Showing posts with label making money with your business. Show all posts
Showing posts with label making money with your business. Show all posts

Part III - why our money mindset matters - tapping into business success and releasing money guilt using EFT and the 2nd house


In astrology money is 2nd house stuff; the 2nd house rules our finances, our values, our possessions, even our talent but what really shows up in the 2nd house is our self worth. It rules what money can buy and what it can't buy. This is the space where we pull our own weight in the world. This space is ruled by the planet Venus and the sign of Taurus.

Most people think of Taurus as represented by the stubborn bull and they can be, but Taurus is really the space in the zodiac that expresses our need for stability and grounding - ain't nothing moving that bull if he don't want to be moved.

(yes, I am going to talk about grounding again - this stuff is all connected plus I am obsessed we know this)

They always benefit by being out in nature,

(a Taurus in the city will not be a pleasant person to be around for long unless allowed a cat, dog or at least a fish tank, plenty of plants and frequent trips to the country)

peace and quiet, hands in the dirt, music in their ears and sensual touch

(think cuddles, hot baths, massages - the kind of touch that feels like safety).

Because Taurus is the natural ruler of the 2nd house the things that strengthen Taurus will strengthen our own 2nd houses, too.

(yes, the same 2nd house that holds our money, our values and our self worth - if you know who is hanging out in your 2nd house and where Venus and Taurus are in your natal chart, you can also work with that energy)

It could seem like taking a hot bath is not something that will make us any money, but it may be exactly what we need to feel safe and cared for. This is the rich soil of self nurturing that grows money best.

Anyhoo, on to tapping (not the kind with the awesome shoes - sorry!).

I first read about tapping and the Emotional Freedom Technique through Jack Canfield - the Chicken Soup for the Soul Guy.

It's a form of accupressure and is a simple exercise that you do to yourself.

Tapping works on the theory that negative emotional experiences disturb the energy meridians that run through our bodies. When we use our fingertips to tap on specific points on our face, head and body while focusing on a negative feeling, EFT quickly realigns the energy meridians associated with those particular thoughts and memories and allows healing to occur.

It is an excellent tool and you can do it almost anywhere. Google around and find some information and videos. Cheryl Richardson has one here. She is talking about anxiety but it works exactly the same with our beliefs.

I use the "Even though I have this fear - naming the fear", or "Even though I have this memory - naming the memory - I deeply and completely accept myself." There is something about the pressure on specific energy points while our body is hearing these words that allows our body to reset itself. It's amazingly effective.

With EFT we take responsibility for calming and soothing ourselves and changing our negative mood or belief instead of waiting for some external thing to come along or happen to change it - it allows us to take our power back. I think that is my favorite thing about it, plus it really does work. Try it for a week and see what happens.

So, what kind of negative belief or memory should we be tapping on to change our money mindset?

Make a list of your money memories or negative beliefs about money you want to release.

I will tell you one of mine that relates to my job loss story from Part I and Part II.

Even though I had technically 'quit' my job I filed for unemployment and since my employer did not want to fight me on this, I got it. I had a much loved uncle and one day I was over his house, no doubt whining about my job loss, but also complaining about the dollar amount of the unemployment check I was about to receive.

My uncle, born in 1924, had probably never worked a week where he made more than $400 in his life.

When I complained about the unemployment amount, he said "you should be grateful you have that". I was immediately filled with guilt. The guilt wasn't about any lack of gratitude on my part, but that I had embarrassed my uncle with my words.

And of course, what I internalized was - "who are you to deserve/ask for more than that?"

When I started thinking about the way money flowed in and out of my life and didn't stick to me, this was one of the memories that came up for me. I knew it told me a lot about my family heritage with money, what I grew up believing I was worth and the ways I self-sabotaged my own stability with guilt over having more than the others around me. I did the forgiveness exercise in the previous post and tapped to release the negative beliefs.

(our memories are always a doorway to our beliefs - asking ourselves why do we remember this particular thing among the gazillion things that have happened to us)

Negative money memories (beliefs) need to be released if we do not want to be sabotaging our business when we hit our income comfort zone.

Often I think I have released something because I have released it in my mind, but my body is still holding onto it.

