Money, abundance, love, and freedom

to give and to receive

“Oh no, not again,” I think. This propensity I have for my eyes to well up in tears when I feel deeply touched always feels a little embarrassing.

This time I blame it on Cruz. She is smiling at me and her chocolate eyes sparkle. Her dark hair is in a bun and she is wearing a modest dress with short sleeves; the dress falls below her knees. Cruz always dresses modestly and yet, despite her own choices, I never feel judgement as I run around scantily clad in my tube tops and tan through bikinis.

In fact, I have just returned to change into my bathing suit when I see, spread carefully on my Walmart couch, Cruz’s creations.

Well, not all of them would fit on the couch. Two are still outside.

Tiny white shells are strung on fishing line. The line is attached to woven vines and tiny pieces of wood I am sure she has found on the beach and sculpted into these little dangling blessings. One is topped by a coconut shell. They remind me of dream catchers. And the pink and golden glow of the light through the shells soothes my system as does the soft tinkling sound they make in the breeze. I imagine them scattering little blessings or tiny prayers that Cruz has infused them with. The soft, fabric cross around her neck, the dresses she always wears while she is cleaning or holding her two year old nephew by the hand as he trails around the yard with her, a truck in one hand, clothes sagging and sometimes periodically falling down completely as his family smiles and laughs delightedly.

And all these dream catcher blessings, all eleven of them, are for me.

It started this morning, when Cruz came to clean. We talked about my move as I want to return my cotton sheets to a friend who gave them to me. They won’t fit on my king sized bed at the mansion where I am going.

The process of moving has been another opportunity to practice what I have done before. To find the joy in release and giving things away. I did it in Durango when I left. I could have sold things, put them on Craigs List, Facebook Marketplace… I could have done that to soothe any remaining financial anxiety I had.

Or I could practice living differently.

Financial anxiety is something I lived with for many years. I grew up with it in my family. I felt it in the adults around me, a subtle fear that there wasn’t enough, that we had to be careful, that money was limited and thus one had be prepared, one had to wear hand-me-downs and not go out to eat.

I married a man who also had his own anxiety when it came to money. At one point, I would say the numbers on paper that described our net worth would have told a story that was different than we were living.

We lived in fear of not having enough money. My husband tried to deal with his fear through control, especially control of me and my spending.

I learned later, as I never knew how much money we had, that the numbers on paper got cut in half one day, during the dot.com crash when he was afraid to sell. His mood plummeted with those numbers. Outwardly, nothing changed. Not our house. Not the car we owned. Just the numbers on paper. But numbers on paper meant a lot to him. And in some ways, they mattered to me too. I lived in a state of anxiety about spending money. It didn’t stop me from buying organic groceries or signing up for yoga workshops. But I felt guilty or worried whenever I spent it.

Anxiety like that is exhausting.

And in the end, it was money that was the feather that started an earthquake when it came to our marriage. And the feather had to do with money.

My husband and I weren’t doing well. We weren’t communicating, we weren’t connecting like friends at all, and I was very lonely. One thing that helped me was going to a little bakery next to the Self Realization Fellowship in Encinitas where my friends made chocolate croissants they prayed over while kneading the dough, and homemade chai tea.

I started going there more often for a dose of care and love that he and I were sorely lacking.

It was after one of those teas that I returned home. He was at his computer, working on his latest Angel Investment deals when he growled at me, “Those chai teas are expensive!”

I knew what that meant. Usually it would have brought up fear and guilt in me. This time, this time after all those years, I felt angry. I didn’t say anything. I just decided in that moment that it was time for me to get a job. I didn’t care if I had no sleek resume. I had been a stay at home mom, homeschooling our kids off and on as well, and only recently had gotten my own computer (they are expensive too, you know). I didn’t get a smart phone until we were divorcing. Which really says something as my ex-husband was the lead designer for the chips in them including the one you likely hold in your hand. Much of life is about energy and how one feels. Our life had a lot of control and fear in it. So there was no Apple iPhone for me. And at the time, he liked his Blackberry. I didn’t know how to use it.

