All right, beauties. Here we go!
ADMIN NOTE: Please scroll to the end of this month’s lesson for information about our live interactive mastermind meeting. Once the meeting has taken place, its recording will live here for you to review.
Yes… it’s our first-ever repeat topic in the history of Expansive Capacity. And with good reason. Money shit is real.
I work on my money mindset almost daily. Let me share specifically how much work I did on my money mindset when it came to the Fiji retreat with Liz Gilbert I just did.
I booked the retreat not quite six months prior to going on it. A month or so before that, my money mindset mentor Denise Duffield-Thomas had gone on a girls-only retreat to Necker Island (Sir Richard Branson’s private island) for $30K per person. One week. Thirty grand. I had tucked that into my vibe bank while watching her stories and photos on social media and said to myself, “Ten grand. There’s a future me who would spend $10K on a week like that. But not thirty.”
So, I had set a price that I felt would be worth the investment in myself for something so very fancy. And then, during one of Denise’s curriculum calls in late August, she mentioned that she had booked a girls-only retreat to Fiji for February of 2020, to kickstart writing her memoir via this intensive with Liz Gilbert (author of Eat Pray Love and Big Magic, among other best-sellers). I opened another tab on my browser while she continued to talk. I scrolled through the retreat’s website to get to the price.
Just under five grand for the accommodations I would prefer, then another $1800 to fly coach round trip. There you have it… something within my price range. And they accept payments over time. Done.
Now, let’s back up a bit.
In June of 2018, I had gotten a business reading from another bestie, Aliza Rose. She had mentioned that I should start looking for a retreat in Costa Rica for January 2019… the first retreat I would ever attend in which I wouldn’t become the leader.
See, I *regularly* invest in things that I think are going to be phenomenal learning experiences, opportunities for me to have the sort of growth I strive to help y’all experience here… and regularly, I am disappointed by the level of discourse, the vetting process of the peer group, and how I always end up being able to help more of the participants than the leaders of the mastermind.
So when Aliza mentioned — without knowing me as well as she does now — that there would be this exotic retreat at which I would — for the first time — be able to fully participate, learn, grow, and *not* lead the damn thing by default, she had my attention. I started Googling “Costa Rica retreat” and all I got were yoga retreats and other things that really didn’t line up with my needs. But I had this in my vibe bank and it stayed there even as January 2019 came and went.
Flash forward from there to this late-August 2019 moment of browsing the Fiji retreat’s website during Denise’s coaching call. There was the “happy price” I’d put in the vibe bank the month before while Denise was on Necker Island… and with Liz Gilbert facilitating a series of creativity workshops for writers, no chance I would be feeling as though *I* could’ve taught the dang thing. It’s not Costa Rica. It would be happening more than a year after Aliza said it was showing up in my business reading. But it’s checking some boxes that very definitely exist for me.
And then I learn the price on the website is in Australian dollars. Holy crap. We’re well under my $10K now. This means I can upgrade my flight to business class and STILL stay under eight grand. Book it. No looking back.
Okay, so here’s where the money mindset really comes in, and here starts the REAL work of lining up with what I’d manifested.
Within hours of booking the retreat, I began having those feelings. No, not buyer’s remorse. Not, “Oh shit, we can’t afford it.” No… I mean that pit in the stomach and tightening of the throat I know from as far back as early childhood, the first time I heard, “Who do you think you are?” from someone who didn’t like how fully in my enoughness I was that day.
These symptoms of low enoughness are as predictable and as consistent as the sun rising and setting.
We do a big thing — especially one involving a financial investment — and out comes all the nonsense we’ve heard at crucial times during our development as humans, kicking off alarms and telling our amygdala we are NOT safe.
~ Who do you think you are?
~ You’re too big for your boots!
~ You don’t belong here.
There are many one-liners our monkey mind uses to convince us to stay safe and small. That’s the amygdala’s job! Keep us doing the same, same, same, same things. Keep us close to the tribe we grew up in. Prevent us from being OTHER (because “other” is easier prey, so staying the same is what keeps us safest as a member of the pack). KEEP US ALIVE.
Now, not only has no one in my family ever dropped this kind of money on a trip for themselves… almost no one I’ve ever KNOWN has done something like this. Not the people I’ve called my friends most of my life. And very few of my newer business besties (like Denise and Aliza). It’s not common. This isn’t “the done thing.” It’s a big investment… in ourselves. And people just don’t do this.
Yet, some people do! Of course they do. Retreats like this exist because OF COURSE people do them. There were women at this retreat who’ve been to several of these things, and ones who booked the next retreat this company is programming while we were still in Fiji!
And people *do* book business class tickets on ten-hour flights. Lying flat overnight is a thing. Showing up for a retreat healthy is allowed. An investment in self-care can correspond with crossing the international dateline and the equator.
But because no one in my life has done such a thing (or if they have, they don’t talk about it — other than Denise, whose business model requires she’s a lighthouse for these convos), the tightening I feel within hours of booking everything is simple, primal brain certainty that I’ve just assigned myself the role of OTHER in my tribe.
I. Will. Now. Be. Easy. Prey.
We’ve talked before about Kerwin Rae and how we’ll create our upper-limit problems because our core group (family, friends, co-workers) don’t hold the same values that our ambitions, our drive, our desires for change and next-tier living display. Between his work, Gay Hendricks’ work, and my own deep dive into how we *will* create blocks to our own next-level success due to our evolutionary wiring, I knew this trip to Fiji — both the retreat and how I would be traveling there — would require some major block-busting… or else I would get too sick to go, we would have some emergency come up for which I would have to withdraw, or I’d go but make myself so sick that I wouldn’t be able to enjoy it fully.
And the most likely scenario was that I’d go, be low-grade sick the whole time, AND find a way to feel like the outsider there. Not invited to the cool kids’ table. Someone who very obviously does not belong. That even though I could spend the same money as everyone else, I would be the fraud who slipped through the cracks. “How did SHE get here?” is what everyone would say while my back was turned.
I’m emotional even as I write this because I so narrowly escaped this last one. In fact — as I’ll share on this month’s Zoom — I absolutely had a moment at the retreat during which I said (and journaled), “Ah. There it is. That ding of low enoughness I KNEW would happen.” But it was JUST a moment. Just a blip. A wee bit of contrast. Phew!
Of course, that ding happened because anything more than 10% different, the brain rejects. Let me say that again with more words: The brain does not have the ability to perceive things that are more than 10% different from what it has established to be reality. It’s why certain magic tricks break our brain. It’s why we can write off people who are “crazy radicals” because their views are SO off the mark from ours. It’s why we see things like marriage equality legislation or marijuana legalization NOT get passed by a smaller margin each time it’s on the ballot until — in increments enough that change doesn’t feel so scary in the human brain — these things do go through.
It’s why “kids today” don’t understand a world Gen X-ers and Boomers grew up in.
Man, that moment of levity was just what I needed!
Okay, so back to Fiji. More specifically, back to the period of time before I left.
Because I wanted to have not just this experience I was investing in but the FULL impact of it — which would require being present for it, not mired in my own low enoughness about how I don’t belong amongst these fabulous women who invest in such things all the time — I started right then in August 2019 doing the work of being fancy enough to have invested in myself like this.
I wasn’t ready for the retreat, but as Abraham-Hicks says, I was ready to be ready to be ready for it. And I had just under six months to BE ready for it.
The work began right away. I did EFT. I journaled. I replayed the coaching calls in Denise’s money mindset library. I even chatted with her about what we’d be doing in Fiji to help it feel “normal” because, while I’m certainly not in Denise’s $3-4M/yr. peer group, she’s a part of the circle I’m growing into incrementally (and she’s never afraid to talk about things that trigger us into feeling as thought we have to stay safe and small).
Because the most effective way I sabotage big goals is by getting physically ill, Keith introduced a new mantra for us: “It’s safe to be ‘ealthy.” (That’s short for both healthy AND wealthy. Cute, huh?) In addition to doing my own EFT, I booked sessions with my dear friend Dana Middleton. I forced myself to speak about this Fiji retreat in casual conversations with my Pilates trainer, with my dentist, with y’all here in the dojo and with my fanbase in BonBlasts and livestreams.
Let’s be clear: It was UNCOMFORTABLE to talk about. I felt as though I should be humble about having the resources to take such a trip. There was a voice in my head that would try to shut the convo down before it could begin. I would want to downplay the fanciness of it all. I had to build up a muscle for feeling SAFE saying that I would be off the grid for 10 days on a private island with a best-selling author teaching me things about writing and creativity and enoughness.
Please note, this had nothing to do with caring what others think. I give ZERO shits about that. This was not your classic impostor syndrome. This was plain and simple evolutionary wiring that says it’s UNSAFE to be wealthy enough to invest in myself to this extent. That it’s impossible to stay healthy while on such a retreat. It’s more than 10% different from the nicest trip I had ever taken. My brain was neurologically rejecting this reality I had created for myself and it wasn’t even real yet.
I had to practice it feeling safe to BE THERE long before I was boarding the plane.
Because if I didn’t clean up my energy around this investment, I would get to Fiji and then feel ignored, left out of the cool kids’ activities, out of place, and I would come home sick. I didn’t want any of that, so I upped my daily intake of Abraham-Hicks; I journaled about how it would feel to be in this magical place with these wonderful people; I forced myself to attend the LA meetup the retreat organizer held in December (even though I really wanted to be an introvert instead); I envisioned moments that ended up actually happening on the island or on the plane or on the ferry — moments in which I would share about the enoughness work we’re doing here and have very smart, very confident women marvel at the simplicity and ease with which I spoke. I read up on customs of Fiji and tracked the weather for this time of year. I watched travel bloggers’ video tours of the planes I would be taking. I immersed myself in the homework of making it all feel LESS than 10% different.
And the whole time I did all of those things, I would tap and repeat my mantras, “I belong here,” “It’s safe to be ‘ealthy,” “I am enough,” “Of COURSE I’m hanging out with Liz Gilbert on a private island. OF COURSE.”