Many years ago I had a rolfing session with an experienced practitioner and while he was working on my shoulder I had a flash memory of a collection of smiley face stickers on a metal background. It took me about a week to remember these stickers were stickers I had stuck to a metal slide in my backyard when I was a child. I had broken my collarbone when I was nine years old on that slide. When the rolfer (rolfer?) worked on my shoulder, that unconscious memory, stored in my right shoulder, was released. Truly this is self-acceptance at a soul level we are working on with this.

Women often feel guilt about debt more strongly than men do. If you think you will feel better about yourself when you are out of debt you probably won't.

(well maybe for 10 minutes until you celebrate your debt-free status at your favorite restaurant with your Mastercard)

If you let the current state of your wallet dictate your self-worth it will be dictating the future state of your wallet, too. Re-framing your thinking about your debt as life's belief in your future earning ability might help.

When I was in banking I worked with people who had declared bankruptcy. Generally men bounced back faster. They were usually able to separate their money from themselves, "it's just business", they would say, even about their own personal finances. They would file for bankruptcy one week and be in the bank asking me how to get their credit fixed the next. Women often seemed to carry more guilt.

If you have declared bankruptcy - tapping and forgiveness work can help.

Banks who lent you money expecting to get it back took a risk. That's how banks work. They are gamblers, and it’s part of their business to lose sometimes. They have long ago moved on and you should, too.

(this isn't a reason to not pay our debts, but some people have debts that have been legally excused for years still casting shadows on their self-worth)

Everyone needs an investment program. Don't think about saving your money for a rainy day because you will inevitably have one with this way of thinking. You are not saving money - money needs to flow. You are investing your money.

(even if your investment looks oddly like your sock drawer right now).

But don't really use your sock drawer. Money likes to be respected - it is part of our 2nd house family of self-worth after all. Some other tips are HERE.

Next up - Part IV -  tying this back into our businesses (for real this time) and why it's easier to build a business when we need the money, but not when we REALLY need the money

why our money mindset matters (we can't draw to ourselves more than we think we are worth) - part I


Prior to making stuff for a living, I worked in a bank.

I started as a bank teller with $100 in the bank and owed $100 on a Stern's (now Macy's) credit card and left 10 years later as a vice president with $10,000 in the bank and owed $10,000 on a Citibank credit card.

I was really good at helping other people make and save and grow their money, but for me - the money came in, the money went out.

Now I always had enough money (we did buy a house somewhere in there, took our daughter to Disney World a couple times, yada yada). Hubs and I never had to fight over money (which is one of the main things couples fight about and probably one of the reasons we are still together) although I had been known to remove a price tag or two (or twenty) in secret.

I thought I had good money karma/luck - the money always came in just before I needed it. But, I always needed it.

It didn't stick. 

(imagine duct tape covered with sweater lint here, but maybe not if you are eating your lunch)

Being sticky was not really on my radar. My money mindset was all about flow.

I saw money through two lenses - the lens of spirit; money as energy that needs to moving, no need to hold onto it, there is always enough for me and the lens of the bank where money comes in as deposits and moves out as loans and money is made on the difference in interest between deposits and loans and on the float.

(note - this isn't how banks make money now unfortunately, now things are a lot more risky)

I thought these lenses (is this the plural of lens - this looks so wrong) were working well for me until right around the time of my first Saturn Return - KABOOM. CRASH. JOB GONE.

Now this kaboom, crash thing that sounded like life as I knew it hitting the floor and felt like a tractor trailer to my ego wasn't really out of the blue at all. I knew I was burned out. I knew my astrology chart. I had been doing the Course in Miracles. I had been asking life to find the quickest path for me to get on about the business I was here for. I wanted to be happy. I knew I was doing exactly the kind of shit that changes things.

Once I lost my job I had no more money coming in, but I still had that pesky need to cover the money going out

I started manifesting on the outside what I had been creating on the inside for years by giving more than I was getting.

(note - when we request help or guidance from spirit it is not incorrect to imagine the Goddesses jumping about and shouting "Oh, YES, now we've got a project!")

