Prosperity Project Day 26

Welcome, prosperous friends, to Day 26 of the Prosperity Project.

This morning, as I write this, I am back at home after a glorious week in a beautiful mountain hideaway.  The home we stayed in was much bigger than my everyday home, with far more creature comforts than I am accustomed to.  It would be easy to look around me this morning and see all of the ways in which this little house I live in is not quite good enough.  I could choose to focus on the fact that it is really tiny, and there is no beautiful room that is exclusively mine, where I can write undisturbed and take long afternoon naps.  I could also choose to focus on the fact that the kitchen is unfinished, and that although I live with a cabinet maker, I have no cabinets.  I could totally focus on the steamy Florida weather and compare it negatively to the crisp mountain air.  In short, if I wanted to, I could choose to be very discontented this morning.

But I'm not.  Sure, there is much that could be done to this little cottage to make it more livable, but improvements mean projects, and projects are a wonderful way to create memories at the same time as we create beauty together.  Sure, September in Florida is way too steamy for human comfort, and September this year seems to have bled, unwelcome, into October.  But in just a matter of weeks, the weather here will be dry and cool, and while many people are freezing and lamenting the ice and snow, I will be wintering in Florida.   I'm not discontented this morning because I made a choice a year ago to choose to have an attitude of grateful appreciation no matter what life may throw my way.

This week, I've been reading a book by Carolyn Myss, Invisible Acts of Power:  Personal Choices That Create Miracles, in which she describes the acts of service associated with, and motivated by, each of the seven main chakras.  In an earlier post, we talked about giving financial and creative support, which is an act of service powered by our second chakra.  The attitude of grateful appreciation of which I speak today is a sixth chakra act, the chakra often called the Third Eye and associated with wisdom.

Having an attitude of grateful appreciation is a choice; the normal human response is to whine and complain and to see everything that is wrong with our world.  We must actively choose to see our world with a grateful eye, and we must consciously cultivate a grateful attitude, particularly in the face of obstacles, sorrow, and pain.  Myss describes one man, Jack, who managed consistently to keep an attitude of grateful appreciation.  When asked how that was even possible, Jack explained:

"It's been easy for me to find something to appreciate every day.  I gave up expectations.  Tomorrow doesn't have to be better than today for me in order to have a good day.  I don't have to have all my dreams come true in order for me to decide my life is good.  I don't care if I don't drive a certain car or have everything I want.  I don't want that much.  So, it's easy to appreciate life.  I took the burden away from God that he had to provide everything for me so I could be happy.  Oddly enough, I'm happier now than when I lived possessed by having life turn out my way.  People ask me, 'How come you're so happy?' as if I'm on to something.  I just decided to choose to see good somehow in people and to appreciate what each day might have in store for me.  It makes for a better life."  

Like Jack, I choose to see my life as good, just as it is.  But that doesn't stop me from imagining something different for myself.  The trick is being able to visualize more while remaining contented with what is.  It's not that hard really; like Jack, we just need to decide that it will be so.

***
If you are reading this, I want to congratulate you for coming this far with me.  Some people have stopped reading these posts, thinking that we are only spending imaginary money here, and they are waiting for me to start writing clues again.  They don't realize that the clues have been cleverly hidden within the game itself.  So if you are here, you are the kind of person who will dig deep to find the clues you seek.  Good for you! 

So let's spend some money:

$26,000   My share of proceeds from the Living Gratitude Conference, a day-long event featuring speakers specializing in gratitude, appreciation, and the Law of Attraction.

$  2,500   Performing Arts Center building fund
$  5,000   Wealth Building Account (Total $90,000)
$18,500   Vacation Home (Total $97,500)

Looks like I'm easily going to reach my goals before the game ends.  How about you?
How will you spend your $26,000?

The Birthplace of Dreams

Ever wonder where our dreams come from?   Why do we want what we want?  What drives us to try new things?  Is it possible to locate the power source from whence dreams are born and consciously to nurture that power?  Can we purposely increase the vibrational energy of our dreams until they manifest, fully born, into our world?  How do we learn to do that?

