I would deeply like to be able to express what this decision really means to me. Let me say that this is not what you would normally expect. It is not about realizing that I deserve plenty of money, nor is it about realizing that there is no virtue in the lack of it.
It's about celebrating my son's seventh birthday. Deciding to have plenty of money.
Deciding to have plenty of money in oneness with all humanity. There is no other way to do it truthfully, honestly.
Because our money institution MUST change. There is no healthy and real way to relate to money as it is now.
What if one day I wake up and I'm tired of having little money? What if I say enough out of my guts: I don't want any more in my life to have a single thought related to the lack of money. How boring to have such thoughts so many times!
Perhaps there is this internal, integral and holistic decision of the soul to want to have plenty of money. Maybe in deciding it it will happen exactly like that. And of course, it may not happen. As I have argued in The amazing labyrinth of abundance, there is an abundance beyond money and measurable notions, hidden within what appears to be scarcity. Perhaps the movement continues in that direction, toward sufficiency and toward discovering a new conception of abundance.
Deeply understanding the economic system, everything indicates we should move in that direction (see Understanding money). In short, our economic system is mathematically (and not because of greed) like the game of musical chairs, where more and more often people are left without a chair and the chairs accumulate in a few hands. In this system, to have enough money there are basically 2 alternatives: (1) you already have it, in which case it simply reproduces itself. (2) To be skillful to extract it from others. In short, to extract it from the gift of life.
As there are already few chairs remaining, little gift of life left available to transform into money, in fact it is impossible for all human beings to have enough money (let alone plenty). Not even with a (also utopian) redistribution of wealth: for me this is more a truth of my heart than a mathematical calculation. That's why deciding to have enough money is a responsibility and is a decision of the soul -of the human soul that we all are- to get out of the cage of the possible. Without expectations, it may well not happen. No control: it's not that I'm designing the way I'm going or we're going to make money. It's a decision of the soul, not the mind. And it's our divine right.
Under no circumstances am I going to betray my own heart by dedicating myself to doing something different from what I enjoy doing, in order to make money. If I were to imagine myself, to visualize how I am going to receive plenty of money with my work of economia sagrada, I imagine it this way: That I can serve (and/or outright receive the support of) people or institutions that can support me with plenty of money, while allowing me to continue serving people whose circumstances are just the opposite, and who with all fairness and legitimacy have no chance of paying back my work with plenty of money.
It is worth mentioning that this is the situation that most commonly happens to me (to many of us!): I do a lot of work and receive little in return (of course I work in the gift economy). And I don't want this to change by force or control, I connect deeply with the legitimacy that it continues to be so.
Hundreds of thousands of thoughts, every day, are like this: in one way or another related to the lack of money. Related to the restriction of not having it, or to the hope of having a lot. To the things I would do if I had quite a lot of money: that trip to the beach, that trip to Chile to see our families, that list of pending things that are needed in our house. To be able to celebrate my son's birthday and my own in a big way, as befits, sharing in abundance and with many gifts, to buy new clothes (what a great appetite to buy myself new clothes!, thank you Mary Kondo hehe).
I feel sad and vulnerable to say this. I suspect, sometimes, that what I say is not understood. This morning when I shared this feeling with a close friend, he quickly and forcefully reaffirmed "yes! That's what you have to do, for how long will you suffer the lack of money". His response was so quick and strong, that it didn't help me feel suppored but rather I felt sadness. Feeling misunderstood or judged perhaps, as if not having so much money was a lack on my part. For example, the so famous lack of deserving. That is not the case.
There is that aggressive voice that says "One of two: either you have a lot of money, or you have excuses for not having it". I know well the 2 main excuses: undeserving, and the illusion that it is a virtue, a heroism, not having it (that is, an ego trap). For me, this phrase is not true. What an unjust, ignorant and irresponsible view of what is really happening in the world. It is not a measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society...
Suddenly, in expressing through these words this true sadness, this profound responsibility, a joy appears. A relief to all my shame. The honor of the human heart. The holistic heart that I have and we have, that includes all human beings and all life. And a new hope.
I want so much to be able to give in life. Gift and share, without depending on anything in return. I want so much, with so much strength and passion, to be able to feel free to give, without limits. This is my deepest decision, whether it takes this week or 10 years, whether it happens thanks to having plenty of money or in any other way I can't imagine yet.
Anyway, I can't control it. What is in me to decide, by divine right, is to liberate myself from having repetitive thoughts about longing for more money.
I'll be free to give.
For this reason, because of the loving dance of Vincent Sufficient and Alice Abundance, it may well be possible. It is not about balancing (the waste of) abundance with a measure of sufficiency. Nor is it about alleviating (the scarcity in) sufficiency with an extra measure of abundance. It is about the mystery that occurs when abundance and sufficiency dance in freedom.
This is a profound decision, a decision of the being. That I feel poetically (where the truest truth lays) we take as humanity, all together. Will you please decide it together with me?
About undeserving (money)
It's a collective, cultural emotion, happening today. A key aspect is, without a doubt, the most important task we have as humanity: to recover the love of oneself. In the paradigm of being separated, our very heart is divided into good and evil, and so we live in distrust of ourselves, often beating ourselves up. That is the primary task: to recover the listening of oneself, of our own divine center. We are terrified of doing so because multiple times we label what we hear inside ourselves as "bad", therefore in need of repressing. A whole world, a whole path.
For if on a daily basis I live assaulting myself, it is a natural consequence that the image of myself is not that of the unique treasure that each person's life is. Therefore, I may well live in undeserving. And to conclude that this is the reason why I have not enough money. This form of reasoning is typical of the patriarchal paradigm, of separate linear logic: there is an external problem (lack of money), I find the culprit, or the reason that causes it, and through the use of force I exercise the solution.
For example, I am sick with the flu, I find the virus, I eliminate it. Solved. Applied to this case, the reason for the lack of money would be undeserving. The solution, to realize, to convince oneself that one is deserving. Spiritual guides and philosophies that have authority, legitimacy, institutional certificates, etc. appear, reaffirming to us that this is what we must do: convince ourselves that we are worthy.
But how do you convince yourself? Brainwashing? Yes, great idea: brainwashing! Excellent solution: I repeat to myself in my brain hundreds of times that I am deserving until I believe it. Doesn't it work?
Of course it doesn't. That's not freedom. That's not healing. To convince oneself of an ideology is the same as to convince oneself of a religion. What heals then? To listen to oneself, to be faithful to oneself. And not any external authority. Notice how external patriarchal authority today disguises itself as spiritual ideology. The external spiritual ideology always has as its characteristic that it tells you, externally, what is "good" to do, and what is "bad" to do. In this case, the "good" thing to do is to convince oneself of being worthy, and in order to achieve that there is always another emotion or thought that must be overcome or repressed. That is to say, one more manifestation of separation that precisely denies following the inner guide.
I think that what we sometimes classify as not deserving, shame or guilt of having money, is totally healthy! If one honestly understands what the current economic system is, those are totally natural feelings that emerge! What is healthy, what is sincere, is to give them permission, to listen to what they want to say, without expectations and without control. In other words, to listen to oneself, deeply, beyond the cage of the possible and linear logic. That's changing our neural arrangement: a new way of thinking and perceiving.
Doves or eagles
Free to give. With or without money. The sincere decision to have plenty of money.