Do you feel like your efforts are never good enough and that you’re living to earn an income? There’s never enough time for you to relax and have fun because you’re always working, personally and professionally.
Or rather, do you feel unresourceful, a bit lazy, and overly reliant on others to provide for your financial needs? Both of these extremes in outer activity reveal the same inner belief of not enough or scarcity thinking.
In this blog, I offer 10 tips to achieve a balanced, prosperity mindset.
This blog describes the second of nine attributes of a Loving Self-Advocate (LSA) on the physical realm. A LSA is a woman who is holistically balanced, physically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually. She knows her worth and how to get her needs met in a healthy way.
To read last week’s blog for a foundation, go here. Learn how to move away from the extremes and move towards a holistic, balanced path.
We are still looking at your need for Safety, the bottom of the pyramid in Maslow’s Heirarchy of Needs. You want to know where your money is coming from as money is a huge part of fulfilling your safety needs. Once your money needs are satisfied, it’s then possible to feel that you have enough TIME to live as you desire.
From the outside looking in, you have a lot of busyness. You are a very active person, doing a lot of tasks. You may not have questioned why you have the need to stay so busy.
To help demonstrate this one extreme, imagine the life of Verina. Verina was born in the U.S.A. to two hard-working, Italian immigrants. They own a small Italian restaurant they named after her, their only child.
Their home is above the restaurant, and so Verina is constantly around the people, the smells, the food of the little eatery. One of her earliest, happiest memories was of her mother baking her the most exquisite birthday cake for her 4th birthday. The masterpiece was a white cake filled with pockets of cherry filling, topped with beautiful, fluffy white, buttercream icing, real red cherries as borders along the top and bottom.
Her mother made a big to-do of the special occasion and invited all of the patrons to celebrate with Verina. They gave away attendance prizes, cake, free soda and chips that day. She had over 200 people come to fawn over her. She felt super special and got all sorts of presents.
Verina had countless, comforting memories of the restaurant. It meant so much to her. When she was 11 years old, she began waiting tables and getting paid REALLY well, with the tips. At 15, she met her first boyfriend, Paul, when he came to eat there with his parents.
Her parents worked around the clock, getting up at 4am to begin cooking and prepping for the day. By the time they closed up, cleaned up and ate their own dinner, it was 10pm and time for bed. She came by her work ethic honestly.
Verina rarely sees her parents slow down to have any fun. They’ve never taken a vacation. The restaurant is their entire life, with the exception of her. She loves her parents, but she has growing resentment.
Verina agrees that they shouldn’t have to do more, but that they should hire more help. In addition to her, they had 5 waiters, 2 cooks, and 2 bus boys who’d been with them from the beginning, 16 years. Their response is always, “We don’t trust anyone to not steal from us. We vowed never to hire any more help after the first theft.”
Right after they opened, they discovered this one guy had been stealing hundreds of dollars each week. It wasn’t logical to not hire more help, but they wouldn’t budge, and Verina didn’t know how to set boundaries with them. So she kept giving in to their demands and getting more and more secretly angry.
If Verina keeps heading in this direction, she will most likely blindside her parents by leaving the restaurant without warning. Now 18, she’s already having visions of being on her own. Though she feels she’s doing them a favor by sparing their feelings, in the long run, she will hurt them even worse.
If Verina keeps heading in this direction, she will most likely blindside her parents by leaving the restaurant without warning. Now 18, she’s already having visions of being on her own. Though she feels she’s doing them a favor by sparing their feelings, in the long run, she will hurt them even worse.
Can you relate to Verina? She’s trapped and feels leveraged by her parents to live her own life.
If you’re coming from this place of overly relying on others, your life will appear much different from Verina’s. If someone was observing your life, it may seem that you aren’t busy at all. Some (even you) might think you’re lazy. You don’t feel very motivated to pursue a purpose. You prefer to watch TV, play video games, and lounge around.
Here is the story of Tabby, now 17 years old. Tabby was diagnosed with cystic fibrosis (genetic, chronic disease that affects the lungs and digestion) when she was born. She grew up in a split family, her parents divorcing when she was two years old. She has two half brothers on her dad’s side and a step sister from her mom remarrying. She spent half the time at each place.
