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Sometimes life gets too absorbing. My nose is to the grindstone, trying hard. But it’s at times like these I need to step back and remember that it’s far more productive to use the “Elementals” to make things happen.
1) The first step is always to get quiet and look inside. There I can find the inspiration of Guidance. It is speaking to me through my dreams and visions. Showing what I want and giving me the match to light the fire. It reveals my Mission, what I truly want to do.
2) Next I want to give my clear Attention and Awareness to this Mission. Tell the truth and own what I want. Listen, research, and learn what I need to do. Give it thought and planning to know how to proceed.
3) Back that up with Consistent Discipline, making the right choices, taking the steps I feel guided to take. A small amount of effort, repeated regularly, produces results. Keep taking authentic action.
4) Along the way, care for myself and my actions with Acceptance and Flexibility. Allowing myself to dance this way or that, fail or succeed, rest and play. Remaining open to whatever comes my way.
5) I don’t want to forget to fuel myself with Gratitude and Appreciation. Keep the talk ever positive, filling the well. Be grateful for whatever I create through my actions. Gratitude will multiply whatever I do.
Return inside for Guidance to check that my mission still feels right. Sharpen my awareness, keep taking conscious steps, take good care, and be grateful for everything I make happen.
Rinse and repeat.
From “The Energy of Money,” by Maria Nemeth, Ph.D
Part 1 – The Hero’s Journey
Maria starts out talking about saying yes. Allowing life to be what it is. I like the notion of being willing to be willing, if that’s all you can do. Being open and willing is surely a great power. Maria says it like this, “The next phase of development for all of us is learning to say yes to whatever is on our plate, and realizing that everything we find in our lives today is here to wake us up.”
Maria makes an interesting distinction between willing and wanting. You don’t have to want to do something to be willing to do it. Successful people, she says, “. . . don’t wait until they are in the right mood or until Monkey Mind (the chattering in our heads) quiets down. . . “
She also makes a distinction between willingness and being wiling. One is something you have and the other is something you are. Willing is a state of being. And one that can bring more lasting success.
Maria tells us that this program is a spiritual one. That means we watch what we are doing, we accept it, and move on from there. “The operative principle here is that when you can observe something, it no longer has a hold on you . . . . Seeing yourself is part of waking up and that is the first step to mastering the energy of money.”
That we all have some form of money craziness is probably an understatement. I was pleased to note that after many years (and several readings of this book) most of mine have cleared up. But I still have a few chunky pieces. My obsession with books, for example. She asks, “If someone offered you a million dollars cash, tax free, would you be wiling to run down the main street of your city absolutely naked at high noon on a weekday?” My first question would be: Will I get arrested? (Does that say something about my craziness?) Maria goes on to wonder if you’d do it for 100 grand? Ten thousand? As the price goes down I may lose interest in the ramifications. There are all kinds of money craziness.
Next, Maria presents The Coaching Model. It goes like this: Look, see, tell the truth, take Authentic Action. Looking is more passive. She describes it as when “you direct your attention toward.” Seeing requires more effort to “notice, examine or discern.” You have to stay with what you’re looking at long enough to really see it.
A couple of questions she toss outs: Where are you conscious about money? Unconscious? What are your personal criteria for financial success? What goals excite you? We are supposed to keep a notebook of our experiences in this program. She wants us to write down the answers to these questions. It takes really seeing yourself well to answer them. I noticed a few spots where I’m unconscious that I hadn’t realized before.
The next step is to Tell the Truth. She explains the difference between truth and honesty. I find this fascinating. Being honest, she says, is to give a “candid, frank and sincere reporting about the experience.” The truth is just the plain facts. She offers a chart to show the difference. You might say, “I feel guilty about spending so much at the mall today.” That’s being honest. But being truthful you say, “I spent $45 for a scarf, $50 for a blouse, $10 for lunch: $50 more than I said I would.” Maria offers an caveat to be compassionate with yourself. It’s not always easy to tell the truth. But only when you are able to look, see and tell the truth can you begin to take Authentic Action.
Authentic Action are steps that move you forward toward your goal. Authentic Action focuses and uses the energy of money to make you financially successful. Maria describes that as “doing what you said you would do with money, with ease.”
