There was a time I was in a big, ugly financial funk that lasted for four god-awful years.
It was a scary time and a very lonely time.
I remember this time being extremely stressful, as I’m sure you can imagine it to be. Ironically, the most stressful part wasn’t the constant anxiety of not knowing whether we’ll have enough money to pay for bare essentials next month. It was the embarrassment of the situation, our apparent incompetence to provide for ourselves.
I remember trying my hardest not to let on outwardly to others that I was struggling financially. Struggling financially felt like a character flaw, not what it really was, a temporary situation my husband and I found ourselves in.
The deeper we sunk into our financial funk, the more isolated we became. We stopped meeting friends, partly because we didn’t have the money to eat out, but mostly because we were sick of lying and pretend to be doing ok.
I felt sorry for us. I felt sorry for me.
But after four years, we slowly came out of our financial funk. And so when others talk to me about their financial troubles, I can relate. Not just with my head but with my whole being. I can understand the feeling of sinking helplessly deeper into slump.
In hopes of helping those who are in the midst of their own financial funk, over the next few blogs, I want to share with you epiphanies that helped me get out of my own financial funk. Five epiphanies in five blog posts.
Here goes epiphany number 1.
Epiphany #1: Making money is a byproduct, not the purpose.
In my high school biology class, my teacher blew me away when she said that oxygen is a mere byproduct of photosynthesis, not the purpose. What that means is, plants take in water, sunlight and carbon dioxide for growth and energy, and in the process of doing so, they expel out oxygen as waste.
That completely stunned me.
To say that oxygen, an element that most organisms on Earth depend on, is a mere byproduct and a “waste” changed my view on how the natural world functions.
I mean, think about this: in human-centric world, one of the main purpose of having trees, greeneries, and rainforests is for the oxygen.
Not true for plants. The purpose of their existence is not to sacrifice and work hard to provide us with oxygen. They exist to grow and blossom fully in all their glory, and oxygen was merely a byproduct that was expelled in the process of them being fully themselves.
Now, isn’t that something.
For most people, money is their goal
Most people mistakenly think that money is the goal, the purpose, rather than it being a mere byproduct. You see, money is to us what oxygen is to plants: in the process of us growing and blossoming more fully into our purpose, money is naturally produced as a byproduct.
You see, the natural way of creating wealth and abundance is like so: do something you love, share it with people, and money flows.
The more you love something, the more passionate you’ll be. The more passionate you become, the more you’ll feel an uncontainable urge to create. And as you share your creation with others, those who resonant with your energy in your creation will see value in it, and would gratefully give you their money as an exchange for the value you give them.
In short, the more you grow into your inner potential and express it outwardly, the more effortlessly and abundantly money would flow in.
Unfortunately, most people approach making money by making it their goal, discarding their passion and their life purpose while doing so. If money becomes your purpose and the “end” to your means, then you won’t be able to achieve the kind of pure, overflowing passion that creates abundance.
Living from your head, Living from your heart
It’s a matter of whether you’re living with your head (or ego) and your heart.
If you live with your “head” or ego, then all you can strive for are things that are tangible, things that have materialized in the physical because the physical is all the head can see: in this case, the money.
But what create things to come to the physical are the energies; that is, for money to materialize, you would need to be in the energy of passion and of abundance, and be immersed in the feeling of overflowing. Being in the energy of passion would lead you to inspirations that will lead you to the right actions.
You see, energy comes before the physical. And these energies, only your heart and not your head can sense.
If you live with your heart, your heart will sense where the energy of passion, of abundance, of overflowing are, and will bring about inspirations so you can do those things, and help you recognize these energy trails in certain actions.
Your passion and inspired thoughts will materialize, and if your intention is so, the byproduct of this whole process will be money.
You are much bigger than you think you are.
Let me put it in a different way: You are much bigger than what your head can comprehend, what your ego can know.
I mean literally, your soul is much more expansive than you believe it to be. And you’re trying to stuff it down to the small image of you your head created.
You have to understand that your head is extremely conservative. It imagines the worst case scenario, and can only suggest things that happened in the past rather than believe in things that is coming your way. If you follow the rational part of your head that makes sense to you, the part that says, “Be smart, be practical, be safe,” then you can only repeat the past over and over.
Living the kind of pure passion that creates abundance, well, that can only come through your heart.
Your heart is expansive and it’s only through your heart you can feel and understand abundance. Your head cannot, because remember, your head is conservative. Your head always imagines the bare minimum, the worst scenario. It can only imagine.
Deliberate creation starts with your heart, not your head.
This is going to be hard to hear
Now I’m going to say something that might be hard to swallow for those of you who are in a financial funk… because frankly, this part is the hardest for me to swallow too.
If you’re not making money, then it probably means that you’re not living your purpose with passion, at least not expressing it externally. If your passion is to paint, but you’re not sharing your art with the world, then you won’t be able to make money with your art.
Now, if this is the case, then I urge you to think deeply about the underlying issue for why.
Maybe the work you do, you did it for money rather than for joy or passion. Maybe you fell into your current job and are afraid to move onto something you really want to do because you’re dependent on your income.
Maybe the issue is about expressing your passion outwardly and exposing yourself to rejection and judgment. Believe me, I know this one. This one was a big one I’ve struggled with.
Whatever it is, the first step is to become honest without judging yourself. Whatever you discover, let it be. But the issue needs to be brought up to the surface.
Enjoy reading the series on "Five Steps to Getting Out of Financial Funk":