Then the thing happened with the tea.

I told myself in that moment, that I just needed to work somewhere part time, and earn enough to free myself from his glaring eyes. I needed my own bank account with no one tracking my spending.

I shopped at Trader Joes all the time, where I felt at home and knew the employees. I would try to get a job there. The boys were old enough for me to be gone for a few hours a week.

That moment led to other things. Many other things that look bigger and more like “the reason” I finally hit the wall and said I was going to leave. But really, it was simply something in me that woke up that morning that was soaking in the energy of something I desperately needed when I was told to stop and hunker back down in fear. That something said, “Enough! I am going to be free.”

And in the end, it was a quest for love and I was simply receiving it in a bakery, while drinking tea. Don’t get me wrong; the tea was amazing for sure. So were those croissants oozing chocolate that was still warm, if I got there really early. But what I really went there for was love. And he wasn’t going to take it from me.

So, that was the moment I started to look for ways to release myself from the financial anxiety that plagued me. I wanted to really live sovereignly and not have my life driven by vacillating numbers on paper that change, sometimes unexpectedly, such as the day the market crashed and our net worth plummeted.

Later, in Durango long after our divorce, I was still working on my fear and anxiety. That’s when I bought the book, Happy Money, and started to apply what Ken was teaching me.

Ken Fonda says money is a flow. That it is good to give it easily and with love and abundant energy. It is a current and it needs to move both ways. It needs to be easy to give and also to receive. The giving was easier for me, so I started with that. But for this really to work, I do feel the energy channel in the body must open when it comes to abundance. And to have an open channel, things must move in and out, like waves on the sea. There is trust that comes with that. There is trust that there is enough. Enough for you and I to take things in with grace and allow those around us to enjoy giving, and enough to also give what feels right to you, in alignment with your heart. And all this works, I believe, just fine, with anything. You don’t have to have actual money in your wallet to start opening the channels for love and abundance to fill you with delightful energy, or cause your eyes to well up with tears when you feel beauty.

A few years ago, I chose to give most of my things away when I left Colorado, rather than sell them.

There was the chef I met in my favorite restaurant. We chatted a bit and he was interested in some things. He took a few rugs happily and the next day, and when I offered him a nightstand, he was happy to take that too. When I realized he didn’t have a car big enough to move it, I offered to drive it to his house for him in my RAV 4.

As I helped carry it in, I saw the rugs he had already taken laid out in the kitchen and living room. His mom was watching TV. He was taking care of her. I think she was ill and I can’t remember for sure now. I do remember that he was separated or divorced, that his child had cancer, and that we carried the dresser down into the basement where he stayed in a windowless room. He gave his mom the bedroom upstairs, which was nicer.

I was glad to give him those things.

The next time I went for breakfast, he wouldn’t let me pay. I probably got tears in my eyes then too.

I had a picture that I had gone to some trouble to get from my ex-husband when we divorced. It was a copy of a painting I had purchased that felt like a part of me, somehow.

There was a woman with her long hair hanging behind her dancing and spinning. I needed to get it and I needed to reclaim that energy. Now as I type this I smile, as I realize, I have a real-life picture now on my computer screen someone sent me. It is of me, dancing, with my hair hanging back and my eyes closed, just like that painting.

Now I was leaving Durango and I wondered about what to do with the painting? I was ready to let it go, and still…I loved it so much and it felt more personal than most of my other things. That was when my friend, Becky, mentioned that it would look nice in her daughter’s room.

A few years later, when I went to visit Durango and move my remaining things from my storage unit there to my parent’s shed in California, I stayed with Becky. The picture greeted me. I stayed in her daughter’s old room.

Some time went by. I started making investment decisions of my own. Looking back, I feel good about my journey. But it was not without so-called mistakes, which are always simply learning opportunities.