*gah*
When my body started holding onto weight in weird ways in December and January, I knew it wasn’t just holiday stress… because the things that ALWAYS help me drop five or ten pounds stopped working. I would eat perfectly clean for days and my workout hadn’t changed a bit… and the scales wouldn’t budge. I didn’t even have to wonder what was up.
Through my daily work since August, I had fixed enough of the money stress — finally feeling as though I absolutely belong on a private island in the South Pacific with Liz Gilbert, off the grid for ten days, staying in my own beachfront bure and flying business class to get there — that SOMETHING ELSE had to become the reason I will feel less-than. That I will feel uncomfortable in my skin there. That I will have an excuse for feeling as though I don’t belong.
So OF COURSE my brain used its brilliance to put my body into survival mode and when we’re in survival mode, we retain weight to be sure we can live through whatever threat it is the brain is certain we’re about to endure.
My enoughness muscle-building continued and its focus just became more broad than it had been before. I worked not just on my money mindset but on my self-love and body love and enoughness irrespective of conditions.
Turns out, I’m not the only one who does this sort of work all the time.
On our Zoom this month, I’ll walk you through an exercise around all of this that Liz does every day. She had us do it during one of her workshops and now it’s a part of my daily life too. Don’t miss this!
Okay, so.
I spent nearly six months readying myself to feel as though I could fully receive the greatness that was BEING in this magical place, experiencing all the once-in-a-lifetime goodness.
I spent nearly six months doing DAILY enoughness work around money and how I choose to spend it.
In December — as I’d done enough of this daily work to have my brain shift from money enoughness to my physical body and its safety regarding all this Fiji stuff — we had our best month ever in our business, eclipsing in that one month what we used to celebrate making in a YEAR.
Yep. Since August, I had cleaned up my money mindset through enough DAILY work that things in our business shifted in magical ways.
I don’t believe we always need that much time acclimatizing to our next-tier experiences, but I do believe — if the tier jump is significant enough — we DO need to do the work daily ’til we feel the shift really TAKE ROOT.
Take a moment now and list off in your journal some next-tier realities you want to welcome in and really consider how it would feel for those experiences to BE NORMAL for you. Get ridiculously specific. Don’t just say “series regular role.” I want you mapping out what network it airs on, what studio lot you have a drive-on pass for, with whom you work, and how much you get paid for each episode. ALL of those things need to start feeling real and that means the specificity — especially if it feels prickly — is showing you energy you need to clean up before it can feel safe to your brain for you to cross that 10% different threshold.
How much money in the bank feels safe to believe in? Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know when we have $100, the idea of $100,000 sounds great. But let’s get real about how SAFE it would feel to consistently have twice what you currently have. Get to feeling honest-to-God good about that number and then double it again. Repeat this as many times as you’d like but not until the each doubling *feels safe*!
And by safe, I mean…
~ it’s not weird.
~ it’s not something you worry will get taken away.
~ it’s just a thing.
It’s a status just like the sun rising and setting.
And when you get to an amount that feels safe with each doubling for a while, this doesn’t mean you’re done. It means you haven’t yet reached the number for which your brain flips out in the other direction… because it’s too far beyond the scope of reality you can even conceive. Keep going.
Now, for some of us, having more money in our lives brings along with it a requirement that we take care of family members. Suddenly, we’re responsible for that brother who can never get his shit together. We’re being hit up for loans. We’re expected to pay for our parents’ home so they can more fully enjoy their golden years.
So succeeding financially doesn’t just change things for us in the day-to-day; it actually burdens us with responsibilities we never signed up for! It obligates us in ways we would never choose! And we can’t say no. (Or can we?)
No wonder we may have our energy going in two directions! There’s the direction that wants the success and the applause and the financial uptick… and then there’s the direction that keeps it all enough of a secret that no one can take it from us. Or that keeps us from having to do things we don’t want to do. Or that keeps us from having more than “just enough” so we’re not seen as a resource we’d have trouble saying NO to being. Or that keeps us from becoming less relatable than we currently are (and it’s such a part of our brand).
However it plays out in your list, when your energy is at cross-purposes, the more practiced vibration always wins.
“Don’t be successful because you’ll have haters.”
“Don’t be famous because you’ll have stalkers.”
“Don’t be rich because you’ll become a target.”
What beliefs like that might be rattling around in you somewhere? Remember that beliefs are just thoughts we keep thinking. They may not even be our OWN beliefs (except habitually). Without judgment, take a moment to journal about the stories you have about what wealth means. Not just the fun “won’t it be great to have money” imaginings but the shadow feelings you may only be considering for the first time right now. Denise calls them “negative consequences” and she shared a wee bit here about how Liz helped her get to some she didn’t know she had during one of the exercises we did in Fiji.
One of my shadow beliefs was that I’m only relatable if I struggle too. I mean, here I am working with “struggling artists,” right? So I have to be struggling right along with everyone who has a headshot and a dream. (I so believed I had to struggle too that my very first coaching membership — that’s four private coaching calls per year, plus a year of monthly group coaching calls — was $50. Per year. Yes, really. And lest you think that was all that long ago, I’ll tell ya… this rate was offered until I raised the price to $120/yr. in 2014. But I never go up on prices if you stay enrolled. So to this day, there are still people paying $50/yr. and $120/yr. for this coaching package — but we *did* sundown the monthly group call portion in 2018.)
Here I am in 2020 telling you all about my time on a private island with a NY Times best-selling author. Am I less relatable than I was before? Of course not. But I spent years letting that voice inside my head have me undercharge for my services. Undervaluing myself and what I have to offer. Attracting the WRONG clients and obscuring myself from the right ones (except for a few visionaries who could see what even *I* could not see about my own value for so long).
What are your shadow beliefs about having money? At what tier do you get twitchy as you work through the specificity of it? Share below as well as in your journal.
Like last year, I’d also like for you to identify which of your money beliefs are even yours vs. ones that were passed on to you and adopted as your own. Mine include the premise that you have to choose between love and money — you can’t have both a healthy lovelife and a healthy bank balance. And that you cannot have a solid financial situation and a healthy body. And that you can make a ton of money but you will always have it taken away at some point. You can’t count on it. Those are a few of mine. And my mother’s (NOT mine, but I carried them around for decades anyway).
What are yours? Think back on our month that was Your Relationship with Expectations. Really separate out yours from those that others have for you when it comes to money.
Also, like last year, I’d love for you to join me in my annual ritual of Profit Clarity on April 1st. From Day 28 of Get in Gear for the Next Tier:
I’ll be doing it right along with you! This will be my eighth time doing it!! I’m so excited!
I’m going to rerun a bit of goodness from last year but first I’m going to give you a list of five books… I want you to select ONE to read starting this month. Ideally, someone will volunteer to share a wee bit — even if all you’ve read is the first chapter — from each of these books during our Zoom. Bonus points if you want to use the comments section below to get together in bookclub fashion to dive in on these gems.
Here are the books you have to choose from (and yes, it’s fine to revisit one you’ve already read; just having the money work top-of-mind will help this month):
~ Chillpreneur by Denise Duffield-Thomas
~ Get Rich, Lucky Bitch by Denise Duffield-Thomas
~ It’s Not Your Money by Tosha Silver
~ The Four Spiritual Laws of Prosperity by Edwene Gaines
~ The Illusion of Money by Kyle Cease
Share below which one you’re diving into this month! And if you have another you’d prefer to explore or recommend we look into, share that too. Happy reading!
Just like everything in our work together, getting comfy with money stuff is all about building a muscle. So first, identify where you’re weakest. DON’T START WORKING OUT THERE. Just identify those weak spots. We’ll be able to strengthen them in subtle ways. If it’s your language about money, start by softening it. Instead of talking about your “crippling debt” or saying “I can’t afford it” go with “those bills I pay” and “I choose not to invest in that today.”
If you’re certain you don’t have enough hours in the day because of your soul-sucking jobby-job, well, there’s some language to soften for one. 😉 And second, that’s where Profit Clarity saves your bootie! Your ability to strategically shift where you spend your time so that it’s more effective in what it earns for you is EPIC when it comes to making a difference in this, and fast!
If it’s your worldview about money that needs a shift, you know one of my faves is seeing the checks I write to credit card companies or student loans as thank-you notes I’m sending to early investors in the start-up that was me, years ago. Today? Empire. But back then, these companies saw me as a good investment. They believed in my ability to build an empire and pay them back! How smart they were! 🙂
That relationship of gratitude is at the foundation of my ability to clean up some really crappy money mindset stuff that got planted by my family when I was too young to know better than to treat everything they said and did as TRUTH, rather than “a representation of their interpretation of reality based on their experiences.”
What can you get more grateful about when it comes to celebrating money, right now?
If it’s too big a distance to travel — between how you currently feel about money and how I’m asking you to love up on it and be so grateful for the abundance that surrounds us everywhere — that’s okay. Just note that. And catch yourself when you’re reinforcing that distance rather than mindfully working to shorten it up.
Next, these were so popular last year, we’re gonna gamify this situation again. Yay! Games! ANYTIME we can soften our relationship with something that creates primal stress, that’s a good thing.
You’ll see I have items like certain words showing up — for a while I had “discernment” on my list and it showed up everywhere (in webinars, in yoga class, in client meetings), then “expansive” before I’d landed on that being the name for our program here. I had pennies on the ground as an item and this rad vid showed up in my feed. You can manifest someone hiccupping or sneezing. Heck, if you’re Keith, you make streetlights flicker as you walk under them.
Share photos of your bingos with the #ExpansiveCapacity hashtag out there on social media so we can all celebrate together. What we’re doing with this work is honing our intention for manifestation — by appreciating what is already showing up for us, effortlessly — and then steering toward the “stickier” items.
Remember, you WILL start attracting things fast when you bring the joy to this process, so stay focused on joyful, easy items at first! Soon, you’ll turn an item on your bingo card into a next-tier dollar amount or a specific booking. And because you prepaved that energy with a few “easier” bingo boards before that, it’s a done deal.
