It's Not Your Money

by Tosha Silver

  Choosing words that resonate may also help if you’re spiritually curious but averse to conventional religion. Don’t worry, you can still learn to trust the Flow. I have a friend who truly lives the ideas of offering, surrender, and openness—but considers herself a solid agnostic. Yet she moves with faith, deferring to something beyond the ego. Often, she calls this the Way, from the Tao Te Ching.

  A master surfer once told me at Ocean Beach, “You listen inside, bow to the Force, and ride that mama as far as it will go. No ego can impose itself on the sea. . . . Those who try eventually must crash and burn. It’s unavoidable.”

  This route of offering is just like that. It’s neither about passivity nor weakness, but instead honors this primal power.

  For me, the Divine is internal as well as external. It is Love, and it is All, and certainly not some cranky, judgmental Thor in the sky hurling lightning bolts and throwing tantrums. This path is about invoking your own inner Great Self to take the wheel. What a nightmare if God were only an outer authority figure. The powerful changes that inevitably arise come from inviting an ever-deepening intimacy with this Love.

  In her beautiful book Dying to Be Me, Anita Moorjani described the awareness that came from her near-death experience. She said, “I became conscious that there isn’t an external creation separate from me—because the word external suggests separation and duality. . . . Although I’ve been using the words Universal energy, I can just as easily say chi, prana, or ki. These words mean ‘life-force energy.’ . . . In a nutshell, it’s the Source of life, and it runs through every living thing. In fact, it fills the entire universe and is inseparable from it.”

  I wholeheartedly concur.

  #2: AND WHAT ABOUT ALL THESE PRAYERS?

  My last book, Change Me Prayers, was filled with petitions for transformation. And like the word God, everyone had an opinion about this! Some adored the idea of Love changing us to release false identifications and inhibitions, and some hated it. Occasionally, a reader would scold me: “I don’t want to be changed. It took me forever to realize I’m good just as I am.” So let me explain this idea too.

  The purpose of the prayers in this book is to help you move outside the limitations of ego. Rather than twisting you into something you’re not, they actually let you become more of your true Self. Inviting the Divine to take over can often unleash a freedom and spontaneity that no amount of striving can. Your own instinctive inner Self shows the right actions at the right time and acts through you. It’s just waiting to be invited.

  I began to use Change Me prayers when my beloved mother, Debbie, was in her final weeks on Earth. Beside myself with grief and wishing to bolt every second, I began to pray to be able to stay in the room with her skeletal body and give what she needed. Change me, God, into one who can stay present and be here for her! To my amazement, this worked like magic. Soon I discovered these prayers were powerful for almost anything.

  That being said, please play with the language to suit your temperament. If the words change me are annoying, replace them with help me, allow me, or let me. Or whatever else. I mean, I personally get very excited by the idea of Divine Love transforming the heck out of me to let His plan—not the ego’s—take over. But if you don’t, other words will work. What matters is making the invitation in a way that’s personal, authentic, and intimate. The exact language is secondary.

  In your first week, please read this chapter and consider where in your own life you might apply its main ideas. Understanding these concepts will prepare you for Week Two, where you’ll begin the five active steps toward being Abundance.

  THE FULL ABUNDANCE CHANGE ME PRAYER

  The first concept will be your full-on secret weapon. It reliably calls in the transformative power of Love and elevates one’s consciousness—no matter what your current state. It invokes Abundance itself—including gratitude, prosperity, and freedom—yet it serves an even deeper purpose. It teaches your whole Being that you, too, deserve to receive. In many ways, it’s a song of worthiness.

  Divine Beloved, allow me to give with complete ease and abundance, knowing that You are the unlimited Source of all.

  Let me be an easy, open conduit for Your prosperity.

  Let me trust that all my own needs are always met in amazing ways

  and that it’s safe to give freely as my heart guides.

  And equally, let me feel wildly open to receiving.

  May I know my own value, beauty, and worthiness without question.

  Let me allow others the supreme pleasure of giving to me.

  May I feel worthy to receive in every possible way.

  Change me into one who can fully love, forgive, and accept myself

  So I may carry Your Light without restriction.

  Let everything that needs to go, go.

  Let everything that needs to come, come.

  I am utterly Your own.

  You are me, I am You, we are One.

  All is well.

  As a practice, please read this prayer every day for the full eight weeks of this process. It’s a strengthening tea that needs time to steep within you.

  It seems to know how to heal and strengthen various parts of your spiritual system, no matter who you are. For example, while some people—especially women—are comfortable giving, they haven’t a clue how to receive. Some will give—even insanely over-give—then feel red-hot fury about not getting back. This prayer instills the intention that You. Too. Can. Receive.

  For other people, the prayer softens past resentments or releases impacted bitterness. It can help ease shame around financial mistakes from the past. For still others who fear giving, it can unclench the hands from grasping and dissolve outgrown beliefs and ancient resentments.