Here on the Prosperity Project, our dreams have centered around creating physical spaces for ourselves that contain everything we could ever need or want as we go about the playful work of creating stuff.  Robyn created a business that lets her spend her days doing work that feels like play to her.  Bob created a woodshop that allows him to create with his hands while his mind is busy mulling over the thoughts that eventually turn into his books.  I built myself a room with a view, where I could write in peaceful solitude.  Then I made it a movable room so I can always be at home, wherever my heart may lead me.

Our dreams, then, have been dreams of creation; it turns out that our hearts' desire has been to live in a world where we can spend all day playfully creating things that add value to our world, and the world in turn rewards us with grateful plenty.  The more we play, the more abundantly prosperous our lives are becoming.  I don't think it's an accident that creativity is tied up with the notion of revenue.  The energy of creativity is born out of our second chakra.  It is the same chakra, interestingly enough, that also governs our relationship with money.  Could it be that if our relationship with money is strained that it might somehow affect our ability to create?  Could it be that if we are blocking our creative impulse we might also somehow be blocking our ability to allow money to flow toward us?  I wonder.

In Invisible Acts of Power, Carolyn Myss  explores the energies of the seven main chakras as they are expressed in acts of service.  For example, the first chakra, whose energy has to do with physical survival and tribal security, is associated with gifts of shelter and food.  Sometimes, when people have hit rock bottom, it is an appropriate act of service to respond by helping them get a place to live and food to eat.

Whereas the energy of the first chakra grounds us and ensures our physical survival by encouraging us to conform to our tribe, second chakra energy is associated with interpersonal power ... particularly in the forms of sex and money.  This is the energy center that controls our desire to create, and it is this energy that sets us apart from the others in our tribe.  When we add value to our world by playing in our workshops, we are operating out of second chakra energy; and it is second chakra energy that causes money to flow toward us as a result of our creativity.  It is no wonder, then, that Myss relates second chakra energy with what she calls "Gifts of Survival -- Financial and Creative Support."  Myss, an intuitive, says it much better than I can:

[W]orking with your creative energy is as essential to your health and overall well-being as breathing and eating.  Creative energy is a basic survival instinct; it motivates us to become part of society, to become productive, to bring things to life, and to distinguish ourselves from others by what we make, the crafts we pursue, the skills we develop in business or in cultivating friendships, the entrepreneurial ideas we conceive, the problems we resolve, and the children or communities we birth and nurture.  Yet many people have creative ideas and yearnings that they do not pursue out of a fear of financial failure or embarrassment, or because they are reluctant to step outside of their normal way of life and change it.  They abort their dreams, not realizing that psychological and emotional abortions can be more devastating than physical ones.  As a medical intuitive, I have seen many depressions and other chronic suffering at whose source was the repression and denial of a strong creative urge.   

 I find it fascinating that each of us here on the Prosperity Project, as we were choosing where to give our money, chose to give second chakra gifts of financial and creative support.  Robyn's foundation gave money to the symphony and to other fledgling business endeavors that were the product of her friends' creative impulses.  Bob gave away money to a friend to help her start her business, and also gave gifts of money to random strangers ... both second chakra acts of service.  I gave all of my money to music ensembles, because learning to finally give expression to my own creative impulses by singing in a chorus is what once saved my own life.

I have always heard that whatever you are hoping to manifest in your own life, that is exactly the seed that you should sow into someone else's life.  If, for example, you fear that you don't have enough money, you should make it a point to tithe a portion of your money.  If you fear you don't have enough time, you should tithe a portion of your time.  As you sow, so shall you reap.  If we, then, are wanting to manifest into realities these dreams we have of the perfect workshop, studio, or business, perhaps we should look around us to find someone into whose life we can plant those very seeds. Do you know someone with a dream?  How can you help them make that dream a reality?  I bet in helping them, your dreams will also come true before you even have time to notice. 

Maybe next we should make a game out of planting some seeds ...  I wonder what would happen?