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The economy is in the pits and getting scarier by the day. A few months ago, broadcasters were talking about the “R word,” now it’s the D word. A few months ago our attention was focused on domestic economic upheaval, now we are hear the global economy is tottering on the edge of collapse, if it hasn’t already gone over. We hear the word crisis repeatedly. Each day’s news is scarier and worse than yesterday’s. Some days, as in a seven hundred plus drop in the stock market, it gets scarier by the minute.

What an opportunity! If this is the “greatest crisis since the Great Depression,” it’s also our greatest opportunity. None of us want to be where we find ourselves at the moment, from those who live in the rarefied Bill Gates world to those in the homeless world going without food. What a rare unity of collective thought and emotion. We don’t want what we’ve got! It makes it so clear what we do want – a booming economy for all of us. What an opportunity to re-view and re-new our money beliefs and thus our money experiences.

RE-CREATING MONEY BELIEFS

Beliefs determine behavior. The hooker is that conscious beliefs are not the most powerful; unconscious beliefs are. When our conscious beliefs and unconscious beliefs conflict, the unconscious will win out and we will act from the unconscious beliefs– every time.

Underlying our affluence is ambivalence. We, in the US, have the highest, grandest standard of living the world has ever known. Prior to our beginnings as a nation, we were exploiting both the environment and other human beings; our incredible wealth and opportunity arose out of those beginnings. We inherited both the conscious enjoyment of the wealth and the unconscious guilt about our indiscretions and disrespect of our planet.

• Scientifically, we can now demonstrate that everything is connected and that every “thing” is created from vibrations. Perhaps now is the moment to get honest about our collective money unconscious and release ourselves by acting with compassion and forgiveness and deciding that we stand for prosperity and abundance for all.

• Each of us has had an individual and unique relationship and history with money. Because we learned those beliefs as very young children, unable to discriminate between truth, myths, and fables we accepted them as our picture of what is, our “reality.”

A We-cession

We have created the we-cession by buying into the escalating fears about money; fears that have been lurking in our unconscious. The nineties began with us in recession. A new administration, new hopes and new beliefs and we expanded out of that one.

We’ve been swinging between boom and bust since then; we created the dot com boom and the real estate boom. In the booms, we saw incredible expansion of wealth, all grounded in belief that the economy was robust.

A whisper of fears began; ‘it was too good to be true.” The fears circulated and grew; predictions of dot com and real estate busts escalated until we believed ourselves and acted from fear until we were in the very situation we feared – we-cession.

Were there folks who went through the down-turns continuing to make more money? Yes, those who believed they weren’t going to participate in we-cessionary trends; those who were aligned consciously and unconsciously with the idea that having an unrestricted flow of financial abundance was just fine. Those who had the skills of using the Law of Attraction and avoiding the Flaw of Distraction.

Fear caused us to get into wars that are costing way too many precious human lives and way too many dollars. As a country, we stayed unconscious of the fact that we couldn’t win and that we could not afford the cash outlay.

The economic events are now so dramatic, we are really conscious. That is a great springboard to ask; do we want to live in fear or love? Do we really believe in abundance or lack, an economy of bust or ro-bust? Do we choose to live in Scare City or will we choose FUNancial Freedom™?

TIP ONE: Get More Conscious

NOW is a great time to shine the light of consciousness on your money beliefs. Get a piece of paper, give yourself some time and solitude, and ask: What did I learn about money when I was a kid? What did I hear about money? How did the people around me feel about money? What money patterns do I see in my life that replay ones I grew up with? Most importantly, what do I choose to belief about money?

No doubt you’ll find ambivalence, fear, and conflict, thoughts about the “eye of the camel,” the root of all evil,” and “filthy rich.” We are so familiar with those thoughts that we don’t even think that they might influence our bank balances.

TIP TWO: Don’t blame anyone who taught you.

Blame is a waste of time and energy. Assume they did the best they knew how to do and forgive them for their ignorance. Anytime we are focused on “them,” we’re looking in the wrong place for results. Whether we know it or not, we have all the power we need to make any change in our lives we desire, whether it is gaining a fortune, starting a million dollar business, or overcoming a fatal illness.

