Yeah, yeah, yeah…you’ve heard it all before…I know.

“Your thoughts create your reality.”
“What you pay attention to expands.”
“Thoughts are things.”
And the oldie but goodie, “As a man thinketh, so he creates.”

And yet you still do it. You catch yourself, without even realizing it, thinking those same old thoughts of scarcity and lack:

“I wish I could afford that.”
“I never have quite enough money.”
“I hope that strange sound my car is making isn’t something serious, I can’t afford hefty repair bill right now.”
“Where can I cut back?”
“How can I bring in more money?”
And the really scary one, “What if I lose my source of money?”

And those thoughts scare you. “If my thoughts do carry power then what have I just done?” you think. So you quickly think some thoughts of prosperity and abundance. But they fall flat. You don’t really expect them to carry any weight…so they don’t.

And you end up with more of the same money situation you’ve always had—a little extra comes in here and there, and a few extra bills show up somewhere soon afterward. And just like your thoughts, one washes out the other.

Sounds dire, doesn’t it? Hopeless even. (Insert big sigh here.)

People WAKE Up!!

Doesn’t your own reality prove something to you? You ARE creating it all!! It isn’t just a lovely thought!

You ARE creating your ENTIRE reality!!

OK, before you hit the delete button, let me tell you something…I was just like you! I lived paycheck to paycheck. I espoused the idea that I created it all. I talked the talk (but I walked very little of the walk).

And then things started to change in my life. I got divorced. My dad died. My kids moved in with their dad. And I got really scared. That fear created, yes, more things to be afraid of.

My house went into foreclosure. I was desperately attempting to become wealthy via multi-level marketing but was spending every last dime on leads that I couldn’t come close to closing.  I was on the verge of bankruptcy, or worse.

Talk about stinkin’ thinkin’…I regularly had thoughts like, “What if I have to live in my car?” And, “What if they repossess my car?” And, “Who are the people in my life who would take me in if I were totally destitute?” And even, “I wonder what it’s like to live in a homeless shelter?”

I had almost no money, no job, I was soon to be homeless, and no real prospects for digging myself out of the mess.  I can tell you firsthand, I was creating my reality (albeit a crappy one) in spades.

And now?

If I hadn’t lived it, I wouldn’t have believed it. I am writing this blog from a private jet traveling from my home on the ocean in the Bahamas to my home overlooking the city and the mountains in Colorado. Lets just say that money is no longer an issue.

Exactly how did that happen? It happened like this:

I took control of my thoughts, my emotions and my beliefs.

Yes, my friends, the fantastic, amazing, stupendous news is: WE DO CREATE IT ALL!

And can you do what I did? YES.

Oh, I can’t guarantee the private jet, or owning two homes, or the lifestyle I live. But quite honestly, the extent of the abundance I have created in my world shocked even me. I was never after a dollar amount in my quest to create financial abundance. I was after financial freedom.  And that you can create. I guarantee it.

Notice I didn’t guarantee that you will create it. Only that you can. I can’t create it for you. No one can create for another. They can only help. You have to want it badly enough to create it for yourself.

So what are the specifics of what I did to turn my financial life around? Well, the answer to that is more a book than a blog. But I can and will give you the overview (you can probably fill in the blanks easily enough)

How I turned my “stinkin’ thinkin'” (and my financial life) completely around:

1. I got sick and tired of feeling afraid.

Fear sucks. Big time. I got sooooo tired of being filled with fear every time the phone rang (that it was a creditor), every time the mail came (that it was a notice from a collection agency), or every time I tried to buy anything (that my credit card would be declined). After months of this fear weighing on me I finally just gave up. I didn’t give up my life or my hope, just my fear.

I decided being scared all the time was even worse than living in my car. I had had it. I decided right then and there to just stop feeling afraid. “Let the worst thing that can happen, happen,”I thought.

And I made a choice:

2. I decided my number one priority was to be happy.

So you think being happy has nothing to do with abundance? Think again. Happiness alone may not create abundance, but happiness alone will allow abundance. Now granted, when I decided to be happy after my own financial fiasco it was not for the purpose of creating money. As I said above, I was just sick and tired of feeling bad.

But the interesting side effect was, being happy helped. Think of it this way: The Universe is like a machine. You put IN feelings, connected to thoughts, (beliefs being feelings connected to thoughts that you feel all the time) and you get back: YOUR REALITY.

So if you do even a little proactive creation work (i.e. a technique to flow energy towards what you desire, like prosperity) eventually you will get what you want (beliefs aside for the moment) unless you are counter-acting that technique with unhappiness.

If you are unhappy most of the time, you are flowing energy towards what you don’t want…realities that will make you feel even unhappier.

So stay happy…it helps. And side-benefit: feeling happy feels good.