I learned about Bitcoin the hard way, like a lot of people. I thought I was diversifying when I put money into Terra Luna (before the crash). I knew inflation was bad, so staking some cash on Anchor at 20% interest seemed like a good idea too, even though my friend warned me it was risky. I was still living in a lot of fear and I felt like the financial system was crashing and the buying power of my assets was declining fast; I wanted to hedge my bets.

Luna crashed and Anchor did too. I spent a day at my uncle’s house sweating and trying to move things around and get out before it all went to zero.

And afterwords, you want to know how I felt? I had lost the price of a house in my little venture (not a California house, but a house in the midwest somewhere). I was really surprised to notice that I felt just fine. I realized things were really just numbers on paper and I had survived. I was still alive. Nothing in my current reality had changed one bit.

I could still go into my head and worry that I hadn’t yet created a paying business for myself, that I had no income stream other than what I created through my investments. And that had worried me my whole life.

But something about that loss freed me. Just like that chai tea and what it catalyzed.

Maybe the joy I experienced giving away my things helped? I had learned to hold things in a softer way and to trust that I could survive without “stuff”. Maybe it helped me to hold myself with more kindness? Somehow that feels true, although I can’t say exactly why. It helped to have a friend on Zoom guiding me the day of the crash and it helped to have an uncle who never judged any of it and assured me that I would be ok.

Last Christmas I was re-reading Ken’s book when I decided to leave a waitress extra money on Christmas day. I felt the ease of it, the freedom of handing more than a regular tip, and the joy in my heart. She and her pregnant belly had been kind to my son and I as we savored breakfast together before we had to say goodbye at the airport. My experiment with freeing myself from financial anxiety was continuing and I liked how it was going.

I had down sized by then. An older car, and a few tubs of stuff was all I really owned. The only thing that really felt like a financial cushion were those numbers on paper and somehow, money seemed like more than that.

I was starting to learn that money is really about love.

This year, a few months ago, I started with a new experiment. I began to say these words while feeling the positive energy in my body: “I am worthy of money.” I had to really, consciously close my eyes and practice feeling that and how good and easeful my body felt when I did it.

I started paying people more easily, with gratitude. I started allowing myself to pay for things that I would have felt were decadent, like weekly bodywork sessions with Manuel. I gave him $60 instead of the $50 he asked for. He told me he keeps his fees low as a lot of people here can’t afford more. But I knew I could afford $60. I feel happy every time I pay him. I walk down the beach in my bikini to his massage table with $60 tucked in my bra and laugh as I pull it out. It feels good to stroll down the beach with nothing but me, ready to rinse my feet, lie on his table and receive the quality care he offers. There is a kind of giving and receiving in that as well.

I can’t tell you what to do if you struggle for money. If you really don’t have enough to buy groceries. But I can tell you about magic and energy. I can suggest you close your eyes and feel your body and your heart and feel how it feels when there are groceries, or money, or love, flowing to you with ease, from a place of abundance.

I really believe it changes things.

It sounds absurd, and after I began that practice, a check showed up in my life from an unexpected place. It was a large check. “I am worthy of money.” It felt good to receive it.

I survived my loss from Luna and Anchor a few years ago. Now I see the experience as as a gift. I wouldn’t change anything. I got through a day that was like a terrible movie scene, with numbers plunging on my computer, placing orders with my friend coaching me over Zoom. And I survived and I realized my worth has nothing to do with any of that. I am not my money. Money is simply a tool and a way for me to flow love to people and to receive it. It is a way to put skin in the game and say, “Yes, I matter enough to pay for this. This matters to me." Or, “You matter to me and this will be fun!” Then I pay for things.

Or give things.

You don’t need money to do this.

