(You will find my English usage tips at www.Grammarbook.com)
Since it’s the new year, I thought I’d address the desire most of us share to get a fresh start. This year in particular, with a new administration that has promised change, I think we’re all looking forward to letting go and moving on. Sometimes, however, we try to move on before we’ve actually let go. The result is that we often trade our “old baggage” for “new baggage.” For example, if you’ve made a resolution to lose weight and you’re eating less but you’re doing it by starving yourself, then you have simply traded shame for deprivation. If you’ve vowed to get out of debt but you’re angry with yourself for getting in too deep financially, then you’re simply trading the old baggage of anxiety for the new baggage of beating yourself up.
Real, lasting change comes from loving ourselves more. So whatever resolutions you make, make them lovingly by exploring the most compassionate ways to make the changes you so strongly desire. If you wish to lose weight, ask yourself what will work best for you. Is it joining a gym or do you prefer walking outdoors? Will diet frozen meals feel self-loving or do you enjoy working in the kitchen? Are you the type of person who thrives with group support or does listening to others irritate you? Focus on self-compassion and success will become less about struggle and endurance and more about perseverance and happiness.
If you’ve vowed to lower your debt, then recognize that “I deserve” doesn’t mean “I deserve stuff.” Your worthiness has nothing to do with what you have; it has everything to do with how you cultivate and share your tender heart and unique spirit. If you really want to get that you are deserving, then remember that you deserve less anxiety. So pay down your debt, not because you resent yourself for “failing,” but because you deserve to thrive.
Posts Tagged ‘money’
Making Changes That Will Stick
Monday, January 5th, 2009Empowering vs. Enabling
Tuesday, February 12th, 2008Click here to read my English usage blogs.
Dear Jane,
What is the difference between empowering and enabling someone?
I’ve struggled with this in my own life. I want to be compassionate, but how can I know whether I am helping or when I am supporting someone in believing they’re helpless? How do I combine a belief that we are 100% responsible for our thoughts and behaviors at the same time that I increase my awareness of our interdependence?
A few years ago a family came to live with us. They had been evicted from their apartment and because our eight-year-old daughters were friends, when the knock on the door came, we opened up, not just our door, but our hearts. They stayed with us for three months rent free…until at 6:30 one morning, the police banged on our door, arresting the mom for parole violation and theft. Two weeks later a credit card bill arrived totaling $3000+ on a card we had never used and that we thought was still in our desk drawer.
Some details I left out of that story: I knew something was amiss when I was shown the mom’s “ankle bracelet,” her house arrest monitor. On the first day of their stay, she admitted that she had embezzled $32,000 from her employer. She and her husband also admitted that they had defrauded their roommate, making her think that they had used her rent to pay the landlord when they had actually kept it.
So what did I do with this information? I counseled them; I fed them; I drove their daughter to school and events; I cooked for them. Clearly, I was enabling, not empowering, them. Why couldn’t I see that?
I have a habit of assuming the best in people. In other words, I’m gullible. But sometimes seeing something in someone that they don’t see in themselves can bring out the best in them. Hasn’t someone seeing something in you ever made you believe in yourself more?
I also cared very much about their little girl and couldn’t imagine throwing her out into the streets for the sins of her parents.
So, yes, I was an enabler. Yes, I was foolish and disillusioned for a while. I admit fully that I not only didn’t empower her parents; in fact, I made it possible for them to commit further crimes. I could have done more by insisting on their helping more around the house or getting a job or getting drug counseling. But I’m pretty sure that insisting would have made them feel too exposed, and they would have left looking for their next suckers. If I didn’t care about their little girl, this would have been just fine.
Empowering vs. enabling is often distinguished by how people receive our help. When people want to be empowered, not enabled, they don’t ask for pity; they ask for clarity. They don’t give excuses; they overcome obstacles. They show a willingness to change their thoughts and strategies. They take responsibility for their actions. They don’t try to get away with things; they want to get out of their ruts in order to thrive.
Because life is complicated, I still don’t always know ahead of time how my help will be received or if I’m being foolish, throwing away money or energy. I can always hope that good intentions will sow their seeds, even if I can’t know where they’ve been planted or when they will germinate. Maybe, just maybe, this little girl, basking in some unconditional love and living in a safe and secure environment for even a short time will help her not re-create her parents’ life. That little girl is now 15. She still calls us. That feels great. I’ll live with being a fool.
Join Jane at Club Med in Cancun
June 21-28, 2008.
I will be teaching a new, exciting program on Creating Abundance everywhere in your life.
More about this in next week’s e-newsletter.
