If Dollar Bills Had Wings
How is it that I was capable of counting my calories and bringing awareness to what I put in my mouth, effortlessly, but when it came to being accountable for what went in and out my wallet, I couldn’t seem to stay present?
It was as if the dollar bills had wings and would just “fly out of my purse.” (Yup, I had been known to use those exact words!) But oh, it gets worse. I must confess that I was so willing to avoid dealing with my bank statements, that I would shred them before even looking at them.
How’s that for complete denial?!
Now, luckily, in my case, this did NOT lead to financial ruin. Instead, it just led to a low-grade sense of panic all the time. I learned at Handel Group, that wherever I am suffering, there are lies and bad theories contributing to it.
The biggest lie that I repeatedly told myself was, “I don’t want to know!”
That just wasn’t true. I was dying to know, but I told myself that I was just too scared. When you experience a negative feeling (like fear), you can be sure there are some not so great theories behind it, and those negative theories need to be debunked or you’re going to stay stuck in whatever area you are suffering. What’s a negative theory you ask? It’s a negative assumption about the way the world works.
Here are some of mine:
- If you like money, you’re gross.
- Money is an evil form of power.
- Caring about money is just selfish.
- Making money is hard and involves suffering.
You are always gathering evidence and proving your theories to conveniently get out of something else. No wonder dollar bills were ‘flying out of my purse,’ I was proving that making money was not only hard for nice me, it was evil! And, here’s the thing. If making money was indeed selfish, difficult and an evil form of power to me, did I ever have to roll up my sleeves and get busy making any? My negative theories allowed me to cowardly and conveniently sit back, cross my fingers and worry instead of change.