Marry Money

by Mary Money

I’ve had a bit of a challenge since I last wrote and I’ll share it here with you.

A year and a half ago I wrote a Wedding Vow Ebook that took the discoveries of the mind and incorporated them into the writing of wedding vows. It was a pretty amazing book.

Actually, it was and is a groundbreaking book.

(I’m giving it away free at www.weddingvowsandceremonies.com

Alas, people weren’t buying it even though I kept writing new sales letters. I bought Google ads and drove traffic to the site. Still sales were few and far between.

The whole long process of nothing happening was very deflating and sometimes defeating. Occasionally I was ready to give it all up. But I knew in my heart there was something I was missing.

I discovered it by being willing to release my hold on what I ‘thought’ was the very best way to write wedding vows.

As I expanded my relationship with the invisible side of life, and realized I wasn’t my book, I began to understand that people looking for help writing their own personal wedding or marriage vows went looking when they were very pressed for time. They wanted to write beautiful and meaningful vows but they had to do it fast.

Or if they had more than a week’s time they were still overwhelmed thinking and planning about the ‘big day.’

It wasn’t that my material wasn’t good; the problem was that it wasn’t right for my customers. After all the first rule of marketing–anything–is to give them what they want.

So I did that. I wrote a very short Ebook that gave couples and individuals everything they need to write great vows and still have some very personal energy around them. I put it all in one place. I created a worksheet with a unique outline and then I put it out there.

We redid our site www.weddingvowsandceremonies.com and now my time is in learning more and more about Internet marketing and getting people to the site and buying.

First, I asked. I asked for help. “I need a little help here. What is it that I’m not seeing?”

It can be just that simple.

Then the end of July I got an Email from someone, I don’t remember who, doesn’t matter, who sent me to a site where the 30 Day Challenge was being offered. It was free and it was going to be a really in depth and intimate association with Internet Marketing.

I was able to move my ego out of the way and open up to a greater or more timely idea. I took off the blinders.

Maybe there is some idea in your life that you are holding on to about money, or a career, a person, or some ‘thing’ you want. You are so attached that the idea is sewn into everything you wear and everything you sit or lie on, and every breath you take and word you speak.

Ask for a way to repurpose your desire or idea. What will happen is that you keep the essence of your desire or idea but you will be able to look at it with a new perspective.

Something brand new will come out of that ability to release your hold on what you originally wanted but still keep the best of it. Miracles will happen. You will finally see what you missed and be led to people, things, experiences and ideas that will finally bring you into your dream.

Never, never, never give up. Just be willing to see things differently.

Love, ya.

Mary

by  Mary Money

For the longest time I did not understand that.

But now, here is what I understand about planning: it’s a compass. That’s all. A goal or a plan keeps us moving in the right direction.

We need to take goals seriously. This study has enormous implications for every one of us who just meander along in a zig zag pattern.

A twenty year study involving students at a certain Ivy League University traced the lives of one graduating class.

3% of that class had written goals. 97% did not.

At the end of 20 years the 3% were worth more than the 97% combined!

They also reported more satisfaction and joy with their lives.

Have goals and write out a plan for how you are going to reach that goal. Because with goals and a plan you are able to be more focused and disciplined.

Read the rest of this entry »

by Mary Money 

If you’ve been following along with these blogs you will have spent a little time writing down what you don’t want, paying particular attention to how you are feeling and what your inner responses are to what you wrote.

I asked you to do that because I don’t want you to keep on kicking the cat although cats probably have enough sense to stay out of your way so then it’s kicking the dog.

Or kicking the kids or your spouse or partner. Or you cut people off in traffic. Or are short tempered. Or annoyed with almost everything.

You’ve probably messed up your computer too, because there is an energy of annoyance, anger and pissiness that scrambles codes in your computer. I could do a whole blog on that but not now. Just keep in mind that if your computer has exhibited signs of sulking, and confusion it may not be your computer!

Now! It’s time to look at what you do want. Read the rest of this entry »

by Mary Money

OK, now you get to look at what you don’t want.

