Focus on Your Thoughts and Your Actions
Is the ghost of "Money Past" haunting you? Do you feel like no matter what you do to "get ahead" it never works? When money troubles loom, people talk about the failing economy and you know that it is time to pay the tax man it is hard to stay upbeat and positive around money. Sometimes it feels like no matter what you do, it won't be enough.
It is true. What you DO might not be the solution. The problem may not be entirely in what you are doing, it may be in what you are thinking.
Recently the "law of attraction" has gotten a great deal of attention. The law of attraction states that if we change our thoughts and our energies to be more grateful abundant and clear, then we will naturally draw greater abundance and blessings to us. There are literally millions of stories of people using the principles of attraction to turn around difficult financial situations and start living the life of their dreams.
Good news right? Yes. And it doesn't always work that way. Some people just cannot seem to get that magic of attraction working for them. Others do get it to work, but not consistently. Still others find that it works for them most of the time, but events will crop up that do make them scared or confused and then they feel bad about feeling bad because it is "not attractive."
Attraction can work if you do it right, and for people in most situations it can eventually work to create enormous change in their financial circumstances. The key to making the principles of attraction consistently powerful is to think about it much more deeply. The problem is most people have not yet been shown how to attraction work to the next level.
In addition to focusing on abundance and gratitude and doing what we love and all those other principles of attraction you may have heard about, we must also focus on the principle of getting out of our own way. That is we need to take the time to identify the thinking habits that we have developed over a lifetime and get rid of those unhelpful energies. It is rather like cleaning out your refrigerator or pulling weeds. Sometimes the only way to be healthy is to get rid of unwanted gunk.
We DO need to change how we think in order to create lasting prosperity, but we do not need to deny our negative feelings by repressing them or pretending they are not there. Rather we need to take the time to understand the deep spiritual and psychological patterns around money that can block our efforts at attracting and managing prosperity. When we know ourselves and our patterns better we can truthfully let go of unhealthy thinking around money naturally become more balanced and more attractive to abundance.
Know How You Get In Your Own Way
One of the most powerful steps you can take toward clarifying and changing your relationship to money and creating more prosperity is to discover where it is exactly that you have an unhealthy money profile. Once you know your particular weak spots you can then get the information, tools and support to most effectively address that area.
There are many different ways we get in the way of our own abundance. Most people who run into chronic money issues fall into one of six major categories.
The six major trouble spots in our relationships to money are:
1) The Underearner- this person is uncomfortable asking for what they are worth and receiving full reward for the value they provide, they are often very hard workers but unorganized in their business affairs.
2) The Debtor- People who fall into the Debtor archetype feel entitled to what they want NOW, and tend to feel personally or spiritually rejected if they have to defer gratification until later. Often they have a fair amount of suppressed anger from misfortunes and mistreatments earlier in life. (It is important to note that people with ANY of these six problems can end up with significant debt. The Debtor archetype refers only to the personal/spiritual underpinning that creates the issue- not the debt itself.)
3) The Compulsive Spender- This person spends to cover up or deal with negative emotions. They often are very conscious of getting a good bargain on something but get bargains on things they don't actually want or need. Compulsive spenders are often sensitive or creative people who have not yet fully learned to understand and use their ability to perceive deeply. They tend to be easily overwhelmed and use spending as a way to calm down.
4) The Financial Adult Child- People who have a tendency to be a Financial Adult Child tend to avoid learning about money by saying that it is too boring or complicated or putting it off until later, always secretly hoping that someone else will eventually handle things or they will just magically turn out OK. They tend to be independent thinkers and be strongly motivated to contribute to their communities through service, political action, the healing arts or artistic pursuits.
5) The Toxic Achiever-This person will do anything to achieve their dreams, often justifying expenses that just don't make sense and ironically not seeing earning opportunities that would be simpler and perhaps just as rewarding as the difficult ones. Toxic Achievers often are extremely talented and have a high perfectionist drive.
6) The Image Spender- This person spends to impress others. They have a difficult time trusting their own judgment and seek a great deal of external acknowledgement. It is important for them to be seen as successful. Often they have not spent much time thinking about what they really want out of their lives and just go from thing to thing, or new purchase to new purchase without a clear sense of direction.
When you know which of the six you are most likely to fall into, then you can find specific ways to use the law of attraction by not just changing your surface thoughts around abundance and gratitude, but digging deeply to change the underlying habits, fears and outdated beliefs that keep you stuck in an unattractive pattern. In future articles we will look at each of these financial trouble spots in more depth and give you specific indicators you can use to diagnose yourself and steps you can take to gently and easily change your deepest thinking to become more fully and authentically attractive to abundance.
Start Getting Out Of Your Own Way and Imagining New Possibilities
In the meantime when financial matters just seem too overwhelming and discouraging practice the following meditation:
1) Decide which of the six Trouble Spots best describes you. (If you can't decide just pick one randomly.)
2) Then ask yourself to list 4 times that you can remember when you DID NOT act in that manner. So for example if you tend to be an underearner, think of four different occasions when you had no trouble asking for the money you had earned and deserved.
3) It does not matter how large or small your examples are, they can be so minor as to feel insignificant as long as they were true examples of things you actually remember happening in your own life.
4) Then take five to ten minutes and recreate each incident in your mind as vividly as you can. Focus on recreating all the sensory experiences at the time. What were you wearing? What was the temperature like? What time of day was it etc.? Also notice your emotions at the time, were you feeling more confident than usual? Were you unusually calm or foucsed? Try to recreate in your imagination both the physical sensations of the memory and the emotions. When you feel that you can fully recall and recreate the feelings for each incident in your imagination then you are done.
5) Finally ask yourself what it would be like if you experimented with acting in that way more often. Try not to judge yourself. Just notice what insights, opportunities and new questions arise as you explore these new ideas.
Even if it seems like nothing is happening things will start to change for you. When you approach your financial woes from this combination of looking for where you are getting in your own way and exploring with your imagination what it is like when you get out of your own way, you will discover that you are changing old habits and slowly becoming more attractive to wealth. Before you know it you will have left the ghost of your money past behind and be living in a great new money present.
Mari Geasair is a writer, educator and coach dedicated to helping entrepreneurs and Information Service Professionals move from underearning to high earning. Check out her site My Creative Prosperity- [http://www.mycreativeprosperity.com] for resources to help you move to the next level. Be sure to check the online prosperity seminar you can start working on today at your own pace. You will find powerful new tools to help you make powerful changes in your money life. [http://www.mycreativeprosperity.com/FinancialFreedom05.html]
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