Are you a coloring book type? OMG, I so love this for tracking things. I did a tote board for our first-ever *live* round of GIGFTNT back in 2018 and it was a BLAST coloring all these hearts in! I’ve grabbed a couple o’ these — my favorites — at 40, 60, 90, and 275 “swirls” if you’d like to make some beautiful artwork as you pay another dollar toward a debt, bring in another ten dollars in tips, log hours on your show bible, track pages written on your feature film, or have another audition this year. If you love these as much as I do, get your own (even on canvas! To frame — OMG, your year of prosperity in full color on your wall?!? YAS!!) here.
Now, a note about this work before we wrap up for our pre-Zoom portion of things: This work — at its core — is about WORTH.
Should you start to see incremental boosts in your enoughness as you shift things like your percentage of passive income or find you’re able to drop a shift in your jobby-job because you’ve given yourself a raise elsewhere, you can expect those around you who’ve always needed your money story to be a certain kind of way to… react badly. Like all pack animals, they don’t like change that disrupts the tribe — especially when it involves your enoughness!
It is audacious to own our success.
If you’ve only ever surrounded yourself with people who love to grouse with you about how tight money is, it’s gonna be challenging when you cross financial benchmarks. I’ve been investing in mastermind groups that are not cheap to join specifically so I can have convos with millionaires about what’s normal, so I’m ready for that new normal. You can’t have “normal” conversations about a millionaire lifestyle with thousandaire friends. (Tweet it.) Don’t expect that of them. But prep yourself for the shift that will come with something as subtle as you being able to do LESS of your “survival job” over time.
As our worth shifts internally, be prepared for the ripple effects to show. It can make others uncomfortable. Good. We WANT to be a money magnet. We WANT to have money stick around when it floats into our lives. And we WANT to accept the value of our full enoughness. We set ourselves up to do so by allowing the shifts that knowing we are worthy creates happen. See the discomfort in others over our shifts in enoughness as a sign that the work is working!
Aligned Hustle Calendar
We’ll start off with your friendly reminder that we begin March in Pisces season and still in Mercury retrograde. Great time for revisiting, revising, reviewing… not so much for starting new ventures, buying new tech, or committing to anything with a contract. If you must, please take TIME to read and reread everything. Twice. Three times. Communication is just hinky and it’ll all move more smoothly for us after the 9th of March (and way better by the 19th, thanks to entering Aries season on the Spring Equinox).
Oh! Our full moon on the 9th is all about releasing details that really don’t matter that much. This is the culmination of our new moon intentions planted back in August of 2019, so let go of anything you thought might finally get off the ground in the new year but STILL hasn’t happened. Thank the Virgo moon for its ability to spot what needs to be worked on and the Earth energy behind it, giving us the ability to DO that work.
The 12th is good for starting projects that require some intense focus. The 14th can be a superfun day and the 15th is a GSD day, as is the 16th. I also really like the 19th for some massive mojo. When Saturn moves into Aquarius on the 21st, our dreams get a nice boost and we’ll see some *justice* start to percolate as a preview for what’s to come for all of 2021 and 2022! Late on the 23rd as we go into the Aries moon, there’s unstoppable GSD energy that goes through the 25th.
Of course, just before that on the 24th we have our Aries new moon which is a spectacular time to plant seeds for your next six months’ intentions, specifically ones that land in Aries’ zone of genius (starting things, taking initiative, having infinite energy, and finding new things to discover about everything). Start thinking now about what kinds of intentions you want to set to take you from spring to fall.
Make the 26th and 27th some good self-care, at-home, and spa-day type days. We end the month with yummy GSD energy on the 28th and 30th. And even though promotion is favored on the 31st, because of that Cancer moon, it may be a bit subtle in tone.
As always, for those of you enrolled in Aligned Advantage, we’ll go deeper on all of this, continue our look into how Jupiter leads to our abundance in life, and explore the April calendar on the 21st. (Not enrolled but curious to go deeper on this? Head over here.)
All right, you miraculous money magnets, I adore you all! Let’s get paid! Let’s celebrate the abundance all around us! And let’s jam below about the rough spots so we can smooth them over while leaning into all the advantages our Expansive Capacity work provides!
All my ninja love,
Wanna join us for our monthly LIVE interactive mastermind meeting? Register here ASAP! This month’s meeting will take place via Zoom on Thursday, March 19th, at 12:30pm PDT. Translate that to your time zone here.
After you register, you will receive an email with information on how to connect. You are welcome to go on camera for this mastermind session, or simply unmute yourself to participate live audio-only. Yes, we will be recording the meeting and putting its replay here for you to consume. Hooray!
Please post questions *here* (even though the robot email from Zoom includes an email address for questions). Thank you. 😉
If you’ve never Zoomed before, we recommend you get all set up *before* our meeting. Zoom is free, and there’s info on how to get going here.
Meeting Replay
This one was epicly long, y’all. I’m glad we could share this space with one another. I love you all so much!
Click here to download a PDF of the incredibly rich chat from today’s massive session.
Post-Zoom, here’s the work ahead for you, as we close out March.
- Find out what money would say about you? About your relationship? About how at home it would say it feels? What is money’s love language in your relationship with it? Journal about this! It may surprise you (and illuminate blocks you didn’t realize you were so committed to keeping active).
- Notice where you are diminishing your victories and ask yourself why you feel you need an asterisk by your achievements. Begin making it feel less than 10% different to OWN those successes (and many more, beyond this level of success).
- Watch this amazing MarieTV interview with Glennon Doyle and check out her book, Untamed.
- Change requires three elements: knowledge, desire, and the will to change. To build will, start with making things less than 10% different as you split (not LUMP) the goal. Then JFDI. Remember, discipline comes from doing it! (My JFDI replay and offering is here.)
- Notice where you are focused on how do I solve this problem? rather than how do I stay open to the solution? — the latter is a far more powerful question because it invites in the miracles of the universe (which can really help with that 10% different part of things).
Links to explore: Excuse Me, Your Life Is Waiting (thank you, Laura, for reading for us today!!), The SMFA Dip Kit (updated!) — please pass it around, and 35 Affirmations for Prosperity and Success (update those passwords too!).
Reminder: There is a LOT happening right now and we’re really good at feeling, interpreting, replicating others’ energy. Be sure to take ownership of the feelings that are your own but LET OTHERS HAVE THE DIGNITY OF THEIR OWN FEELINGS, THEIR OWN EXPERIENCE (yes, I totally caps-locked that whole freakin’ sentence). When a feeling *is* your own, ask yourself, “How committed to these emotions am I?” If you can lessen the commitment to the panic, fear, powerlessness you’re feeling, you leave yourself open to that magic of the universe that is incredibly healing. You KNOW at some level that all is well. Sage your space. Ring a bell. Light a candle. Shave something. RESET the energy. Do this hourly if you need to!
Be proud of yourself. This is big work during a confusing time. Sometimes, the best you can do is to only get out of bed for more icecream. That’s so totally fine right now. You needn’t be anyone’s lighthouse when your own light is feeling dim.
But at some point, we ARE the artists and storytellers and creatives who interpret what is happening in the world so that EVERYONE ELSE can get relief from watching our depiction of what is happening in their lives. So, know low feelings aren’t forever. They can’t be… because the show must go on!
Any questions for us, pop ’em in below! This is where the magic IN YOU happens outwardly. Thank you for sharing your greatness with the world!
Wow, I needed this. I woke up from a nightmare about having to wait tables, and that nightmare always appears when I’m afraid about having enough money. I journaled about it, and fear of having enough and BEING enough came up right away. So coming here to EC and hearing your story, Bon, of working on your enoughness for Fiji with Liz Gilbert, and being reminded of Profit Clarity…. it helped me so much.
3 pages of journaling later, I realized I’m afraid to get paid as an actor, because I’m afraid they’ll decide I’m not good enough. Holy Toledo that’s so scary to share here. And it’s so odd to be experiencing this, because the Rebel in me reminds me I’ve been paid to act since I was a kid. I lived on my actor’s salary for several years in my 20s. Then I moved to NY (Next Tier) and I got into the struggle of trying to survive. My husband recommended a corporate job because it had insurance. I had blacked out at an audition and broke my front teeth which cost $5000 we didn’t have to fix, because I didn’t have insurance.
Flash forward to where I am now and I have enough money because of my corporate job, but… do I? If I’m still having waiter dreams, what am I scared of?
The big thing that helped here is the reminder to shift my mindset. I think I got caught up in my husband’s fear and my parents’ old programming of “there’s never enough.” Being reminded that there IS enough, that I am surrounded by abundance gave me this delicious big breath of calm. I am safe. It is safe for me to succeed. It is safe for me to be healthy and wealthy and everything ‘ealthy. 🙂 Thanks, Keith and Bon.
This nightmare was also a wake up call that I can be doing more to nurture my mindset every day. A friend recently shared Deepak Chopra’s 21 Days of Abundance, and Deb Unger has been sharing daily posts on social media. I hear ya, Universe!
Bon, your reminder to revisit Abe Hicks is such a good nudge too. That’s my own internal nudge because I had stopped listening, and I’m not sure why. This skeptical side has appeared recently – Oh! hello, Shadow! – that’s been questioning everything. I bet that’s a part of me that’s come up to keep me “safe.”
I also realized from your questions in this month’s topics that I have been keeping myself “safe” at an unsatisfying tier, which is strange because I have been receiving internal proof that I CAN succeed. I realized what came up from that was a fear of “losing it all,” that once I succeed, what if I lose everything? Family,friends, love? I realize that’s “the norm” I’m afraid of losing. Watching the self-sabotage vid, it made so much sense.
I took a leap this year and invested in a writing class at NYU. It’s $700 for 10 weeks and I had to talk myself into it, even though I knew in my gut it was exactly what I was looking for. I told myself, “it’s the same amount you’re spending on acting classes.” So my logic brain could make room for it. Now, to make room for that AND acting classes AND film classes AND to get paid for being on TV and onstage… can I stretch to give myself that?
