In this article, I demonstrate what spiritual work is, through doing my own spiritual work… something I haven’t done, something that isn’t completed, but only started in this article.
What is money for you? Pennies? Dollars? numbers in the bank?
I caught myself this morning.
I, somewhere along the line, decided that money is coins.
As a kid, I collected coins in a wooden container. I stole coins from my parents’ coat pockets. I picked up coins from the dirt.
I felt rich. My brother envied me. The older brother I was in love with…
My mother called me a whore when I was three… and I associated it with money. Getting money.
My relationship to my parents could be told in the context of money.
When I was 16, they gave me enough money to buy ice cream, but not enough money to buy real food or clothes… One winter my mother felt ashamed that I didn’t have a winter coat… what would other people think… She bought me one. They had money, I didn’t.
I worked every summer. I bought clothes for myself.
I grew up poor, while my family was well off. I am continuing to be poor.
My relationship to money is warped. Fear of having money. Deep fear.
I have done courses, I am one credit short from having an MBA, I have been an entrepreneur for 36 years.
I am limited, and consciousness hasn’t penetrated this area.
Sex and money are often connected in the psyche… no freedom in either area for me.
Death and money are also often connected. My issue is connected with death.
Connecting death of someone and your internal state at the time, mistakenly thinking one caused the other, can be at the root of your poverty, or your suppression of that feeling.
Death can be figurative: like the leaving of the father… it is not quite death death, but it is like death, from your vantage point.
When you have an area where you are seriously limited… the work is to gently visit the area.
Uncoupling the two unrelated occurrences: your feeling and what happened, or your action and what happened.
Gently. With compassion.
So the self-loathing can go. So you can deserve again.
That is the work I am going to do with myself… because I can’t think of anyone who could do it with me.
Maybe I’ll do an exercise from one of my Landmark Education Forums, for uncoupling…
Maybe I’ll work with someone from my group who needs my help and bring consciousness to the area that way…
I know, it is a little too late to dig a well when you are thirsty… and it is the first of the month and I don’t have my rent… but it is better late than never.
The feeling of being undeserving… of being fundamentally flawed.
