What’s Your Relationship with Money? … and a simple technique to improve it

I get a lot of emails about techniques to attract more money into my life and I ignore them. It’s not that I don’t want more money, or that I don’t believe these techniques could work, it’s that attracting more money has never really made it to the top of my list of goals in life.

​Believe me, it’s in the mix, it’s just that when I compare it with my other goals, and I imagine a life without the other things I want versus the money, it’s way down the pecking order. I guess I’ve always felt like, in the scheme of things, my needs would be taken care of. Yet, no matter how much money I have earned (and I’ve earned a lot) it never seems enough.

So I had a bit of an ‘ah ha’ moment as I was listening to someone talk about their worry over paying the bills. I realised that, while money isn’t in my top 5 things to focus on, and while I inherently believe everything works out in life, I still have a lot of chatter in my head that is keeping money from coming in.

Phrases like “cut your coat to suit your material” and “money doesn’t grow on trees” were part of my childhood. I grew up knowing that my parents worked hard for what they got, and that it was always just enough to pay the bills.

Meanwhile science is finally catching up to the fact that we are all energy, and our thoughts – and the feelings they perpetuate – act like magnets for the things we want (or don’t want) in our life. As I said to my daughter after we visited an exhibition about earthquakes that made her worry, if you worry, the universe sends you something to worry about. Chances are, you’ll never experience an earthquake, so it’s best to focus on things that make you feel good, so the universe will send you more of the good stuff.

Yet at home my partner and I often send our children messages about the cost of things, the roots planted in our own subconscious in our early years, conveying a sense of lack. There have been many times when our youngest daughter shows us in no uncertain terms that she feels no such lack (as she wastes this or that). We have had a habit of chastising her, but what message does that send – that she too should deny the abundance she most naturally feels?

However it can be hard to feel abundant when you have to face the stark realities of paying a bill and there’s not enough money in the bank. Especially since we are so used to letting what we observe dictate how we feel. Yet it’s the opposite approach that works in our favour. You don’t even need to feel good about the specific thing you want in order to get it, so long as you are not feeling bad about it or other things either.

There’s the rub. While I might feel like everything works in my favour in the end, and so I don’t get overly motivated to “make a million” or some such goal, there are daily moments when I am creating conflicting energy in my relationship with money because of my contradictory thoughts. Ah ha! The question is what to do about it.

Here’s the stark reality, if your finances are not where you want them to be, there’s some subconscious beliefs that are getting in your way and it’s time to create stronger, more self-serving ones…

1. Write down your current thoughts about money, anything worrying you?
2. Flip the thought, look at its opposite (see below for my own example) to create a new thought
3.  What other thoughts, opinions or beliefs do you have that support this new thought?

When I started to look at some of my beliefs, and wrote them down, it started to get to the heart of where the glitches (let’s call them) in my subconscious are. It’s not like these thoughts are loud and clear, they haven’t gotten that bad yet that they are consciously screaming at me. Though getting a migraine after doing the monthly bills is probably a major signpost.

​I wrote my thoughts down because it’s the most focused form of thinking; otherwise thoughts stream through my head like there are on fast-moving, simultaneously flowing, conveyor belts that I can’t ever quite grasp.

Leaving behind a regular paycheck can be scary because suddenly you are thrust into a world where you can’t always see where the money is going to come from right at this very second. So I started there, I wrote “I worry about having enough money to pay the bills next month”. Then, taking a lead from the advice I’d just given my daughter about the universe sending you more to worry about, I flipped it.

If that was what I didn’t want, what do I want I thought….”not to have to worry about money”. Mm, still a bit too much of a ‘worry’ feeling in there, so I stole a phrase I heard recently in an Abraham-Hicks conversation “I want make choices in my life based on what I truly desire (not what I can afford)”.

In itself, that achieved very little, so I continued along the vein I’d heard Esther Hicks talk about. I started to pull out thoughts I already have that match that. There were many. I started to recall the many ‘big’ decisions I’d made in life that money could have had a bearing on, had I let fear dictate the decision: whether to be in certain relationships, whether to emigrate and whether to have children – or have more children. I got on a roll, realizing it really doesn’t even affect many of my day to day decisions.

Then I hit a hot button, I realised that while I hadn’t let fears about money get in the way of most of my big life decisions, I had let it have a big bearing when it came to which career to pursue.

So I started again, I wrote “I need to do something in order to earn money”, then I flipped it… “Money comes with ease”. Again, I found many examples of this that I’ve experienced in my life: generous gifts from relatives, redundancy packages, rising equity in property, rising investments and savings, bonuses and unexpected rises in pay or tax rebates.

The list went on, and then I realised how aware I am of the many other ways money can flow to people that I haven’t yet experienced, like big wins and inheritances. Then I hit another hot button, residual income.

Years ago, when I ran my own business, I learned a lot about the risks involved and knew I had uncovered something. Heaps of thoughts started to flow – negative, scary thoughts – like “it takes 2 to 5 years to make money in business, and most fail in that time”, “you have to sell, sell, sell in business”, “only the lucky few artists (in the broadest sense of all creative endeavors) ever make it”

So I tried to take the essence of all those thoughts and flip them, I got to “I can pursue my heart’s desire and money will flow easily”. This time I struggled to come up with matching thoughts that I already have. Sure, I know there are successful writers, speakers, artists, musicians and so on, and I know enough of those stories to know instant success isn’t the norm.

I also know enough about how this stuff works, the process of rebuilding my beliefs, to know that they won’t change when they don’t sit right.  Time to get more general I realised; what if I separate out pursuing my heart’s desire from money flowing with ease? I was already comfortable that money can flow in many ways other than a paycheck, or things like royalties or income from affiliates, so I set that aside.

I focused on my heart’s desire, which right now involves pondering life’s big questions through my writing. Then I captured some of the negative thoughts I have, like articles not getting published in more public streams because of changes in algorithms, or because it’s not the right platform, and I wrote “there are people who are eagerly awaiting the content I publish”, and got on a roll (thanks to all those who have hit ‘like’, commented, shared and connected with over this last year).

That took me into the territory of one of my goals, to become an accomplished author, which for me is about knowing my writing resonates with people, feeling like it makes a difference. With that I felt satisfied I was back on track after the wobble I had about money.

All in all, while looking at your relationship with money can provide some valuable insights, what you really want to make sure is that you are soothing any feelings about ‘lack’ in order to allow more.

Knowing what you want is one thing, but believing you can have it is where the work is. That starts with getting on good terms with what’s happening in your life right now, the stuff that smacks you in the face each day. If you find you are constantly resisting ‘what is’, try out this process and see if it can’t remove some barriers for you, make you feel a bit better about where you are.

​That, ultimately, is always your aim; to feel good about right now, to allow more of the good stuff into your life. Go on, give it a try.

Knowing I’ve helped in some way through my writing means a lot - I’d love for you to comment on, or share these thoughts with others, or contact me directly at [email protected], I’m always happy to help if I can. If we’re not already connected, just fill in your name and email at the top of the blog page to subscribe to my newsletter.