The main exercise in this chapter is the Money Autobiography that I’ve already talked about. (See the related post below.) I will share a little of mine.
My parents both grew up in the depression. This colored their view of money in many ways. My father was frugal and abhorred conspicuous consumption. While my mother longed for it. We always had enough. There were fat years and lean years as I was growing up. But I always had a meal, clothes twice a year (to start school and at Easter), boots and shoes and toys and games. I don’t remember much about having an allowance. If I needed money, I asked for it. I suspect they tried to institute an allowance program, but I don’t think it took. We didn’t talk much about money, except maybe what we didn’t have. Striking out on my own, I had little knowledge of what it was like. But I promptly got a job and supported myself. But it was hard for me to spend money. I felt like I always had to justify my expenditures, even to myself.
I’ve seen, in my past, a similar relationship with men and money. Money was something to woo and I had little taste for pretending I was something I wasn’t. Men and money liked me, but maybe not enough to lavish expensive gifts. . .
Writing a Money Autobiography is refreshing. Like letting in the light. It reveals reasons for some of your money craziness. Your relationship with money has refractions in other areas of your lives. Look to see how you relate to other things in similar ways.
Next week’s principle deals with integrity and intentions.
I have decided to work the Energy of Money course, by Maria Nemeth, Ph.D. From her marvelous, 1997 book “The Energy of Money, A Spiritual Guide to Financial and Personal Fulfillment.”
The first chapter, “What is the Energy of Money?” doesn’t offer any exercises, but, like she does, I will give an overview of what this is all about.
We are beings of energy. Everything that flows around us is energy. In this book Dr. Nemeth works with the energy of money, time, physical vitality, enjoyment, creativity and the support of friends. The book teaches us to become conscious conduits of energy. When you can direct the energy of money, you will be successful. Dr. Nemeth defines success as “doing what you say you’re going to do, with ease.” Flowing the energy of money makes it easier.
In creating these conduits, Dr. Nemeth takes us on a “hero’s journey.” I like that mythology. It conjures up all kinds of visions. Certainly it requires us to leave what’s been comfortable and safe and strike out on new adventures. Dr Nemeth warns us that “. . . the easy life includes the experience of discomfort. It is when we try to avoid naturally occurring pain or discomfort that life becomes difficult.” Alan Cohen adds, “Do not resist events that move you out of your comfort zone, especially when your comfort zone was not all that comfortable.”
Dr Nemeth tells us that what we contribute to the world is what makes us heroes. Living out our deepest passions and dreams is really the best thing we can do for ourselves and everyone else. “ . . . when we know that we are making a larger contribution, when we know that our personal goals are also helping our business succeed or when we know that being financially successful will also put our children through college, we are using the energy of money heroically.”
If our purpose in this enlightenment game is to become more awake, more aware, she goes onto ask, “What if waking up really means seeing how to conduct yourself powerfully in your everyday, regular life in the real world?” Makes sense. It’s a whole different ball game to be spiritually enlightened on a mountain top where your entire existence is dedicated to it. It’s quite another when you have children, a spouse, friends, work, shopping to do, events to attend, bills to pay . . .
In the book is an interesting map of the way energy works. In the metaphysical reality energy is “undifferentiated.” As it becomes an idea it takes on more shape. When you set an intention of how you want it to be, it becomes more congealed. Then the energy must pass through into the physical reality to become a solid goal and manifest itself.
Dr. Nemeth talks at length about the problem spot she calls “Trouble at the Border.” The energy of a new idea is vibrant and strong. But when you actually get to making it happen, you get scared. The doubts come up. The fear encroaches. Next thing you know you’ve talked yourself out of it.
This chatter is referred to in Buddhist circles as “Monkey Mind.” You can recognize Monkey Mind talk because it is incessant and does not support. The author says, “The energy cost is tremendous when we divert the time and attention that could be energizing our dreams into concerns of failure.” Dr Nemeth contends that successful people are those that don’t listen to Monkey Mind, but instead use that energy for other purposes. They are able to push their dreams and visions through the Trouble at the Border and keep going until their ideas become reality. Successful people use their fears and doubts as guides, not as reasons to quit.
