Prosperity Project Clue: Positive Aspects

Here on the Prosperity Project, we've been trying to retrain our thinking about money.  We know that how we think directly affects what we attract into our lives, so we have been re-training our brains to  be comfortable spending ever-increasing quantities of imaginary money.  By playing this game we are hoping that our thinking about money in the real world will begin to evolve, and that eventually our thinking will tend more  towards abundance rather than lack.

However, in spite of all of our attempts at abundant thinking, snags inevitably trip us up. We go along thinking positive thoughts, being grateful, focusing on prosperity, expecting good things to happen, and then we hit a snag. Something happens that sets us back, and we get a chance to find out whether all of this positive-thinking stuff is really working for us. We've all heard the advice that we can't control what happens, but we can control how we react to what happens. Today's Prosperity Project Clue will provide a tool to use in helping to control our reaction to those inevitable snags.

Today, I hit a snag of my own. I went online so I could do the Saturday morning bank balancing ritual. I've enjoyed watching the money pile up over the past few months, and especially over the past two weeks as we've been doing the Prosperity Project. I had an idea how much money would be in there, and I was really excited to see that balance in my checking account.   I'm going on vacation next week, and today I was going to withdraw the money that I will spend on my trip. So I was pretty surprised when the bank's website showed that I had a whopping $116 in my bank account. Where was all my money?!!

Being a seasoned accounting professional, I knew how to untangle the financial knot and get to the bottom of the discrepancy. When I realized the mistake was my own and not the bank's, I was even madder! How could I be so stupid?!!!

Last week, I turned over all the household bookkeeping to the boyfriend. He is trying to help me find more time to write by taking over more of the time-consuming chores, like keeping up with the bills. I showed him how to pay the utilities online; what I didn't remember to do was change the bank accounts that the money gets paid from. So all of the bills that should have come out of his bank account came out of mine instead. Oops!

When I caught myself getting frustrated and angry because of all the fees, not to mention the embarrassment of making such a dumb mistake, I realized that I needed to change my thinking, and do it quickly. Fortunately, I remembered a clue that I had picked up from Abraham-Hicks.

Abraham teaches a technique called pivoting, which means simply to change the direction of your thoughts by choosing a better-feeling thought. Remember the 68-Second Clue? Whenever we hold an emotional thought for 17 seconds, it attracts another thought just like it. If we do that four times in a row, 68 seconds have passed and we have successfully changed our vibration for better or for worse. Pivoting is a way of breaking that cycle when we find our thoughts moving in the wrong direction. We can choose a better feeling thought by finding some positive aspect of the situation that we can focus on.

This morning, then, when I found myself getting all worked up about the unnecessary bank charges, I started thinking that this meant money still wasn't my friend, and that it was still wanting to move away from me instead of toward me. It felt like when I was younger and was insecure about my relationship with my boyfriend. If he didn't pay attention to me the way I thought he should, I always interpreted it to mean he didn't want me or like me, or he wanted someone or something else. I was a neurotic mess. Today I felt myself being that way toward my relationship with money, and that realization made me even madder! For a minute.

Then I started framing the situation differently in my mind. I realized it wasn't a money issue, it was a bookkeeping issue. Bookkeeping deals with numbers, not real money. It's simply a list. Bookkeeping isn't real money in the same way that a grocery list isn't real food. What had happened at the bank had nothing to do with my money, my relationship with money, or my worthiness of having money. It was just a thing, as they say. I can call the bank on Monday and negotiate a return of the fees. I can change the account on the bill-paying websites to come out of the correct account. I can, if I want to, just go on with my happy self and enjoy my day.

I was able to apply this Positive Aspect technique in the middle of being irritated because I had spent some time practicing it when I was calm. Here is the practice, if you'd like to give it a try. It is another excellent game brought to you by that fun-loving group of spiritual beings known to us as Abraham.

"If you will buy a new notebook, and call it your Book of Positive Aspects, and spend 10 minutes each day writing positive aspects about your home, your body, your work, your relationships...If you will wake up every morning acknowledging that you have re-emerged into the physical and that today you will look for reasons to feel good...And if you will pay attention to the way you are feeling, and utilize the process of pivoting...it is our absolute promise to you, that -- within 30 days -- you will see such a dramatic turn of events in your life experience, that you will not believe you are the same person."

Some of you may recognize aspects of The Attitude of Gratitude Project in that practice. You wouldn't be wrong. A Gratitude Journal is very much like a Book of Positive Aspects, with one very subtle difference. When you say you are grateful for something, especially when you are in an irritable mood, it is very easy to let a bit of sarcasm into it, which is not really sincere gratitude, is it? "I sure am grateful those kids are finally asleep" really means, "Those screaming little monsters are driving me crazy!" See what I mean?

A Book of Positive Aspects requires you to find things about every part of your life that you can sincerely appreciate. Instead of thinking, "I don't have enough money," you could think instead, "Although there are things that I want that I can't yet buy, I always have enough money for food, and I have enough money to sleep in a bed and wear clothes and shoes and take a hot shower. Come to think of it, I have enough money to buy myself many very welcome comforts." See how that thought would make you feel better about your relationship with money?

If you don't want to start a new writing project by buying a separate Book of Positive Aspects, you can do what I do and practice at The Attitude of Gratitude Project Page on Facebook. Some days it is more difficult than others to phrase my gratitude in a way that doesn't show any traces of sarcasm or negativity. But I'm learning that the more I focus on the positive aspects of my life, and the more I speak about my life using positive words, the more positive my life is becoming.

So when I hit a financial snag -- and it is impossible to get through life without eventually hitting a financial snag or two -- I now immediately remember to snap into Gratitude mode and remind myself of all of the positive aspects of my financial situation.  Because if I think positively about my finances, it helps me to remember how much abundance surrounds me every day; and as I focus on that abundance, it helps me to feel prosperous, which helps me to attract that prosperity into my reality.