I know that sounds strange and I see my friend, Myra, with her dark brown eyes, as she holds out the pyramid she has just painted for me, for my birthday, even more beautifully than I imagined or requested. Then she tells me that she will have time to paint one more painting while she is in El Salvador before she returns to her home in Australia. She tells me about this yet-to-be creation and that, “I want to paint it for you, Terra. And I don’t want you to worry. Anytime you want to let it go, it’s fine. You can move it on.” She wants her gift to flow, to stay with me as long as I like and then to move on, if and when I am ready.

Myra has been traveling for two years. She lives simply. She works in hostels in exchange for room and board and she explores the world while learning to surf and painting. Because ultimately, Mira is an artist, and painting as a vocation is the future she is calling in for herself. She is not worried that she is still in the process of creating a life like that. She is currently looking for a job in Australia to make more money so she can continue on to India and study Ayurveda. She is on a quest to learn. She tells me her family doesn’t help her financially. She can stay with them for a time, but when it comes to money, she is on her own. She tells me it is a little hard now for 21 year olds like her. Things are getting expensive. Some of her friends live at home to make ends meet. But she will figure things out. And she wants to offer me this painting, for free.

So I am booking a taxi on Saturday and we will go to the city, where I will purchase a canvas for her and I will accept her gift with my heart petals open and waiting.

I am learning to receive, joyfully, without guilt or overthinking things.

And I have told her, and I can feel how true it is, that she will be a success. Sometimes, the energy of the future seeps through to the now. Myra has a feel of success about her, a magnetic energy that is sultry, kind, and wise. Her art reminds me a tiny bit of Salvador Dali but better. It reminds me of Durga and Kali, goddesses from India that are wild and in some ways scary. But there is something powerful in that kind of fear. Something I think I need. And Myra is gifting it to me.

Which circles me back to Cruz and this morning.

I decided to give my sofa to her and her husband, Raul, when I move to the city, and they are delighted. Honestly, it has made them so happy, that I would go buy it even if I didn’t already own it, just so I could enjoy the same delight in me, from the giving.

Something prompted me to share a humorous moment from the night before with Cruz. She had seen me walking to visit Mafer and David for pasta. It was dark and she smiled and pointed towards the sky and the direction I had just come. Then she kindly spoke Spanish to me. She and Raul are always speaking Spanish to me. And I am busy using my energetic techniques to read the energy in them as they are speaking so I know if it is a happy thing, or something troubling they want me to know. I am decent with the energy thing, which means I respond well and I think they imagine I understand a lot more of the content than I do.

Last night was the same. Cruz looked at me in the growing darkness and gestured as she said, “Voy a apprender luz.” That is not what she actually said. That is what my brain heard her say. And for me this was progress as what my brain usually hears is more like this: “Voyaaprenderluz!”

Now, I know that “voy a…” means “I am going to” and “apprender” means to learn. Then “luz” means light. I was quite excited all this Duolingo was finally paying off. My brain strung the words it had just translated together: “I am going to learn light.”

“What?!!!” I knew she was not a Dr. Jack Kruse follower, even though they had similar names. Well, she was pointing towards the moon. It was a few days past full. I didn’t picture Cruz as a moon-gazing woman. She seemed more traditionally religious. She saw the confusion on my face as I looked up at the sky to see if I could see where the moon was and why she wanted me to know so badly that she was going to learn? look? at it.

She repeated herself a few more times. She does this often, repeats things for me. She will even do it more slowly. I am sorry to say it usually doesn’t make a difference. My brain locks up even more with my effort to understand. She seemed to want a response from me this time, so I nodded and smiled and she trotted off to learn/gaze at the invisible moon.

I wasn’t far from Mafer and David’s restaurant where I was headed, and this time, I was curious what she meant. I kept repeating the sentence in my head so I wouldn’t forget and when I saw Mafer, I plopped myself in a seat at the counter and said, “I need help. This makes no sense to me!!!” Then I told her what Cruz had just said.

Mafer looked at me kindly with a smile and said, “ ‘Voy a prender luz,’ means I am going to turn on the lights, Terra. She was letting you know she was going to turn the lights on for you.”

