CHAPTER 11
YOUR INNER FOUNDATION OF WEALTH
The following 12 qualities make up the foundation of wealth within you, from which you can express and receive wealth in your world. These qualities represent a “high frequency” of hope, optimism, vitality, faith, trust and confidence - the polar opposite of doubt, depression, despair. Regardless of your present outer circumstances, you can nurture and cultivate a positive expectancy of health, wealth and happiness through exploring these qualities for yourself.
When you are not feeling loving and would like to call forward more of your own love. When the circumstances and conditions in or around you are disagreeable. Love them. Love you in them. Love it all. Say to yourself: “I love this”. “I love me in this mood”. All you need is to remember to say it.
When I am feeling less than positive and I say “I love you”, I cannot help but smile. The smile cracks my mood. I begin to move forward. Action and movement further breaks me out of the mood. Soon I am on my way again, with renewed energy and creativity.
2 GRATITUDE
Fullness
It has been said that the only prayer is “Thank you”. Why? If you are in a position to pray, you already have much for which to be thankful - perhaps not fully aware of it all. As you focus on what you are wanting more of, it is easy to feel a sense of lack - you do not have yet what you are going for. There is a natural tension between where you are now and where it is you want to be. In fact, that tension is part of the energy that will help to “spring” you forward.
However you need to master that tension and not be a victim to it. As a victim, you cast yourself off the track you want to be on. It is very human to be there and you will have plenty of support and sympathy as a victim. In a real sense, we can view ourselves as victims because life can strike us down with unknown events and circumstances. Ultimately, you are not in control.
An excellent antidote to feeling self-pity is to count your blessings, to enjoy them and be ever so thankful for them. You may simply start with completing Gratitude statements: I am grateful for.... I am grateful that.... In time, these statements will translate into feelings of inner fullness and well-being, no matter what the outer conditions and circumstances. Your life will become great and full.
The past is done. There is nothing you can do to change it. You cannot change something you did yesterday that you might have regretted. Or twenty years ago. Or longer. And yet you may still be criticizing yourself or someone else, over a choice or decision you, or they, made. Did you come into this life with a handbook on how to live well? Did any of us? Perhaps living is a course of trial and error, through which we learn.
The mistakes of your past can be your fertilizer of the future. Mistakes can be painful. With compassion and kindness, you can forgive yourself and others. Always start by forgiving yourself for your perceptions. Completing the statements: I forgive myself for judging myself for.... and I forgive myself for judging myself as.... begins to close to door on a perceived limited past. Closing the door on the past allows a door to open to the richer future you now intend.
You may choose to spend time with other people who are most closely aligned to your own aspirations. Being selective is a way of extending loving respect to yourself and valuing the choices you are making. It is not about being against anyone else. It is about being for yourself.
Holding a clear intention is a discipline of the heart. It takes love and has soft edges, not hardness to it. It starts with the commitment to yourself and can be summed up in this affirmation, which is good to repeat in times such as waiting in line, being stuck in traffic, passing time at an airport:
I now to commit to my highest good and greatest truth
5 CONNECTION
Connecting inwardly involves listening beyond mindless chatter to your own centre of love, and finding what is true for you. This listening happens best with an open and peaceful frame of mind when you are calm and relaxed. You can know whatever you need to know as listen to your intuitive guidance. This guidance is literally worth its weight in gold.
The better your ability to connect inwardly, the better and more successful your outer connections with others and indeed any resource you may need to locate. Your strong inner connection is like a shining star which will allow what you want to find you. In quiet moments, you can breathe deeply into the star of connection within you, and expand it. Let it radiate out from you and shine its light on what you now need.
You are living in a growing and expansive world. There is no shortage of anything you need. When you give with a generosity of spirit, you are rewarded in that moment. When you allow yourself to receive, you benefit the giver. The quality of empathy invites you to be inclusive with, and not separate from, others.
What is more, we are mirrors to each other. By which I mean, the goodness you see in others reflects the goodness you have in yourself - as mentioned previously. The softness of empathy is respectful towards others while allowing yourself the dignity to become more fully who you are. And fully who you are is also the wealth that you are. Appreciating the wealth that you are will lead you to experiencing the wealth in your world, moments of synchronicity, the beauty of connections, inner knowing and feeling safe.
