Figuring Out Our Right Relationship to Money

26 Jan Figuring Out Our Right Relationship to Money

Image by and uploaded to Morguefile by earl53.

Figuring Out Our Right Relationship to Money

What you’ll read here is an excerpt from a post published in soul-colleague Laird Schaub’s “Commentary on Community and Consensus.” It is super-fun and a deep honor to have another blogger publish my work. I would add, “especially one whose views I value so much,” but I would never publish in any other kind of blog, as you know.

RAISING CLARITY’s new, more fluid relationship-building with money is taught in our new “Healing Power of Moving Money,” an outgrowth of our decades consulting, especially in fundraising, and our experiences coaching, starting with learning moneycoaching from its founder Deborah Price.

I am finally really starting to make money my own. This means I can really help you make money your own. My thanks to Laird for sharing us with his readers, and here is the excerpt:

Money in Community (An Excerpt)

I think about money a lot. As a fundraising consultant with groups and a money coach with individuals, I help people have more of it, in order to help myself have more of it.

Here’s how I got there: I started with the intention of wanting more money flowing in my life. Then I researched until I found a spiritual way to accomplish that. In Creating Affluence, Deepak Chopra wrote:

Helping others make money and helping other people to fulfill their desires is a sure way to ensure you’ll make money for yourself as well as more easily fulfill your dreams.

Like most, I had trouble accepting this at first. I was conditioned to believe that there are many obstacles to financial abundance. Scarcity and hoarding were part of my upbringing. It took me a long time to be at peace with even investigating this dubious legacy.

When I scratched below the surface of scarcity and hoarding, I found fear. As such, it is something we detest about money (and capitalism), and one of the reasons we create and join communities that are conscious attempts to move away from the competitiveness of capitalism and toward a more cooperative culture. In community, we intentionally interpose a protective, caring layer between the capitalist economy and isolated individuals.

In my search for something that would work better, I discovered that the Universe will pretty much support any belief. Thus, I sought one that would work for me. Along the way I learned the power of working inwardly (on my own conditioning about money) and at the same time working outwardly (with others’ beliefs). Gradually, this purposeful shift got embodied in my experience—to the point where it gets easier and feels more natural all the time. This brought me to where I am today: experiencing money as flow.

But fear is present even then. It can be scary both when the outflow exceeds the inflow (which is not sustainable over time) and when the inflow exceeds the outflow (from whence the phrase “embarrassment of riches”).

Money is never sitting still—it is always affirming some value. Too often, we let fear become that value. Then we run away from our fear into ideology, community, or self-chosen poverty. None of these choices lead to taking charge of the money we have, or making decisions with money that affirm our values. The rest of this post explores a few ways to begin doing that. (And now, to read “the rest of this post,” click here!)