Attracting Money 2

Drew Rozell, Ph.D. Session Leader

Attracting Money – Class2

Drew: Welcome to class #2 on attracting the money you deserve. I'm assuming everybody got the homework?

XXX: Yes (multiple voices)

Patty: Drew, I didn't get it.

Drew: Well, I'll send it to you later.

Patty: I did do what we talked about on the phone, though.

Drew: The first exercise was about acting wealthy. Anybody take this on?

XXX: Yes (multiple voices)

Drew: Somebody share with me your experiences of acting wealthy.

Bob: For me it brought up lack.

Drew: It brought up lack?

Bob: Yeah, and I'm not so sure if it was the way I was doing it or my approach, or what.

Drew: What happened?

Bob: It picked up what I can't have.

Drew: Like how so?

Bob: Well, things that I saw were very beautiful that I can't have.

Drew: So you were looking at them from the place that you couldn't have those things?

Bob: Yeah. I just kicked up for me that I need to do more work on this. I was actually doing better with this before the exercise.

Drew: So it was showing things you couldn't have and it brought up the lack .

Bob: Yeah.

Drew: Do you have an idea of what you would desire to do differently around that?

Bob: Yes; I wanted to let myself off the hook and just try to understand that – that we're doing an exercise.

Drew: What were you looking at that you desire?

Bob: Furniture.

Drew: And it brought up the fact that you couldn't have it in your house right now?

Bob: Yeah. There were some things that I did that worked out well; I detailed my car and drove out of there feeling really good.

Drew: I love detailing the car! It always makes me feel better. With the furniture, I think you understand the point of the exercise; it's just putting it into practice that's challenging. When I first played with this, I desired a truck. When you looked at the furniture, was one of the questions that came up ‘I can't have that' or ‘How can I get that?'

Bob: Yeah. Normally I look in places where there's something I can afford and I upped the ante.

Drew: So what I'm hearing is that you're going in with the sense that you're not wealthy.

Bob: Yeah.

Drew: The trick is to get to the place where you can look at those things that you desire and it's more just an appreciation where you can feel good just by looking at it. Every time I saw that truck, I tried to think ‘Gosh, that's a beautiful truck'.

XXX: How long did it take you? Did you ever have the feelings that you couldn't afford it – how did you get those feelings out of your head?

Drew: Yes, those feelings came up. By knowing – and 2 of the key words we need to look out for are the ‘how', how is this going to happen. I learned to catch myself on those phrases – anytime those are in my head, I'm immediately into the future. As we talked about before, that's not going to work for the attraction process. I just appreciated it in that moment; that's the trick that I used. The more I looked at something with appreciation, that's how it ended up in my life.

Susan: For me, it reminded me of a time when I could do exactly that and it worked for me – that was about my horse. I had had this dream, and I just started thinking I could do it. Recently, I thought about a digital camera and some travel. This week, I just decided that I wasn't going to get it and the how didn't matter. I just have the sense that it's going to happen; I don't know when. I tried to let go of all the other stuff about the how and when.

Drew: Just by having the desire and not worrying about how it's going to happen and all that, it manifests itself.

Susan: That's how it happened for me.

Donna: Because I wasn't really able to go out and look at anything, I thought about a lot of stuff and imagined myself in a wonderful tropical setting. I spent a lot of time thinking about what would my ideal house be. I've never taken the time to do that, really.

Drew: And when I ask people what they really desire – and that's a pretty common question that I ask folks – I'm not surprised that frequently their response is ‘I don't know'. We don't take the time to think about it. One of the patterns I've noticed about that is that we think it would be asking for too much or that we don't deserve it. I think because that belief manifests itself, we don't really think about that.

Warren: Isn't there a Joe Jackson song about that?

Drew: What is that song?

Warren: It goes, ‘You can't get what you want until you know….'

Drew: What's the name of that song?

Warren: I don't know, but I remember hearing it one day and thinking that he's singing about my awareness stuff and how I'm now just being open to letting it in.

Drew: When I listen to different types of music – the more I'm exposed to this material and get a personal framework about how the universe works, I see that from all different points around me. There is a kind of collective knowing around this, deep down. I think it hits some chord; there might be a big wall of denial in front of it, but it's there.

Lexie: I actually experienced something a little different. I tried to look around and see what I don't take advantage of that represents wealth. I took a day off work! It felt great until about 3 o'clock in the morning. I was excited to do some shopping – and that's the other thing, I picked things that I normally would not buy because it's a wasteful way to spend money. For example, I bought very fancy soaps and lotions; I don't really need that and I did that and I enjoyed it. After I hadn't gone to work, I felt funny about spending that money on something that I shouldn't have. Then, it started steering my day the wrong way. I was going to buy something I didn't need, and I ended up running errands and doing things I needed to do. I really felt like I could just blow off the day, but no way could I do that.