You get to put as much energy into it as you want and are able because I want you to experience the emotion and feelings that come up. Those emotions and feelings are coming up all the time anyway only you aren’t aware of them since you keep doing the same thing over and over and over again!

You’re not even feeling. Youre angry, frustrated, sad. You express, you don’t feel.  

That may be transulated into a migrane headache, aches and pains in the body, road rage, accidents, busted or strained relationships, impotency, etc.

Get out a piece of paper and write down everything you don’t want. Write it out. Don’t type it into your computer. Of course you will begin with the obvious:

Read the rest of this entry »

by Marry Money

When there are problems in one’s life we either try to ignore them or can’t stop looking at them.

We become microscopes, fine focusing in on what is wrong, what isn’t working. In fact, our whole life seems to reflect the problem. That’s whether it’s about Money, or health, or relationships, or jobs, etc.

When we focus and ruminate on what isn’t working we continue to get more of the same because that is the lens we are looking through.

The problem with trying to ignore the problem is that we haven’t been able to put it into proper perspective.

It’s important to get some idea of where our beliefs and responses about Money came from so we can change them.

I’m going to ask you to take just a little time to do two things regarding snooping into your beliefs around Money:

Read the rest of this entry »

By Mary Money

Since I have been painting a picture for you of my wedding to Mr. Money I thought I would share with you a little bit from the wedding ceremony.

I was inspired by a book I had just read, Eat, Pray, Love, and adapted an idea from it into the ceremony.  The following segment of the wedding ceremony is not a direct quote. I did a transulation into my own language using Money as the example of a soul mate.

A soul mate is someone who is a mirror, the person who brings you to attention/so you can change your life.

A true soul mate tears down your walls and smacks you awake.

Soul mates come into your life to show you another layer of yourself.

For you, Money has been your soul mate.

Money’s purpose was to shake you up, drive you to a new level of awareness, show you your addictions and obstacles, break your heart open–so a new light could shine through, and make you so desperate and out of control you HAD to transform your life.

That was Money’s job and he did it great!

Mr. Money, congratulations, you did your job well.

Don’t you love that idea of Money ’smacking me awake?’ And how about the part that reads, ’showing you your addictions and obstacles, and breaking your heart open.’

Wow!

When we are in the middle of pain and fear, unless we are really aware and awake (I had one eye open by then) we miss the concept of, ’your heart breaking open so a new light can shine through,’ as something positive.

The truth is that for most of us, whether it is about money, love, addictions with drugs, alcohol, sex, anger, or any obsessive behavior that takes us apart a bite at a time, until we’re screaming in pain we won’t do much about it.

It’s a little like throwing a frog into a pan of water. If the water is boiling the frog immediately hops out. If the water is cold you can heat it up slowly and boil the frog alive.

We have to be smacked into doing things different.

In AA they talk about hitting ones bottom. Being smacked awake is the equivalent of that term.

Maybe a prayer for all of us when we are young and starting out should be: Lord, smack me awake sooner rather than later so I can transform my life before I become a disaster zone.

You’d better believe that most of us would be awake and aware and ‘living the dream’ a whole lot sooner if we could pray that prayer!

It’s never too late. 

OK, here goes: Lord, if I have any other areas of my life that I need smacking in, could it please happen soon so I can get on with my life and ‘live the dream.’

Actually a better prayer would be something like this: “My eyes are open now I see. Wisdom and truth revealed to me. Thank you.” That from a song I sang somewhere.

Wouldn’t you rather be kissed awake rather than smacked awake. Interesting idea.

Love Ya,

Mary

By Mary Money

When I decided to change my relationship to money I decided to have a wedding. (See About Mary) A real wedding with a minister, a groom, a ceremony with wedding vows, guests, and a cake.

I invited friends and family.

Now, I knew that my friends would understand what it was that I was doing but I didn’t expect my family to understand it because we don’t think alike.

They are practical and pragmatic.

They are very down to earth.

But that was OK. They attended the wedding, stayed for champagne and cake, and had a good time. They were a little reserved however!

My friends were a bit more playful.

Bill came in a Tux and Regina in a formal wearing silly glasses.

Scott came with a fedora sort of hat and money stuck in his hatband like pickets on a fence.  