None of us has any control over “them”, them as individuals or them as groups of any size. The only person whose thoughts, emotions, and energy we get to control over is our own.

TIP THREE: Be in charge of your own bailout.

Don’t wait for the governmental bailout – unless you are a multimillion dollar company — to change your finances. Remember the economic stimulus package? Wasn’t that supposed to get the economy going again?

TIP FOUR: Get out of the Flaw of Distraction.

Several months ago, The Secret was hitting the bestseller lists; millions learned about the Law of Attraction. The essence of the law is that our thoughts and emotions create our experiences. What we think about, talk about and emote about is what comes about in our lives.

Right now, our focus is almost exclusively on lack and scarcity. The time and energy being focused on “lack” and loss is taking time and energy away from what we all want, abundance and freedom.

Athletics demonstrate the benefits of focus. Michael Phelps in the race for his seventh gold medal avoided the flaw of distraction; he allowed nothing, absolutely nothing, not even how close his competitor was, to interfere with his focus. That skill got him his gold.

TIP FIVE: Go on a media diet.

You’ll focus less on the “bad news,” if you aren’t listening to it or reading constantly about it. See tip four.

TIP SIX: Go on a gratitude rant.

Recite or write down as many things as you can that you feel grateful for. No time? What about while you’re sitting in traffic? Wouldn’t that make your commute more pleasant? What about while waiting for the light to change, or waiting for the bus? A 2005 report stated that Americans wait 42 billion hours per year stuck in traffic (www.asce.org/reportcard/2005/actionplan07.cf) . Lots of time to feel grateful!

When you are genuinely feeling grateful you are using the Law of Attraction to your advantage.

TIP SEVEN: Tune your own mind.

Imagine your mind as a radio station that broadcasts on two stations, WSAD of WJOY. Practice staying tuned to WJOY. It has been said in a number of places that we have some 50,000 separate thoughts every day. Of those, the estimate is the 79% of them are negative. Worse yet, some 95% of today’s thoughts are the same ones we thought yesterday. Challenge yourself to come up with at least one thought every day that you’ve never thought before. Have fun with generating new thoughts.

We cannot create anything new from the same old thoughts.

TIP EIGHT: Bless “them.”

Gregg Braden (Awakening the Power of a Modern God/ Nightingale Conant) suggests the following to keep from getting distracted by the painful and frightening. It’s very easy to get angry with the “them” whose actions created the current economic situation.

He states that you cannot bless someone and simultaneously be angry. So, bless those who created the money mess, bless those who are suffering because of it, and bless everyone, including yourself, as a witness/participant.

TIP NINE: Believe that you have all the resources you need to take charge of your money situation, no matter how much of a mess it might be.

We greatly underestimate the powers of our beliefs. Henry Ford is credited with stating. “If a man thinks he can or he thinks he can’t, he’s right.” Believing that you can find/create/develop all the resources you need to right-size your own finances and acting from that belief for as long as it takes will enable you to skip the we-cession.

TIP TEN: Give some money away.

This tip comes from Joe Vitale (The Greatest Money-Making Secret in History, Wiley). Joe is NOT participating in the we-cession and he’s not psychiatrically ill. He’s a very wealthy, very creative who has created multiple bestsellers.

Before you dismiss this tip as crazy, look at it this way; if we want love, it’s easier to get love when we are loving. If we want friendliness, we give out warm friendly actions. But you think, “Money’s different, it’s real.”

Money is simply paper that we pass around believing that it has value. We could decide that candy wrappers or clam shells were valuable and use them to buy things.

So give some money away, preferably anonymously. It doesn’t have to be big sums. Drop some change or a dollar or two on the street or in a parking lot and have fun imagining the person who finds it.  Write a big check – whatever is “big” to you to someone who has helped you. Write a check to your favorite charity. What ever you give away, give it freely and with a light heart.

Bonus Tip: A Magic Question

WDIW – What Do I Want? Whenever you think about money, ask the magic question. Stay lovingly focused on what you want, bless everyone and everything, believe and act as if you are already joyously wealthy, avoid the Flaw of Distraction, and constantly ask: WDIW. Believe and receive.