With all of the talks of bailouts and the news of fear around the global economic situation, I wanted to share something with you from a personal experience.
In July of last year, 2007, I was meditating one morning with a question on my mind, a question for Spirit. Three years prior, I had made some very poor financial and investment decisions that were detrimental not just to me but to my whole family. I didn’t know at the time how much damage was being done, but all of this unraveled and came to a head mid last year. As the sole income earner in my family, I had frittered away just about all of our savings, and my resultant income wasn’t enough to keep up with our bills. I’m a degreed engineer, and consider myself reasonably intelligent, so there was really no excuse for what I had done, save for greed and recklessness. I had also done extensive interviewing to try and get back up to my previous income level, but nothing was panning out.
So in my meditation, I asked Spirit what to do. I had run out of ideas. I didn’t know where to turn next. I didn’t know how to get us back on track. What was amazing about this particular meditation, though, was that this was one of the only times I can remember where I truly let go. (Not easy for an engineer, and a guy, to do!) I knew that the long string of mistakes were mine and mine alone. So my vow to Spirit was to shut up this time and listen, and then act upon whatever it was that I heard.
The answer didn’t come right away. I sat for a number of mornings. But eventually it did, and what I heard was pretty weird, mind you. The guidance I received was to let go of my money. Well, OK, my response back to Spirit was, “how can I when I don’t have anything left to give or to let go of?!” I cooled down after a couple minutes and began to feel an unexpected peace and a presence and a truth in all this. And I sat for a few more mornings until it became even clearer. What I was guided to do was to begin to give away a dollar every day.
It’s now November 2008, and I’m still going. That adds up to about 425 days in which I’ve given away a dollar thus far.
What has been the most powerful about this, though, has been what I’ve learned and what I’ve experienced, and what has changed in my life and in my family’s life. I’ve learned, through hindsight, that the recklessness I caused was the result of me only thinking about me. I was a “what’s in it for me” kind of person and it finally came crashing down on me. And what I’ve experienced from turning this around through every day giving has been a renewed love for my wife and my family. Giving to them, and even to my friends, without agenda or without the expectation of something from them. I had no idea then the wonderful changes that were in store for me when I began the shift from getting to giving. This has all been such an incredible blessing.
In that meditation last year, I had every reason to doubt Spirit’s sage advise. Here I was bleeding all of our savings, running out of money, and I was supposed to start giving what I thought I didn’t have. And, by all appearances, we – meaning the United States and the global community – are running out of money, too, and should be running for shelter before the ultimate time bomb drops on this crisis.
But I took a chance. I got quiet, and sat still, and listened. I went counter to conventional wisdom and began to give when there wasn’t much to give. So I’m curious – what if we (the collective we) began to do this right now? What if we loosened our tight grip of fear of losing our money, and started to give, every day, even if it were in small ways? This simple practice has brought miracles and joy to my life. I can only imagine what it would do on a collective scale.
Thank you for letting me share this story.
Blessings,
Todd