Jim came in a colorful baseball cap with a money theme and wore it during the ceremony.

Everyone dressed up.

I even created a white wedding dress using two long filmy white curtains. One I fashioned into a dress and the other into a long flowing veil.

Truthfully, I didn’t fool anyone. I looked like I was dressed in curtains!

For flowers I created a boquet with some real flowers and added money I folded to look like green and white leaves.

The living and dining room was lined with chairs.

The ceremony was serious, mostly. Because even though I was making a fun event I was very serious about why I was doing it.

I was creating a new energy and doing it in a flamboyant way.

The reasoning was that by taking action and making that action as big and as much fun as I could I thereafter would associate money with fun and people instead of a lot of the old associations that had kept me low and limited.

What do you want to change in your life? Create a new idea of what it is you want to accept and believe is true for you, then change your actions around the old belief by doing something spontanteous and flamboyant and maybe even a little rediculous.

A friend who couldn’t attend the event sent me a card. Here’s what it said: 

To change one’s life: start immediately,

Do it flamboyantly.

No exceptions.             William James    

Love Ya,

Mary                                                        

by Mary Money

Another word about the phrase ’stupid is as stupid does.’

On occassion I have heard people use the phrase and then they follow it up by saying . . . whatever that means!

Well now, I’m going to shed some light on that mystery.

And it relates to what I have been writing about in my story and money in particular.

It’s  just this: We do absolutely everything based on the experiences and programming we accepted and encoded into the hard drive of our consciousness or unthinking mind. (Well, it does think it just does it in a different way. It can’t discriminate. It can’t really chose anything out of what it knows. It just does.)

Some of what we experience does not come from a perspective of wisdom. It comes from an expression of ’stupid.’ Because, you see, your subconscious or programmed mind doesn’t know what is smart or stupid, wise or ridiculous. It just takes what has been given it and reproduces it in form or experience.

It’s that simple really.

This has been called the law of cause and effect, the law of allowing, or the law of attraction (if you haven’t seen the movie, The Secret, do it now. Go to www.thesecret.tv right now. Read the rest of the post first.)

 There are lots of other terms or names but they all mean the same thing. We earn, spend and give our money based on patterns we have learned and incorporated into our hard drive. Mostly we wrote those programs when we were growing up, which includes family and church. We also pick up things from the newspapers, experiences of our friends, etc.

If there has been struggle and emotional pain surrounding earning, spending and giving money as we were growing up we are pretty much entrenched by those experiences, beliefs, patterns.

They might not even have been true. Most likely they weren’t.

My mother used to scream at us about money. My father would sit at the dining room table when he paid bills and pound the table and curse. He thought he was being cute (as my mother would say many times about many situations, ’Your father the actor.’ Then she would explain this by saying, ‘He’s from New York.’).

 As a kid I didn’t experience the situation as cute. I believed that bills, the family’s lack of money–you name it about money–was all my fault. I believed that the money problems of our family were somehow because of me. I believed that if I wasn’t there there would have been no problems.

That is an example of how a kids’ mind picks up information and creatively manipulates it in very interesting ways indeed!

How’s that for setting up a life of financial struggle? That’s acting from a ’stupid mind.’

‘Stupid is’ means the operating beliefs that cause us to act stupid. ‘Stupid does’ is the expression or the way we act out those beliefs. Going into debt for things other than a house or a car, is mostly unnecessary debt. That’s an expression of ’stupid does!’

You could also say, ’stupid does as stupid is.’ Either way it means the same thing. And for the most part it’s not good.

It’s time to wake up and take responsibility and control of our money habits, beliefs and emotions.

The good news is that we did not engrave our beliefs in stone and they can be changed.

Mary

by Mary Money

When we’re not acting in our best interests, even when we have the capacity to do so, we are using what I am refering to as our ’stupid mind.’

Stupid is when we have the mental capacity to make good decisions but don’t. We aren’t ‘thinking before we act.’

Metaphysicians would cry out in horror.

OH, No, you can’t say anything negative about yourself!

I say that being honest without judgment is not negative it’s smart, no matter how long it is in coming.

