Can love and money co-exist? According to Universal law they must, but according to our culture they often seem at odds.I’m not talking about using money as a substitute for love, which our culture does condone.
What would it be like if love and money arose from the same wellspring of wholeness and abundance that is Universal nature, that is each of our true natures? To live lives of mutual generosity and joyous gifting?
In order to have this truth reflected in our living experience, we need 2 things: 1). To own our power, and 2). To let go of control. And culturally, we have clung tight to control while disowning our power.
If we’ve ever experienced messages of “not enough” (love, money or resources), especially in our prenatal experience or early childhood, it’s in our nervous systems. We may name it “fight or flight,” and it may affect our ability to sustain healthy intimate relationships.
It’s in our DNA and ancestral lineage. If we believe in past lives, it’s in our soul’s histories too.
Recently I taught a class in LA called “Making Peace with Money.” I wanted to call it “Making Love with Money,” but I was unsure what the reaction might be so I changed it. But “Making Love with Money” is really what I meant. 🙂
As an entrepreneur, I have fun with money. I enjoy manifesting. I have had my ups and downs but I always seem to have what I need.
At one point last winter I had the idea it’d be fun to write down a list of things I’d like, just to invite them in. Suddenly money turned up everywhere– even a $20 bill I found on the street– in just the amounts necessary for the top items on my list!
But through my relationships I’ve learned that not everyone thinks about money this way! And I’ve had to face my own fears of being alone if I live differently… the fear that I had to choose between money and love.
I grew up with a provider father and a housewife mother. In my early childhood, my father was set on success and he kept getting job promotions that required us to move.
My mother went along with this for awhile, but after a few moves said “No.” So my father moved and we stayed put, and he drove 2 hours each way to see us on weekends for 3 years until they got divorced.
So early on, I got the message that love and money don’t go together. I thought if he was doing it to provide for me, maybe it was my fault my parents weren’t happy. Not to mention, my father was really an artistic and sensitive soul who felt confined in his job.
So over the years, I dated lots of artistic and sensitive men who could not or would not provide. I found one who could provide but got mad about it, since he too was making money through a job he hated.
Around this time I realized I did want to be provided for. And then it turned into needing to be provided for, to heal my early wound around all this, to “prove” that love and money could go together, and to validate my worth.
Of course, it was me who had disowned my worth to begin with, but meanwhile I wondered why I wasn’t manifesting what I consciously desired and felt worthy of. And I realized love and money had to go together in me before I could expect my world to reflect that.
And now I get it. It requires a total paradigm shift– not simply better salaries, more harmony between couples or even more self-love.
Here are some of the pictures our culture has accepted as truth:
- Whoever has the money gets to control.
- Money has to come through hard work and struggle.
- Money= power.
It may look as if those with money have had all the control, but look from another angle and see that many of them have also felt controlled– even in the ways they’ve controlled themselves. The suit and tie that chokes at the throat goes beyond the physical, for many in high-power jobs.
And nothing wrong with suits or business! It’s just that many people’s approach to work, money and success has been very push-and-shove– including of ourselves. Stress, self-denial and feeling used-up have been the name of the game. Today, I see this in men and women at all income levels.
If we believe money equals power, then it can also be scary to spend or lose money for those who do not fully own their power within. By contrast, I had a friend who was divorcing and losing his house, and he was ok with it, explaining that everything he had came from within and could be recreated.
I think when we own our power we have the money we need, but the money does not cause the power.
I found my friend’s attitude so refreshing! But it’s not the norm.
Recently I went into a bank and saw a flyer with headlines saying, “Control,” “More Control”. That’s what they are selling people on!
No wonder the hippies have pushed away money. No wonder trust fund kids and trophy wives have rejected all the strings attached to money.
It’s just that money itself has never been the problem. With compassion, I see that those with money have used it to control because they themselves have felt bound by control. Because they wanted love and connection and that was the only way they knew to get it. At some level, they thought if their loved ones also felt control everyone would be connected and close and never leave.
Ha ha ha. I guess we all know that can backfire.
And rejecting the money doesn’t work. Those who want to separate from it and judge rich people are perpetuating the very separation they are judging. And missing the point.
Money is really a form of energy. Love is also an energy and it includes everything.
So what if everyone could give the gifts they have in their heart and in turn have what they need? I am not talking about hippie utopia. I believe in being conscious and in including money in our lives, not running from it.
I have even advised clients to get a Monopoly game and “play” with the money to create a new relationship with it. Money itself is innocent.
What if we all disconnected from control and realigned our nervous systems to accept a feeling of safety within? Once we feel safe within, we can give and receive freely and it’s easy to trust others and the Universe.
There are many techniques and healing modalities to help accomplish this, and one we all have unlimited access to is our breath. I love simply breathing down the spine all the way to the tailbone, and exhaling the breath back up the spine and out the head.
Love and money both involve circulation. When we block our natural tendencies to open and share, both love and money come to a halt in our lives. And when one is flowing, the other can too.
I knew a wealthy older man who had physical circulation problems. Yes, he had money, but he was a control freak and he hoarded both money and love. His family found him difficult but they “needed” him.
In my opinion, our experience of abundance has nothing to do with how hard we work, or with our status or degrees. It has everything to do with how much energy we choose to circulate, and lots of energy can circulate very easily if we open and allow it.
When relationship problems come up around money, it’s rarely about the money. Usually, it’s a disagreement about how much energy is ok to circulate. Often there are blocks in one or both person’s natural flow.
This is also a key to improving our sex lives, but I’ll save this for another article. 🙂
It can be scary to open up to more when our culture, friends and family have withheld. We can feel like we’ll die from loneliness– even if those people are not currently, physically with us. And if we find more energy-flow to feel more natural, we might rebel and feel terrified at the idea of constriction.
People do suffer incredibly from loneliness and constriction, and they are actually the same thing. But when we recognize that we’re all just wanting to give and receive love, and we commit to this for ourselves, things shift.
When I am in love, not necessarily with a person but when I simply live with an overflowing heart, money follows. People get inspired, and the lie I’ve held that money and love don’t go together is dissolved. Nonexistent.
And I’m excited to see more and more people living and creating this way. I think it is the wave of the future! Are you with me?
TRY THIS:
Next time you spend money, imagine 10 times the amount coming back to you from the Universe. When you receive money, imagine 10 times the amount you receive going back from the Universe to the giver. Just for fun.. I’d love to hear how it goes!
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