Dr Nemeth wants us to ground our goals and dreams in what she terms “Life Intentions.” Like intending to be a successful author, a good parent, an adventurer, or physically fit . . . She calls them “. . . blueprints for what happens in physical reality.” She says the best way to feel good about our goals and energize them is to select goals that come out of these Life Intentions. She uses that delightful definition of goal as “an area or object toward which play is directed in order to score.” To be a successful author, a goal might be to publish a book. To be an adventurer, our goal might be to take an eco-tour of Mexico.
The process begins, she says, with doing the work on ourselves in the metaphysical reality to clear the way and then taking what she refers to as “Authentic Action” in the physical reality. This Authentic Action is not busywork, but actions that move us closer to our goal.
Dr. Nemeth wants us to become conduits of the energy of money. Whatever discomforts we feel can be re-channeled so we use our fears and unease to let us know what we need. We can learn, as Libby Gill advises, to focus our energies toward what we want and away from what we don’t want.
Next week I’ll start working the exercises.
This is one of the best books on money I’ve read. It changed the way I look at money. The material is based on 12 Principles to help direct and use this powerful form of energy. Dr Nemeth shows us how our behavior effects money flow. That changing how we think, we can change how we relate to money. In her You and Money workshops, she defines success as “doing what you said you would do – with ease.”
It often helps me to get a feel for a book when I see how its laid out:
Part I: The Hero’s Purpose
Part II: Identify the Inner Blocks to Progress
Part III: Clearing the Path
Part IV: Staying the Course
In the first part we learn about willingness. “Learning to say yes to what is on our plate and realizing that everything we find in our lives today is here to wake us up.” She shows us how things like owning up to our mistakes helps us to open to more money.
Dr. Nemeth discusses what she refers to as “trouble at the border,” moving dreams from metaphysical reality to physical reality. Anyone who’s had great ideas that never went anywhere, knows all about that. She talks of the Buddhist concept of Money Mind, which is that constant chatter in our minds that keep us in doubt and worry.
The teaching she uses is based on the Coaching Model of Look, See, Tell the Truth and Take Authentic Action. She explains the difference between being honest and being truthful. One of my favorite exercises was her guidance in writing a Money Autobiography. She asks probing questions like what financial circumstances did you grow up in, when did you first learn about money, if your relationship with money were a personal relationship, how would you describe it? I found this quite revealing!
She also asks to list your Standards of Integrity. It took a little while to get this down, but it was freeing to have a structure in which to make decisions. She made the process easy and fun. She uses this adage to help: “Remember the old saying that you don’t like certain people because they have some traits that you dislike about yourself? What if the opposite were true as well, that you value traits in others that you also possess?” What a more positive (and fun) way to look at it.
There is a thorough explanation of Goals and how to set real ones based on what you truly want in life. She offers a delightful Webster’s definition of a goal as “an area or object toward play is directed in order to score.” She knows how to make it a game. It was through this book I made my first Treasure Map, which she describes as a “physical picture of your goal.” It was an extremely fun project that got me excited about my life.
In Part II, she walks us through identifying the behaviors that inhibit the flow of money, including a Busyholism Inventory to see if you a busyholic. “Your experience of an abundant life is the sum of your authentic choices minus the sum of your driven behavior.”
There is a lengthy discussion about the issue of Scarcity, which is often left out of most studies of money. It got me to look at my rationalizations in a whole new light. She teaches us how to live with the inevitable scarcity. “We reach the infinite through living fully in the finite.”
Dr. Nemeth gets us to really sit down and face how we feel about money, our choices about it, what we tell ourselves about it and when we’ve messed up. Her explanations of Monkey Mind are clear and eye-opening. Dealing with your assumptions about money is a huge step in freeing the energy of money.
In Part III, Dr. Nemeth helps us to change some of those assumptions. “Conscious observation is the key to going beyond your self-developed limits.” She gives us a beautiful description of forgiveness and its impact on our lives. There are several good exercises showing us how to let go of our ability to use what someone else has done as proof of who they are.
It’s not all about your mind. She also gives some practical financial advice about the actual flow of money and stopping leaks.
There are always obstacles along the way and in Section IV, Dr. Nemeth tells us how to deal with them. Like many, she suggests enlisting help from others for the journey. And finally, she tells us that nothing works better than gratitude and giving.
This is a revolutionary book that will change how you use money.
The Positive Slant On the Path 