Is it Really All About the Money?

Six years ago I walked out of a life I worked hard to create. Many hours of blood sweat and tears to build a business, buy a house and maintain a lifestyle I thought was making me happy.

On the day I left I remember going through all the cupboards and deciding what to take. Floor to ceiling cupboards filled with stuff I thought I had to have at the time. Household items I thought symbolized happiness, fun, family unity and connection.

But as I looked at those items on my day of leaving the house, all I could think of was to take only what I needed. What do I need? …an interesting question.  I looked back at the plates, platters, bowls, gadgets, etc etc and closed the doors. I don’t need any of this. I left the family house I had worked so hard to fill with six boxes for myself and my children.

In that moment when I looked back at this house before I left, I realized that a house is not a home and no materialism can replace our deeper desires of love and fulfillment. The emotionally stressful years that echoed through that house, giving me reason to leave, spoke louder than any material possession there.

So, I moved out of a 5 bedroom house with all the frills and my kids and I moved into a small 3 bedroom flat with our 6 boxes and minimal furniture…giving us exactly what we needed. After a week of being in our flat I lay on my “new bed” lent to me by a dear friend and a smile slowly came to me face. “I feel happy, I feel free, I feel excited, I feel clear…I feel me again.”

Materialism had always been a part of my life; after all I was brought up in Bel Air, California surrounded by extreme wealth where status and worth was symbolized by what you owned…the bigger the better. But as I lay in the comfort of my new cave, I experienced a happiness I thought I had lost forever. A happiness which was coming from a deeper place within me- it was drawing me in to go deeper and deeper internally, while the external was disappearing around me.

As I journeyed to this inner world of simplicity I discovered what I had been searching for…I found my home…I found my wealth…and I found my peace. Guess I kept on missing it all by continually looking outside of myself for fulfillment, rather than within. Guess I thought that all that “stuff” would make me feel worthy, make me feel successful, make me feel love and complete. In the end…all I could come back to was what do I actually need. And all I needed was simple…all I needed was me.

When I discovered that me, I also discovered a buried desire to bring that me out to the world...to use that me to help others and make change. My focus shifted to service and contribution and the feeling of fulfillment, wealth and abundance came not from stuff but from working from a deep purpose within which was driving me faster and with more enthusiasm and energy than any other goal I had ever desired. I realize now that I have what I need and more importantly when all the fluff was stripped away I was able to focus on the real stuff within and find the true source of abundance.

So…I ask you…Is your money and materialism really making you happy? Is all that stuff fulfilling you? Is all that stuff creating stress for you? Because as we know there is no end to it, there is always more. Are you working so hard and having a life out of balance because of that stuff? What do you need?

  

“…In our world we define our success by the things we have rather than by the people we’ve become. Rather than measuring our progress by how many lives we’re influencing, we gauge it by how much money we’re making and how many promotions we are receiving…as a society, we’re focusing on all the wrong things, sadly, and that we’ve lost sight as to what real success is all about. No wonder most of us are miserable. No wonder so many in our world are medicating themselves with too much food, too much TV, and too much sleep. We are pursuing goals that will never make us happy

…There’s nothing wrong with having nice things…It means someone who loves beauty…owning them versus them owning me. People really run into trouble when what they have forms the basis of who they are and their identity in the world…because if they lose their things they lose themselves.”

Quote from The Leader who had No Title, Robin Sharma.

These words from this amazing book really inspired me and made me look at what I have created in my life now, 6 years after my departure. These words got me thinking about what we truly need as a society and made me question what we are truly working for. I look at all the stress levels around me, stress from burnt out dreamers working desperately for all their stuff and working to have more.  

Is all this stuff creating fear within us? Fear of lose, fear of rejection, fear of not being enough. Is all this stuff a distraction?  Are we being distracted from our true journey of self development within- building more and more outside of ourselves rather than within? Instead of working for stuff can we work from purpose?

Maybe, as a collective unconscious, we created a global financial crisis to help us stop and question what is really important. Help us question our relationship with money and with all our stuff. Perhaps our source of worthiness and love comes not from what we have but who we are. Perhaps our relationship with money symbolizes our relationship with ourselves and when we value who we are and what we have we become a bit more mindful of how we spend that energy. So….

WHAT DO YOU NEED TO FEEL TRUE HAPPINESS, PEACE AND FREEDOM?

I can't help but think of the words from John Lennon's Imagine...and this is the best version of this amazing song....


To your truth and freedom with lots of love,

Cheryne Blom

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