  I said the Full Abundance Change Me Prayer every day, writing it out on a piece of paper that I taped on my bathroom mirror. Throughout the day, every time I looked at myself, I said it out loud. Sometimes I even whispered it. Eventually I knew it by heart in my soul. But I can say that even after the first day, I felt a dramatic change. I was finally able to breathe, as if the prayer created space in my chest. Many other financial changes followed.

  Several basic ideas run like a river through this book. They are Divine Source, Doership, Offering, and Prarabdha Karma. Becoming familiar with them right from the start will make the whole process so much easier.

  RELAXING INTO DIVINE SOURCE

  Divine Source is the idea that no person, place, or thing is your salvation, only Love Itself. You begin to trust the universal storehouse that is the foundation of all. You sense the One that underlies the illusion of multiplicity in this world. You know the right next door will open at the right time and actions will spontaneously arise as you need them.

  Let me share a couple stories illustrating this.

  RELEASING THE EX

  My friend Jane was filled with constant resentment about a divorce settlement she’d received many years back. She kept replaying the events in her mind, often lying awake at night, furious that she hadn’t snared a better deal. But her rage perpetuated a state of stagnant victimization and created a ring of fire that actually blocked the good.

  When she began to use the Abundance prayer to reinstall God as her Source, slowly, over time, she came to feel acceptance. (She also had a ton of anger to release, but more about that in Week Five.) She came to see that her ex was not her Source. God had simply used him as a partial support, but could now use anything. She stopped blocking all the other ways God might wish to give to her. Within a few months, Jane—who’s a mechanical engineer—was handed a plum job opportunity out of the blue, far beyond anything she’d ever imagined.

  MY BABA

  Here’s another way to see Divine Source. When I was little, my grandmother Baba would come by twice a month to take me out to lunch. She was from the “old country,” Polish-Russian, and parts of life here never made sense to her.

  Every time we got to the huge parking lot near the restaurant,
Baba would say with utter conviction, “Okay, ve need to vemember zat ve parked next to zat nice green car, darlink. So ve don’t get lost!!!”

  And yet, after lunch, every time, we’d wander the rows of cars totally dazed and confused—because her orientation point had moved. After a few weeks, I finally realized we needed a new system (“Um, Baba, we’re on the second row from the entrance!”).

  So, that’s what discovering Divine Source is like. Most people find their sense of security from whatever transient anchor is nearby. They pretend, Okay, this particular job is my total Source. If I don’t have it, I’ll never find another. Or, This partner is my lifeline. If she ever leaves me, I’ll be destroyed.

  But when you make Divine Intelligence your foundation, you finally have a fixed star to follow. You’re no longer saying “this” or “that” is your answer. God knows what’s needed.

  You’re grounded in the idea, The perfect solution is already selected. I’ll be guided to it in the right time and way. If something needs to end, the new route will come, and I will gladly follow!

  LETTING SOURCE LEAD

  If you think of the Divine as your ultimate protection, the Source of your work, finances, and all needs, then even the economy becomes irrelevant (as insane as I know that sounds, but stick with me for a bit). You lift your vibration above the turbulence of the current economic reality into the capable hands of That from Which All Things Come.

  Then the Universe can use anything it wishes to meet your needs, sometimes in ways far more creative and unexpected than the mind can fathom. When my friend Andy says he envies people with inheritances, I often laugh. “Well, Divine Source actually is the ultimate trust fund. In more ways than one!”

  Here’s a good prayer to help rest in this awareness:

  Change me, Divine Beloved, into one who fully trusts that all true needs are always met through your bounty. Let me surrender and allow You to be my Source for All. Let me breathe, relax, and let you lead. I am safe. I am peaceful. All needs will abundantly be met. I am Yours completely.

  DOERSHIP

  Eventually, in some life or another, chasing and grasping begin to constrict like outgrown clothes. The soul longs for something larger than the ego’s agenda to guide the way. You long to serve and harmonize with the Tao.

  Many times, this shift comes purely from exhaustion. A friend of mine once told me, “You know, I was a hard nut to crack, but I’m finally letting go. Who knows whether it’s evolution or exhaustion, but I am!” When that time dawns, no matter what suffering is the spur, it’s a blessed moment. You are finally being broken open . . . by God.

  Releasing doership means that rather than striving and pushing harder, you actually learn to get out of the way. Your instincts start to guide your actions, and you don’t cling to outcomes.

  I encountered a big round of doership when I was beginning this book. My earlier works had all been collections of stories or poetry, but when I began to get the incessant message to write about abundance, I knew it had to be a real how-to book. A collection of stories, however engaging, would not cut it. I’d have to let God carry me far, far outside “my” own comfort zone and into the new.

  Though I’d offered it all, there was still some part that remained a doer. I’d fallen into the trance of “It’s my book,” with all its attendant limitations. I kept saying, “I can’t do this! I’m just a storyteller at heart.” I became so stuck, that for a few months I couldn’t write at all, even with the deadline fast approaching.

  In desperation, I fully cast the burden back to God. “Free me from the illusion of doership!” I begged with every cell of my Being. The next morning, as I was awakening, I heard inside, “The Lord is my mind, I shall not falter. She does all the writing. Release the I and just take dictation.”