It’s funny, when I think of my nieces, I would give them the world? Why can’t I give that to myself? I realize I’m working through a lifetime of programming, so it’s going to take some time to rewire, but I can do it if I invest in that every day.
Going to look into Get Rich, Lucky Bitch.
I also did my profit clarity, and I made a 10% profit from my musical recordings last year. That was a shock because I was sure I had spent the money I earned on voice lessons to improve the recordings, but I actually profited! Ha! And I released a gig I THOUGHT I was profiting from because it looked like extra money in the bank, but I was actually breaking even with it because I was spending so much extra time outside of class, helping my students and feeling terribly unfulfilled. That ROI was not worth it and the minute I said, “This is my last class,” I felt so much better!
So now… training the amygdala to feel safe with prosperity as an actor. A part of me really wants to argue that it’s safer to succeed as a writer or filmmaker, and I want to do that too, but I really gotta take a leap and give myself that gift of prosperity for my acting and singing. I really do.
Girl, I hear you on this one!! I read once that women uniquely believe they will end up in menial jobs or homeless (or with too many cats) and that it stems from a buried belief of past societal norms will come back to be standard again. That sometimes women don’t think the success they built is real and they will default back to 50 years ago. I’m sure there is a slightly different version of this for men but I’m
Fascinated that women fear reversal more than a lot of other things.
I invested a lot in my business late last year and early this year. I am also having the sticker shock experience both you and Bonnie describe. Just this morning I was reminding myself it’s no different than the investment that college was and if it doesn’t pay back immediately, that’s cool, I can handle it. But to be bold and state declaratively that I am worth the price of admission for a big ticket thing wakes up a lot of enoughness demons. They were sleeping so soundly too! But when I look back at the rewards and financial
Abundance that has flown into my life from investing in Bonnie and Denise’s programs, the proof is in the pudding as they say. That’s why data and profit clarity and money tracking and all of it is so important! What we feel is not *necessarily* true but lizard brain works so hard to convince us otherwise!
Okay, I need to get back on my own mat and do my work around this. Don’t want to blow up your post about me. ❤️ Just saying I see you, I hear you, I am here with you on this. xo
This was so helpful, Rhianna. Thank you!
I LOVE this: “I am worth the price of admission” and “ What we feel is not *necessarily* true but lizard brain works so hard to convince us otherwise!” So true on both counts!
I see you and hear you too, dear friend. Thank you for that, Rhianna. 🙂
I love all of this and I love you, Laura. You’re doing the work and that’s enough.
I’d love for you to look at the blacking out/teeth breaking incident. Have you fully cleared the block that created that moment for you? Have you forgiven that moment for causing you to choose a safe job? Something that big and dramatic usually has some ripple effects that can have their hooks in our beliefs.
Yes, I want you to keep doing the reparenting part too — I especially love you thinking of your love for yourself as parallel to that of your love for your nieces, and checking with yourself to be sure you’re being as good to YOU as you are to them — but let’s have you look at whether there’s a hook in that whole “having to get injured to prove you needed a jobby-job” that might need cleaning up too.
You may find there’s nothing there. Just a gut hit that I wanted to share with you.
Now, this is gonna be hard for you to take my triple Aries but I’d love for you to try and DO LESS around some of this. Just ease into it. Don’t see it as something you have to wrestle to the floor and get tackled and figured out and busted free. Let it be easy. Let the messages your body has for you show up more. The fact that you got three pages of journaling out today tells me there’s a LOT of communication going on. Let it flow.
Don’t rush to act on any of it yet. When I share Liz’s daily enoughness exercises during the Zoom, I think you’ll have some really good ideas about what to do next.
XO
Wow, Bon! Thank you for all these delicious thoughts. And I will try not to ram up the mountain of each idea, though believe me, I really want to take on those mountains.
I read each idea again and will give myself time to journal on each one.
I also Re-read this month, and new pieces stuck out to me. I love when that happens.
When you wrote about getting sick yourself as a way to “protect” yourself, I totally got that, and I will look at my “big fall” which took out my front teeth and made me feel like I had to get a jobby job…. So fascinating how much we need to release and heal and forgive in order to move forward more easily. I’m finding if I don’t take care of this stuff, it comes up again and again til I heal it. And that’s more than ok. 🙂
To be continued…
Proud of you. Just added another note to myself about our Zoom to share (from Liz). Just know that our bodies are infinitely intelligent about how to heal; our brains on the other hand are pretty clueless about how to soothe the messages THEY GIVE US.
Thank you, Bon. I’ve been taking time to listen to Abe Hicks in the morning again, to journal, and I got such clear messages of synchronicity this morning. My sister-in-laws both came to me, asking for help with manifestations, and I found myself echoing Lynn Grabhorn’s message of getting into the feeling place of want you want and imagine having it (from her book, which you recommended, “Excuse Me, Your Life Is Waiting”). I realized that as I gave them both this message, it was also meant for me. Anytime something appears twice it’s such a clear signal to me, and I marveled at how quickly the universe works if we’re open to listening to it.
So many great messages. Working through the fear, getting specific with what I want and how I can take a safe space with me into auditions. It is safe for me to succeed.
I realized the blacking out event was my whole system shutting down, partially because I was on the Atkins Diet and my body did not have the nutrition it needed to sustain itself, and partially because my mental wiring wasn’t ready for me to succeed.
So I have been affirming: It is now safe for me to succeed.it is safe for me to be healthy and wealthy. 🙂
Beautiful work, Laura. Really good.
As ever, so well timed, Bonnie! thank you! As I step into my own role guiding creatives in their money stuff, it really does shine the light back on me.
I would argue that you are more relatable now that you can offer the vulnerability of this journey to us from a place of strength than perhaps when you felt like you struggled with the starving artists you help. ❤️ I am profoundly moved by the level of work and commitment to yourself you describe here. It really does have the power to shift everything. I need to take some space on the power of all that you share but can not wait to circle back. I am being called by something deep and I want to build space for it before I go there. Love you! ❤️❤️
“Building space for it before we go there” (love that you’ve worded it this way. It’s great!!) is so important. Think of it like setting the place at the table for a dinner guest you’re honored to host.
We do so much prep work to make someone feel at home when they’re only coming over for a few hours! We find out their food allergies. We make sure we know what they LOVE to have (and we have it if we can). We’re playing music we know they’ll enjoy. We make the place look and smell and feel great… and they’re only coming over for a few hours.
Why is it weird that we may need to do a lot more prep work for something we’d like to stick around in our lives forEVER?!? 🙂
Got to journaling about next-tier realities before I had to stop and share/unpack what I’ve worked on so far.
Re: money + family, now that I think about it, I’ve actually had great examples of financial abundance + told that money is great. My parents immigrated here with nothing in their late 20s, speak broken English, and have amassed great wealth for people who have the odds stacked against them. I look at my dad and am so amazed and proud that he was able to manifest all the financial abundance in his life because I can barely do my own taxes, and I’m from here and am familiar with the laws and can speak/cross-reference people! However, I think it’s the cultural context from which they speak from that has caused money mindset stickiness. Because I’ve been thinking about money a lot late and wondering how much of what I have stickiness about is mine or theirs.
SO I create two columns, one labeled “my parents relationship with $” and the other “my relationship with $” and saw a direct correlation of what they believed/valued have some kind of effect on what I believed/valued.
– My parents: you can’t be happy without money. → I’m constantly living from paycheck to paycheck, and even though I always land on my feet and am living the artist life I’ve dreamed of, I feel like I’m constantly postponing the happiness I feel about my life because I’m not financial secure yet.
– My parents: you don’t know the value of it. → I find myself telling friends, “I’m not good at money!”
– My parents: you must work hard for money. what you do is a hobby. → Because my parents don’t value my work, I overcompensate by working that much harder, but I’m realizing, because I value my parents belief that my work is not valuable, this is a losing game. I will not value my own work if I continue to believe what my parents say about what I do.
– They worry about me and money. → so I worry about me and money. This was something I’ve been ruminating on this past month because I’m ALWAYS worried about money, even though in my life, I’ve always managed to pull through in some way or another. And it made me wonder, is this MY worry or THEIR worry.
– My parents: money is a status symbol + security. You need this to secure your place in society, which makes you a more valuable bride. → huge knowledge bomb for me because I’ve known that I’ve tied money to my self-worth, I just didn’t know why. This is why I feel so bad about not being able to make money the way they can and did. And because of what they’ve told me about money = status symbol, I equate money with status, and my idea of the kind of people who are attracted to status by way of money is not what I’m about… but I’m understanding that this is just my IDEA of it.
All that + acknowledging my privilege + Asian immigrant guilt makes this a yummy delicious sticky mud pie. I know that I’ve come this far BECAUSE of the foundation they built for me. I didn’t have to start over when I was almost 30 to pursue my dreams. I didn’t have the societal pressure like they did to get married, have kids, make money, etc. So then, it feels like, maybe I am being naive and optimistic because I didn’t sacrifice as much as they did or in the way that they did.
What do I personally believe in? I think, fundamentally, I believe that money will come to me. In college, I didn’t care about my grades because I loved all the classes I was taking, and I got A’s in the classes I REALLY loved, and I got A-‘s and B+’s in the classes I had to take. And yes, we’re not all lucky, and we all don’t get the life we wanted handed immediately to us, but I’m doing the groundwork for it today, so that I CAN get all the financial A’s in my life.
And also, we’re always rejecting people who come from/have money. So there’s THAT.
I also felt very seen when you said you’ll find a way to be an outsider, which I’ve done!!! I’m like, “Ah, that’s the thing I do when I join a thing and don’t want to get TOO involved.” But the thing I found fascinating about that statement was… so we find a way to make ourselves be an outsider to the very group/new group we so want to be a part of? Even though we know we know longer want to hold the values/beliefs of the old group that we’re coming from? Like, that’s bonkers to me but articulating that out loud makes me see how desperately safe our lizard brains need to feel.
