It was then I realized I was here to share this positive energy. I was meant to be a messenger of more. People worked hard to provide for their families, and fought hard to protect what they earned. When I was a teenager, this hard-edged attitude was becoming mixed with a touch of xenophobia. More and more immigrants were arriving in the East End, competing with and crowding up against older, more established residents. Lines were drawn. Turf was established.
And gangs defended what they considered theirs. On good days, I was ignored. On bad days, I had to fight to survive.
I began to turn my back on the spirituality that was my internal moral compass. It was easier to become who everyone else wanted me to be than to find the courage to be who I truly was.
At University, I began studying business and law in order to please my grandfather. In my free time, to dull the pain and unhappiness this decision caused, I began to spend more and more time in the growing East End underground music scene.
As a popular club MC, I rubbed elbows with heiresses, gangsters, and drug dealers. It was a schizophrenic lifestyle. Between MCing and partying at night, and following a career choice that was becoming more painful every day , a tension and sadness began to build inside of me that could not be ignored. It was the early hours of a Sunday morning. Unwilling to go home, I was walking to a club to continue the evening.
Water is magical. It sustains life. It exists simultaneously in three seperate states. It has been a part of human ritual and religion since the dawn of time.
It covers the majority of the world and it comprises the majority of each of us. In a very real sense, water is where the physical and the spiritual meet. It is indeed aqua vitae - the water of life. I can easily connect to my inner guidance, my compassion is endless, my energy is boundless, and my joy and positive attitude are infectious.
So you make the decision to begin a spiritual practice - meditation, prayer, journaling, or even simple reflection. The setting for the first day of your new practice can vary. You may be in a low-lit room or you could be outside in the sunshine.
You sit and you wait for this momentous beginning to occur, for enlightenment, insight, and truth to wash over you. Stop it! You take a deep breath and begin again, trying to clear your monkey mind. But it swings wildly, throwing crazy disjointed thoughts through your awareness like the never-ending news ticker at the bottom of a CNN news report. Red wine. Yes, full-bodied delicious red wine.
You think about how nice it would be to have glass of wine and slip into a warm bath. Stop this! Cut this crap out! Get serious! Five simple letters. Two words. Yet, there are probably no other two words in the English language that cause such powerful suffering. The pull of wanting is immensely strong. Like an emotional black hole, it can drag you away from the light of grace and into the darkness of need.
You become detached from the present moment. Instead of experiencing the joy, meaning, and peace that is your natural state, you endlessly orbit the bottomless pit of want, a thrall to an emptiness that can never be filled. In short, these two tiny words equal pain and frustration. Let me show you how:. The simplest of ingredients can yield the most wonderful and delicious results.
Take bread for example. Four basic components combine together to construct something that is profound, magical and very satisfying. In many ways, a recipe for a good loaf of bread has a lot in common with a recipe for a better life. You see, bread — like life — is an everyday miracle.
Bread is far-reaching in its effect, yet easy to overlook or forget because its essential nature makes it seem commonplace. Yet bread is anything but commonplace.
Its smell is evocative of home. Its taste is uncomplicated, yet redolent of abundance. It has fed humanity for millennia and in some sense, everything we see around us is connected to it or dependent on it.
Sharing it with family and friends is an ancient symbol of love and connection, as well as of the bonds of hospitality, fidelity, and trust. As Cervantes said, all sorrows are less with bread.
In Part One of this article, I talked about some of the very real, and very serious, problems that I had when it came to talking about money in my own relationship. I also gave you the ground rules that my husband and I agreed to use so that we could talk start about money in a transparent, non-judgmental, and open environment. Start with an easy discussion about what is currently working in your financial life — individually and together. Strive to find the common ground. So start with something positive.
Ask your partner what they feel is important financially. By gaining a better perspective on their values, you not only gain a more intimate understanding of who they are, but you can honor those values when you communicate. Seek to become an assertive communicator. Share your thoughts and feelings respectfully, and listen to your partner with the same respect.
But you both need to feel heard and validated. And speaking of trust — a word here about lying about money and secret spending. If this is you, you already know it. And intuitively, you know that it needs to stop. You will relieve yourself of so much guilt if you reveal your secrets and simply move forward into a new mode of thinking and a new goal of acting financially responsible.
And if you have a spending problem, an addiction to buying — please get help, my friend. It is a real disease, and you are not at fault. It can be very, very easy to feel defensive and attacked when we discuss spending and finances. Know that this comes more from inside you internal guilt than it does from outside of you your other.
Temper your reactivity, and at a separate time when you are alone, examine it to find its roots. In retrospect, I can tell you these arguments were completely irrational. We were both working hard and making ends meet. Whenever I checked the online banking statements, the money was there. But I never felt abundant. I truly believed that I would die alone and penniless. The alone outcome scared me far less than being penniless. It was a story to which I was so attached that through the force of my energy I was bending our reality to almost insure that our finances were a house of cards ready to collapse at any moment.
And my staunch unwillingness to meet my husband in a place of mutual respect where we could talk about these deep values was eating away at our intimacy.
You see, when couples fight about money, their respective positions deeply reflect their core values. And as time goes on, this polarization becomes caustic and like a strong acid, it eats away at the very foundation of the relationship. The unwillingness to appreciate and sympathetically discuss your conflicting attitudes and beliefs eventually creates all kinds of misunderstandings and hurt feelings.
It took time and introspection, but when I could finally articulate what money represented safety, security, self-esteem, protection, and ultimately freedom and independence which translated into me being a SAVER or as he saw it, a miser ; and he could identify all that it represented to him feelings of competence, power, control, happiness and a celebration of hard work which translated into him being a SPENDER or as I saw it a spendthrift.
That compassion and deeper understanding created the foundation for learning how to have the tough discussions in a mutually respectful manner and eventually building a strong financial future together. Our opinions and values regarding wealth, abundance, and worthiness almost always stem from our upbringing.
Some of us had lots of direction growing up when it came to money management. And some of us watched our parents struggle with not having enough money to buy sufficient food or clothing.
Then there are those who witnessed non-stop conflict between their parents over money, a constant source of strife, screaming and suffering. Right now, you have within you everything it takes to make it through this challenge.
Right now, a new and authentic chapter in your life is just getting started. So, what gives me the creds to be able to support you on this sacred journey? So, let me share my most important lesson with you. But, do you know what my greatest accomplishment is? And, you know what? Was it easy? Hell, no. Was it worth the journey? Emphatically yes! Fast forward to today. My life is joyful.
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