Handle Stress to Boost Immunity presented by Jane at the KCBS Health Fair in San Francisco with Keynote Speaker Dr. Mehmet Oz
I was honored to be invited as a panelist, along with Melina Jampolis, M.D., host of Fit TV’s Diet Doctor and author of The No Time to Lose Diet; and Dr. Jacob Leone, Naturopathic & Integrative Medicine Practitioner, to discuss Boosting Immunity: Nutrition, Supplements, and Stress. I promise to have the contents of my presentation available for you on my Web site shortly.
About Jane Straus
Jane is a trusted life coach, dynamic keynote speaker, and the author of Enough Is Enough! Stop Enduring and Start Living Your Extraordinary Life. With humor and grace, Jane offers her clients and seminar participants insights and exercises to ensure that the next chapter of their lives is about thriving as the unique individuals they have always been and the extraordinary ones they are still becoming. She serves clients worldwide and invites you to visit her site, www.stopenduring.com. Here you will find excerpts from her book, more articles, TV and radio interviews, and clips from her presentations.
She is also the author of The Blue Book of Grammar and Punctuation, www.grammarbook.com, an award-winning online resource and workbook with easy-to-understand rules, real-world examples, and fun quizzes. Contact Jane at Jane@JaneStraus.com.
Life is like Coffee
Friday, January 18th, 2008After writing last week about my friend Gio’s death, I felt that the following e-mail (paraphrased here), which has traveled the world, would be an appropriate follow up that we could all appreciate.
A group of friends got together to have coffee. The host set out the cups and brewed the coffee. Some of the cups were beautiful; some were plain. The host noticed that the nicer cups were chosen first.
What is the meaning of this vignette?
Life is coffee. Jobs, money, and position in society are merely cups. They are tools that shape and contain Life, but the type of cup we have does not define nor change the quality of the life we live. Often, by concentrating only on the cup, we fail to enjoy the coffee provided us.
The happiest people don’t have the best of everything; they just make the best of everything they have.
Live simply. Love generously. Care deeply. Speak kindly.
The richest person is not the one who has the most but the one who needs the least.
Jane Straus is a trusted life coach, dynamic keynote speaker, and the author of Enough Is Enough! Stop Enduring and Start Living Your Extraordinary Life. With humor and grace, Jane offers her clients and seminar participants insights and exercises to ensure that the next chapter of their lives is about thriving as the unique individuals they have always been and the extraordinary ones they are still becoming. She serves clients worldwide and invites you to visit her site, www.stopenduring.com. Here you will find excerpts from her book, more articles, TV and radio interviews, and clips from her presentations.
She is also the author of The Blue Book of Grammar and Punctuation, www.grammarbook.com, an award-winning online resource and workbook with easy-to-understand rules, real-world examples, and fun quizzes. Contact Jane at Jane@JaneStraus.com.
Deeper Thoughts on Abundance
Monday, April 23rd, 2007I’ve shared in the past a definition of abundance that resonates strongly with me: “Abundance is that which already exists.” I realize from personal experience as well as from listening to my clients that it is sometimes a stretch to believe this. How can abundance already exist if your bank account is low, your credit card debt is high, and you can’t afford to take even a weekend off?
Here’s what I have come to realize: If we think that money or lack of it reflects our abundance, we are making a huge error. Abundance isn’t about money unless we see it that way. Money only has as much meaning as we attach to it.
When you feel lack, it is because you think you are lacking within. You are believing the Big Lie: that you are in some way unworthy. Money or lack of it simply reflects this belief because you allow it to.
If you allow yourself to believe The Big Lie—that you are unworthy—you may create debt to reinforce your belief. And debt will give you an excuse to hang out surviving rather than thriving. If you don’t believe you deserve to thrive, you will not let yourself do what you really want in life. What better way to hold yourself back than by mounting up debt, feeling lack, worrying, spending too much, or making poor financial choices?
Abundance is that which already exists because we are abundant within ourselves—our creativity, our capacity to love and feel compassion, our humor and joy. We don’t get abundance from the outside in. We express our abundance from the inside out.
When you are willing to believe you are worthy, you will call upon your inner abundant resources. You will stop being afraid of failing. You will live your best life. You will share yourself even more. You will feel enRICHed regardless of your financial circumstances. You will understand that abundance is that which already exists.
Jane Straus is a life coach, keynote speaker, media guest, and the author of Enough Is Enough! Stop Enduring and Start Living Your Extraordinary Life. Visit www.janestraus.com to read her articles, view her TV interviews and seminars, buy the book, or hire her as your personal coach.
