses. So, for example, when someone criticizes you, you might take a deep breath and say to yourself, “I’m ok.” You don’t have to take what the person says personally. In time, the response will be automatic. 

With the help of an energy healer who works with emotions, the process can go even faster. That’s why I partnered with Asara Lovejoy to create the upcoming teleclass “Unleash Your Inner Power & Watch Your Income Soar!” on June 18 and 19.

Both of us have techniques that help people move forward rapidly and we are going to use our combined knowledge and power to help you move forward faster. Asara is going to walk everyone through her One Command, which I have found to be very effective. I’m going to do the Power Word Technique combined with the shamanic healing sounds that I do.

The results for you can be profound and I hope you’ll join us either during the teleclass or by downloading the recording after each session.

For more information and to register, go to www.WatchYourIncomeSoar.com

For many years, every time I did energy work with clients, two phrases came up:

•  I release all pain and memory of pain
•  I release all fear and sorrow

Fully aware that if I’m doing something with a client, it applies to me too, I was surprised that the fear and sorrow piece went on for so long. Over the years, all the physical and emotional pain I had lived with had disappeared, yet I was aware that try as I might, fear and a sense of loss persisted.

Because I believe that we create our life stories in order to express hidden emotions, as I observed the current economic downturn, it occurred to me that fear, or a feeling of vulnerability, and sorrow are the creative force behind the current situation. Certainly the daily talk of terrorism has emerged from our collective fear.

A few months ago, I did a teleclass on letting go of fear and sorrow, and followed that with a healing session that  I recorded separately. Somehow, I was deeply affected by those two events and over the last two months have noticed that the fear and sorrow are really gone. In meditation, I’m aware of his sense of equanimity, as I understand it.

What does this look like on a day-to-day basis? I no longer have feeling that there’s something I have to do. At this point, I really do have the faith that whatever I’m doing is fine and that if I don’t push, I’ll get where I’m supposed to be, whatever that is. I don’t feel compelled to do affirmations, visualizations, set five-year goals or push in any way to try to make things happen. I am much more present in the moment.

I’ll admit that I have moments when I wonder if I am risking or missing something by being so laid back. However, I really like this state of being and am willing to wait and see where it goes. Without any effort, new opportunities are opening up.

Somewhat surprising is the fact that I am now doing more website development work, something I haven’t done since 2002. I see this as a way to provide real world opportunities for growth for people who are developing a strong financial consciousness. So it fits nicely with the financial work that I’ve been doing. And I do enjoy the work.

The bottom line: life beyond fear and sorrow is peaceful — and profitable. I just have to get used to the new feelings that I’m experiencing.

I haven’t made the recording of the teleclass available because the quality of the recording was so poor, but the fear and sorrow healing session is available. I received many positive comments about it.

I am the process of updating Prosperity Place with information about the affordable website building and consulting that I’m doing. There is some information about it now on this site.

How are you feeling about your finances? A lot of people I talk to tell me that they are experiencing anything from mild anxiety to downright fear because the future is so uncertain.

And the other feeling I’ve been tapping into is sorrow, or sadness, because of what has been lost, and for oh so many other reasons. (Think polar bears.)

You may already know that I believe our feelings are the creative force behind our life stories. People often think their life stories are causing their feelings when, if fact, it’s the feelings that create the stories.

Which is the good news. Because if you don’t like the way your life is going, by releasing habitual feelings that you have been carrying for years and installing new emotional responses, you can change the outcome of your life stories.

And releasing emotions gets easier and easier as people learn new techniques such as BSFF, the Power Word technique, EFT, and many forms of energy healing that are becoming more popular by the day.

The Tipping Point
The world situation reflects the accumulation of the feelings of earth’s inhabitants. Our combined fear, sorrow, anger, shame, alientation and other feelings are all being acted out through the current economic crisis and growing political unrest.

Because of the intensity of the situation, energy runs high, providing the opportunity for a major shift. If just a small portion of the people release their fear, sorrow, anger, shame, and alienation and allow feelings of authentic inner peace to emerge, the shift can happen.

This is using the Law of Attraction on a global scale.

You can join us on April 2 (or by recording) and take a giant step towards releasing the feelings defining your financial situation — and the world crisis — that are interfering with personal and global peace and prosperity.

Read more about how you can participate at http://ProsperityPlace.com/teleclass/mfeel.html 

For anyone who is paying attention, the crisis in the financial markets feels like a dizzying ride. Up and down (mostly down), with no clear end in site. And we keep hearing the words “Worst since the Great Depression.”

Other messages can be downright confusing. Monday, just as the stock market closed down 777 points, I heard a number of financial commentators say things like, “What we need is less regulation and cutting corporate taxes,” which is what the house Republicans want and why they blocked the bailout bill.

This tactic is part of the “trickle down” theory that states that the market will regulate itself and more freedom on the top will trickle down in the form of profits to the bottom… We see how well that has worked.

What’s the average person to do? Hopefully, if you have investments in the stock market, you also have someone who knows more than you do who you can talk to and get advice. From my point of view, things started getting a bit dicey six months ago and that seemed like a good time to get out of the market.

For those of you who function at a just-enough level, you are probably in ok shape, assuming you haven’t used a lot of credit. Just enough means you’ve had enough to cover your bills and financial obligations. You are the ones who can take a big sigh of relief–no debt, enough to pay your bills. This is not the time to take any chances.

If you function at a less-than-enough level, you’ve probably been borrowing over an extended period of time and may have paid some of your cards late or are maxed out on your cards. This will have compromised your FICO score, so you better stop using credit right now and do whatever you need to do to pay down some of your debt. The good news for you is that you may be forced to get your finances in order so you don’t have to go through this again.

If you are worried about the price of basics, losing your job, or any of the other potential fall out effects of this crisis, worrying isn’t gong to help. It never does. Take a deep breath and spend more time than usual meditating and tuning in to the part of you that sees a bigger picture and can lead you to solutions that will work for you.

Since you haven’t got any control over what going on around you, take control of your home environment. Create order out of chaos, if that’s what you have. Review your financial habits and decide what you are going to do differently.

This is a great time to analyse your past behaviors and decide what’s not serving you and what you want to change.

Here are some resources that can be helpful
Basic Meditation Instructions
Economist Paul Krugman’s column
Some levity at JibJab.com
And a bit more at The Daily Show