I woke up this morning thinking about money. No, scratch that — anxious about money. Bills need to be paid. I’ve got a vacation planned with my 81-year-old mother, whose cancer has spread, and no clue how I’m going to be able to afford it (or even if her health and treatment regimen will allow it). My house could use a new roof. And on and on.
Where will I get the money?
Once I get on that train, it’s hard to get off. I know about the Law of Attraction, which is based on the law of physics that says whatever energy we put out is matched by more of the same. I know that focusing on the negative not only robs me of my present happiness, but distracts me from doing the things I need to do to move forward to a place of abundance. I know that worry is foolish and changes nothing.
Knowing and feeling
I know all that. My brain knows that. But knowing isn’t enough. I have to feel it, too. Easier said than done, however. My brain has always ruled my life. I’ve always been a great learner (well, except for 10th-grade geometry, but we won’t go there). Being a newspaper reporter and editor taught me important critical-thinking skills. Thinking comes easily to me.
Too easily, sometimes, when the better choice would be to shut it down and just go with the flow.
Affirmations work to a certain degree. I knuckle down and keep plowing ahead, and the affirmations and the work allow me to get through the day…after day, after day, after day.
But that feeling — that belief — was still missing.
And then one day, it just happened…and in the most bizarre, antithetical way. While working on something else, I came across an image in my library of a benumbed woman about to be buried under an avalanche of papers. I could feel her overwhelm, in the literal disorganized sense.
But there was something about that image that kept pulling me back. I started to imagine I was that woman — but smiling, not numb. Surrounded not by reams of loose paper, but an avalanche of money.
There it was: That elusive feeling I’d been trying to find.
My head, of course, went nuts. Totally illogical, it sniffed. This is insane! How in the world can you take such a negative picture and turn it into something positive? This will never work!
Invested in struggle, not success
That’s when I had a deeply shocking and thoroughly unpleasant revelation: That I was more invested in my struggle than I was in my success. I had come to identify myself as a long-suffering workaholic who just kept slogging away, endlessly, hopelessly.
It was not the way I wanted to see myself. And suddenly, the goofy image of me smiling, surrounded by big piles of money, didn’t seem quite so goofy. Even my brain recognized that.
I considered commissioning my graphic artist to create something similar to the image shown, but frankly was too embarrassed to even ask — even though we’ve known each other for years and she’s well aware of my whack-a-doodle ways. And I also knew that, as talented as she is, her creation would lack something essential: It would be her vision, not mine.
So I did it myself, with a little help from Google, Photoshop, PowerPoint and PicMonkey. I found a background image of currency, superimposed my own smiling face on it and topped it off with a strong affirmation. Is it world class? Not even close! My skill set doesn’t extend that far.
And I don’t care. It captured the feeling of financial abundance that’s been so elusive, and that matches the abundance I feel in other areas of my life — great friends, a loving and supportive family, a beautiful environment, amazingly good health, wonderful clients and so much more.
And guess what? Two proposals I sent out yesterday have been accepted. When I got the mail, there were several checks inside, with more to come. My head has retreated in a sulk, but it’s beginning to get the picture (literally and figuratively), too.
What about your abundance mentality? Are you also having a hard time convincing your head that you deserve it, that you’re open to it, that you welcome it? Are you also invested more in being underpaid and undervalued than you are in being a raging success?
Would you benefit from disembarking from the brain train and focusing on how abundance makes you feel? Let me hear from you.