5 Keys to Abundance
Sunday, March 18th, 2007
Are you really open to abundance in your life? Recently on Oprah, I heard a shocking statistic: Over 70% of people who experience a financial windfall from such strokes of luck as winning the lottery or inheriting a large sum of money tend to be back to where they were financially within just a few short years.
Most of us think this would never happen to us. Our thoughts probably run along the lines of, “If I won a million, two million, ten million dollars [take your pick], it would change my life forever. All my worries would be gone. I’d be happy.”
How can it be that what seems like an inevitable happy ending just doesn’t turn out to be true for such a large majority of people? Are those who come serendipitously into wealth dumber than we are? Are they all spendaholics, compulsive gamblers, inept business people, or at the very least so codependent that they can’t say “no” to family and friends who ask for handouts?
It’s true that many of us who are not used to handling large sums of money are inept with it. It’s also true that a lot of us are codependent enough to fall prey to wanting to be loved by giving everything we have. If we’re already doing that, we’ll probably do it more, not less, if given half a chance. And if some of us aren’t spendaholics now, like kids in a candy store, we certainly might become crazed with buying the first time we have a wad of cash in our hands. But even these shortcomings and lapses in judgment don’t explain the expected fate of 70% of us who would end up no better—and possibly worse emotionally due to shame—than before our sudden wealth.
Many of us don’t budget at all, claiming that there isn’t enough money to do so. We pretend we aren’t choosing to use up our available resources with the argument (while our debts mount), “I work hard for my money. I should get to enjoy it.” We fall deeper and deeper into debt, feel incredible stress, depression, and shame, and wind up having to work harder and longer. And still we continue to shoot ourselves in the foot arguing that we deserve to spend our money any way we want to. We treat ourselves like entitled brats, demanding that reality fit our fantasy. But underneath this façade of entitlement, we are deluded by what I call The Big Lie. More about that in a moment.
There is no one roadmap to creating abundance, just as there is no single roadmap to creating a loving relationship. To find a relationship, you can date online, join a club, hang out at your favorite pub, buy a dog, or ask friends to set you up. To make more money, you can find a better-paying job, go back to school, learn a new skill, ask for a raise, gamble, or play the lottery. Getting isn’t the biggest problem for most of us, whether it’s a relationship or money; the trick is to learn how to keep and build upon what we get.
Until we open up to abundance and become “spiritually fit” to receive, the truth is that we are just as likely to deplete our treasure chest the same way our neighbors do and just as likely to find ourselves continually short on cash and long on debt. So here are five keys to building, maintaining, and enjoying abundance:
1. Embrace the true meaning of abundance: Abundance is that which already exists. In an abundant state, we understand that we are dipping into an overflowing well. Abundance is everywhere. Equally, it is within us. We are abundant. We don’t have to seek abundance. We can say yes or no to this belief. It is up to us.
2. Stop using the world as a reflection of your worthiness: The Big Lie I mentioned earlier is the belief that we are unworthy. Most of us decide base our worthiness on outside barometers such as who likes us, what kind of house or car we have, how much money we make, how much education we have, or what clothes we wear. As long as we measure our worth based on outside factors, we our happiness is at the whim of others.
3. Practice worthiness as though it’s a skill: While some of us were born believing we were worthy, life experiences may have convinced us otherwise. To retrain our thoughts, we must change our behaviors. Ask yourself what you would be doing differently right now, today, tomorrow, next week, this year if you already believed you were entirely worthy. What behaviors and activities would you stop? Which ones would you start? Make a commitment to yourself to “fake it ’til you make it.” Practice your new behaviors until they become second nature, replacing the old habits you are shedding. Change your actions and your thoughts are sure to follow.
4. Recognize what your jealousy is telling you: Jealousy is what we experience when we don’t believe we will have (or deserve to have) what someone else has. Therefore, jealousy comes from a belief in lack. If we put the first three keys into active practice, our jealousy will dissolve into gratitude for that which already exists. Gratitude doesn’t mean that we become complacent. It means that we strive, not from fear and lack, but from the joy of thriving.
5. Be generous now: If you wait until you “have enough,” whatever that means to you, the message you are telling yourself is that there is lack within and around you. Abundance thinking is a leap of faith for many of us. Faith, by definition, is only validated once we have made the leap. My friend had promised to tithe to his church and then “cheated” because he was broke. One day of scarcity led to the next until he woke up one day and realized that he was not trusting abundance (or God) at all. He was waiting for proof. How could waiting for proof be an act of faith? That day he took a deep breath and emptied the change from his pockets into the church’s coffers. Immediately he felt the peace that goes along with keeping an agreement with oneself, no matter how difficult it is. He also felt strength in choosing to decide to have faith. Almost immediately, his phone began ringing off the hook with work offers. For him, this was wonderful evidence. But even more lovely, he didn’t even need the evidence at that point. Since he already trusted, he was less fearful about the ups and downs of business and felt more relaxed about experiencing abundance however it presented itself.
