Karen Monroy

I have never met a ‘uncreative’ person-only a person who has not yet found a way to express their creativity. I’m speaking of Creativity that comes from Spirit. Many times Creativity is expressed by an artist or writer-it is in each one of us, regardless of our roles as business person or mother or artist.

‘Creativity’ is far superior to learned ’skills’ when is comes to getting any goal accomplished-and when it comes to being happy.

Skills can answer a question with the limited knowledge data-base in the brain. It is a specific learned way of doing something. What makes skills problematic: once we get proficient with a skill: we go to sleep! That’s right, we go on ‘auto pilot’. Natural brain functioning takes over, and we will repeat the same skill many times, regardless of input that things have changed and it isn’t working any more. (yes we eventually ‘get-it’ but creative folks don’t suffer this ‘get-it’)

Test this out for yourself: when you know how to cook a specific recipe do you ever make is differently? Nope. We get tired of it and stop making it and probably don’t realize why! What about your route to work? Same one every day? Even if construction commences on your route?

Creativity on the other hand is not limited to what is known. In fact it loves the play of energy with the unknown influence.

Creativity is a process that doesn’t need a template, it is given space. Space to manifest, play, experiment, explore, test, measure, and transform the appearance of ‘what is’ into the new idea of what ‘could be’.

It’s a myth that Creative folks are airheads. It’s a myth that skill folks are boring brainiacs. If you have a choice (and you do) about where to invest your time-do it learning to harness and express your Creativity.

You don’t need another formula, another book on ‘how’. Pick one thing you’d like to do. Now list as many different ways as you can to do that one thing. Work at the list and come back to it until you have dozens of ideas. You’ll notice at first it’s hard—but then like popcorn – you’ll have several kernels to write down.

Try this for every part of your life-relationships, work, health, finances—and notice where you have an easier time listing possible means to the way.

What does this have to do with the energy of money? I’m glad you asked!

Here are two ways this manifests:

1:You have enough money to fit your situation and have gone on auto pilot, so when things change you will keep trying the same ‘old’ way. Really common when folks retire they run out of money because things changed and they didn’t.

2: You are so stuck in the amount/sum skill set, when shopping around for a good or service or a bill is due and you don’t see the ‘money’ in your account-you don’t think of other ways to address the bill! You only know how to look at the amount of money due. Trade/barter/modification do not occur to you.

Did you know that 80% of the people who qualify for a modification of their mortgage or credit cards have not applied? Yup. They are stuck looking for the money in the amount/sum skill set.

Did you know about 50% of people who owe taxes because they do not have the money-are actually over paying?

Of course you did-you are a Creative person.

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At the end of the hard paved freeway of the intellect begins the soft sandy road of the heart. Intellect loves speed. Addiction to information, events-constantly buzzing -the tornado of the mind is never at rest. The heart loves essence; being-ness and its treasures can only be discovered along the forgiving and supple path of equanimity.

Being creatures of habit, we try the same vehicle, the same wheels on the sandy road to equanimity that functioned on the hard road. No surprise it doesn’t work.

Consider for a moment the personal and global issues at hand in your life. You are stuck, I’m stuck, we are all stuck at one level or another. Consider further the nature of the collective quagmire. If we are so smart we wouldn’t be experiencing financial or ecological crisis. We’d see the inevitability of our folly and make different choices.

We’ve run out of hard freeway. Yet, like stubborn school boys, some of us want to keep racing the same tired vehicles down the hard freeway of the addicted intellect-expecting when hits another dead end to deploy the U-turn as a solution.

Of course that leaves us still on the hard freeway.

Yes, there is a growing collective of individuals who see the harm. The quixotic grab is their response: blame, repent, blame again, and repent some more. It is producing nothing new; it’s a different form of a u-turn.

Same hard freeway of addiction to intellect.

Still there is another collective of individuals who have hit the soft sandy road of equanimity to the heart and have traction. Being called back to the hard freeway is utterly unattractive-most of the time.

Sometimes I feel the hard road and soft road parallel one another in my life. It seems easy to jump back on the freeway, and soon there after I am road kill. I’ve been hoping for some time the roads will widen enough to ease my burden of temptation to make the jump. I fully grasp the roads won’t widen of their own accord. The Spiritual Alchemy is clearly an inside job. It doesn’t stop me from wishing it other wise.

My comfort, and I offer it to you, is in recognizing every truth the intellect can produce is relative. While every Truth my heart illuminates never fails.

I have never loved someone and had bad come from it.