Awareness of powerful presence of love within and around you
There is almost nothing that gives me greater joy than smiling at babies. Their joy awakens me to more of my own. Have you ever noticed how older people who have retained their sense of curiosity and delight in life also sparkle with joy? At any age, you can gain access to the infant side of your nature, the radiant love with which you were born.
The innocence of an infant is also the inner-sense of your adult life, pure and open and trusting. With the awareness of your own love comes the joy of knowing that truly all is well. This love and joy is not only innate to you, it is within every other person. The more you reveal the love in yourself, the more you will see it in others. And the more you touch into the love in others, the greater will be the connection to your own loving and joy.
As you radiate more of the joy that you are, you will find a new world opening up to you. This new world is filled with blessings, opportunity, ease and fun. It is light and graceful. In it, you can experience a power for the good working for you and those who are close to you.
8 SURRENDER
Being available to and for the best
Would you be willing to give over your doubt and wake up to wonder? The prayer best summarized for surrender is simply: “Help!”. Many times when I have been feeling stuck, I have called inwardly to anyone who might hear me: Help! Without fail, help has shown up. Sometimes it has been an idea about what I can do. Sometimes it has been feeling restored and hopeful once again.
As one who sometimes likes to think I am in control, I rarely am. I am one who functions best when I co-operate with what shows up. I do have a vision or sense of what I would like, but then I surrender it for the highest good of all concerned. And what shows up is usually so much better than anything I could have imagined.
There is no way I can see the fullness of what I call: The Bigger Picture, of which I am a small part. I pray for the best and I do all I can to remain open to receive it. I let go, I surrender and allow the best to come to me.
9 PEACE
Harmony in all of your affairs
It has been argued that peace is boring. Not the peace that I have experienced. It is vibrant, vital and rich. I have noticed peaceful people being active, creative and effective; enjoying their work and leisure time; communicating well with others; co-operating and having fun. All of this in peace.
In the same place as you touch into your joy, you will touch into the peace that is always present within you. Your inner world is highly dynamic. It does not have time to be fighting others for a point of view. It is accepting and understanding. When you make the quality of peace central in your life, you will easily restore balance and harmony when you need to.
You might think of yourself as a member of a great human orchestra. The part you are playing is vital. The harmony you have within you will contribute to the harmony of the greater composition of which you are one player. Together with other members of this human orchestra, you are elevating the field of human consciousness in many ways that may be unknown to you. Trust that you do make an important difference to the generous unfolding of the human community into its greater good, its wealth and well-being.
Above limitations and conditions that would impoverish you
11 CHOICE
12 SERVICE
Actively for yourself and others; sharing your gifts and talents
It has been said that the highest form of expression is service. Highest, not only in the sense of being “worthy”, but in giving, more importantly in the attitude of giving, we can experience life at a peak of fulfilment. I have met many people whose work could be described as “menial” but they take to it such a quality of devotion and service that they are as noble as any saint.
Similarly, I have witnessed service in the form of a lady in her 80’s who had cancer which she was treating with alternative methods. She lived modestly in sheltered accommodation in a pleasant part of London. Her life had been rich with experience, having lived for a great part of it in Argentina where her husband had been an engineer. He had died when she was relatively young. She returned to England and worked in a job until she was 70, reluctantly retiring although she felt young enough to continue.
For about a year, I visited her on Thursday afternoons when she prepared afternoon tea, usually with a delicious tea cake. She kept up to date with newspapers and television. More than that, she continued to be of service to others in the retirement home. She was an excellent listener. People came to her for her warmth and empathy - she did not have to go out and find anyone. We would talk about spiritual subjects and share a guided meditation. It was always a treat for me to spend time with her.
The best service I have experienced is that of giving from overflow. That is to say, when I have served myself first, through being responsible for and taking care of my own needs, I can give freely to others. I have no need for praise or acknowledgment. If that comes, it is a bonus and certainly good to receive.
What is more, when I have offered myself to take on a project out of service, I have several times discovered in the process talents and skills that I did not know I had. These have subsequently turned into fee-earning assets. The intention was to be of service for the joy of it. The extra rewards that came were unexpected. Whether you are an individual, a family, small business or large corporation, when you include these 12 qualities as part of your ethos, or statement of qualities, you will experience an increase of wealth, materially and otherwise. Health and happiness make up your inner foundation of wealth. Without them, your wealth is impoverished. With them, you are full and you are meeting your potential to have your life be the very best it can be.
