Two things need to happen for happiness and economics to change for the better!
First, you must examine the following myth and second you absolutely must … well, keep reading to find out!
Let’s start with the myth.
The unexamined fantasy – it is a myth that when negative emotions disappear and only positive emotions remain, you are happy.
That fantasy will never, never, never become reality!
What is happiness anyway?
Before I offer a clearer definition, first…
I taught another workshop about how to take better care of yourself yesterday and one of the participants, a fine gentleman who is taking care of his wife, is angry and sad at the same time. He is caregiving his wife who has lost her frontal lobe reasoning functions and who has no stop mechanism to eating – he is bordering depression right now.
Why I mention this is because he has given his lifestyle and power away to her, to his 2 sons and to his friends.
He has little left for himself because he gave it away!
I mention this for another reason – the main issue he faces (as do all the participants) is that he wants so badly to be validated for his efforts. And for obvious reasons, his wife doesn’t give him any – in fact, she backs off because his energy has now become caustic!
In a nutshell the dis-ease in his life is he is not feeling valued or being validated for who and what he offers!!!
In contrast, another woman in the class is caring for her 90 year old mother who is mostly deaf. The concern is mother won’t hear things in event of emergency.
So this woman, who lives a few minutes away from her mother, is willing to sleep over every night, and then go back to doing her work and life in her own home.
Why? Because she is loved and validated by her mother – and she feels soooo good about giving back to her as return validation!
We had both examples in the workshop and both were obvious how validation created happier end results.
Validate validate validate!
When asked, neither said anything about positive nor negative – both wanted to feel valued and validated!
I sometimes feel that the lack of validation has become a rampant issue throughout the world! A belief of mine no doubt, so I want to do something about it, as much as I can from where I sit!
As complicated as depression and situations could be, the simplicity in energy is this – validation, validation, validation!
If you never get validation again from any source outside yourself – you go look yourself in the mirror, stare square into your eyes and say out loud,
“Yup, I like who I am, I value what I contribute
and I ROCK!!!!”
That energy is contagious!
Back to positive vs negative – it’s a myth because you would have to think positive 100% of the time! Now is that even possible?
Even if you could stay fully conscious and in control of your thoughts, you still have not dealt with the energy that sits within. You could still be completely blocked with memory and stuck energy – and positive thinking does not move energy!
What’s more, you could be doing yourself even more harm. If you find yourself feeling down, you then could feel bad about feeling bad! It just compounds the negative emotion!
So first, let go of the notion that positive and negative is the key to happiness – it’s not! Here’s the better key and the second point!
Live within your means!
Ha! You didn’t see this coming, did you?
I’ve worked in finance for almost two decades and have been facilitating workshops on how to take your power back (from overbearing relationships, work, family, the past as well as economics!) for these past 5 years.
The focus has always, and I mean always, redirected to money! Maybe it’s me. But I like to think that people are finally getting the picture that they need to look more closely at where and when they spend or save their money.
Over these years, I have noticed major changes in the economic side of lifestyles.
There are more opportunities to invest in educational retirement funds, dividend paying funds, free savings accounts and a rise in investment firms with bigger strategies for all income levels.
Here in Canada, even our politicians have to reconsider their pensions – the original benefit pension plans are disappearing and public sector has to rethink about the quantity and quality of retirement.
I work a lot with aging and boomer women who are panicking they will live out their lives as “bag ladies”! Ouch! So what’s happening is they become cautious in relationships and are deciding to work longer?
Let’s look at the other side – the expense side of life. It now easier to get credit, ironic that accessing more money leads to greater debt accumulation in government as well as personal, people are still on two sides of the economic coin. Either they are busting themselves to rectify their economic pain, or they’re racking it up with a “So What!” attitude.
So what does “live within your means” really mean? Here’s where I want you to open your mind to this possibility.
It’s all about energy!
What pushes people to overspend and accumulate debt to stress levels without consideration that what goes out (common sense) should be based on what comes in?
Let’s talk a little about this.
Owning a home is a large investment. Then there’s the notion you have to renovate. How about upgrading furniture every couple of years!
Oh yeah, a friend of mine does just that. She feels she is entitled to a new bedroom suite and/or a new living room set every 2 years! Heck – do you know the price of these room ornaments?
So I ask her why? And her response is, I grew up poor, and I deserve it! I don’t want to live like we did! Truth is, she has a bit of a past energetic block that she can’t get past.
But credit rules and she pays, pays, pays and buys, buys, buys.
David Chilton, author of the Wealthy Barber Returns says that people have “fallen in love with home ownership.”
He says, “Not just owning a home, but now people want to own the grandest home they possibly can, and they want to constantly renovate. We have taken the home and put it on a pedestal, where it’s drawing a disproportionate share of our income. When they can’t save any money, it’s gone too far.”
Hmmm I agree. This is energy blocked. There is a belief behind it and that belief is ruling instead of going with the flow!
What else pushes people to overspend?
Juliet Schor, author of The Overspent American says the biggest influence increasing our spending is the glamorous lifestyles of our reference groups of friends, plus people on Facebook and TV.
Another ouch!
She uses the example of hockey sticks. You’ve got all different economic levels coming to play on a hockey team. The affluent kids get $300 or $400 hockey sticks. By the end of the year the whole team has a $300 hockey stick, whether they can afford it or not!
Energy trapped – belief ruling – common sense – out the window!
But, but but! No, you do not have to stay in the $30 or $100 hockey stick range – no! What you have to do is first realize that you are in a financial stuck space – that you believed you could only afford the $30 and so you plunge into debt to “appear” as if you don’t have that energetic stuckness!
