Spending as a prayer?
30. August 2005
There is a saying that suggests that meditation is listening to God and that prayer is speaking to God, a sharing of our hopes dreams and anxieties with a request for assistance. Now I am not a religious man but I certainly am a spiritual one with a strong connection to “spirit” and an at oneness with the processes of life for much of the time. With this happy connection comes an effortless sense of gratitude for the rich diversity of my life.
In the work of transforming our relationship to money and the financial aspects of abundance I feel it is important to cultivate feelings of gratitude and thankfulness for what we do have now regardless of whether we perceive this as being insufficient for our needs wants or desires. It is my experience that genuine gratitude is deeply healing and transformative.
So here is the practice of “Spending as a prayer”.
- At the moment of any financial transaction.
- Pause and consider your choice to make or finalise this purchase.
- Consider some of the great many other choices you could have made. Other ways in which you could have spent or saved this money.
- Feel the abundant possibilities you actually have for directing your financial resources.
- If you are paying utility bills, taxes or any such item that perhaps normally evokes feelings of resentment then approach them in a new way. See if you can allow feelings of gratitude for the services provided to be felt instead.
- Bless all your financial transactions deliberately and consciously with love and gratitude.
- Count your many blessings and share and exchange them.
In God I trust
With this money I invest
In the creativity, provision and service of others
This sacred exchange uplifts my spirit
I recognise the value of all others
And bless their many endeavours
In so doing I honour and bless mine
Exchanged together resplendent in the abundant bounty of life
For ever and ever
Amen
Try it, you will be pleasantly surprised by the results.
Share your wisdom?
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I thought you might also appreciate this. When I asked his advice about his successful manifesting of abundance, Michael Roads, author of Journey into Oneness, told me that whenever he spends money he always says out loud, “There’s plenty where that came from.” Short and sweet.
I agree with Michael Roads. What is really needed is a personal felt experience or energetic signature, if you like, of the sate of being that truly deeply feels and just knows that “There’s plenty where that came from” rather than wants to believe it but in the moment still feels guilty about actually spending money because the current belief system holds that “there is not enough”.
And that is the journey! Learning to feel the fullness within and gifting that into the world…
Please excuse my delayed reply – I have been traveling.
as it seems to express the spirit of Hexagram 14.
Oh dear.
What do you make of a person (me) for whom feeling that way about bills and purchases is pretty much a no-brainer – UNTIL she does what you recommend, that is, think about it?
That is a great awareness you have. It sounds like some residual feelings of past resentments or similar that need to be felt into and released. Your mind sees it as a no brainer but your body resists. Whenever you feel resistance get curious and feel into what the resistance is all about. For instance I have an example from my life that came to me when I was considering your comment. Having earned my first weeks wages in my first job I was walking home excited about all the ways that I could spend my new found wealth. However upon getting home to my parents they announced that they would be requiring close to half of this money as rent each week. Bummer! Of course my mind could reason it out and accept it etc. but emotionally I squashed my feelings of injustice. I recognise now that I still carry a felt element of that squashed anger over “my” money being taken away and used for boring rent and food. Having recognised that I can now feel deeper into those old child like feelings of injustice, release them and move on.
Thank you for your response (and I’m sorry it took me so long to get back here to say that!)
I’m going to have to give more thought to what you’re saying. Right now the clearest reaction I’m having is that there actually IS something unbalanced about a budget wherein 50% of one’s net pay goes to rent or mortgage – advice I’ve seen recommends 25-30%....?
I agree. My point is that that example of one of my experiences of “injustice” around money in my life may trigger a continuing emotional reaction in me with relationship to money; i.e. an unpleasant felt association between money and injustice. It really has nothing actually to do with money but rather relates more to me and my parents. This will not change until I become consciously aware of that reaction and am thus able to make a conscious choice to respond differently otherwise I will continue to carry resistance and resentment around paying rent or whatever.
“Spending As A Prayer” seeks to bring a fresh joy to our relationship with money rather than prolonging our old patterns of anxiety etc. Any resistance experienced is likely to relate back to prior painful experiences around money that are calling for conscious recognition and clearing.
And, it’s a VERY good point (if I’m understanding correctly). People who lived through the Great Depression, for example, can carry very different reactions to it through the rest of their lives. Some people, once order is restored, are able to set it aside much like a bad dream. Others appear to live the rest of their lives in fear, no matter how logically unjustifiable that may be.
It’s hard, though, to talk logic with people who have been scarred by trauma. These reactions, I think, have roots that go all the way to pure animal instinct and are VERY difficult to get rid of. (Our dog, for example, once burned her poor nose on the grill and barked furiously at it (from 10 feet away) ever after. Humans aren’t so terribly different in some ways…)
What helps, I think, is what you’re doing – providing insight and food for thought; giving people a light bulb and a switch, so to speak, and explaining how they work – and maybe one day the switches will be flipped.
I guess this all applies, though, to situations where the order has actually been restored – I mean, it’s not paranoia if somebody really is after you… ;).
Thank you again, Chris, for your responses and time.