If you don’t have time to read this, take a deep breath.
In that breath you will capture a capsule form of what it feels like to feel abundant.
You have an abundance of air.
Pull it into your lungs.
Hold it there for a moment.
And let it back out.

Try it again.
Breathe deeply from your diaphragm.
Fill your lungs.
You have an abundance of air.

You don’t feel deprived of air.
It is all around you.
You take it in as you need it.

That’s how money is too.
It is all around you.
Take it in. Use it.
And let it go out again.

Hoarding money isn’t good for anyone.
When you breathe you don’t want to take a breath and keep it in.
Like air, you want money to pass back out into the world for other creatures and plants to use.
It makes the weather.
It feeds us all with oxygen.

And like breathe, we need to slow down to feel the wealth… to feel the enoughness.

You don’t want to breathe too much air. Just enough is just right.

Create a lot of value and enjoy the richness that comes back to you.
Then let it go back out.
You may be paying for other things or experiences or services, or you may be investing it so you have an emergency fund or you may pause and collect more so you can buy something of even greater value that you can pause and enjoy.

Wanting money to just come in is graspy.
Wanting money to just go out is unbalanced.

It is the in and out flow of money that keeps us wealthy.

And you can’t have flow if you don’t take time.

Take a breathe.
Feel the abundance.

Money problems?

Usually we either blame other people for causing our money pain… we hold others accountable… or else we blame ourselves.

It may seem like blaming ourselves is taking responsibility. But a lot of the time blaming ourselves shows up as self-pity and self-loathing. 
We indulge in overwhelm and worry… neither of which helps in any way.

Blaming other people doesn’t work because we think we are powerless over our money situation.

Things don’t change when we are powerless.

Blaming other people (like your crazy husband) or the stock market or the economic times may seem like the truth.
But that’s never the truth.

Blaming ourselves doesn’t work because we shift focus to how stupid we are or how worthless we are, which leaves us powerless to find and solve the real problem.

So those are our choices?
Give up your power or beat yourself up.
Ack.

Either way you end up in an unhealthy spin.

Unless you put aside the finger of blame and dig a little deeper for the real source of your money problems.

And the source of our problem is always the way we think and feel about money.

We can feel rich no matter what is happening around us.

Our money problem is always within us in how we think, feel and act.
We don’t have to blame ourselves to take responsibility.

We can heal our relationship with money,
look at our money and love our money.
No matter how big or small the number.

This week try this: When you are facing your money problems, take an eagle view and look at your money as if you were a bystander… a loving bystander.
Look at your money situation with curiosity and love.

After all, all of your money solutions start from a place of love and compassion.

Let’s start there.
No villain.
No victim.

I want you to write down what you spend.

Not so you can judge yourself.
Not so you can criticize yourself about what you spent.
Not so you can beat yourself up.

I want you to write down what you spend so you can decide whether it makes you feel abundant or if you buy things from a place of scarcity.

I know you are thinking that buying always makes you feel abundant.

But that’s now always the case.

You could buy a dress and feel very abundant.  It is a dress that you have been eyeing for a while and you have the money available to spend on a dress.

Or you could buy a dress and feel scarcity. You could think that you are only going to wear this dress once so it’s a waste of money. You are going to a wedding and you don’t have anything else to wear and you aren’t even really close to the bride.

The same thing may happen with the cable bill.

You may be excited and abundant when you pay the cable bill because you are excited that you can watch all of your favorite shows on all the channels.
Or you could feel scarce, like the cable company is sucking you dry and it shouldn’t cost SO. FREAKING. MUCH. 

In both cases you are paying the cable bill.  The difference is how you think and feel about it.

That’s what you want to keep track of when you journal.

Track what you spend money on and what you think and feel when you buy it.

It is amazing when you realize that it’s not the purchasing of things that makes you feel abundant.

Try this for a week: Only spend money from an abundant place.

Skip the things that feel scarce.
Boom.

It’s a game changer.