Tag: Deepak Chopra

Bank of Spirit

Where are you spending your money? What do you put your money towards? Most of us would answer that we put our money towards food, clothing, shelter, health, taxes, education, our families, pets, retirement savings, charity (in no particular order) and then if there is any money left over it goes to luxuries like outings, trips and trinkets. We’re all pretty cognizant about where we spend our money and what we want our money to do for us. Most of us already have answers about what we would plan to do with our money if we came into a big windfall such as winning the lottery.

I read an interesting perspective the other day that asked the question: why don’t we put that same kind of consideration that we do about where we are spending our money, into where we are spending our everyday personal emotional energy? If you pretended that every thought of yours was a dollar, are you spending your thoughts in the right places? Are you spending your thoughts and feelings on people/places/things that truly matter to you? Are you wasting your thoughts and feelings? Are you bleeding your thoughts/feelings? I replaced “thoughts and feelings” with where the word money is often used in these common platitudes:

+ Thoughts and feelings don’t grow on trees. (We all only have about 16-18 waking hours in the day when we can consciously notice and change our thoughts and our feelings. And none of us know just how many days we will actually get on this Earth to think and to feel and to experience our perspectives which we create about life.)

+ Time is thoughts and feelings. (We are in a constant stream of thoughts/feelings throughout our time in the day.)

+ Thoughts and feelings can’t buy happiness. (Happiness is usually a by-product of a state of gratefulness and positivity created by the thoughts and feelings we are having about various situations in our lives. Thoughts and feelings mired in negativity will not buy happiness.)

+ Make your thoughts and feelings work for you.

Money is just another form of energy. “One of the ways Webster’s Dictionary defines energy is “the physical or mental strength that allows you to do things.” Money, like gasoline for your vehicle, allows you the ability to do the things you want to do in life.” (oreilly.com) Money is the symbol of the energy it took to earn it, and we trade this energy for some other form of energy (the things and the experiences that we value and we buy).

We tend to put a lot of consideration into where we spend our money and if we don’t do this, we often end up “broke”, with nothing to show for it. Is this any different than our everyday thoughts and feelings? Are you wasting your thoughts and feelings on things that really don’t matter or that are out of your control? Are the places where you are spending the propensity of your thoughts and feelings giving you a good return? Are you getting a lot of bang for your buck?

Just for today, pretend that your thoughts and feelings are your financial allotment for the day. Invest your thoughts and feelings wisely. Spend your thoughts and feelings on things that really matter to you, and on matters that will really make a difference in your own life and in the lives of others. Spiritually wealthy people are conscious and careful with their thoughts and their feelings. They are generous where it pays off to be so, for themselves and for others. They know that their focus of energy (thoughts, feelings, actions) will pay dividends, so they are careful to place this energy where it is best grown. Be good with your “money” and it will be good to you.

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Pioneers

A few nights ago, my husband and I got to talking and reminiscing about our honeymoon in St. Martin, which is a Caribbean island. I told him that I remember feeling a lot of anxiety about my job, during our trip. I was 23-years-old, and my job was selling college textbooks for Prentice Hall Publishing Company. By age 25, I had quit that job and I was a full-time mother to our eldest son. So over twenty-five years ago, while I was on one of the most wonderful, landmark vacations of my lifetime, I can still acutely remember the stress and the worry, which I allowed to happen within me, about a job that turned out to be such a small, somewhat insignificant blip in my life. Of course, I still experienced an amazing honeymoon, and I still get a Christmas card every single year from my previous manager at that job. But in reflection, I allowed my stomach-churning nervousness and uneasiness which I’ve been prone to, most of my life, to affect that trip, and many, many others, despite proving to myself again and again, that the worry never, ever helps anything.

We all know the platitudes about worry: “Worry doesn’t empty tomorrow of its sorrow; it empties today of its strength.” – Corrie Ten Boom “Our anxiety does not come from thinking about the future, but from wanting to control it.”- Kahlil Gibran “Worrying is using your imagination to create something that you don’t want.” – Esther Hicks

I read that in order to help yourself to stop worrying, you should memorize sayings like the ones above, or memorize comforting Bible verses to help soothe your concerns. These actions help, but what helps me even more is to reflect on the thousands of times which I have worried about events in my life, that always ended up turning out just fine, and sometimes even more than fine. I think that is one of the most beautiful aspects of aging. The older you get, you pile up a whole, giant cache of experiences to reflect on, and to learn from. The lessons get repeated again and again and again, in only slightly different forms and scenarios, until you finally decide to learn the lesson for good.

“Every time you are tempted to react in the same old way, ask if you want to be a prisoner of the past or a pioneer of the future.” – Deepak Chopra

Let’s be pioneers of the future, friends. I think that this is a human life’s purpose, in a nutshell. And no worries, we’ve got all of the Love in the Universe to support us, all along the way.

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.