I wasn’t retarded. I have good reasoning capacities in most areas of my life but in the area of money I was oblivious to what I are doing. I was acting as though I lived in a tree.

Once when I was eleven I bit down on a fragile glass so hard I broke it in my mouth. I wanted to find where the breaking point was.

That was stupid!

I continued to use that same mentality with money. I finally bit down hard enough on the glass of money until it broke. Because by then I was literally broke.

Let me tell you a peculiar realization I had when I saw the money running out. I was relieved. Because somehow I knew it was time to clean the glass out of my mind for once and for all.  My stupid mind woke up.

I realized that I had to get smart, get aware and get to the core beliefs or…sweetheart it’s bag lady time.

It wasn’t just beliefs about money that created the stupidity. It was beliefs about myself. About deservability. About honoring who I was, my gifts and talents. About not being afraid to be all that I can be.

Let me tell you that once I began to ask questions the awarenesses began to crowd in so fast that I had trouble keep everything in perspective.

My whole system was beginning to rewire itself. For 6 weeks I hardly slept. I was beginning to become fearful for my health. Eventually I balanced out the energy and was able to sleep and a strange thing happened: I began to have a different perspective about money. It all felt different. I felt like I knew how to do it.

My ’stupid mind’ around money simply flipped. And all because I got to a core belief around money! Who’d a thought it?

 Mary

by Mary Money

I know, sounds  preposterous. Everyone wants money. They want the security of having money, the pleasure of using it to improve their lives and the lives of others.

And that is what I thought. That I wanted money for all those reasons and a lot more. I’ve got my list. You’ve got yours. They are probably a lot alike. The ‘things’ will be different.

And so I struggled to get money. Most of my life I was continuously broke and in debt. Not a lot but as soon as I paid it off it started all over again.

Then I received a fairly large chunk of money from an inheritance and it didn’t take me very long before it was all gone. And to top it off I was in bigger debt than I had ever been in my life.

At that point I looked around me and realized that in almost every way I was back where I had been before.

I hadn’t bought any new furniture. I didn’t buy a home. I hadn’t bought  jewelry. I didn’t have a new car. In fact I had a car that was what I refer to as cosmetically incorrect. My closet wasn’t bulging with new clothes either.

This was definitely Deja vu!

In some areas I may not be too smart but I’ll tell you that it didn’t take me  long to realize something was drastically wrong. No one in their right mind spends, and invests in things that are simply not going to become fruitful!

I was crazed. And scared. I had no idea how I was going to set myself on a financially responsible course when I had no money and no prospects at that point. 

Directing my cries to the Universe and my deep inner self I kept asking ‘why?’. What was I believing in order to have been so oblivious to what was going on in my mind my  life and my financial affairs?

I knew that this was a time to discover my thinking patterns, my habits, my errors so I could change them and put new ideas and operating beliefs in place.

To put it another way, I knew that I had to change the operating system of the computer called ‘Mary’ so it would accept new software. All the other software, and I had been trying to install it for years and years and years, just bounced off. Remember you mother telling you that what she said simply ‘went in one ear and out the other?’ This was similar.

Without going into the particulars I was introduced to Avatar. As I worked a process with my master, she brought to my attention something I had just said. “Do you mean that you believe money is your enemy?” she repeated. Let me tell you that I simply went into shock because I knew that it was a core belief that supported most of my sabotaging beliefs and actions.

You know, money is one of those things that we want, require, desire and sometimes beg for. For most of us it is a necessity. However, if we have contrary beliefs we are going to allow it in our lives only by taking hold of it by the neck and dragging it kicking and screaming into our lives.

And then in the next moment we are kicking it out the door. Sort of like inviting the enemy in our door because we need it to fix the furnace and when the job is done putting our foot to it’s backside and kicking it out.

If somehow, money sneeks in by the back door we can’t wait to get it out of our house so we can go on being safe.

Big contradiction isn’t it?

If you read the last post you will remember where I said that we got to name money. I had named mine as, bad, evil, enemy! Wow, what a revelation. It literally changed my life.

I’ll let you explore the idea a bit as it might apply to you but come back as I add more.

Mary