Everything that happens is a reflection of what we believe about ourselves. We cannot draw to ourselves more than we think we are worth. We cannot outperform our level of self esteem.

I wasn't so much pissed that life kicked me in the ass as I was totally awed by the serendipity that created complete and total change. Actually, to be honest I was pissed, too.

(maybe I should rate this post R for Cat can't stop cursing today)

Technically I quit my job. In reality I signed a resignation letter human resources had prepared for me to sign in lieu of them firing me. I hired an employment lawyer and thought I would "sue the bastards" (I did rate this post R, remember). Then I unexpectedly ran into (more Goddess magic, no doubt) a woman who had been fired from the bank the year before. She was still angry and bitter and out of work. I didn't want that to be me. I un-hired the lawyer.

I also knew that this change was created by me. Even if it looked like "they did me wrong" to the outside world.

At the time I blamed burn out (and there was truth to that), but greater forces were at play here.

I was about to step into a new position within the bank that was highly visible. I had been promoted many times and always done well; leaning in to new positions, doing what had to be done, yada, yada - been there done that.

I had always worked with wealthy people. I had always worked for them in a service position though, even as a bank manager. This new position involved playing golf and having dinner with very wealthy clients, schmoozing them (can anyone really imagine me schmoozing) and becoming a peer to the bank's most senior management. When they looked at me they saw a peer because they were only seeing my outside. My inside was just a poor girl from the sticks in New Jersey. My inside didn't match my outside anymore. Something had to give.

For this promotion I would have had to outperform my own level of self esteem, which is something I now believe is just not possible.

Most people at this point get sick or self sabotage. It doesn't look like these things are conscious creations because we do this stuff unconsciously - we literally have to, we can't live with the split.

Monica Lewinsky didn't destroy Bill Clinton's reputation - his being required to outperform his self esteem did.

Self sabotage is a tricky beast because it doesn't always show up right away and it's not always easy to see the connection between what we think we want (that our self esteem is not lining up with) and the actions we are taking. A lot of people self sabotage themselves right now with the self defeating behavior of internet surfing (looking here, there and everywhere and never getting anything done). The lack of motivation and focus that are often at the center of depression have their roots in our self esteem, too (depression is the shadow side of creation, so listen up makers).

There are actionable things I have done for this (and continue to do, life is a process and I definitely don't have it all figured out) that work for me - they include forgiveness exercises, EFT, money releases, changing money habits, boundaries, the "who do we think we are stuff", astrology and more - so next post actionable stuff we can do to get our inner self to line up with the outer self we are reaching for.

(note - doing the exercises changes the outer self, too - sometimes the things we think we want are not really the stuff we are wanting)

next up Part II why our money mindset matters - taking action to increase our self worth so we draw the stuff we want to line up with (and Part III will tie this back into our businesses and why needing money is a good thing for makers)

why it's easier to build a business when you need the money, but not when you REALLY need the money



When I was in banking the banks in my county would bid annually on the county's surrogate account money. This was money the surrogate court was holding for people who had inheritances, lawsuits, winnings, etc when the money had to be held in trust for them for some reason.

One year we won the bidding war and our bank got to invest this money, which was tens of millions of dollars, and my branch got to open and service these accounts.

We quickly noticed no matter how much investment advice and money counseling we offered the people who were receiving regular payouts from inheritances and lawsuits, they (I don't mean anyone with mental or physical disabilities here) often did not make a move to move on with their lives until their money was completely gone.

Faced with monthly statements showing their declining balances, people still had to be dead broke with the sheriff holding an eviction notice at the front door before they could wake up to the fact these payments were over. It was time to get a job.

This isn't about laziness. Sometimes we need our backs against the wall so we have something to push off against.

It works the same when we are building a business. It is hard to build a business we will care about if we do not need money because every business requires us to do stuff we don't want to do.

But it is even harder to build a business if we REALLY need the money because our decisions will be skewed by the money - it's too easy to lose track of the fact our business has to be about the value we bring to other people before that value comes back to us in the form of dollar signs in our bank account.

So, I'm going to start a new series about money and our businesses next week.

And I will be back tomorrow with my take on the Virgo Full Moon we get to experience this weekend. xo all