Money is not the be-all end-all for a life worth living, but if you’ve got it, you’ll have a much easier time creating a big, awesome life that is of your own design. If you don’t, you can feel cooped up like a chicken in a poor-life pen — denied access to the experiences those with money around you are free to enjoy.
According to guru Deepak Chopra, having money is also an essential ingredient for happiness. As part of an overall wellbeing strategy, Chopra says, “You must not be worried about money; you have to have financial wellbeing.”
Money can also generate that feel-good factor if you spend it where it will be of service to the world. “People who give money to help a cause, even if it’s just a little bit to a homeless person, feel better about themselves,” says Chopra.
So now, the million-dollar question: would your life be enhanced by having more money? Be honest. If your answer is yes, what would you have to do differently to get it?
Enlightenment, money and you
Angela Hryniuk is one of those rare individuals who understand the financial world of numbers, money and business as intimately as she does the spiritual self and path. In her work as a spiritual counsellor, she combines her 17 years of accounting experience, 22 years of Buddhist practice and 16 years in 12-Step Recovery rooms to understand the relationship between money and self-enlightenment.
“For those struggling to make money, there are three pillars on which all of prosperity is based,” Hryniuk says. “They are relationship to self, relationship to the universe (source) and relationship to others. Once we have nurtured all three, real abundance and wealth can show up.”
Relationship to self
Once your physical body is healthy with the right food, drink and movement, and your intellect has been nurtured, you must focus on your emotions and spirit. Hryniuk comments that, while we often know the beliefs that are holding us back, we still struggle to change. That’s when we must move into the subtle body energies to resolve unconscious conflicts.
“There are two predominant belief systems running the show in all of us: one is fuelled by fear, the other from love,” she says. “The one that you are running unconsciously will affect all other operating programs in your life, including those impacting on your ability to make money. By identifying and resolving unconscious fears, we can change our programming, which allows us to become the creators we need to be to invite money into our lives. Until you feel, inside of yourself, that you are enough, no activity, or no money, will ever be enough.”
The following mantra can help: I am enough, I have enough, I do enough. Until I am enough, nothing or no one will be enough. I am enough.
Relationship to source
It is important to understand that “source” is the ultimate creator, not money itself. “Many people have a belief system that money is the source of all material things and happiness, but ‘source’ is the ultimate and divine source of everything we are,” Hryniuk says.
“Prosperity and abundance appear when we can quieten the mind to allow source to flow through us and sit comfortably with it in the present. A meditation practice can help us connect with source daily.”
Relationship to others
Many people want to control those around them, to help fix or change their craziness or obvious dysfunction. “We do this because we feel that our survival is at stake if the world around us is out of whack with us,” Hryniuk says. “The feeling is, ‘I need to change outward things for me to be OK’, but actually we have to fix the inside of ourselves to be OK for the outside to manifest. It’s a 180-degree reversal of what people think needs to happen to have prosperity and abundance.”
Seven steps to an enlightened money attitude
There are seven steps to cultivating your best relationship with self, source and others for money creation and abundance.
STEP 1: Awareness
Cultivating awareness around where the three poisons are operating in our life helps us understand what is really going on. “The three poisons help us get to the root cause of our suffering,” Hryniuk says.
They are:
- Attachment: When we over-emphasise the good in something so it is all we can see.
- Anger: When we over-emphasise the bad so it is all we can see.
- Ignorance: Not understanding the true nature of reality, which is that there are two levels of existence: the physical material world (lower self) and the higher level of reality where we are one with the universe, joy, love, freedom and ultimate truth (higher self).
ACTION: Take note of where the three poisons are at play in your life.
STEP 2: Surrender
Hryniuk recommends you surrender to a power greater than yourself so you can stop pushing through life and start receiving all it has to offer.
“All spiritual frameworks know that the heart is the master and the mind is the servant,” she says. “The brain is not working to its full capacity when we are not in our hearts. When your heart is open and working in tandem with the mind, you make much better decisions. Furthermore, your mind becomes exhausted if you are pushing it all the time, which is the source of much stress and mental illness.”
ACTION: Get on your knees to open up your heart chakra. If that doesn’t work, lower your forehead to the ground, place your palms upward and surrender (child’s pose in yoga).
STEP 3: Inventory
By taking an honest inventory of where you are at, you are in a better place to cleanse and purge the things that are no longer working for you. “You have to look it all square in the eyes,” says Hryniuk. “If you don’t do this, you will still make progress but it will be much slower.”
ACTION: Take stock of your life by putting it all down on paper across four columns:
- The feeling (resentment, fear etc)
- The incident
- What the incident affected in you (safety, security, trust, sexuality etc)
- What defence mechanism you employed at the time (stonewalling, deception, manipulation etc)
Analysing the inventory brings your wounds and hurts into focus. Founder of Imago Relationship Therapy, Harville Hendrix, identified six stages of childhood development, during which all initial wounds occur:
- Attachment (0–18 months): Unhealthy attachment, addiction
- Exploration (18 months–3 years): Insecure
- Identity (3–4 years): Lack purpose
- Competence (4–7 years): Competitive
- Concern (7–13 years): Isolation
- Intimacy (13–19 years): Overly sexed but no connection
“If we have resolved our inner wounds, then we feel safe and secure, a state from which all wealth and prosperity flows. Most people, however, are still running around trying to feel safe and secure,” Hryniuk says.