Early on, Tabby could tell that her siblings were jealous of her because she got extra attention due to her illness. Her parents fought a lot, trying to get her to pick sides. She always felt in the middle and like it wasn’t safe to love her step parents because her mom or dad might get mad at her.
As a result, she never felt like she fit in at either household. Her dad shared two sons with his wife, and so Tabby felt like an outsider. At her mom’s home, her step sister, Olivia, lived there full time. She felt insecure because she wasn’t able to get in the rhythm of living in any one place.
Tabby also felt sorry for herself because she had to do daily treatments for the cystic fibrosis, take digestive enzymes with every meal, and take insulin shots due to CF-induced diabetes. Keeping her health at a bare minimum felt like a full-time job to her.
She’d always heard the average life expectancy of someone with CF was 39, but she saw a lot of kids die much younger than that.
She got a part-time job at Subway, but after her third day working, she decided to quit. Tabby was sure that customers were paranoid that she was coughing on and contaminating their food (people with CF have a chronic cough, and usually it’s not contagious to others, but the general public doesn’t know that).
Tabby really enjoyed working hard, doing well in school, and helping her mom with chores, but sometimes she simply didn’t have the energy to contribute. Then she felt bad about herself. She felt ashamed of having CF and guilty for being a burden on her family.
Can you relate to Tabby, or maybe you know someone like her? This is the opposite spectrum of feeling not enough. Tabby’s circumstances are drastically different from Verina’s, and yet both girls suffered with low self-esteem and self-worth.
The Loving Self-Advocate feels like she is enough. She doesn’t overly rely on others for her success. Yet she feels secure enough to seek help when needed.
Our LSA, Amy, now 27 and a lawyer, grew up in a household in which she felt very secure. She knew her parents loved her and supported her, even if they didn’t agree with her stance on things at times.
Her parents listened to her and were genuinely interested in what she had to say. They cared about her feelings. They also taught her how to breathe through difficult experiences, like the time her very first date stood her up. She was devastated as she’d spent hours on her hair and makeup. Her mom had bought her a silver, glitzy mini skirt and matching silk blouse.
She’ll always remember how gentle her mom was as she silently cried tears of rejection, “Honey, there will be times in life like this. We don’t control what other people do. But let me assure you. You can handle it. You are not a victim unless you allow yourself to be. I want you to breathe 10 deep breaths. Let’s do it together.”
She felt so much better after that, and she spent a nice evening playing Monopoly with her parents. She knew they loved her no matter how she did in school, but for who she is.
You deserve to value yourself and be well compensated. Money reflects how much you value yourself. Money is not evil. In fact, becoming financially sound is the first step to helping you gain time freedom.
Question if they are really true. Refer to this book called the One Minute Millionaire. In it, they talk about becoming an Enlightened Millionaire. This is someone who truly wants to give back to society in some valuable way with their resources. They are good stewards of their money.
It’s not “selfish” to have desires. Ironically, the more you satisfy your own needs and desires, the more energy you have to give back to others.
and begin accumulating future retirement assets. It’s amazing what a $1/day can grow into after many years. Find a financial consultant you like and trust to help you with this. Let me know if you need a referral.
and transfer 1-10% monthly. To develop a prosperous mindset, have faith that what you give out will come back to you many times over.
and follow it to the best of your ability. People hate the word “budget,” but it’s not so scary, especially if you have a financial person helping you with it. Having a structure like this can be freeing.
to a lower rate loan if possible.
them where possible.
to bring in cash flow if need be. This can be temporary to help get you out of debt.
It’s so easy to be ashamed of your financial status, but try to not harshly judge yourself.
Don’t buy into the EGO which will tell you these minor change are not enough. It’s just not true.
We all feel not enough to some extent. It’s part of the human condition. If you’d like to uplevel your beliefs, come to the next healing circle. See below to register.
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We’re here to help others get better so they can live freely without regret Believing we’ve each got one life, it’s better to live it well and the time to start is now If you’re someone who believes change begins with you, you’re one of us We’re working to inspire action, enable completion, knowing that, as Thoreau so perfectly put it “There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root.” Let us help you invest in yourself and bring it all together.
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