Hmm, maybe I should talk to my lizard brain more. Courtney came to mind first (for Cerebral Cortex). Amy or Delilah might also work because… amygdala. Heehee.
Really excited for this month!
Love the names you’re considering for your lizard brain. FOR SURE it has a lot of practice at keeping its needs met. It’s how we breathe without having to tell our bodies to do so. Our primal functions are at the core of how we continue to exist, even if we lose EVERYTHING that is a component of modern living and thriving.
Yes, definitely, even if you know you want the evolved setpoint of the peer group you’re hoping to join, there’s something very big and primal fighting that if it’s more than 10% different from how we were raised. So this is why INCREMENTAL changes work way better than night-and-day ones.
Looking over your list (which I’m so proud of you for doing), I see a lot of things where money is just the means of worrying about you for your parents. They want to worry about you (period) and they choose effective, culturally acceptable ways of doing so. Money is just the means of conveying their worry.
See if you can replace MONEY for BANANAS or something else absurd. “We want to be sure you have enough bananas. You will never have enough bananas. You don’t understand how bananas work. Having more bananas will get you respect.” Separate out the THING they’re using from the INTENTION they have, here. I think that might help with this already stellar work you’re doing, Q.
Love you!
This was so helpful to see, Quincy, and I could relate to a lot of it. Isn’t it fascinating how value is wrapped into so much of it?
Ah, I like that. “Money is just a means for them to worry about me.” That’s really nice of them to do that. I mean that sincerely. Makes me appreciate them for worrying about me. It also makes me think: they don’t have to do that. If I ever got into some real shit… I’d talk to my sister and my friends about what to do and figure it out.
Ran into 10% different yesterday during pole. Was trying to do a shoulder spin and I physically could not do it because I had to tuck my head under my body, and Courtney Lizard Brain was like, “BUT WAIT. HOW ARE YOUR LEGS MOVING THAT WAY WHEN YOUR HEAD IS GOING THIS WAY?!?!”
Here’s a realization I made recently that I’ve been ruminating on.
I recently was thinking about abundance in my life that doesn’t pertain to $, and I realized, yo, I’m RICH. After years of trash friends, I have amazing ride-or-die friends. After struggling to get opportunities as a freelance copywriter, I’ve been manifesting amazing opportunities to write as a TV/screenwriter, even though I’m a still a “baby” writer. After a series of garbage boyfriends, my new boyfriend is so nice and wonderful to me. I’m living my life on my terms and not on my parents term, though bless their hearts, they do their best to test me. Do I have a lot of credit card debt? Yes. Have I not made any money in the past two weeks because my main freelance gig hasn’t given me any hours? Yes. Are these writing opportunities an investment in my future self but as of now, there hasn’t been any return on them aka moolah in my pocket right now? Yes. But
looking at what I used to NOT have and remembering how badly I wanted to have those things and seeing how I now DO have those things shows me that I CAN do this. I can and WILL have the financial abundance I want because I’ve already proven to myself that I can manifest what I want. I just haven’t received the thought of inspiration that will get me there, but I will get there. I just need to ride this out [:
Love the swap for bananas. I’ll use it in my next thought.
Another thing that really got me going was finding the CHOICE in things. Like, I was super bummed out that I couldn’t take any of the workshops offered by the out-of-town pole dancers that were in LA last month because of bananas. Sometimes, it’s a bummer even to be at the grocery store to be like, eff, I don’t have enough bananas to buy this snack I want. But then I realized, what if I stopped seeing it as a reason to be unhappy and saw it as an opportunity to be happy. Instead of being like, “Ugh, I guess I’ll HAVE to practice pole at home since I don’t have any choice…,” I thought… “What if staying at home was an opportunity for me to work on conditioning so that I stay strong between classes?!” “Yes, buying the book at the local bookstore to support local businesses is nice, but I COULD also WALK to the library because it’ll be an excuse to walk and take a break!!!!” WHO NEEDS BANANAS?!
I mean, we all do, but… you know [:
LOVE these reframes, Quincy. You’re doing a spectacular job of building these muscles and I love the workout you’re getting with these tools. Yes, yes, yes!
Another reframe occurred to me and as I reread the stuff on shadow beliefs.
Somewhere along my journey, I picked up the idea that I come from a family of lack because my parents are immigrants, they grew up in post-war Korea, I’m the first to get college-educated, etc. All true things, but that’s like looking at the beginning and nothing else. When I look at where my family is now, we’re actually a family of abundance. My dad was able to take all the “nothings” and “zero’s” in his life, and in spite of ALL the things that were going against him (not being able to speak English, not being an American citizen, not having any resources or support from his family, etc.) and make a lot of somethings with lots of zero’s at the end of a check. That’s fucking dope. And if my dad can do it, surely I can too.
Playing your doubles game with money. Just doubled my income from 100K to 200K. It’s not a big shift, but it’s interesting to see how that feels a little weird, so getting comfortable with that number (: Also playing it with my dream acting/writing job. Started off with 1 theatrical audition and writing-related meeting a week sent to me by my HELL YES agent and manager with 1 booking every 3 months. Starting teensy tinesy small to help me get more specific on my bigly dream of writing and acting on an FX show.
Yaaaaasssssssss! So good, Quincy. This is really important reframing and so empowering!
No matter how much I’ve worked on this and know my issues. It’s a pain in my gut.
It’s a fear that has kept me in the job I hate forever. And ever since I’ve moved to LA. a fear of being homeless has really taken root inside me.
I know my issue with money stems from my parents. Dad was terrible at holding down jobs. We moved seven times before I even made it to high school. But we never moved far.. It was always one county over or six blocks from one house. When money was tight my parents would take my birthday and Christmas money from my grandparents and tell me I needed to help out the family and they’d use it for milk and toilet paper.
So I always new money would disappear so why not spend before some one took it.
I also associate money with status. My family was considered white trash. I ran from that and I guess some part of me feels that way. I’m afraid to actually start dating because I’m a bartender at my age and embarrassed.
Debt makes me sick to my stomach. Bonnie when you talked about your set point for taking retreats. I recently went through this with finishing Debra Silverman’s level 3 astrology course. It was 5 grand and I couldn’t pull the trigger. Four years ago I moved to LA with no debt, a car payment, saving and money in an IRA. Now I have no car, am about 7 grand in debt, no savings and a big chunk of my IRA gone.
The restaurant business was always so easy and the money was great that I couldn’t let myself start somewhere on the bottom and work my way up. But I also never thought I’d be doing it at this age and my body is slowly telling me I can’t do it anymore.
I also find the WHY is a big thing for me. I don’t really have one that will make me move away from the easy money. I guess this stems from my not enoughness, but I don’t feel that fighting for just me is enough. I don’t know what to do with that. I also feel that this might also stem from physical stuff in my brain and body. I believe my adrenals are shot and my thyroid maybe going wacky.
I’ll just keep working on it. I chose the Four Spiritual loves of Prosperity for the reading.
That’s a great choice. I’m looking forward to what it teaches you.
Also, BIG HUGS, Remy. This is not small stuff and I honor you for diving in on it so fully.
What blocks you from starting charging money for your astrological services (despite not having done Debra Silverman’s higher-tier course)? You don’t need to have gone all the way through her training (or ANY training) to start your own astrology business. You have enough of a foundation that that’s enough to start offering it up, and perhaps that gets some money coming in for you in a non-bartending way.
Worth a shot? What have you got to lose?
Meanwhile, yes, do some work every day to heal that sweet child who got so many big setpoints for money that you’re still having to work around/push against/heal from. You can turn all of that around with some mindful, dedicated healing work around it.
Show up for Dana Middleton’s Monday morning tapping sessions on her Aligned Artist Facebook page/group. Specifically tap on issues of money and enoughness and the fear of being homeless or stacking up debt.
This is the work! I’m so proud of you. You know where these issues got planted (and that they’re not even YOUR issues) so that’s a great start to getting them healed and released. 🙂 It’s coming. Keep doing this work.
Thank you Bonnie,
I’ll check out Dana’s page. I did buy the tapping summit last week so I also have 10 days of all sorts of taping stuff. I am able to do readings. I charge 50 for 30 just have to figure out a market strategy.
Launch at 85%, baby! You’ve got this!! I’m excited to book a reading with you!
Remy, i hear you in so much of this: “I guess this stems from my not enoughness, but I don’t feel that fighting for just me is enough.“
Did you listen to Bon’s recent live post about the 3 states of being Relaxed, which she learned from Liz Gilbert? If not, check it out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f8CGIGxnwZ0
The Sacred Circle blew my mind and helped me understand boundaries in a much better way.
Remy, YOU are sacred. You and your enoughness are worth fighting for.
What do you want to allow into your sacred circle?
I don’t know if it’ll help, but Lynn Grabhorn’s book “Excuse Me Your Life is Waiting” has been coming up bigtime for me regarding money and manifestation. Can you imagine having what you want, what you need, and how fabulous that feels? Getting into the feeling place of “having” is such a fascinating experience! Coupled with all this gorgeousness Bonnie is teaching… I wonder if it might help you on your journey.
You’re not alone, lady. We see you, we hear you, and we love you. You’re in the midst of good growth! We all are! 🙂 Rock on!
This is great advice, Laura. Would you like to read something from Excuse Me, Your Life Is Waiting on the Zoom? Doesn’t have to be long, just a little something to help add to the inspiration?
Sure! Do you want me to send it to you first, Bon?
Nope! I trust your choice! 🙂
thanks Laura,
I think I have that book somewhere. I’m going to go dig and see if I can find it.
Just wanted to send you a hug <3 I'm right there with you girl in terms of having mango sticky rice around making money. Working through it in the trenches with you!!!!!
Thanks Quincy. I love how you find the riches in your life and all the reframes Bonnie mentioned. Glad to have you walking the trenches with me.
I don’t have too many stickies around money because I’ve always had it, it flows easily for me, and it seems to find me randomly; which I love! It helps that I had parents that taught me the basics of investing and gave me a few small bailouts when I failed in some investments. The one thing I have to do better at is paying on time.
