Money as Belief
The father of modern economics, Adam Smith, once wrote: “All money is a matter of belief.” Before our invention of money, we bartered for goods and services. The Mesopotamian people created the shekel, which is the first known form of currency, about 5,000 years ago.
We create money from paper and metal. We assign it value and it fluctuates based on our collective beliefs, which are tracked in the Consumer Confidence Index, for example. Money in many senses is a modern day belief system that we allow to determine much in our lives.
But what if we created a healthy relationship with money and understood that it can flow through our life? Perhaps money simply exists like the air that sustains us all? It’s always here but at the same time, our relationship with money and life matter.
Money As A Tool
What if instead of being a survival tool, money becomes our creation tool? Maybe if we would stop working and start playing, everything in our lives would transform?
Julia Cameron suggests in The Artist’s Way that “What we really want to do is what we are really meant to do. When we do what we are meant to do, money comes to us, doors open for us, we feel useful, and the work we do feels like play to us.” What if money can flow to us in mysterious ways?
If you’ve ever experienced it, you know that this is one of the best feelings in the world: being able to practice what ignites you and share it with others.
When you have a healthy relationship with money and are aware of what you actually need to live a fulfilling life, you’re able to make more of what it is that brings money to you in the first place—your art, your craft, or your work.
Trusted Relationships
Your heart is a channel that helps you deeply understand what you want to create during your life. Feeling that you are not enough or that you don’t have enough puts you in a scarcity mindset that brings daily struggles and challenges into your world.
It takes effort to shift your mindset from seeing problems everywhere you go to uncovering the opportunities within each challenging situation or person. It takes energy and persistence.
It’s like planting a seed in the earth, sitting next to it, and expecting the cherry tree to grow instantly so you can reach for a delicious, crisp Bing cherry immediately and eat it. It never works. It’s a waste of energy.
How many doubts will go through your mind if you just sit there and don’t see any cherries or anything happening because it’s not the season when cherries bear fruit?
Planting Seeds
Imagine yourself standing in a field, planting seeds as you go through life. Which seeds do you want to plant? What impact will they have? What experiences will they create for you and others?
All you need to do is imagine your seeds and then start the planting, knowing that not much grows wild overnight. Just plant and make sure that every seed contains healthy DNA. That’s all you need. It’s so simple that most of us struggle with this heart-set.
Much of the shift is becoming aware of our enough + taking only what we need. A good clue is to look at where you spend your money, as this will likely reveal your true priorities in life. Are the values healthy and aligned with your relationship with money?
Is there a way to have a relationship with money like we do with air? We rarely think about breathing, yet air is always available to us.