I have hated, been right in the truth of what I hate and have nothing good come from it.

I am not; you are not, the arbiters of what is possible. We are not intellectually capable, as this is the territory of the heart.

In equanimity we see the power of accountability. Our accountability-not another’s. We don’t like the financial crisis, yet we rely for our information upon those who foist the rotted carcass of fear at our feet for our investing.  We deplore the Gulf oil spill, but have in our home the majority of products made from petroleum.

The intellect would have you donate money to help the clean up but not reduce your use of plastic, gas or other petroleum products. The intellect would have you reading ‘the new rules of money’ looking for some secret to exempt you from the capricious winds of the market. Have you noticed how the intellect always has you looking, but never finding a lasting solution?

As we awaken, so do the others around us. As we speak the softness of our heart, its enchanted melody beckons others.

Have heart. In the end, it’s the only Sustainable solution. Have Heart in exactly the situation you face at this moment. Get off the hard addicted road of your intellect. Truly enter the forgiving supple path of the Heart. Equanimity blooms like a flower.  The Arbiter of what is possible commences accountability and requires nothing from you other than you not interfere with the plan.

Take the path of the Heart.

Take the path of the Heart.

Take the path of the Heart.

Sam is a beautiful soul who works in healing modalities. Sam has been courageous in her life, overcoming addictions and healing an abusive childhood. Sam is gentle and kind, and loving. I think if you knew her for ten minutes you’d like her.

Sam offers a service that her clients find helpful, and she expects to be paid at the time of service. She doesn’t shy away from her fees and Sam has worked hard to know the value of her service and convey that value. But Sam’s money is always a struggle. She goes into debt, works her way out (mostly) only to go into debt again. Sam thinks her problem is cash flow, but the real problem is energy flow. Giving and receiving are part of the SAME energetic loop. One form of this loop is called ‘spending.’

A few years ago when Sam had the opportunity to create her dream ‘home’ she Feng Shui her entire house and bought all new furnishings and accessories. She didn’t create a budget to do the project, nothing to tether the principles of balance and flow with the spending.

“The universe will provide” and “I deserve this” were her two mainstay mantras. Before you decide to laugh at the mantras—I submit you do the same thing too—just in a different form. It might be with your latte, or that must have pair of shoes, or a car. Truth is, out of balance and flow invites more of the same.

The problem for Sam ‘appeared’ as wanting a certain ‘look’ and going to the big box stores to achieve ‘the look’. One item at a time, everything seemed so cheep, so affordable. Three hundred dollars for a chair, a little over one hundred dollars for a coffee table, Sam looked at each item in its microscopic price element. Sam put some of the purchase on a credit card, paid some from business funds and paid some from savings. You know how monkey mind thinks: if you hide the spending by dividing it up it’s not like you spent what you spent.

Of course today, three years later—Sam is still paying the credit card off, (the ‘beauty of minimum payments’) and the cheap is demonstrating itself in the broken and worn nature of the goods in her home. Wooden ‘carving’ of Buddha coming unglued, broken frame on sofa, and the pungent odor of cheap still lingers in the air.

Sam is understandably disappointed. The error in thinking continues with the victim thoughts, “I had to buy what I bought, it was all I could afford” and “I shopped around for the best prices.”

Remember the Spiritual Principle “giving and receiving are part of the same energetic loop?”

Sam expects to be compensated fairly for her services, for her labor and efforts. She didn’t  however give in this regard as she wants to receive. Sam bought cheap, made in China goods, filled with poisonous chemicals, sprayed with poisonous chemicals (okay, news flash: that smell you smell when you walk into the big box stores? What do you think it is?) made by someone (perhaps a child) who was not paid a fair wage for the hours they spent working. Add a layer of complication with Feng Shui malpractice( Sam’s use of Fen Shui was tantamount to speeding all of the time and rubbing your lucky rabbit’s foot when the cop pulls you over) and you have constant struggles with balance and flow, also called debt.

Giving and receiving are part of the same energetic loop. Essential elements of this energetic loop are balance and flow. You VOTE with your dollars what you want to receive in your life.  You create balance and flow with your dollars or you do not. There is no escaping this fact of Earth School.

Up for a test?

Pick an object in your living room/family room. See if you can name where it was made, and how much the person who made it was paid. Can you see their face? The face of their family, the conditions they toiled in to make it?

How many items in your home do you accurately have this information about? One, ten, none?

You voted for something when you made your purchases. Voting consciously or unconsciously it matters not to the Universe: the vote registers

The question is: do you like what you voted for? Do you move into the victim thinking about your energetic votes when attempting to answer the previous question?