Will you get rich by practicing these five keys? Nobody knows what the Universe has in store for us. But you can begin to define rich in new ways that give you appreciation for the abundance that already exists. You are already a wealth of knowledge, support, energy, artistry, compassion, and ideas. How can you maximize and share your abundant wealth today?
Feeling Taken Advantage Of
Tuesday, January 16th, 2007Dear Jane,
How do I let go of my feelings of being taken advantage of with regard to my salary?
When we feel taken advantage of, we are generally describing resentment. Resentment gets a grip on us if we haven’t acted on our own behalf in some way. (See Chapter 7 of Enough Is Enough!) Often, we need to speak up for ourselves by asking for what we think we deserve. However, this is where our fear of rejection may play into things.
What if we ask for a raise or attention or affection and we’re turned down? We may “play it safe” to avoid even the possibility of rejection. The problem with avoiding rejection is that we continually imagine the rejection so we’re living with it 24/7 anyway.
The saying, “We get what we resist,” has much truth to it. If we resist feeling rejection, we will inadvertently immerse ourselves in it. If we resist asking for what we think we deserve, we will immerse ourselves in not only anticipated rejection but also resentment. There is no way out; there is only a way through—and that is to have the courage to speak up for ourselves.
Even if we are rejected for asking for what we feel we deserve, we will have the self-respect that goes with acting with integrity. No one can give us our self-respect and integrity and no one can take them from us. They are gifts to ourselves. Don’t you deserve at least that?
About Jane
Jane Straus is a trusted life coach, dynamic keynote speaker, and the author of Enough Is Enough! Stop Enduring and Start Living Your Extraordinary Life. With humor and grace, Jane offers her clients and seminar participants insights and exercises to ensure that the next chapter of their lives is about thriving as the unique individuals they have always been and the extraordinary ones they are still becoming. She serves clients worldwide and invites you to visit her site, StopEnduring.com. Here you will find excerpts from her book, more articles, TV and radio interviews, and clips from her presentations.
She is also the author of The Blue Book of Grammar and Punctuation, Grammarbook.com, an award-winning online resource and workbook with easy-to-understand rules, real-world examples, and fun quizzes.
Contact Jane at Jane@JaneStraus.com.
How to Become Rich
Thursday, January 11th, 2007Dear Jane,
How do I get rich?
When this question was sent to me, I thought I’d pass on answering since 1) by American standards, I am middle class and 2) I am not a financial expert, although many of my clients have attained great wealth through our work together and by reading Enough Is Enough! But I’m just avoiding the question by giving you these disclaimers. So, here are my thoughts.
Decide what “rich” means for you. Is it a certain amount of money, a particular lifestyle, the ability to send your children to college, the guarantee that you’ll never need to look for a job, a yacht, a bigger yacht? Is it having a loving family, good friends? Does “rich” mean being able to be generous without having to blink? All of the above? If you decide on your definition and purpose, you are much more likely to find the drive and means to attain your goals.
Read books by experts on creating wealth. Knowledge is power. It is also motivating. I think that Secrets of the Millionaire Mind by T. Harv Eker is brilliant. Whether you decide to follow his recommendations or not, he will not let you off the hook about taking responsibility for your choices.
What are your limiting beliefs? What are some of the “poverty” thoughts you hold? Where did you get them? How do you perpetuate them? Do you believe you deserve any more than what you currently have? Would you be ashamed if you had more? Do you get something out of feeling like a victim of struggle?
Practice generosity, kindness, open-heartedness, and compassion. What do these have to do with wealth? Maybe nothing. There are many wealthy people who practice none of these. And there are many middle class and poor people who also practice none of these. So I throw them in for good measure. If you’re going to get rich, I ask you to consider enriching others’ lives in the process.
About Jane
Jane Straus is a trusted life coach, dynamic keynote speaker, and the author of Enough Is Enough! Stop Enduring and Start Living Your Extraordinary Life. With humor and grace, Jane offers her clients and seminar participants insights and exercises to ensure that the next chapter of their lives is about thriving as the unique individuals they have always been and the extraordinary ones they are still becoming. She serves clients worldwide and invites you to visit her site, StopEnduring.com. Here you will find excerpts from her book, more articles, TV and radio interviews, and clips from her presentations.
