finances

Stock and Flow 150 150 admin

Stock and Flow

In the book Happy Money, a part that stood out for me was when he simplified wealth into two simple parts – stock and flow.

Stock is basically your reserves.  Questions like > How much do you have in your bank account?  What is your net worth?  How much money do you have right now?

Flow is basically personal cash flow…which equals total cash inflow – total cash outflow.

This makes it pretty simple to understand, and I see so much information on decreasing the cash outflow, but I see very little on mainstream media about increasing cash inflow.

This doesn’t take into account the stress / negative emotions that the cash

I also see this as a good social analogy.  How many aligned friends do you have now (Stock)?

Is there a good flow of meeting new people (Flow)? And/or Is there a deeper investment in the people you already are friends with?

Level-Up Moments 150 150 admin

Level-Up Moments

Have you had moments where you felt like your life really leveled up?  Are there any patterns you see in these moments?

For every level-up moment I’ve experienced, I can trace it back to something I embraced that was new for me.  Also, through taking in new input, it helped me see old things with a new perspective.

A Few Level Up Moments

For example, a moment when I leveled up socially was during a workshop.  I had been trying to solve this problem of making money in an inspiring, heart-centered way all alone.  This wasn’t working.  Instantly after meeting people who were making a living in a heart-centered way and connecting dots, things started shifting quickly in a positive direction.  I started making passive income every month after my first book was published 3 years ago (right after the workshop) and still continue to make a liiiiiiitle every month now.  This changed how I looked at finances.  I had been serving a company to earn money before…and that means I served one entity.  But with the book I published lots of people benefitted – in a smaller way, but the volume of people I served was waaaay larger and I loved a lot more of the process. From then on I saw how the solution to this problem was more of a social problem than a how-to, step-by-step, information / mental problem.  It made me look at the old way of doing things with a new perspective.

Another level up moment is when I joined a 12-step program, and left a lot of my life up to my sponsor.  It was beautiful.  From the moment I got the sponsor, health wise and weight-wise my life was better.  I ended up losing 110 lbs from that moment.  Again…the answer for me was social.  They told me exactly what to eat and when and how to satisfy my hunger to be able to sustain it to lose weight and have a normal-sized body.

I had to embrace spending $500 on a workshop and traveling to Las Vegas. I had never spent that much money on a workshop and never traveled to Las Vegas.  That was new for me.  I had to embrace joining a 12-step program (I actually didn’t know it was a 12-step program before joining) and having a sponsor who told me what to do.  That was new as hell!

Now I’ve seem to come to a place where I’m being called to embrace more input.  Even with this blog…it’s not receiving much traffic now, but i know the steps to get it off the ground because I’ve repeatedly gotten things off the ground before.  It feels like I’m being called to get more of my work/art/ideas etc into more people’s hands, to put it out there in a much bigger way, and invite more feedback and be able to handle and process it consistently.  That will be new for me in so many areas.  It requires me to face many fears, but it seems unavoidable if I want to take my life in a direction where I want to make my living through creative expression.  It is feeling like one of those level up moments.

Back to You

What is calling you?  Is there something in your life that you want to level up?  Embrace the new as much as possible to spark a level-up moment!  New experiences or new travel destinations or new vacations or new workshops or restaurants or new habits or new trials or new input or new physical exercise or new groups to join or create.

You might find old, mental conditioning rising up in your mind to enhance your doubts and fears, but suspend the disbelief for a while.  Don’t block the energy that is leading you to new.  Follow the breadcrumbs, stay curious and follow the energy where it wants to flow on step at a time.  Keep consulting with the present moment and allow the next right action step to come through.

Heaven On Earth 575 300 admin

Heaven On Earth

I can’t tell you what your heaven is or when it is going to come or how it will look.  However, I can tell you that you will know when it does.

You would think that it’s some instance where you’re pleasured out.  Where you’re experiencing all these different pleasures you think you want…but that’s not how heaven showed up for me.

The instance for me happened when I was at a spanking party.  I looked around…stunned…and I asked myself, “could life really be this amazing?”.  At that moment it literally felt like heaven on Earth.  And get this – I was living in my car!

It wasn’t just that moment that inspired that feeling of heaven on Earth.  Imagine a cup…and all the previous insights and experiences I had within the past 2 years had been adding water to that cup.  Before attending that party, the cup was about 3/4ths full.  Then when I went to my first spanking party, the cup just started overflowing with water.  That’s what it was like.  That cup poured over to Solving Problems Socially.  I was feeling so great, I felt other people had to experience this, and that I could help them get there because I had been on the opposite side.