Again, it’s all about energy and not about the thinking of positive and negative!
The question is how to break the cycle of borrowing, spending and debt.
I say, use a bit of common sense. If you can’t afford it now, say so! If it’s hard to say that – go to the mirror and start practicing!
This little exercise starts shifting the energy from within!
It must be released in order for you to move to a new level.
Here’s how the block occurred in the first place.
You see, you tell yourself a story to convince yourself to spend or do something when it may not be in your best interest or in your bank account.
And a lot of emotions rise out of that story.
Emotion rises, emotion falls. Emotion is intense, emotion is calm. It’s the story that reflects on the rise of your emotions and they don’t necessarily fall within a positive or negative state. They just are!
Where did the story come from?
Research has shown that 97% of our beliefs came from someone else – your parents, mentors, neighbours, friends, what you saw and what you believed about yourself. Only 3% comes from you!
Yet, the story traps the energy inside you.
Your inner space appears to exist inside of you. You can’t see it, touch it, and yet it’s perceived as a vast space inside – thoughts, emotions, sensations, appear and disappear. And their shelf-life is very short!
I’ll just talk about the emotions in your inner space.
Short and constantly moving! Emotion is a movement of energy – energy in motion.
They move like the graph of a heartbeat.
At times it’s little, at times they’re quiet, low intensity, at times it’s strong and more intense, and at times, super strong, like a hurricane or tornado takes us over!
Emotion is always in motion!
It’s never at rest when we’re conscious – but when asleep, it’s at rest.
It’s constantly moving even when they appear to be still on the surface (like the calm surface of the ocean – underneath is movement, even a tsunami building – unseen).
Movement of energy moving inside of us has an infinite variety of expressions.
We learn to break the always moving flow into pieces and label them as anger, depression happiness, peace.
We judge the pieces and label them positive, negative, pleasurable, painful, etc and then that is the story of which we accept them as true.
Then labelling and judging goes on autopilot and continues for years and lifetimes. And we forget that we built it – labels, judged and live them out.
The key?
There’s a part of you that observes all this inner and story space.
It buzzes and whirs when given something to process and then tells stories about what it observed.
I call it your Kodak Mind – it works in a precise way and precise reason.
Let me show you.
Look at the blank frame above – no words, no message, no expectations – that’s what inner space really is – vast, no start no end, nothing in which emotions (movements of energy) appear.
And yet, the flow is non-stop. At times, flat, little peaks, sometimes stronger, then emotions very intense, and flat again. The metaphor of the movement of energy is like a sound track of a movie – at times, the music plays, at times not, at times loud, at times soft and you get excited or calm based on the movement of that track. You hold your breath if the music crescendo’s and you relax when the soft violins play.
Energy movements go on all the time.
What I call, your Kodak Mind observes and captures this flow.
You know, Kodak, from the nostalgic Kodachrome method of capturing images and colour that George Eastman invented more than 130 years ago? I love this metaphor because that’s what our mind does – grabs, labels, captures and creates literally permanent records which fade and fail just like the old photos do!
So when your Kodak Mind observes one of your spikes, it says, “Danger Will Robinson! Danger! Danger / or bad / or what were you thinking?”
But the truth is, it’s not bad, weird, or anything – but the mind labels it.
Similarly, your Kodak Mind yanks out the flat line and labels it peace, nice, beautiful, soft, hmmm.
And it labels big peaks and small peaks – and puts words onto them. Anger, peace, nice, ugly, and so on.
The emotions are always moving – but the Kodak Mind focuses on one particular movement, labels it, judges it and then stores it. Then it becomes digital!
And when something similar shows up, the Kodak Mind labels that as what is described from before as anger, peace, sad, frustrated, etc.
There is nothing in the emotional movement of energy itself that tells you it’s anger, depression, frustration, etc.
There’s nothing in the movement of energy itself that tells you it’s bad, uncomfortable or unpleasant. Nor that it’s good, comfortable or pleasant.
It’s just a big story – a lie, illusion and story!
I will elaborate more in the next article, but for now, I would like to leave you with this closed eye experiment right now.
Close your eyes and do your best to become aware of your inner space – empty the head space.
Notice or observe it and see what’s there.
You are reading your own energy right now.
Think back in memory to a recent time when you were very emotional – positive or negative, up or down, soft or intense.
See the inside of your head, just behind the nose. As you recall a situation, feel and see the movement of energy that was present in that experience.
Notice how long you can feel or see it before your mind chatter cuts in.
You may see that first, the awareness of emotions and movement, and it was just what it was – then you’ll see the your Kodak Mind comes in and grabs it and judges, labels it as anger, sad, happy, and so on and attaches a story to it.
Now you try.
It’s right there all the time and reading energy was not something we were taught or told about. At some point you will have the opportunity to see that energy and how the mind machine attaches a story.
To experience true happiness, something has to shift in a big way, has to separate the emotion, the movement of energy form the story and keep it separated. So the truth can be seen and experienced. That’s what reading energy is all about!
Understanding is not good enough – you have to experience the truth of it.
I can help you do that. Once you discover it, you can release it, shift it and feel great even about the emotional situation that used to irritate you!
So have a great day, chat later and great job!
Isn’t it time you discover how to take your own power back? Would you really like to know how to read your own energy? Let me know if you’re ready to have your own energy read!
Go to my coaching page and ask me for your complimentary consultation.
Here"s an interesting and wonderful heartfelt story about a working woman who took surprising and effective initiative caring for her ailing mother.