Oh, yes this is hard work. We need to have compassion for ourselves, for our habituated minds and the hard work that goes into escaping the gravitational pull of our thinking.

Focus on the Spiritual Principle, and the energetic voting of money; the giving and receiving will correct the money. Focus on the money and chances are your habituation will pull you into the gravity of your problematic thinking. In Sam’s case, when we did the “I can’t afford cheap” exercise Sam could see if she put money aside for 6 months, she could have made a fair exchange with her energetic votes and achieved the look she wanted. It would still be blessing her environment today, sans broken sofa ( wasted energy)  and she wouldn’t be paying off her credit card.

Sam can keep thinking all she needs is a few more clients, she’ll increase her cash flow, but now you know that isn’t the problem. There is no exception to the Universal Principles at work in life: giving and receiving are part of the same energetic loop.

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When you hear the word ‘victim’, what do you think? Really, take a minute and solidify your definition.

Here are common definitions based upon the archetype:

Innocent–-hurt in some way–powerless over circumstances–uninvited event/situation, which resulted in trauma.

The definition above averts the reality that “victim” as used today, is more often expressed in your life as something you do unaware, to your self. It’s a choice in mindset between aligning with your power or squandering your power. This kind of ‘victim’ is fake, an imposter of the archetype; having snuck in the back door of your mind, is now camping out on the energetic sofa, eating potato chips and smoking pot. Imposter victim is depleting your resources and wants more.

Okay, it might not be smoking pot-but it’s smoking’ something, cuz you don’t even know it’s on your sofa.

Ego minds individually and jointly, aided by our cultural conditioning embezzled the word ‘victim’ in a blatant attempt to obfuscate our authentic power. Not only is this act hindering the creation of the life we want, it invades every aspect of our life once we deploy the ‘victim’. Naturally we are talking about a pattern of behavior based in a belief “out there” exists a power to act upon us. It’s the belief in universal caprice, an unfair unkind universe that is designed to thwart you.

*It’s you saying you can’t go back to school because you don’t have the money, or your spouse won’t allow you to. AND believing it

*It’s saying it’s not nice to say the emperor has no clothes, when the emperor has no clothes. AND believing it.

*It’s blaming the banks and the government for your financial woes. AND believing it. +

*It’s saying you can’t spend money on self-growth because you don’t have money. AND believing it

*It’s saying you can’t get a job or make money. And believing it.

Now, I want to be clear-very clear-terrible things happen in life and there are times and places the archetypal meaning of victim applies. Even in these situations though, ultimately healing is about taking your power back.  It is also possible to have both kinds of ‘victim’ at work in your life.

Here are some of the common ways we voice the Imposter:

“He/She won’t let me.” “I can’t believe what they did!” “Yes, but….” “If only…” “I ‘m the kind of person who can’t deal with….” “I can’t because…” “ I only did that because you…(fill in the blank)” “It’s not fair” and anything co-dependent.

Here are some common emotional states that Victim transports us to:

Sadness                  Anger                  Frustration

Blame                    Anxiety                 Resentment

Whine                  Complain

The most powerful question you can ask yourself about the victim? “What do I have to learn from it?”

Victim is meant to teach us what power is, what owning and disowning power is like. Often the lesson is learned in the shadow: being nauseated at the feeling of powerlessness, we are compelled to notice the unnatural freakish nature of powerlessness. Powerless is not the real you-that is why it feels wrong.

You were not meant to be in service to the couch potato, or buy it it’s pot. You are Divine, and the plans for you are grand. So how do you get the couch potato off the sofa?

Be determined to catch the voice of the victim. Watch for the emotional states.

And say to your self “if I want to be Who I really am, manifest my passion I need to see this imposter at work in my life.”

And if you have been truly a victim at some point, your best healing is begun with knowing in the present moment, you do not need to add to your suffering by living in the past. Be kind and loving and compassionate with yourself, know that you deserve to heal, to overcome the trauma and not compound the trauma by inviting the experience to stick.

You are awesome, wonderful, beautiful, fantastic and powerful.  You are Divine Love in expression. Own it.

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+Footnote: I suspect some victims have really done a good job with the financial crisis, so here is the truth: While banks and government have violated the sacred trust of the people, you helped and continue to help with every dollar you invest and every dollar you spend.  Consciously or unconsciously you have co-created the mess. Even if your part in it is one tenth, of one percent: you have a part, and you have a choice to invest and spend ethically or continue down the same road.