I want to teach my kids even better practices for staying and swimming in the loot 🙂 I loved Bonnie and Keith’s spend 10,000k a day game. My nesting partner and I play together from time-to-time. Currently, I am playing with numbers to be able to sponsor a women’s F1 team and the product that I’ll advertise through my team.
Nice!!
Rock on!
I’ve been holding off this month for all sorts of ‘reasons’, and I’m only reading the first part of this and I have a deep pit in my stomach. The idea of spending £10k on a retreat for myself makes me feel nauseous, so much guilt and unworthiness. BUT on the other side, I had booked with a couple of friends to go and see Abraham Hicks at the beginning of May in Spain, which was only a few hundred pounds for a couple of days. Of course, I hadn’t factored in travel and hotel, which ratcheted it up, but the point was that I booked it. Baby steps. I am surprised and not surprised by the depth of my response to the idea of spending that kind (Denise-kind) of money on myself, though.
Getting back to reading …
Can you play with the “there’s a future me who has no problem dropping $30K on a week on a private island” line, like I did? Just start warming up to the possibility that there is some version of you who is okay with that amount?
I’m still not there (believe me!) but I’m closer than I was before. 😉
Excited about you going to Abraham-Hicks in Spain! That sounds amazing!
“The brain does not have the ability to perceive things that are more than 10% different from what it has established to be reality” This is what we’re living now in London with Covid-19. It’s like the Phony War at the beginning of World War Two, the period where nothing happened but we know that it’s going to. We can’t take it in, precisely because it IS more than 10% different and it literally feels unreal to a lot of people.
OMG, Bonnie, “Because I wanted to have not just this experience I was investing in but the FULL impact of it — which would require being present for it, not mired in my own low enoughness about how I don’t belong amongst these fabulous women who invest in such things all the time — I started right then in August 2019 doing the work of being fancy enough to have invested in myself like this.” This is exactly what happened to me going to LA for the Oscars in 2016. All I wanted was to be present, and I was and it was amazing. It’s so interesting how enoughness has so many facets. I was able to do that, to be in an Oscar-nom movie, go and do parties and such, step and repeat and hold my enoughness, but the idea of spending that kind of money on myself, of making that kind of financial investment and NOT on my family/kids makes me feel SO uneasy, makes me want to cry.
And yet … I’ve just started investing in myself in going back to getting laser treatments for my face, in getting my teeth sorted – all relatively weighty financially – and still the idea of being so publicly self-caring feels dangerous. I can do the other stuff privately. My partner doesn’t need to know or know how much it costs. So I can hide it. But going on that kind of retreat – ANY kind of retreat (which is something I’ve been thinking about for around 6 months and would LOVE to do) feels wrong and dangerous. My immediate thought, having written this, was that my mum always put us first and didn’t look after herself – but that’s just a story I’m telling myself, becuase in reality the ONE thing my mum did for herself was travel. When we were at school the only thing she spent money on for herself was traveling. Huh. But that’s not the story I’ve told myself about her. Something in me refuses to see that as self care or self-love because my narrative around her is about self-sacrifice for her children. DAMN. I’ve fucking made some of this shit up. FUCKING HELL. Memory is totally unreliable and so fricking subjective. And sneaky.
And this … THIS: “I would want to downplay the fanciness of it all. I had to build up a muscle for feeling SAFE saying …” This is me. ALL THE FUCKING TIME. Please let me fit in. Please let me fit in. Please. Please. Please.
OMG this has just boomeranged into something else, which is that i do not have a muscle for feeling safe saying “I’ve just booked a recurring role on …”. I feel SAFE with the smaller roles. GAH.
(btw I just want to let you know that I’m reading this and having all these amazing insights whilst cooking dinner for the fam who are all around me and I have a glass of wine and am typing on the kitchen worktop and it’s all so amazing! And today is our first evening in full social distancing, as in one kid’s school closed today and I’ve made the decision to take the other two out as of tomorrow to try and slow the virus spread.)
And reading about your practising being there is bringing tears to my eyes because it’s just so beautiful. And loving. And generous.
Gotta go, feed kids very late.
Lucy, let’s be sure I tell the story of the Emmy conversation I had within hours of arriving in Fiji. It’ll help you with practicing saying you’ve booked recurring roles.
I *love* that you caught the faulty memory at work and can see your mother more accurately with this work. SO SO SO good! I’m just thrilled with the impact this work continues to have in your life, sweetie.
Thank you for sharing your process, Lucy. Your insights were amazing. I feel like I was experiencing them with you! And I totally get that feeling of inadvertently staying at a lower tier because it feels “comfortable.” You are so much more – WE are so much more – than our comforts and discomforts. It’s just a matter of stretching, allowing ourselves to stretch and grow, to become our full selves.
I’ve just come off of listening to Abraham Hicks so I’m feeling incredibly expansive. Not sure if what I’m writing makes “sense,” but that moment you shared of writing your epiphanies while drinking a glass of wine in your kitchen, surrounded by your family, I thought, “One day Lucy will be able to fully share these insights with her family.” You’re in the midst of transformation.
You wrote about feeling safe in smaller roles. Can you practice, as Bonnie wrote, feeling safe in your Bigness? I realize that’s a lesson for me too. To practice every day feeling safe and comfortable in my Bigness.
Oh! The gift of this community! It truly is such a gift.
Wishing you and your family well.
My FAVORITE gift. 🙂 Seriously, I love y’all so much!
“I don’t believe we always need that much time acclimatizing to our next-tier experiences, but I do believe — if the tier jump is significant enough — we DO need to do the work daily ’til we feel the shift really TAKE ROOT.” I so hear you on this. And this is where I often fall down, if the resistance is leading the charge with enough oomph. I just realised one big received belief around money – having money is NOTHING to do with enough ness, it just means I’m lucky. And linking money with my own enoughness is hubris, is claiming something that isn’t mine, there’s no idea that I could be worthy of that money. If it comes to me, it’s a stroke of fate, the idea that I could somehow deserve it just feels ‘off’. Got some writing to do.
That you, Bonnie, this revisit is golden.
Oh, I’m so glad! 🙂 Isn’t it fascinating how the work opens up at whole new levels when we’ve done a lap (or more) before? XO
I put both ebooks by DDT on hold on my library account, and in my looking at reviews, I stumbled on Kimberly Parker’s “The Economy of You: Discover Your Inner Entrepreneur and Recession-Proof Your Life”. One of my areas of resistance is a feeling when I work on other income streams that I am casting a no-confidence vote for my ability to be a working actress. When I read a sample of her book, she specifically mentioned that this is not just for people with soul-sucking 9-5 jobs, and used Sarah Jessica Parker and Gwyneth Paltrow as examples of successful celebrities who were making money just fine as actresses, but wanted to have more control over their careers. I just downloaded it and I don’t know if it will be any good overall, but I sense that there’s something there for me in terms of calming down that muscle that says, “You have to work on other income streams because you’ll never make it as an actress.”
Ooh, do let us know how that book turns out. I like that example of SJP and Gwyneth for sure!
That sounds awesome, Denise!
I’m not sure how to jump in here but will jump in anyway. Reading through all the lesson again as i had looked at it all before but left it aside to come back to and there is so much in here, and i would say this is the most ‘difficult ‘ overwhelming month subject for me, at least the one i am’ least practiced in.’ But you say Bonnie its really all about worth and especially after todays reading and listening i can see that clearly and i think from that point i am closer to being able to flow in this direction, Reading though all the comments and everybodys perceptions and issues are so relatable to , so i see i am not alone with some things, we all have our own way to work through it .
I have got Chillpreneur on kindle and will later look at he other books which i saved for later, They all; feel alien to me as i havn’t ever really thought much about this kind of thing and now is the time,Im so glad i started working with you Bonnie as this has made a huge change in my life,
My relation with self worth or value of myself i think is improving all the time even though still masses of work to do but its going in the right direction, Value for value you say, yes i see that , and that if i valued what i have to offer more, all the aspects i would receive something in value.
My self care has improved but as am still stuck with a situation embroiled in having to be around my brother and his family where i feel totally misunderstood and undervalued severely so and hurt by them, and afraid of being persecuted , i slip back into habits of feeling enraged but really am very vulnerable. Also still stuck in a place where i don’t want to be physically (now even more so because of the corona virus) but until i can sort my parents things out and sell this house and be able to move forward in my life, it is difficult. Luckily all this work on line and other things i am doing on line i am developing and growing and getting ready, in a way.
I thought about the profit clarity and did it in my head which was a help but since i hadn’t earned any money this year form acting or from anything else except from some money that i received as i was being a carer for my mother which provided me with a basic income to manage while i was here and some other support from a cousin who is an amazing man who has a lot of these qualities we talk about here, and seems to understand me and my situation and certainly always makes me feel worthy, without me asking he is a business person and is now learning to sing ( we have the same voice teacher ). I can see from my other previous small incomes, Alexander teaching, playing violin, teaching violin, piano , tango , tango teaching , that if were to invest in them a bit more then they would be possible sources of some income,
Since being an actor Alexander technque was one way i had to have a few students and be free a lot of the time for acting and in many ways this was good as apart from the fact that it could pay quite well by the hour for a private lesson (although not so popular now and not easy to find a lot of students, i also felt later that it had been detrimental to my acting as it was detaching me from my feelings, Now i think it probably wasn’t that it actually helped hold me together not to fall in to pieces, and that there was other work to be done internally, on my feelings, I now have re joined the society of Alexander teachers int he UK in case i want to or can find some students if i would have a place to give them , that was an investment for the year,,
I also used to earn money as a violinist, in previous times, in those kind of circles that would be pretty impossible now but there are a few things that i could do maybe now and again if i could find someone to work with and keeping practising a bit is what i do for now, I have the ability to play , to sing, to record , to write, and i think if i could take things more in hand and let go, i could maybe come up with something ,but for the moment it is just a thought, In Argentina i was doing things i had a little show with a programme of songs poetry , i played, sang danced,, a woman i rented a room from had suggested to me with all my talents ( abilities lets say ) i needed to earn money with them and i see that really this is what is coming uo now. It actually was good and led to me writing the show that i did in the UK and performing it , I always like in Denises comment above have been afraid that since i started acting, if i do something elses it means i am less of an actress, and i guess its just not true, With the alexander technique there was something in this as it did require being the calm centred strong person and the vulnerability i had was put aside and i’m not sure that was good for my acting but im open now to see if this is true or not true as it is a skill i learned for many years and a quite amazing thing at its best, Maybe i wasn’t t ready to be that person,
I had work as a violinist fairly recently but that was in Argentina where things move in a different way, i was in a film with a girl who then made a cd and because we had sung and played on the grass during the shoot on a break on location she knew i played so hired me, and other things which just appeared like that too, I invested in learning tango music and dance, played in bands and ortquestras even in classical things like i had done before,. In the theatre space where i worked and did more training , the director loved my violin and wanted to use it a lot, I used to resist as felt it was against my acting but now see it was one of the most creative experiences i have ever had . He 5 years later called me to the UK to ask me to come to do a 6 month run of a play which i could’ t go to do, But it was a working relationship which i had invested and grown with and i see fruits very often from other people i knew at the time who are in contact with me.