 3. I forced myself to feel gratitude for every dime that came in.

This, my friends, is easier said than done. I found I really had to stay awake to pull this one off. But I did it.I signed up as a temp during that period of my life, figuring anything was better than nothing. I remember receiving my first paycheck in the mail for $164 (my pay for the week). My rent was $1,000 a month, so obviously this level of income wasn’t going to cut it long term. But instead of focusing on what I didn’t have (enough to pay my rent), I focused on what I did have ($164).

I sat, held the check, and forced myself to feel grateful. “I have $164 today that I did not have yesterday,” I said to myself, “And I have created this…out of thin air. I created this abundance.”And I felt great gratitude for that money, as deeply and passionately as I could.

Feeling grateful for money and other “signs of abundance” such as someone inviting you to dinner and picking up the check, a sale on your favorite foods at the grocery store or your neighbor dropping off a bag of tomatoes from their garden creates more things to be grateful for.Gratitude is a powerful force. Use it.

4. Every day I chose the way I wanted to feel before the day began.

It’s your feelings that create your world. That’s why affirmations and visualization don’t always work. Unless they are accompanied by feeling the way you will feel when you are financially abundant they don’t have much power to manifest anything.

What I did, was to take 5 or 10 minutes each day to “order” what I wanted that day. But I didn’t order specifics…such as winning the lottery. I ordered the feelings I wanted to feel, and I let the universe figure out the details.

I would imagine having a meeting with my higher self, my future self and my subconscious mind (personified). And I would say, “OK, everyone, today I want to feel abundant and here is how abundance feels (and I’d feel as if I had all the money in the world).”  And then I’d say, “And I also want to feel secure, and this is how security feels…” I included every feeling I wanted to feel that day: loved, creative, prosperous, excited, joyous, loving, safe, etc.

At the end of the day, I would review what had happened that day.

Sometimes I would reconvene with my unseen friends, and clarify what I had asked for and what it felt like to receive it.I remember one time that I had to call a late day meeting with my group, “OK everyone, I asked to feel prosperous and safe this morning but what happened was someone stole some money from me, resulting in me feeling poor and unsafe. So lets go over again, what it feels like to feel prosperous (and I’d feel it) and safe (and I’d feel that too).”

You can flow energy towards your dreams with any technique you like. But this one worked really well for me. Just a few weeks of doing this brought a job offer in my reality that was too good to turn down. But also:

5. As much as I possibly could, I followed my highest excitement.

I was (and still am) determined that every single day of my life be rich, full, joyous and exciting. I don’t believe in “Thank God It’s Friday”. I want a life where I think, “Thank God It’s Monday”because I love what I do (and my life) so much!

You see, when you are focused on consciously creating and living a life you love (which doesn’t just happen, btw) you really don’t have time or the desire to lament the state of your finances (or anything else, for that matter).  Start right now, today, this minute. Do what you find most exciting! And find something good in everything you do…even running errands or cleaning the bathroom!

Imagine a life you absolutely adore! And you also may want to do what I did:

6. I pretended (a lot) that I was already rich.

You will not create financial abundance by doing what you have always done (mentally and emotionally). You must stretch your self-image to become a wealthy person. How do you do that? Practice.

Practicing feeling rich. OK, call it pretending if you like. But it is necessary to become the person you want to be on the inside, before it shows up in the world on the outside.

I would sit in my Ford and pretend it was a Mercedes. I would put on my cubic zirconias and pretend they were diamonds. I would pull on my cotton dress and pretend it was silk. Does that work? If you believe it does. Speaking of which, the most important thing I did was:

7. Every time something didn’t go the way I wanted it to, I looked for the belief underlying it.

This is by far the toughest part. Not because it is difficult to change a belief. It actually is quite easy. But most people will never do it!

“What?”you might think, “Why not? If it literally changes your lack to abundance???” Yeah, I agree. But people don’t. I guess they don’t believe it will really and truly make a difference. But it does. And I was relentless in changing my limiting beliefs around work, money and my reality such as:

It is not possible to consciously create my reality.
I have to earn the money I make.
If I really live my truth, I’ll end up broke.
Money comes with incredible struggle.
If a lot of money comes easily, it must be illegal.
Making money takes a lot of hard work.

Changing beliefs were the single biggest factor in changing my financial reality. And they are likely just as important to creating your financial abundance. Once beliefs are changed to be in alignment with allowing money to flow into your life with elegance and ease, it makes it much easier for your thoughts to stay positive, and the negative spiral (of thoughts, feelings, and realities) becomes a positive spiral (of thoughts, feelings, and realities). Don’t overlook this crucial piece.

The Bottom Line

Getting rid of “stinkin’ money thinkin’” isn’t a one-time thing. It requires changing how you think and what you feel every single minute of every single day. It also requires responding to what happens in your life in a non-typical way, so that you shift your vibration to become (literally) a money magnet.

Is it simple? No. It is complex and it requires staying awake and committing to the changes required. Is it easy? Yes, actually it is. It is much, much easier than scarcity and lack. And, even in the beginning, so much more fun.

In joyous creation,