I glared at Mafer and she just kept smiling kindly, in a relaxed, sultry way, which is typical Mafer. I seem to hang out with young, sultry women lately. David smiled and twinkled at me as well as he dried his hands on a towel. Two sets of kind, El Salvadorian eyes, taking me in.

Brow furrowed, I argued that the language was not conforming adequately to my learning capacity or hours of study. “But ‘apprender” means to learn!” I exclaimed, “like ‘comprender!’”

That is when a knowing look washed over their faces.

“No Terra. She said, ‘a prender,’ and ‘voy a prender’ means to turn on the lights. It’s an idiomatic expression here.”

That’s when I started laughing, “I thought she was telling me something about looking at the moon!”

The next day, I attempted to share this little vignette with Cruz when she came to clean my casita. I believe I actually succeeded which means my Spanish is improving a little. She and Raul keep telling me it is, even though I look at them skeptically. But the little story felt like it brought us a little closer and she asked if I would be in El Salvador for Christmas? My capacity to understand Cruz had not improved with one night and fifteen more minutes of Duolingo, but I am pretty sure this is what she wanted to know. I smiled and tried to say, “I think so,” in El Salvadorian Spanish. I was just as likely to have said, “You think this.” And honestly, I hadn’t thought about Christmas much yet.

I go to see my family in November for Thanksgiving and I am looking forward to it. I plan to get some of my belongings and move them to the mansion. My blender, a few stainless steal pans I like to use…maybe my favorite pillow and some sheets?

And as I looked at her, I felt how I have spent Christmas alone and been just fine, and also how sweet that she had asked and wondered about me.

Cruz lives with Raul across the street behind a green, corrugated metal fence. I think a lot of people live there. I can see colorful laundry dangling from strings through a gap here and there in the mysterious fence that also hides what I imagine are living spaces. What I can see looks like the walls are made from the same material as the fence. There is a large tree that towers over everything and stands behind the fence in the middle of it all like a caring monarch, and when I walk by, I see people come and go through a metal door that blends in with the rest of the cheerfully painted, yet impermeable metal wall. But I never really see inside.

They have six children and two small, white fluffy dogs that wag their tails and seem to be always smiling when they stand outside on the narrow street. Sometimes the laundry hangs on the green fence as well. Cruz seems to do a lot of laundry. She may do it for other people. All by hand. She turned up her nose once at the thought of a washing machine.

This morning after asking about my Christmas plans, she chatted a bit more, like you would with a friend. I think she was telling me she would need to buy a lot of food and would have to go to the city for chicken and chickens were expensive. She wasn’t telling me so I would feel sad for her, or because I was some wealthy foreigner. Her tone was one of friendship and she was simply checking in with me and then telling me about what was on her mind.

And as I went back by the pool to read, I thought about that and how nice it would be to give her a chicken, or something. Then I thought of the shell mobiles she made and how much I loved them. On the weekends, sometimes they also hang on the green fence, with a tiny “for sale” sign someone has made. Someone other than Cruz, as she unabashedly informed me with a smile that she does not write or read.

I walked by the little creations one day, dangling in the misty early morning air in a little row, so pretty. Honestly, I think they were glowing a little bit. And I thought to myself, “It might be nice to buy one for my bedroom, but no, just no. Terra, you don’t want to complicate things and you don’t even have a hammer and a nail. You don’t need more stuff.” But still, they would come to mind and I would wonder if they would fit in the mansion somewhere…maybe by the pool?

Now, as I sat by my current pool and thought of those little mobiles and how they probably gave people good dreams, I also thought of my family and Christmas. I would be home in November and Christmas was coming! I would give them presents early; I would give them mobiles from Cruz! I counted my sons, my parents, my sister, my friend, my uncle, my cousin. Yes, yes, I definitely needed them! They would be perfect.

I decided to order seven and went back inside to ask Cruz if she could make them before I left? She smiled happily. I could tell she was thrilled to make them for me. I had already estimated they would be around $10-$15 each. For sure they must take a few hours to make.

