Financial Freedom

"Seeking happiness outside ourselves is like waiting for sunshine in a cave facing north" -Tibetan Proverb

Let's begin this journey with one of the biggest lies and most destructive beliefs around money that exists. The lie is called financial freedom or its similar name, financial security. This is the carrot on the stick that almost all people are after, and just like that analogy, very few, if any, actually reach it. This is because we don't know what it is and why we are seeking it. Stop reading for a second and define what financial freedom is for you.

It might be different for each person, but I'm guessing it is usually something to the effect of having more money than you will need to live comfortably. Or maybe something a little more elaborate like having a passive income that is more than your living expenses so that you no longer have to work and can escape the rat race. Or having enough money to travel the world, pursue your dreams, provide for your family or future family, and do whatever you want, whenever you want. Or maybe it is as simple as having a few month's savings and not worrying about any of the bills that come in. How close is that to yours? Can you see yours in any variation of the examples I gave?

Another good question to ask yourself is, how long have you been chasing this elusive carrot? How long has it been your north star, directing all of your efforts? For me, I went after this for 38 years until the truth of it was revealed to me. The same truth I'm going to share with you by the end of this writing. Financial freedom was my God, and it dominated my thoughts about money. It drove all of my travel plans, investing choices, and business decisions.

Looking back, it made me do some really stupid things like partner with people I couldn't stand being around, and complete tasks I absolutely hated just so I could get one step closer to the paradise that financial freedom had built in my mind. And there is the glimpse; it was just an imagined concept in my head that was my puppet master. How long have you been going after your financial freedom paradise?

Before we go further, I just want you to understand what it is we are doing together. You might be thinking that you are just reading a perspective on money, but if you are open to it, what I'm proposing is true financial freedom- actual financial security, and a paradise unlike anything else. All of which is a thought away.

Contradicting tightly held beliefs can be difficult. Growing pains are aptly named, and stepping away from the structure of your thinking even for a second can feel like death. But remember that evolution is not kind to those who are not willing to change. If you have read this far, then I believe you are ready to shake things up or perhaps are just curious. It is crucial to understand that beliefs about money drive people to do all sorts of things- I'm sure you have seen it in the world around you.

For financial security, people will stay in marriages with abusive spouses, they will sell their bodies, inflict violence on others, create war, lie, cheat, steal, rob banks, scam the elderly, flee the country, stay in jobs they hate, and sell their souls all in the name of money. This causes so much negative emotion that many will reach for substances to numb the pain, just so they are able to survive it.

 

To say that some buttons will get pushed with this work is an understatement.

 

The Journey Inward

I want to acknowledge your tremendous courage in facing these beliefs and remaining open to what I'm going to share with you. Remember, you can always go back to the way you have always lived your life; no one is forcing you to change or drop beliefs that don't serve you. All I want to do is put a little tiny sliver of space between you and the money God. Shine just a little bit of light so that we can end your suffering, even if it is just for a minute or two before you go back to the way things were.

Now that you have defined what financial freedom is to you, let's unmask it like the end of a Scooby-Doo episode. The key lies in why you want it, not in what it is. Well, you might say, "the Why is simple- I want it so I can be happy and feel at peace." Is that true? Saying that you need a certain financial situation in order to be happy and at peace is the same as saying, "If I don't have it, I can't be happy or at peace."

How do you react when you think that money is your doorway to peace and happiness? I used to react like this: "Yeah, no duh, of course, money is the doorway; what's your point?" Or, "Even if I could find peace without money, it wouldn't last long because I would be broke." Do you see it? Do you see why I called money my God? Because I couldn't, not even for a second, think of a reality where it wasn't everything to me. I couldn't even imagine myself happy without it, at least not for very long.

 

"The definition of insanity is thinking you need something you don't have because every day you don't have it you are proving that you don't need it"

– Byron Katie

 

What if you want your version of financial freedom because you want to be free of the fear and worry that arises whenever you think about your future? Whenever your mind imagines your future, (which it can't possibly know for sure), there is danger, and money insulates you from those threats. But what is interesting is that the mind is the one creating those imagined threats, and then it is simultaneously telling you that the way to stop the threat is money.

Have you ever had someone try to sell you something using fear as their main tactic? They will hook your imagination and paint a dark picture of some terrible fate that could happen any day now. A fear you had never known about or focused upon is suddenly so real and around every corner. But then luckily, they have the solution to this terrible fate- their product or service that will protect you from it. This is what the mind does. Only it speaks to you in your own voice and creates nightmares that seem overwhelmingly real.