ACTION: Meet your inner child in meditation and ask him/her what they need from you now. Whatever the child is asking for, go out and do it. Then joy starts showing up, alignment happens, happiness arises and prosperity flows in from there.
STEP 4: Weeding your garden for change
Once you acknowledge negative patterns, it’s time to actually act in new ways to change old beliefs about self, behaviours, habits, friends and character defences. You also may experience the “change-back” syndrome from friends and family, where your changes are acknowledged by others but not appreciated or taken seriously. These same friends or family may ask you to “change back” to your old self, because your change is now affecting them as well.
ACTION: Every day, step out of your comfort zone in your actions, what you say and how you think.
STEP 5: Perseverance
As you persevere, your self-worth and character are built, trust and patience are created and physical Beauty arises. “We must persevere because spirit wants us to expand, and if you give up or constrict your energy, you are going against laws of nature,” Hryniuk says. In this stage, you often get stretched beyond what you feel you can physically cope with.
“At the time, it will feel excruciating, like there is no way you can handle this situation … whether that be the death of a loved one, the end of marriage or a major financial crisis,” she says. “But with time and familiarity you become comfortable with that stretching … and all of a sudden you have a larger capacity for peace, abundance and prosperity.”
ACTION: Keep going with joyful effort and faith in a great outcome.
STEP 6: Becoming compassionate
Next comes a deep feeling of connection with other beings: humans, animals, plants and other life forms.
“At this point, there is no more feeling of separation or isolation; we release all co-dependent relationships and we become inter-dependent,” Hryniuk says. “We treat people with kindness and love, even though they might be strangers.”
ACTION: Drop into heart and connect. See all beings as you do your mother.
STAGE 7: Be, do, have
We need constant reminders and community to help us stay on “the path”. There are fewer people on “the enlightened path”, so the road narrows to fit the smaller number of people you can choose from to discerningly let in.
“At this point, we need to be aware of the energy frequency we are living in and that is around us,” Hryniuk says. “We also need to put our beingness in front of our doingness so we can stay open to receiving what the universe has in store for us.”
ACTION: Find your tribe. Then be, then do inspired action and, finally, manifest abundance.
Business, money and you
Loral Langemeier is a resident money expert on the Dr Phil show and owner of her coaching business, Live Out Loud. She’s a New York Times, USA Today and Amazon best-selling author and her latest book is titled Yes! Energy: The Equation to Do Less, Make More.
Langemeier has built businesses in a variety of industries, including real estate, green-recycled glass and online marketing firms — several of which have grossed millions.
“I don’t believe money is the most important thing in life, but it is the thing that has the most impact,” Langemeier says. “If you don’t have money, you take away power and choice. People give up on themselves in money because of the perceived amount of work it will take to make it, but I believe everybody deserves money and starting your own business is the only way to get unlimited income and true financial freedom.”
For people wanting to say yes to money in business, here are Langemeier’s top tips:
- Get close to money makers. “The number one action I invite people to take is to spend time with people who are making money and creating what they want in their lives,” Langemeier says. “You need to get in that energy flow, watch and learn. This can create huge speed in your ability to get what you need to make money because we are influenced so heavily by the people around us.”
- Money mindset. “People who don’t think they deserve it have a conversation that sounds like, ‘Oh, I have enough — there’s only so much to go around; money is not important; I could live anywhere’ etc … But life is not about how scrappy we can get. It’s about having the biggest life possible and impacting on the most lives in a positive way.” Change your thinking to want, need and know you deserve money.
- Give the market what they already want. Don’t go into business with an idea, thinking ‘I love this widget, so other people will love it, too.’ That’s not always the case. “Part of the entrepreneur’s job is to listen to what people want and give it to them. A really good business finds out what problems people already have and creates a service or offering that solves them.” You can do this using surveys, social media channels or in chat rooms frequented by your target market.
- Marketing is key. Money in business comes from really good marketing efforts. “You must know how to let the world know who and what you are and what you can do for them,” Langemeier says.
- No compromise. Stop tolerating negative people who say you can’t do what you want to do. “Get them out of your life,” Langemeier says. “Whether it’s a bad web designer or a negative friend, stop accepting from people around you that things can’t be done.”
- No avoidance. Some people need a better team, better marketing strategies or better systems for their business, but they are avoiding taking action to have it done because they don’t know how to do it. Instead, they could be asking the question, ‘Who can help me do it?’ and reaching out.
- End all excuses and blame. Who are you blaming for your current lack of money? “It’s interesting how many people are still blaming their parents for a screwed-up life,” says Langemeier. “My response to that is always ‘So what, now what?’ You have what you have, you have lived with what you’ve lived with … now what are you going to do about it?”
- Become solutions focused. Replace all negative thinking with a search for solutions. “I say ‘yes’ and figure out how to get stuff done,” Langemeier says. “That forces me to be solutions-oriented rather than waste energy on looking at my problems. The alternative is, then, there are no excuses — yes has to be the answer — so let’s come up with ways to get what needs to be done, done.”
- Work smart, not hard. Working smart means using strategies that work to make you money, with people who are good at what they do and that you like to be around. “A lot of people are in action, busy all the time, but not getting a result,” Langemeier says. “It’s not about working your ass off in the hope you’ll make money but rather putting your energy into activity that works. If it’s not making you money, stop and find a new strategy.”
SoulSessions.org founder Eloise King is a global correspondent for urban spirituality. She facilitates live and online events with world thought leaders across Sydney, New York and Melbourne to support us in our health, enlightenment and entrepreneurial life quests.