“How much are they?” I asked. (Again, in some form of awkward Spanish that was likely wrong and could as easily been, “How many seeds do you eat?”).

But happily she understood me well. “Four dollars,” she told me.

I went in my room to get my money. I had confirmed in my mind at the pool that I had the $70-$100 I would need already and wouldn’t need to go to the ATM to pay her.

But $28 did not feel like enough to me so I decided to pay her $10 each. It still wasn’t much, but it felt good and it felt like integrity. Just because Cruz hadn’t embraced the 40% change in the money supply, I was aware of it and its affect on the price of her Christmas chicken.

I handed her a wad of bills with a few dollar coins and told her I was giving her $10 each. She took the money without counting and put the wad and loose coins in her pocket without looking at them, while smiling at me.

I thought she would still have to make the gifts, but when I returned an hour later, there they were, on my couch, an abundance of blessings.

There were eleven in total. She held up two quite large ones and told me they were “un regalo” (a gift) for me. And in sign language and words, she pointed at my bed, and confirmed what I had imagined, that they were good for sleep.

We found places to hang them until I can go find some individual cloth bags to buy to serve as wrapping and transportation for them. Little pink shell blessings. Little wishes from Cruz. And somehow, once again, I feel like something magical happened this morning and it was beautiful. It didn’t have to do with money in the end.

Because the truth is, we haven’t been talking about money the way most people think of it.

What we have been talking about is love and how to give and receive.

We have been talking about trust and learning to live with less attachment to things.

And about value, and that you have that, regardless of numbers on paper, or what people tell you.

We have been talking also about abundance and self worth and acceptance.

Some people think they need the numbers on paper to be high for them matter. But that’s not true. They might get people to date them. They might live a lifestyle that looks abundant when it comes to cars and fancy clothes.

And I am not against owning and enjoying lovely things. I am all for Cruz and Raul to have a house they love, with running water, and electricity. With chairs and tables, and beds and sofas galore.

But when I die, when they die, what is going to really matter?

I hope Cruz can get all the chicken she needs on Christmas and somehow, a little bit of Christmas arrived here today, in October, two days after my birthday. A touch of Saint Nicholas in the form of tiny shells, brown eyes, a smile, and a gift.

“You are worthy…”

Maybe try out the phrase and see what word feels ready to be felt…what energy your body would enjoy feeling….?

“I am worthy of…

money

love

abundance

fun

joy

time

feeling beautiful

…”

What words resonate for you? Can you take time to really feel them and let the energy come into your system? Everything in this world flows. Whatever you feel, as you grow the capacity to let it in, will also flow out of you to others. And trust me, it feels really, really good both ways.

It flows with ease as love and abundance.

Cruz, holding her gift for me. I think the photo made her nervous. The moment after I took it, her face cracked into an even wider smile that radiated from her beautiful eyes and bathed me with…well, you know.

Disclaimer The opinions and information presented on this blog are solely the author’s and do not constitute professional advice in any field, including psychology, metaphysics, finance, or psychedelics.

The author is not a licensed therapist, counselor, financial advisor, or medical professional, and any advice or guidance provided is based on personal research and experience. Readers should consult qualified professionals in each respective field for personalized guidance.

By reading and using information on this blog, you acknowledge that you understand and accept these limitations, and agree to hold the author harmless for any consequences arising from your actions or decisions based on the blog’s content.

Specifically

• Any discussions of psychological or metaphysical topics are based on the author’s personal exploration and understanding, and should not be taken as a substitute for professional therapy or counseling.

• Nothing spoken of is intended as financial advice and recommendations are not provided. Readers should consult qualified financial advisors before making investment or financial decisions.

• Discussions of psychedelics and their potential uses are based on the author’s research and personal experience, and should not be taken as medical advice or a substitute for professional medical treatment.

By continuing to read and use this blog, you acknowledge that you understand and agree to these terms.