Everything
in our lives reflects our consciousness. Our
beliefs, attitudes, expectations, feelings, and
emotional patterns are all mirrored in the circumstances
and events of our lives. For example, if I am very
critical of myself, I'm likely to attract and be
attracted to people who mirror that internal process by
being critical of me as well. The more I love and
support myself emotionally, the more likely I am to
attract loving, supportive behavior from others.
If I feel that life offers me few opportunities,
I'm likely to find that to be true in reality. If
I have confidence in my abilities, on the other hand, I
will probably discover many opportunities to use them.
Money can represent many things to us:
security
validation
freedom
temptation
abundance |
power
recognition
opportunity
evil
happiness |
status
worthiness
success
greed
prosperity |
Our
financial circumstances will reflect how we feel about
the qualities we consciously or unconsciously associate
with money.
If on a deep level we feel unworthy of success or
happiness, we may unconsciously prevent ourselves from
having much money.
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Or, if we are deeply insecure,
and money represents power and status, we may be
compulsively driven to accumulate wealth in the hope
that it will bring us the security and validation we
yearn for. Yet, at some point, we may lose it
all. Seemingly a disaster, this may in fact be our
soul's way of setting up an opportunity to become
conscious of our deep feelings of inadequacy so we can
heal them. Money, or the loss of it, can be a
powerful catalyst for our growth and healing.
How does this differ from the popular New Age idea that
if we become aware of our negative thoughts and beliefs
about money and change them, our financial circumstances
will shift to reflect our changed consciousness and we
will become wealthy?
First, I am not talking about simply "changing our
thoughts." For a real shift to take place in
our lives, we must become aware of our core beliefs and
our deep emotions--especially the ones that have been
unconscious. We must be willing and able to heal
ourselves, not just on the mental level, but on the
spiritual, emotional, and physical levels as well.
Healing ourselves on the spiritual level involves
developing a strong connection with our soul. We
heal ourselves on the mental level as we become aware of
our core beliefs, release those that limit us, and open
to more supportive ideas and greater
understanding. Emotional healing takes place as we
learn to accept and experience the full range of our
feelings. And we heal ourselves on the physical
level when we learn to honor and care for our bodies,
and for the physical world around us.
Most of the limiting patterns in our lives are rooted in
deep emotional wounds that require a certain amount of
time and attention to heal. Even more profound is
the spiritual emptiness many of us feel when we
experience disconnection from our soul. We can
only heal this emptiness by finding a way to reconnect
with our spiritual essence.
We are unlikely to achieve real prosperity, financial or
otherwise, until we are able to feel comfortable in our
physical bodies and know how to operate in the material
world, as well.
So there are many aspects to the healing process.
This kind of transformation is no simple matter.
In fact, it is a gradually unfolding process that lasts
our entire lifetime. For most people, it is not
enough just to say positive affirmations about
prosperity, although that may be one very good step.
I have a problem with the idea that if we only believe
it possible, we can all have unlimited wealth.
Perhaps this is true in some ideal, theoretical
way. I believe, however, that our souls choose to
come into physical life in order to learn and develop in
certain ways, and that each of us has a unique
journey. Some of us may have chosen to experience
extreme physical limitation in this life through an
illness or disability, in order to deepen a certain
aspect of our strength and wisdom. Similarly, some
of us may choose to experience financial limitation at
times in our life, or for an entire lifetime, in order
to develop certain other aspects of our character.
Often these choices are made on a soul level and we are
completely unaware of them. On the level of
personality, we might feel quite frustrated and unhappy
about the circumstances of our lives until we've done
enough healing and consciousness work to begin to
understand how our soul's choice is serving us.
Remember that no matter what our level of income, we
have the opportunity to develop an experience of true
prosperity. Generally, both our relationship with
money and our experience of prosperity will develop as a
reflection of our healing and growth on all levels.
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