I kept thinking i was undervalued as an ‘actress ‘ if someone wanted something else of me too, and now i see that this is not true , it’s just an asset i have,
This is all coming to me as i write and i am sorry if am am off track of the topic and what was in the lesson,
The other skills i have coould be invested in too,
I signed up for a voiceover workshop next week as i think its about time i got something together in that direction too as i never have and there is no reason why i shouldn’t.
Since acting i seem to (apart from the Alexander tech at one point, to have just done temporary stupid little jobs that paid little , exhausted me and made me feel worthless, as if i had gone backwards .
The story i told you about argentina was a bright spot ,an oasis in all to this in some ways but still with many issues to solve,
Thinking also about my therapist i had there in buenos aires while i was reading todays lesson and suddenly i could see the connection with her and with you Bonnie, that i was going in the direction you are leading us, then , but then i had this set back, when i had to come back and be my familys support etc etc. But then i gained other things too and all in all i needed to be more grounded as i was flying but i think without a base, I am not sure but thats what it seems like now,
Anyway in short there are things i can do that could earn money for me apart from acting which might not take away my acting , and might nourish me m if i only could keep believing in myself in being determined, and motivated and feeling good, It still seems at the moment somewhere in the future, everything does right now, but I’m working on it.as i must find a way ,
Someone else commented here about having a fear of being paid as an actor that they might figure out Im not good enough and sometimes i think that happens to me too,
I am still afraid of myself and what i have to offer so although there is much more ‘;enoughness’ i have plenty more work to do on the core to be really solid. and not shaken,
Self sabotage is definitely high on the list of what happens often ,. I’m scared I’ll modify my behaviour to get pulled back to being small and put down,
I have been journalling and am planning to journal more, i just bought a new notebook with green birds and pink flowers and gold and green plants,
I think self care treatments etc i can invest in when i have the funds , i don’t feel bad about these. At the moment this self isolation anyway is a bit in tune with where i am right now anyway, so need to make the most of the time with what is possible,
I have thought about that thing of when you have money that it is something that will get taken away the fear of losing, in relation to success, and the expectation in my family of me never having any money and them worrying about me, but not really understanding me and what i needed,
My parents are not here any more and i thought about their money beliefs . My mother had in many ways an entrepeneurial crazy`y mind and in another life could have i think made a lot of money, she achieved so much in her life from what she came from, a background with no education and brutal early life, she then got on her feet and because of lack fo education , later wanted to study and make up for everything she had lost and put this above everything else , In spite of that and many of the problems she had in me living a very different life than she wanted for me, she became and probably always was really my biggest support and had an enormous deep love of life and i miss her, She could go with my crazy ideas, i wish we had done more together and not fought against each other but the fact that i know she LOVED me and who she was is what is keeping me ALIVE now.
She was with my father who had certainly ‘issues with money, He had a lot of potential which got swept away which i think i have written about before and don’t want to go into too much right now.He used to talk to me about having a FU fund he called it .He was definetely afraid of not having enough money, came from a working class background and got a fantastic education, was a brilliant scientist and then got ill , after he was refused back in to the US and he sort of gave up after being in a mental hospital having a breakdown and ECT he lost his drive and gave up on one level ,. He had a regular job teaching in a university and was much loved but he lost his drive and motivation for his own work. He was always terrified my mother would spend recklessly any money buying things and could never help me much although always bought me books and things like that, I think he was angry with me later for a long time as it seemed i was always starting form zero and it was always a struggle although he admired me he couldn’t help me .In the end i think he understood , and said i was living my life actually in the best possible way and that i had many friends and that was important, . They are scattered all over the world.I feel he was a bit straight jacketed if you know what i mean and sometimes i think the same has happened to me,he has the resoponisbilty of havuibfg the family and being illm and my mother being colourful and wonderful and demanding and vulnerable with a terrible past, He had such high hopes from life and was a very gentle man who valued life greatly and he was dissapointed and i often feel feel what hen must have felt.
My brother who has always had a regular income as a dr and always been a star pupil etc has for the past few years gone in a direction of money working for a pharmaceutical company in the US, but i get the feeling although he must be making a lot of money that he is a bit of a part in the machinery and fitting in, and could be doing more creatively in that industry with his talents and abilities but i dont understand that industry so maybe i am wrong, One thing i do know is that he is furious with me and i dont really understand why as he doesnt talk about and when now and again things come out in a rage they never get expressed properly . I feel he despises me and its all v very bad right now, Also another thing is that however well off he is, Im not saying he is a millionaire I’m saying he is very comfortable or must be and owns a big house paid off, continuing to work as managing director at pfeisser he seems still to have a mentality of not having any money, Maybe he is afraid that it will all get taken away, he comes from my parents too,.
I wish more than anything in the world, that there would not be this animosity between us and i feel there is nothing i can do to help it except to work on myself and get away as soon as i can, be independent and in the future who knows what may happen, For now he has washed his hands off me and he has no courage at all to stand up to people who are forcing him for a long time it seems to push me away,
He once said i remember in the past ‘ Thats your only problem, money ‘which is so ignorant as of course its not that as you say its all connected to self worth and value and i has huge issues of confidence and inability to show even my vulnerability as i was always fighting with everything, to survive , and couldn’t express how much i was hurting,
I i think had a belief that art and money don’t go together and that probably came from my roots, my grandfather was an artist , my fathers father and that is what i have believed never though i would have much money . I felt that the only way was to go with the art and that is what i have always done ,and at times i had some money from things i did but with acting never had very much , although its not that it started out so badly , i just believed it was bad and didnt’ give myself a chance. I need to use my other skills to compliment me to allow me to earn more to give me support but they need to be things where i feel i can still be creative in them . I believed also that you could be an artist and successful and earn money but for myself i didn’t find the way , Things came to me now and again but when i tried to do anything i felt so uninspired,
As you can see i have a big muddle in all of this but i see everyones thoughts are flowing freely and hope this is the space to just top with the flow . I ca see its about valuing, i can see about organising what’s easiest for me to invest in , i can see what’s not helping me.
I am aware of the qualities i admire in others and that i think i have but I have but havnt had the confidence in them but will try to be more aware of them now, I havnt invested enough in my ‘fortes ‘ my strong points, i have instead rejected them and settled for second best and ‘small head ‘ things doing quick silly things for money and kept on struggling . or with the AT believed it was not good for my acting , it put me in a ‘lull’ i thought sent me to sleep,made me bland . I need PACIENCE to invest in the other things too apart from acting , to see my talents and use them to my advantage , Othere people see them and i shoudnt take that as not meaning they dont see me too, and that its ‘either or ‘I always wanted to be seen through the acting as i believed wasn’t ‘;SEEN ‘
As long as i am determined and focused in what i want this shouldn’t necessarily affect my acting career in a a bad way,But i am always scared it will,
A friend is making me a website and i have a dilemma of how to write the Bio for example. How much of my other skills etc and experience do i put on it if i want this primarally to be a website for me as an actor. I have always wanted to keep the music etc seperate and wonder how to weave it in without it confusing things and making me feel less worthy.
Writing this helped me see some possible ways out ,
My feeling often is that if i wasn’t in this particular situation right now ie having cared for my mother ,now in a house, in a place i dont want to stay , which needs to be sold and everything sorted so a huge accent on their life ,rather than on mine, i will be homeless soon and feel i could be penniless dollarless this is my ;’belief ‘ although i won;’t be in fact and everything is unknown , a fresh start is what i would like and hope for.
Thanks for all this,
See you on the zoom call today!
I’m glad that writing all that out helped you see some positives.
As I read it, the only thought that comes to mind is that both you and your brother need professional help.
And I don’t mean that like “You’re crazy,” but instead from a position of someone who’s been in therapy for almost a decade and I know the rage and I know the fear and I know that therapy will help.
So let me tell you what I feel that means about your relationship with your brother… You don’t have one. I’m going to share this here with you. It’s something that you need to drink in. Here’s the mantra, “Relatives are people with whom you share genetics; Family are those who are close to you. They are not necessarily the same thing.”
You don’t owe your brother anything… any thing… you owe him nothing… not a single thing.
Once you understand that, you can see what kind of relationship with him that might be good for you. Boundaries.
That’s why I’m telling you you need therapy. Therapist are loaded with tools to work through exactly the stuff you’re talking about. They can walk you through what a path to healthy relationships looks like whether that’s a healthy relationship with your brother or a healthy disengagement from the relationship with him if that’s what’s best for you.
And a note on not having money to spend on it… If that’s your situation, I urge you to seek help anyway. I’ve never met with a potential therapist who wouldn’t work payments on a sliding scale based on “ability to pay.” They all do in some form or fashion… or they know a competent therapist who does and will refer you. If you look, you will find someone whom you can afford. Shrinks get into the business because they want to help people… they really do.