  It was as if Love said, “Stop bothering me about what kind of writer you are; that’s all an illusion. Become receptive and let Me use you!” As I did, the constricted husk of small self-identification cracked open, allowing the book to fly.

  The importance of releasing doership continued to show itself throughout the writing of this book. I’ve often gotten solutions by walking. I learned early on as a writer that if I went for a long, rambling hike where I asked Love to bring what was needed, not only would ideas pour in, but signs and messages as well. A billboard here, meaningful graffiti there, maybe a random snippet of overheard conversation. I’d often stop to make notes in my phone.

  One day I was strolling on Valencia Street in San Francisco when a tsunami of ideas poured in. My phone had run out of juice, so I dashed into a café for a napkin, then scribbled against a wall like a madwoman. I couldn’t wait to get home to type it all up.

  But when I walked a couple miles back to the car, I saw that the napkin was gone. God only knows where I’d dropped it. The panic I recalled so well from “screwing up” as a kid swelled inside. Then I remembered: The entire walk has been offered. In fact, the whole book too! If the napkin has vanished, no worries. The Force that brought the ideas the first time can bring them again, if needed.

  I sat in the car, breathing and praying. Then, lo and behold, all the inspirations returned like a flock of seagulls. I have no doubt that they would have been blocked by fear, despair, or a rousing chorus of “How careless could you be?” Instead, the release of doership handled it all.

  The great Martha Graham once said to the dancer and choreographer Agnes de Mille, “There is a vitality, a life force . . . that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all of time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and it will be lost. The world will not have it. It is not your business to determine how good it is nor how valuable nor how it compares with other expressions. It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly, to keep the channel open!” (italics added)

  Many of you have likely felt how inspiration can come from a relaxed state of openness. That is the release of the doer. Even Michelangelo supposedly said his masterpiece David was created by simply chipping away the stone that wasn’t needed.

  Michelangelo followed the Divine lead.

  Luckily, this lead shows itself in many arenas, including money.

  GOOD-BYE TO MY

  Offering is the heart of this book.

  It’s handing any burden—whether a desire, attachment, illness, finances, or anything—back to God. After all, it was Hers to begin with! In a way, doing so says, “This is persecuting me so much, I can no longer lean on my ego’s own strength. Please show me Your will.”

  True offering takes what can be an unbearable cross and returns it to Love. It untangles you from the seemingly inescapable thicket of doership. One easy way to begin is simply by replacing my with the. We’re taught to think of my money, my body, my partner, my happiness, my failure. Even my awakening. In Western culture, the trance of my is king. But here’s the catch: If it all belongs to you (the ego), the burden is all yours as well.

  With the simple substitution of the, grasping softens, and offering begins.

  Take, for example, “I’m worried right now about this business . . . and I’m thrilled to be offering all to Love for the right actions to be shown at the right time.”

  This can be applied to anything. Sally had built an entire agonizing identity centered around her terrible rheumatoid arthritis, which is so easy to do. She was always saying, “my illness,” “my restrictions,” “my expenses about all this” with increasing anger and desperation. I suggested that since she had nothing to lose, she could offer the entire mess to the Divine and release the my.

  She began to say, “I give this illness fully to You. Please, please make me open and show me the right actions. And if there’s not currently a solution, please at least let me accept this for now and make clear what I need to learn.”

  She immediately felt more spacious simply from dropping that my. And over time, the process of offering, acceptance, and disentanglemen
t brought healing she’d never imagined. She felt guided to return to an acupuncturist she’d seen many years before who used treatments, herbs, and diet. However, this time it all worked, perhaps because she’d finally released the grip of her ego’s identification with the problem. Although flare-ups still come, she’s much improved.

  RADICAL ACCEPTANCE

  A part of Sally’s process was acceptance. While this idea is currently popular, it can be far easier to invite through prayer than by trying to convince the ego to accept what it hates. This means praying to embrace something As It Is in the now. Not forever, just right now, since in God’s world, things can turn on a dime.

  Radical acceptance in the Now opens the Flow.

  The concept that “whatever you resist, persists” has some truth. One of the greatest revelations of my life was that I could pray for this radical allowing, especially when stuck in total resistance. I could say, “Let me embrace this only for the moment. Let me say yes just for now.” Acceptance is neither resignation nor powerlessness, but an opening of the Way for the next right actions.

  OFFERING RESENTMENT TO THE DIVINE

  Sara is a well-known painter with a rabid following. For many years, she made a good living showing her work in galleries around the world. Then she met Joelle, the great love of her life.

  In a classic whirlwind romance, within three months of meeting, Joelle had moved into Sara’s San Francisco home. However, she had no steady source of income; her last partner had carried her financially as well. As “in love” as Sara was, she soon simmered with anger about taking care of her. In fact, as the months went by, Sara became more and more enraged about playing the financial caretaker.

  Yet instead of setting some healthy boundaries, Sara clung more tightly to the relationship. As furious as she was, she still didn’t want to lose it. Then the oddest thing began to occur.