She is also the author of The Blue Book of Grammar and Punctuation, Grammarbook.com, an award-winning online resource and workbook with easy-to-understand rules, real-world examples, and fun quizzes.
Contact Jane at Jane@JaneStraus.com.
Creating Abundance Through Trust
Wednesday, October 25th, 2006Dear Jane,
I know I have fears about money which probably keep me from having more money. But how do I break this vicious cycle?
How do we trust enough to trust? It’s a koan or at least a dilemma. My friend James told me how he recently worked with his fears and limiting beliefs around money.
For six years he had been “at a loss”—literally, unable to figure out why he was living in poverty while everyone around him seemed to manifest abundance so easily. A few weeks ago, he decided to stop asking why and started to simply “walk the walk” of abundance. It started with his awareness that he was out of integrity with himself and his church. His church asks its members to agree to tithe 10% of their earnings to charity. Although he had made the agreement, he had been skimping, telling himself that he didn’t have enough money for food or rent so how could he possibly give 10%?
When he confronted this, he made a decision to tithe 10% anyway, even if it meant going hungry. He made one other behavioral change to stop reinforcing his fear of lack. He stopped letting his gas tank get dangerously close to empty or even running out of gas. From the moment he stopped letting the fear of lack control him, his business began to boom. Within two weeks, he was booked with work for the next three months and has since given the overflow to other contractors.
So how do we trust enough to trust God/the Universe? This is where faith and “working in concert” come in. Faith means allowing God/the Universe to provide even though we can’t know ahead of time how things will work out. Faith is trusting, even with our fears and limiting beliefs. Working in concert means not sabotaging God/the Universe through behaviors that reinforce our fears and limiting beliefs. As I write about in Enough Is Enough!, working in concert means acting as if—as if we have perfect faith, as if it will all work out, as if we can help ourselves and others even when we don’t see how.
This is what James did by tithing and by filling up his gas tank. He behaved as if his fears and limiting beliefs didn’t have to be true or run the show anymore. I acknowledge James for his hard-won mastery of trust. He is an inspiration to me and I hope to you as well.
About Jane
Jane Straus is a trusted life coach, dynamic keynote speaker, and the author of Enough Is Enough! Stop Enduring and Start Living Your Extraordinary Life. With humor and grace, Jane offers her clients and seminar participants insights and exercises to ensure that the next chapter of their lives is about thriving as the unique individuals they have always been and the extraordinary ones they are still becoming. She serves clients worldwide and invites you to visit her site, StopEnduring.com. Here you will find excerpts from her book, more articles, TV and radio interviews, and clips from her presentations.
She is also the author of The Blue Book of Grammar and Punctuation, Grammarbook.com, an award-winning online resource and workbook with easy-to-understand rules, real-world examples, and fun quizzes.
Contact Jane at Jane@JaneStraus.com.
Your Relationship With Money
Tuesday, June 6th, 2006Dear Jane,
I feel like I have a love/hate relationship with money. How can I change this so that I am more financially secure?
Most of us struggle, at one time or another, about money. But what is that struggle really about? I read an article in USA Today about couples and their relationship with money. Most of the advice they received had to do with planning ahead, paying down high credit card debts, discussing long-term financial goals, etc. This is all worthy advice; however, our relationship with money runs much deeper, sometimes at an unconscious level. Here are a few questions I ask myself whenever I am in “lack consciousness,” where I worry about not having enough of something, whether it’s enough money, time, resources, help, skill, compassion–whatever I’m focused on lacking at that particular moment.
1. Where is the real feeling of lack coming from?
When I judge that I don’t have enough, I must, in some way, be judging myself as not being enough. As a result, I may manifest that judgment in the form of lack of financial resources.
2. What else might I be avoiding by focusing on money concerns? If I’m not living in my deepest truth or fulfilling my purpose and am afraid to address this, perhaps because I feel overwhelmed by the changes I might be required to initiate, I may find it easier to create money problems to focus on. Money can seem so concrete and real.
3. Am I seeking sympathy from others? If I create financial neediness, am I really needing love, compassion, sympathy, attention, or understanding from others? Is my money “problem” a way of indirectly getting my needs met because I am ashamed of this need?
4. Am I giving enough love, compassion, etc. to myself or is that where the lack really stems from?
5. If I’m fighting with my partner about money, what are we really fighting about? Is one of us resentful about something else? Do either of us feel undervalued by the other?
6. If I overspend, why am I filling up with stuff (material goods)? Is it that I don’t trust I can be filled up in any other way? What else do I really need?
I hope this blog offers you the opportunity to heal your relationship with money. But more than that, I hope that you allow more abundance of every kind into your heart and your life.