Yogi Bhajan says, “If we are content anything we want will come to us. If we are discontent it will go away”. Contentment has been a big concept that I have been working a lot with lately.
This past July, I found myself in a very challenging financial situation. All of my old patterning and old ways of thinking began to haunt me. I began to beat myself up a bit, asking myself how did you let yourself get in that place and you are not successful if you allow this to happen, who will want to work with you, etc? I began to see how society puts all of these ideas on us about what is ok financially and what is not. Society would certainly tell me that being negative in your bank account was not ok. They would certainly tell you that you are a bad member of society, that there was something wrong with you for allowing yourself to get to that point, or would they? Was this all just something I made up in my mind? Maybe society would hold my hand and say, “It’s ok Erin, you are gonna get through this. It will all be over soon. Abundance is on it’s way to you.”
The truth is that most every thing that we fear is made up in our mind. Our mind has this way of twisting things in such a terrible manner and blowing things out of proportion that we begin to think it’s true. Yet, when we really boil it down most of our fears are just generalizations.
I had to dig my heels down deep and ask myself if I really could find contentment in this challenging time. I felt like I had to! If Yogi Bhajan said that everything would go away if we were discontent, then I had better find my way to contentment so more things could come in! So I began to let go of the stress I was putting on myself for having a negative sum in my bank account, I began to change what I was saying to myself and stopped beating myself up. I began to repeat positive affirmations about abundance, which I do anyway and any time I would get a little down about my money situation, I would just catch myself and instead of the panic or anxiety that would come up in the past, I would simply say “Well that is where you are right now, you are doing everything you can, so just relax.”
Instead of fighting the situation (a pattern I have been very good at), I surrendered to what was happening in the moment. Then I would ask myself, in this moment, (given I owe people, the bank, credit cards, etc.) in this very moment, are my needs met? The answer was always yes. I had food, I had a place to sleep I even had a car to get me from point a to b. I began to let go of the pressure of getting a job that I didn’t really want anyway. Instead I put an action plan into place of, what can I do right now with the skills that I have to create more business for myself? I spent a day working on my newsletter, promoting some new classes and offered some discount private sessions. I had a plan of action that felt good to me, but I didn’t’ feel like I was efforting, stressing out, or doing something I didn’t really want to do.
I lowered all my spending costs, moved out of the place I was renting, started house sitting, cooked all of my food, and spent little bits of money on gas at a time. The most important thing I did during this time was Find Happiness. Granted it was in the small things, but it felt so good to be happy given what I was going through. It felt so good to go against my own grain of anxiety and stress when I felt like I wasn’t successful. When I felt like I wasn’t “perfect,” which was made up in my own mind anyway. A dear friend said to me so lovingly, Erin you have to stop and look at all you have done. You have succeeded so much. You have to change how you define success. It is not about what’s in your bank account. After a good cry, I remembered all of the things I have done and gone through so far. I have succeeded in so many ways and someday my bank account will show for it as well, but it is so important to remember all of the things we have done so far and let go of what we have not done.
I began to feel so good, in fact that I was surprising myself! I have a hard time admitting this, but I actually began to enjoy it! Getting creative with how I spent money and really testing myself, “Can you stay content Erin?” Once I got happy, things started coming to me. A friend bought me a ticket to see one of my favorite teachers Abraham Hicks speak, people would buy me dinner or lunch, cook me food, my neighbor let me stay in her back guest house and we traded for yoga and juicing, another neighbor gave me 2 bags of awesome clothes, and after some time new clients started coming in as well. My bank account moved from red to black.
Things started coming to me because I shifted my vibration to happy. I shifted out of fear. I realized that stressing out about money was never going to bring me more and feels really icky in the process. I got so much clarity from this experience that I am forever changed. I have fine tuned my vibration, now I know fairly quickly when I am out of contentment and how to get myself back. I have a new relationship with money, it is no longer something that has a power over me, but an energy that is the same part of my life as my own energy. It is not different. I understand that it flows in and out, but that I am always taken care of, No Matter What. As long as I stay Happy! I have found a new level of joy that I did not know was possible, but comes with the freedom of not being controlled by anything, including money. I had never realized the power it had on me until I didn’t have any and was still fine!
I do not think many people would say that being negative in their bank account with no signs as to when money would flow in again, was the best thing that ever happened to them, but I can say that. I now look forward to all the abundance coming in, because I can only go up from here!
I wrote this back in August or September and flash forward to now Jan. 6, 2014 and I am abundant once again! I now have 3 jobs and people constantly offering to give me work and money! Now I have to work on balancing everything and staying true to myself and my goals. It has been a great shift and I am very grateful for what I went through to get to this place!
May your life be full of abundant blessings!