Heaven came from finding members of my real family.  Not members who were biologically / genetically / blood line family, but people from all over the world who aligned with deep parts of me. I met people who aligned with the part of me that wanted to do heart-centered work and make it sustainable.  I met with people who had addictions and issues with food and/or weight gains/losses. I met people who were deeply into spanking.  These parts of me were previously suppressed and when they started to be expressed then I found my new, aligned family members.  What I’m working on now is being a good container for that heaven.

What are you suppressing that needs to be expressed?  When will you express it?  What if you knew the part of you that you suppress needed to be shared…like it was your purpose to share it.  And to help other people express it to!  What if…the expression of the parts of you that you normally suppress is a prerequisite or a key to unlock connection with your true family.  Family that has been through what you have been suppressing and can help you along the journey.  Family that can offer you support and answers and can relate.  Family that can bring whatever it is you’re suppressing out of you to express fully.

You can feel heaven on earth now.  You don’t need the outside to match it at this moment, but you can use your imagination and feel what it would be like to have all the deep parts of you supported, acknowledged and encouraged.  Feel that feeling with as much intensity as you can.  The more you feel this feeling and think about it on the inside, the more your reality must shift to match it on the outside.

Don’t Save Money Out of Anxiety 150 150 admin

Don’t Save Money Out of Anxiety

This is an excerpt from Happy Money that hit me like a ton of bricks.

Don’t Save Money Out of Anxiety

Many people save money because they are afraid of the future.  They may get sick or lose their jobs, so they save for a rainy day.   That is why people want to save: in case something bad happens.

But if you save money out of anxiety or fear, you will just feed more fear and anxiety.  More blocks to the flow of money.

The side effect is that no matter how much you save, anxiety around money will not disappear.  If you are broke, you may think you need to save enough money for a week to feel at ease about money. But if you have a weeks worth of savings, you will feel like you need money for a month.

… So your anxiety never disappears.  Why?  It is not related to money at all.  It is anxiety and fear deeply rooted in your psychology.

There are lots of good quotes in this book, but I pulled this one out because it made me stop in my tracks because this is how I relate to savings. This makes sense from a law of attraction stand point.  Whatever you think and feel most of the time is what you will attract to you.  If you think in the way quoted above, you are on the same vibe as anxiety and fear, so you must continue to experience anxiety and fear as it relates to the possession of money.

 

Voluntary Car Repossession 150 150 admin

Voluntary Car Repossession

About an hour ago, they towed my 2015 Dodge Charger from my driveway to some lot somewhere.

This car has been great to drive, but a pain paying for it and dealing with Chrysler Capital. I feel so much lighter today.

My payments were about $675 due to bad credit when I bought it. It was a decision made of desperation. I had been taking the bus before that in Dallas for a long time, and was just absolutely tired of the time it took to get from one place to another. Texas isn’t a great place to not have a car, and the test drive of this new car got me hooked.

In American Football, usually on a running play, the quarterback hands the ball to the running back to run. This is what I felt like I was doing with my paycheck. I was the quarterback and the bank that owned the car was the running back. If you need more of a visual, watch the video below and/or skip to 1:58 in the video to see this happen real time. The guy in the back is the running back, my paycheck is the football, and I am the quarterback in the front.

I just remember thinking that…every time we made that payment…either me or family who helped me out got screwed.

I literally look back and wonder how they even sold me this car. Looking at the numbers, I definitely couldn’t afford this car, which is why I put on a cosigner.

I’m taking responsibility for this bad decision and owning it, and the domino effect it caused.

Lessons learned? Avoid making decisions from desperation if possible. Look for more options. Don’t fall for the sleazy and dishonest sales tactics to get you to buy. Live within your means, but dive deep into the options of increasing your means.

Also, a big lesson I learned was to think bigger. When we signed the papers, I can remember wondering, “how can I keep up with these payments?” and trying to find a way to do that. And for the time I had the car, that’s all we did – keep up with the payments until we couldn’t keep up anymore. Now, I would think and focus on – how can I negotiate a low price and pay the car off in total at the time of purchase.

I also take responsibility for the people that sold it to me, thinking they got over on me. When they sold it, they were so happy. I could see this feeling of “gotcha!” on their face…like they were fishing and had caught one. While in the short term they profited off this individual transaction, it’s not going to look good for them in the long run. They further contribute to the bad rep car salesmen get. I can’t see myself ever looking at Chrysler Capital again in a positive light (more negative word-of-mouth). I’m reminded of the constant robot-like real humans that called me just to ask for a payment over and over and over again.

This was a source of shame, but writing about it has actually helped me. Hopefully it helps someone else!

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