Prosperity consciousness is the belief that there is abundance in the world and that there is plenty for all. It’s pretty easy to maintain this state of mind when things are going well, when the money is flowing, and when life seems to be smooth sailing. It’s harder to maintain our prosperity consciousness when job loss, unexpected expenses, or other nastiness come riding roughshod into our lives. However, it’s when things are looking down that our prosperity consciousness is more important than ever.
I found out last week that work at my consulting company has dried up and that I had two weeks of paid “bench time” and after that I had an option of four weeks of unpaid leave while my company continued to try to place me. My first reaction was, predictably, fear and not just ordinary fear, but a deep gut wrenching sense of fear that I would soon be homeless and penniless on the streets. My fear manifested itself in avoidance behavior in the form of a few hours watching brain candy and one sleepless night before I pulled myself out of the poverty consciousness and began practicing deliberate prosperity consciousness.
Reminders of Faith–I am a big believer in faith and trusting deity to take care of me, but my analytical side likes proof so I took some time to assuage my brain’s fears by making a list of all the times I’d thought that life was going to fall apart and something bigger and better than I ever could have imaged happened. There was the time I was unemployed and landed a better job within six hours, the time I thought my house deal was going to fall apart and didn’t, and the job I didn’t get because there was a better one in the offing. Having a concrete list of key times in my life when miracles happened and life worked out better than I could have helped went a long way to shutting down my brain’s fear response.
Gratitude–Once I’d made my list of all the times deity had come through for me, I started focusing on all the things I had to be thankful for as gratitude is one of the best cures for poverty consciousness. As Louise Hay said on her blog, “You can never create prosperity by talking or thinking about your lack of money. This is wasted thinking and cannot bring you abundance. Dwelling on lack only creates more lack. Poverty thinking brings more poverty. Gratitude thinking brings abundance. “ I also took time to look around my house at all the photos and momentous of all the joy and wonder I’ve had in my life.
Spiritual Practices—Even though my instincts told me to focus on getting a job at the expense of everything else, I chose to focus on my spiritual practices. Past experience has taught me that taking time to breathe, meditate, and strengthen my connection to spirit were more important than putting out more and more resumes. One of my key spiritual practices is to pull a tarot card every morning and the first morning after my boss called, my natural instinct was to stop because what was the point. However, I’ve been pulling these daily cards long enough to know that the practices grounds me and keeps me focused on what I can do instead of what I can’t do so I pulled a card and it was death reversed, which told me I needed to change my attitude and quit resisting.
Practicing Love—My brain loves to beat me up for whatever bad thing I’ve supposedly done. Even though my boss assured me that this was all about a lack of clients and nothing personal, my brain still believed that there must have been something I did to bring this about. I’ve learned that the best cure for self hate is self love so I’ve spent time the last few days taking long bubble baths, cooking healthy meals, and being nice to myself. I’ve also spent time loving the people in my life that matter by reaching out to a friend I know who’s hurting, walking my dog, and helping my daughter with her homework. While self love reminds me that I matter, loving others reminds me that I’m not the only one that matters and the only one who has doubts and fears.
Trust–When I feel as if I’ve been kicked in the gut, it’s often hard to trust that anyone has your best interests at heart and I know for me that it was hard to believe that my management team really was looking out for me. However, my boss had told me that they were doing everything possible to find another project for me, that doubtful little voice inside said “yeah, sure they are…” I had to quiet that little voice and remind myself of all the benefits I’d gotten from working at this company, all the times they had gone out of their way to treat me fairly, and I had to override the paranoid little voice inside of me and trust. It also meant that I had to continue doing my best on the tasks that I’d been assigned instead of saying, “What does it matter? I’m not going to be here much longer.”
Conscious Spending–The natural instinct when hearing difficult financial news to go into conservation mood, but spending can be an act of faith. Last Saturday my daughter and I headed to our local new age shop, Spirit Apothecary to pick up a few things for the Ganesh altar I was putting together. My daughter was delighted to find that they still had a titanium quartz necklace she’d had her eye on for a few months and I decided to buy it for her both because I was proud of the hard work she’s doing and as a conscious act of prosperity consciousness. I also picked up a book that looked interesting and I put $10 in the tip jar. Deliberately pending money when times are tough is different than spending to fill an empty place inside of us. Instead, it is a conscious act of devotion that says “I trust the universe to provide.”
Asking for Help–There are many different forms of prayer and I know that deity hears me without the fancy candles and accruements of magick, but deliberate acts of magick help me to focus my intent. Once we’d returned from Spirit Apothecary, I created a Ganesh altar to ask Ganesh to bring me success in my job search. I dressed a candle and set out offerings for this amazing Indian god and respectfully asked for help. Although my usual mode with magick is to set my candles and forget them, this one I’ve been putting out every evening and relighting every morning because that’s what feels right.
Real World Actions–Magick doesn’t just happen it also requires real world action to go along with the intent and after setting my intentions about what I want in a job, I set about taking the real world actions to make it happen. I updated my resume, called recruiters and contacts, and set about sending in job applications with the intent that the perfect job for me will manifest.
Investing in My Future–My personal spirituality doesn’t suffer when I get busy, but my outreach work and work on Midwives of Change does. Even though conventional wisdom would guide me to throw all my energy into a job search, my heart and guides tell me that Midwives of Change is my future and I need to invest in it even more now that my job situation is precarious. I’ve started working on course material, researching training platforms, and even working on a book proposal. Putting energy into this spiritual pursuit reminds me that I am more than the sum of my paycheck and I do have gifts to offer the world.
Maintaining poverty consciousness when thing are tough can be a challenge, but I’ve come to believe that it is a deliberate act of faith and every time my mind starts slipping down the rabbit hole of poverty consciousness, I deliberately set the reset button by reminding myself that The Universe is a Place of Plenty and I will be taken care of.
Cairn by Cairn 