It’s an interesting journey you’re on.
thanks `Keith. for all your thoughts and suggestions.
You are right, there is no relationship now,
I am in therapy, and most of the time i’ve been talking about this, I think what has been most clear there recently is that i must not keep hoping that it will be different, that he will be different, or as i thought he was, as it is too deeply disappointing every time. So i think i do need to disengage.
My previous therapist in Argentina , in relation to his attitude, i remember said that she thought something had happened to him…
He was in therapy for years before, i don’t think he is now and am absolutely sure he would he would never go together with me, Probably its that he has disengaged a long time ago, and i’ve kept hanging on. He doesn’t want to find a way to engage with me i can see, and i don’t like this nothingness,
At least that is the way it is now,
We do however need to communicate on some level now until things get sorted on a practical level.
It was funny how i had all these feelings writing that yesterday and working through things and after the zoom call i felt really different, and i did sort of did feel less angry, and caring less about it , then i read your comment.
I think it comes in waves,
I’m sorry if this was not the platform to bring all this in, but it just seemed to rise up out of what i was thinking about and i hope its ok.
Thanks for your awareness that these issues are ones better suited for professionals who are trained in handling them, as well as your journal and your meditative space.
While Expansive Capacity is definitely a supportive and safe space, we hold specific topics of focus each month and we need to stay in our zone of genius about how we can best support EVERYONE here. A great way to know whether anything you’re going through is fair game for sharing in communal spaces is the length test. When you write more than a couple hundred words, a communal space is not the right receiving ground for that. That’s a monologue. A journal entry. A therapy session. A workout of a very different kind than what group spaces are built to support.
Thank you for your concern about the health of this group as a whole. That is very kind and, yes, we hope you’ll continue to explore your needs in therapy whether your brother is involved or not. As always, we ONLY control our own feelings, thoughts, beliefs, and behaviors. Everything else is not ours. Ever.
Sending you so much love, Janet. Now and always.
thank you Bonnie for understanding and for your clarity, wisdom and kindness, and to Keith for all your directness and openness,
I can’t even read my own comment now, so how on earth i thought anyone else could i don’t know,and totally see how not suitable it was here, so again i apologise. it was like a sort of compulsion to write, of course it was too long and much, and i was so exhausted after by the time the zoom came up, and i was so looking forward to the zoom call too and loved being there with you all, even though i didn’t participate verbally.
Maybe its good in a way that it all came up now and to a head, as it is a lesson to stay on track here, I also think everything has come to a head this week anyway in many ways. I need to see if the therapy i am in is helping enough in these matters
I’ll come back here soon when i’ve looked more at the homework but i already know what money would say about me! Sending you much love back.
All good, sweetheart. This is why I show up for sober coaching every week, couples counseling fortnightly, and my own mind-body sessions with my doctor regularly. I know that if I ever let up on any of that, I get out of whack and end up using my entrepreneurial mastermind group as a sounding board for things that are totally not a good fit for that space and those people.
I think it’s healthy to go too far with something and then realize it, pull back (but not pull away altogether), and restore balance. I’m proud of you for recognizing your needs and of course we’re here for you within the scope of our abilities. We all have to be realistic about that! 🙂
Janet, big hugs to you! This family stuff is tough. You’re doing the right thing going to therapy. I can’t say I am glad that what I said resonated with you because nobody should have to have those judgmental voices in their head about earning and talent, but if my mentioning it made you feel a little less alone I am glad for that! It’s really a nightmare to have to go through a tying-up of loose ends with people who either hate you or don’t care about you, but it will end. You won’t. Hang in there!
Hi Denise, thank you for reading all that and for your support and good wishes, hugs to you too, yes its good always to connect with each other, but I think these judgmental voices are a thing of the past and i recognise them as that and i always knew they were not true really, so perhaps not good to dwell on them, even though they come back now and again as we can see it is all about self worth and practise, and so i think we need to forget all that , keep going, working , and not let them come in!
Post Zoom update –
I did the baby step.
Turn on the mic.
Then, because I was already there, I opened the recording program.
Test record. One-two, one-two…
Okay…
Well, since I’m here…
Just practiced some commercial copy (like I’ve been planning to for 3 months) and am grinning like a G-D idiot at how simple the process can be when you break it down to the simple-simpler-simplest step first.
Thanks for the encouraging, supportive, and amazing group – ALL my fellow ninjas are rock stars. (Thanks Keith, for the super specific, practical steps, too!)
Yayayayayayayayay! CELEBRATING YOU!! This is so amazing, Kimberly! Way to rebel against that inertia of NOT JFDI-ing it that was in charge. 🙂 Woo HOO!
Yes yes yes! You got this, Kimberly!
Bon, I meant to ask on the call but forgot: with all the work you’ve done with Abraham Hicks, I remember you saved your favorite vids in a list, and I think you shared it in The Vault. Do you remember, and if so, would you be able to share it here? I’ve been increasing my daily dose of AH and it really helps. Thank you!
Sure thing, Laura! The share was actually done in the SMFA Dojo Facebook group (check the files area for the list). It’s been updated a few times since that version, so if you’ll comment on that file in the Facebook group reminding me to update with the latest faves, the next time I’m at Facebook, I’ll see that tag from you and get you the most updated greatness. Happy to share!
I’m having a feeing to share the steps from Excuse Me, Your Life is Waiting by Lynn Grabhorn, so here goes!
1) Identify what you don’t want. This often helps you find what you DO want.
2) Identify what you want. 🙂
3) One you know what you want, find the FEELING PLACE of HAVING it. Imagine HAVING what you want and notice how that feels.
“The whole process of creating what we want is about getting our thoughts OFF of what we don’t want, ON what we do want, and keeping them there.” Lynn calls this, “opening your valve.” And if you can’t find a happy feeling about what you want right now, let it go entirely and just focus on finding something that feels good. Bonnie’s Dip Kit is a great place to start if you need to find some warm fuzzies.
4) Expect, listen and allow it to come 🙂
Lynn provides a ton of tips and tricks and examples of working through the process, including how to deal with all the noise of the media.
My favorite line is “Remember that your only job is to feel good.” 🙂
Thank you, thank you, thank you!
As I was journalling and reflecting on the post zoom homework, I pulled up my bank account to see how things were looking, and was delighted to see my tax return has come in, and that sparked the realization that Money’s love languages with me are GIFTS and PHYSICAL TOUCH.
Whenever money comes into my life, it feels like a gift. And it always comes exactly when it needs to and usually catches me off guard, surprises me, even if I am expecting it ( which I almost always am). And it fills me with joy! It feels like money is giving me a big warm hug: full of safety, comfort and love.
Now, it is my work to feel the same way when I am giving/spending money.
“I lovingly choose my investments.” <– With precision and specificity, because the gift that scarcity and a low income household upbringing gave me, was a heightened awareness ( my SUPERPOWER!!!) of every way that I choose to spend my money. Which means, I am giving the gift of a big warm, loving, safe, nourishing hug to each and every person/ place/ experience/ creator that I am investing in.
And that gift can be big or small, from the neighbourhood grocer, to Bonnie, to Apple, to supporting a theatre company, a local coffeshop, a local restaurant, a POC artist I follow, to a literal gift bought for someone I love.
Shifting my mindset to this gifting, and love filled exchange fills my body with warmth and delight and I am excited to find out who/what my next gift will be, whether it is giving or receiving.
"I am thrilled when my Money Honey surprises me with a warm hug."
This is so lovely, AJ. I felt a big warm money hug just by reading what you wrote! How magical!
Since the gift can be small, I wonder if you could find a way to give a gift daily or a few times a week, if possible. Tiny little things that can build up ridiculous energetic momentum, starting with that warm/delightful glow of excitement in your core.
I just see that as something that gets you truly GLOWING and becoming more and more of a money magnet, because money so loves the way it gets to be a gift FOR you and FROM you all in one long game of flow!
Yes! a good reminder that it can be small, and especially in this time in which regular income is not steady.
I had a great learning moment last when I watched a live Drag show, and was feeling some fear and scarcity come up around the suggested donation. But once I was aware of that feeling, I was able to switch it to the image of the donation as a way of giving the artists a big warm hug as a thank you for the incredible work they created, I then had no problem sending the donation.
It can be, and is, as small and as big as this.
And to build the muscle, I need to be doing it with frequency. Like you said Bonnie, building that muscle daily, weekly and rerouting the old neural pathways and body/trauma responses entwined within it.
Yessssssss! I’m doing this too! It’s so important to shift how this feels in the brain. Well done, AJ! 🙂
OMG I finally listened to the Glennon Doyle interview with Marie Forleo, and there are so many inspiring gems! This one really stood out to me: “Sometimes it just takes looking at the world through another person’s eyes, especially a child, to forgive yourself and figure out who you really were.”
And it’s so clear to me that we need to forgive and love ourselves and figure out who we really ARE. Embrace our muchness! And money is part of that. It’s just energy. It’s a symbol. And if we’re accepting someone else’s blueprint for what it is – like “money is bad” or “money is dirty” – we’re not accepting our OWN TRUTH about money.
I have this urge to substitute “money” in those sentences with myself or women or men, and I realize I’ve got some fucked up programming! My mom always thought she was bad. I was constantly told I was bad. Then I learned that some men could be bad, and I met friends who perpetuated that word for word: “men are bad.” But I thought, What about my boyfriend? What about my uncle or all the other men in my life that were good and kind and funny and true? And why is it bad for women to go for what they truly want? Why is it bad to have money, to spend money? Its’s all so entangled, and I realize now what a gift it is to be able to untangle it.
Thank you, Bon, for sharing Marie’s site with us, for creating this community where we can explore these ideas and share with each other. It is such a gift.
Absolutely my pleasure, darlin’. Guiding y’all through all of this helps cement so much of it for me as well. 🙂 It’s a pleasure!