How to BE Rich

02 Nov How to BE Rich

Learning how to be rich starts with learning how to feel rich, and then acting on those ways; it’s like receiving the promise of this gorgeous sunset sky. Detail of waterscape by Diggeo on copyright-free Pixabay. 

Learning How to Be Rich Starts with Feeling Rich

This is a follow-on to last week’s post, “How to Feel Rich.” Responses to that post have been wondrous. I intend to rely on them for this post, so you might want to check them out when you read about how to feel rich. What does feeling rich even mean…when wealthy people don’t feel rich, as we explored last week?

We Know How to Feel Rich

Actually, that’s exactly the point:

We know what it means to feel rich.

I noticed it last week: every single person who wrote in knew how to do it. They knew how to answer the question!

Who knew? I wasn’t sure folks knew how they personally actually felt rich until I asked.I think asking helped them ask themselves and find the answers–quite easily! We got such wonderful answers.

How Our Soul-Colleagues Feel Rich

Here are some excerpts from comments to last week’s post. Note the diversity! Soooo many ways different people feel rich:

• BJ (visual and verbal artist as well as healer): when she feels “full of ideas”
• Danielle (mom of a young family who just started graduate school): when she “can provide fun opportunities for my children,” is “in agreement with my partner about our plan,” and her “plan works well and has built-in flexibility”
• Julie (who does what? I don’t know!): when she is “mindfully present” and “dancing”
• Jennie Kahly (farmer, writer, and mom): when she “can be with my kids in the middle of a [home]school/work day…hanging out and enjoying nature..Playing Hooky”
• Lise (a photographer and author): when she knows she has “work coming in” and when she feels “possibility and opportunity all around me.”

See for yourself! Here are their full-length comments. If you haven’t done this part of the exercise yet, do it! You’ll get a lot more out of this week’s post.

Now, How to Be Rich?

The short answer: do more of what makes you feel rich.

But that’s not enough. It would be cruel of me to stop there. I know you want to know:

How do I do more of what makes me feel rich?

Let me count the ways.

Try any one of these to be rich:

1. Do more of what makes you feel rich. 

If it is dancing, make time to dance. In  your schedule! Or have a commitment you will accept one more invitation to dance per month. Or more! Make a date in your schedule, though, three months from now to see if you did it. Likewise, spending more time “playing hooky” with your kids. Or having a plan that stands you in good stead including because it was flexible when you needed it to be. Make a date to evaluate this!

2. Stop doing what makes you feel poor.

This sounds like a repeat of #1 but surprisingly, it needs saying. For example, I just caught myself wondering what I’ll do next, since this post was so easy to write that I have extra time…and feeling spacious is one of the ways I feel rich. I’m not going to do anything next! I’m going to stop working! Hah! I caught myself, good for me. You do it too. OK?

3. Now that you’ve identified it, keep noticing and doing what make you feel rich.

Dig into the nuances. Write about it. Dream about it. And remember: just be. Be your open-hearted, full-of-ideas, possibility-all-around you” self. Allow yourself actual space to feel your feelings of richness, here and now, then and there, now and again, over and over. Remember: this is pretty much the goal of living. 

1. Stop worrying about money to feel rich. (It’s fine to plan and earn and use care in spending and donating but use 1, 3, 5 and 6 to feel rich. Trust me (and trust yourself): you will feel richer than if you use money. Crazy discovery.
2. Allow your richness to pervade you cell, flesh, mind, spirit. Your heart already feels rich; tune in to it.
3. If more ways to feel rich arise, embrace them. And do 1-5 with them.

I love to hear from you. Always, feel free to challenge and question what I’ve said,  add to it, or say how it works for you. Everything here is meant to be useful.