Serene Makeover Inner Edition: Feng Shui Your Life from the Inside Out. Ariel Joseph Towne

your definition to include the idea of having the good life—health, wealth and happiness, or whatever the good life means to you.

      A lot of people focus on just getting money, but then have no idea what to do once they have it. Studies show that more often than not, when people win the lottery, they eventually go broke or end up in a worse situation than before. It’s not about just getting money, but also the wisdom of how to handle it. If you haven’t healed your family area and your past, you might get big chunks of money, but you’re constantly paying down debts you’ve accumulated. It’s like having a hole in your bucket of wealth and before you can even count what you’ve brought in, you have pieces taken off the top.

      Each of the nine areas of life needs to be addressed so you don’t create an imbalance in your manifesting.

      The Magic Words

      Let’s imagine for a second that our words are powerful. Imagine that the thoughts we think and the words we say could be taken literally by some force, some presence that exists in our lives. Would this change the words you use when you are making your requests of the unknown and the infinite? For example, have you ever noticed that some people (let’s call them the “just enough” people) always seem to have just enough to cover their monthly expenses, and no more? These people are constantly praying to just have enough to cover their bills. They are imagining their bills being paid and they are putting extra wattage of intention behind it by getting their whole heart involved. Please. Let. Me. Have. Enough. This. Month. This is the message that is being sent out like a radio signal to attract a "like match", and so it is.

      Pitfalls: Guilt and fear

      Are guilt and fear keeping you from receiving what you want? Everything you have been asking for might be right at your door, waiting to be invited in, but those emotions may be indications that there are subversive thoughts keeping you from receiving what you say you want.

      From a universal perspective, if you get what you have asked for but you feel guilty for receiving it, the vibration of guilt may send out a message that you are being harmed—a big red flag. Imagine that the universe is functioning from a neutral place of love and compassion. It would never want to see you harmed in the process of bringing you what you desire, and it might just be waiting for you to work out your guilt issues around receiving before you can fully receive what you are asking for.

      If opportunities in your life are like water flowing to your front door, then fear is like a cold front freezing that water into ice. Fear literally constricts our blood vessels and slows down the flow of blood in our body. The message your body sends is to slow everything down or stop it until the danger is gone.

      Both of these conditions seem to come from an imbalance in thought. A thought that If I receive this, then someone or something else will not have enough, or will judge me for having it. How can you put some space around these thoughts to include the possibility that if you receive what you ask for, it may benefit you and also those around you?

      In feng shui, you can’t pick up something new unless you put down what you are holding onto. It’s almost like a garden full of weeds—there’s no room for anything new to grow. So the first stage of making space is to declutter; in this case, decluttering your mind from thoughts of “just enough-ness.” But nature abhors a vacuum. If you don’t put something new in place of the old thought, similar useless thoughts are likely to pop back up, rendering your decluttering work a waste of time. So what are two of the most powerful words you can plant in the garden of your mind? The magic words or more.

      You don’t even have to change what you are asking for, but the invitation is to stay open to receiving that which you believe you need, or more. So the next time you are asking to receive “just enough work” to cover all of the bills you have coming up, see if you can make a little space for grace to add a little extra into your coffers.

      Win-Win

      In the old paradigm of wealth, people needed to accumulate wealth in order to have power, create status and fulfill aspects of the ego that would make them feel a sense of accomplishment. Throughout history, they accomplished this by doing whatever it took to achieve the vision or dream. The journey may have included stepping on people along the way and doing things that they knew, on some level, were wrong. These are examples of achieving personal gain at the expense of others, which makes achieving the goal feel empty. These actions are win-lose.

      When I was twelve years old, our school asked us to raise money for a local charity. We were encouraged to go door to door and collect money for the cause. I don’t know if I was very good at convincing people or if it was people’s inherent generosity of spirit, but I ended up with a couple hundred dollars when all was said and done. We kept a paper record of our donations, but there was no oversight. I looked at the money and I instantly had a thought: if I kept the money, no one would know.

      At that time, I was playing a lot with remote controlled cars. I went to the store and bought myself new gold painted hubcaps and wheels for my car. These were things I never would have bought with my own money. Two of my friends were jealous of my newly “tricked out” car. I had accomplished my goal. I thought it would make me feel better about myself, but it didn’t.

      I went to my mom and told her what I had done. She helped me try to return the items to the store, but they wouldn’t take them back. I repaid every penny I had taken by emptying my savings from the bank. Years of odd jobs, birthdays and holidays…gone in a flash. I learned an invaluable lesson about money, and about win-lose scenarios. I had a win in one department (looking cool) but a lose in another (feeling badly for not being in integrity with myself.) I certainly wasn’t perfect from that age on, but I definitely got the lesson that day.

      Conscious capitalism

      The win-win philosophy can be applied not only to your personal life and yourself, but to your work, too. The key is to be conscious of every professional decision and its impact on yourself, your business and the world around you. The conscious capitalism model is built on three core principles:

      Deeper Purpose Recognizing that every business has a deeper purpose than merely profit maximization, a Conscious Business is clear about and focused on fulfilling its deeper purpose.

      Stakeholder Model A Conscious Business focuses on delivering value to all of its stakeholders and works to align and harmonize the interests of customers, employees, suppliers, investors, the community and the environment to the greatest extent possible.

      Conscious Leadership In a Conscious Business, management embodies conscious leadership and fosters it throughout the organization. Conscious leaders serve as stewards to the company’s deeper purpose and stakeholders, focusing on fulfilling the company’s purpose, delivering value to its stakeholders and facilitating a harmony of interests, rather than on personal gain and self-aggrandizement. Conscious leaders cultivate awareness throughout their business ecosystem, beginning with themselves and their team members, and moving into their relationships with each other and other stakeholders.

      —From consciouscapitalism.com

      What I learned is that this form of success (win-lose) is both unsustainable and dissatisfying. Why do you think so many of the wealthiest people become philanthropists? They have accomplished the desires of their ego and learned that it’s more satisfying to empower others than to take from them. This is the shift from a win-lose paradigm to a win-win.

      With a win-lose scenario, I have to take from you in order for me to benefit. With a win-win, as I benefit, I uplift the community around me. True abundance and prosperity benefits the greater good—you and everyone around you. Money sometimes has a bit of a fickle nature; it wants to know why you want it to come into your life. If you can expand your reasons for wanting this wealth and abundance (to create something, to help family and friends, to inspire others to what is possible) to include something deeper than the surface reasons (to have stuff), then perhaps it will come more quickly and stay longer. It will also make your story feel good to everyone who hears it, which goes beyond win-win into a win-win-win paradigm.

Highest