What you are really seeking freedom from is this mind-created nightmare. That is what the money is mentally designed to do- take the fear away. But going after money (the external) to remove the fear (the internal) is backward because you cannot seek something outside of yourself to change something on the inside of you. This is what so many people in our society have backward. And what so many teachers throughout the ages have been trying to tell us.

 

"Everything is energy and that's all there is to it. Match the frequency of the reality you want and you cannot help but get that reality. It can be no other way. This is not philosophy. This is physics" – Albert Einstein

 

"The moment you change your perception is the moment you rewrite the chemistry of your body" – Bruce Lipton

"I think everybody should get rich and famous and do everything they ever dreamed of so they can see that's it's not the answer" – Jim Carrey

The fear inside you is the problem, not the money. If your first reaction to reading that statement is something like: "But (insert excuse here)…But I have to pay the bills, but how will I eat, but I can't survive without money. But… but… but..." That is simply your mind clinging for dear life and justifying your dependence on it. As I said, you can always go back to the way things were before reading this. No one will take your suffering away from you.

We must bring these fears to the surface and release them with love before money can flow to us. Because no matter how much money you get, if it is to defeat the internal fear, there will never be enough. There is always something the mind will construct to be afraid of, some new financial catastrophe to struggle to overcome. Once you get this big pile of money or passive cash flow or the new job with big pay that is the source of your financial freedom now, you will be afraid of losing it. You will need to protect it at all costs. Remember, it is the source of your happiness and peace, so you can't lose it, or you will lose the peace that comes with it.

Financial Security

Protecting your money and the peace that is supposed to come along with it is commonly known as financial security; it is very similar to financial freedom. What you are really seeking security from is the fear of loss. You are attached to what you have and think losing it would destroy your life. You never stop to think about where it came from if that magic source will bring more, that it isn't really yours, and no matter what you do, you can't keep it forever.  

What most people don't see is that they are secure, here and now in the moment. As you are reading this are you at all under threat, is there any real danger? Breathe in and breathe out. Feel the air fill your lungs. Feel your heart beating. You are sitting or standing and breathing. That is all. There is no danger. But when the mind pulls you from the Now into the future, your peace is gone, you are back under threat, and the security is lost.

People seeking security from this fear are really seeking security from not having enough. If you didn't know this, the number one fear people have about growing older in America today is running out of money during retirement. The number one fear… are you kidding me?! Not war, not disease, not famine, not their kids hating them and putting them in a rest home, not memory loss, not even death itself ranks above running out money as the biggest boogie man of them all. Probably because no matter what you believe, death will be the end of fear.

Anyway, this is what you are up against; this is what has become the most normal fear in our society. And if everyone is afraid of it, that means you should be too, right? 

I see the illusion of financial security slowly eat people's lives, erode their confidence, and steal their dreams from them. Because once you get the carrot, the big pile of money, you suddenly realize you will need to get more. Things are so much more expensive than you thought they would be, and the market is so volatile, and taxes keep going up, and so does inflation, so my money can't buy as much today as it did last year, and suddenly it doesn't seem to be enough anymore.

Or, like I see so many times over and over again in my day to day life, you saved all this money for retirement, sacrificed your dreams, and are finally ready to retire. Then you are scared to death to spend your money. Of course you would be, because you have spent an entire life in fear, sacrificing to accumulate it, so that you have enough money. Spending it makes it disappear, not accumulate.  

How do you just flip the switch of an ingrained habit you've lived by your whole life of constantly saving to just spending and no more accumulating? That is the real threat financial advisors won't talk about; the fear of not having enough becomes the fear of spending and enjoying what you created.

"Most people tiptoe through life just to wind up safely on death's door"  –M.M Gavillet

True freedom is a life lived without fear. True security is knowing who you really are and that you reside in a safe, supportive, and loving Universe, now and forever forward. It is the realization that you are the manifestor of whatever it is you want. 

The freedom to follow your dreams is as simple or as difficult as letting go of any thought that arises that tells you not to do it. It is doing what we tell all the children of the earth to do- follow their hearts. What we don't say is the rest of the instructions. Follow your heart, not your fear. Your heart is never afraid because it knows the truth. That everything you have ever been afraid of, or will ever be afraid of, is imagined. 

Different Waves Same Ocean. Good Journey My Friend