XXX: It's interesting when I'm listening to different people talk about what happened and speaking like somebody else was in control – it didn't go the way I wanted it to. It's sort of funny that way.

Drew: And then what takes over?

Lexie: Guilt! I don't deserve to do this; I'm not earning. Logically, I know that.

Drew: Do you know where that belief comes from?

Lexie: I think it goes back to the exercise from Suze Orman – from my childhood.

Drew: Did you come up with one?

Lexie: Yeah.

Drew: Are you willing to share it?

Lexie: Yeah; the dynamic between my parents around money, which I was exposed to – my father was the person who would flood me with gifts but not any attention. My other would then get angry at that, not for buying me things, but for buying my affection rather than spending time with me. I think I associated having extra with being bad because it made my parents fight and my mother would get mad and I didn't want her to get mad. I think I carry that with me, even though I know that's not what they were trying to communicate to me. And I hate asking for the money form my clients.

Drew: And that isn't enough to give you an awareness?

Lexie: Yeah, but I don't know how to change the thought process.

Drew: Okay, in a couple minutes we'll get to another exercise. I can't guarantee it'll work but it's a place to start. Thanks for sharing that.

Patty: What I saw in that – on the phone call last week you asked us what we wanted and I said $10,000 a month. I pulled that out of the air and then I figured out what that was per year. Right after I said that, I got this enormous emotion coming over me and I thought that's too much, that's not right, and you can't have that. I know that my mother was always saying that's too much and you can't have that. I used to shoplift in high school to get those things my mother wouldn't let me have. It was amazing to see those 3 things come up. it felt like a wave that goes over you where you can't get up and get your breath again.

Drew: That's a good way to describe it; the power of belief. Lack is the illusion that we create and that illusion becomes so strong and so powerful.

Warren: There's an interesting distinction that I've come across with things that come up – when you hear your parents talking to you. Those are not your thoughts; those are just a thought. You can start to detach from the grip or the identification and then you – the more you can have the awareness of that's not you, then you can detach yourself from the control.

XXX: I think it's interesting that we accept the negative stuff, but we have a hard time accepting positive stuff. Why can't they be equal? If we believe in the negative, why can't we believe in the positive?

Drew: It just becomes a habit; something that's grown stronger over time.

XXX: And the positive or negative is something we've assigned to it.

Drew: Yeah, and it's so much easier to think we can't get something rather than we can get it.

Evolutionary wise, we pay more attention to the negative because it was important for our survival. In the exercise about coming up with your first money memory, I understand that some people got that and others didn't. It's not critical, but for me understanding ‘how' gave me another level of awareness. When those thoughts came into my mind, I was able to discount them. I'll share my story with you quickly. It was my 12th birthday and in my family – I'm the youngest of 5 – everybody got $1,000 when they turned 16 from our grandmother. I don't think my grandmother thought she was going to be around for my 16th birthday so she gave it to me on my 12th birthday. Ironically, she's still alive today. So have this money and I'm 12 years old – I'm excited and I go tell my friend, John. We go into his house, and while my family was middle class, John's family was probably upper-lower class. We're in the kitchen and John tells his mother that I got $1,000 for my birthday. She just stopped and she said, ‘That's impossible; no one would give $1,000 to a 12-year-old.' I felt so much shame in that moment that I should not have this money; I didn't deserve it and these people should have it. I remember just leaving. I buried that memory for years until I tried to think back and figure out my money memory.

During my later life, I would resent somebody with money, especially if they didn't earn it according to whatever standard I had. I remember a guy I went to school with had a flashy car that his parents had given him and it made me mad because he didn't earn that car and didn't deserve it. It wasn't until I got back to this memory, I didn't understand that was why I felt that way. If you're able to do this exercise, it's really helpful because it turned on a light bulb for me. I thought I'd share that with you.

Donna: When I did the exercise – I've spent a lot of time exploring this already – I didn't really come up with a specific memory but what I came up with was that my thinking around money came to me from a lot of different areas. I really started to realize that it came from how my family was more than any specific incident. For me, it was important to look at all those things.

Drew: Thanks, Donna. I think understanding it can be helpful; it's not necessarily the key. It's more important to get the splinter out than to figure out how it got there. For me, it was helpful to get to that place where I understood why I felt that way. It's rare that peoples' first money memory is a positive one. My 4-year-old nephew likes money, but he'll leave it lying there when you give him a quarter. There's no connection for him.

Lexie: How do you start changing that feeling?

Drew: It is based on feeling. Your thoughts and feelings are what's causing those sub-atomic particles to arrange themselves – like attracts like and that's what you're bringing it. Your feelings are the most important part of this process. Everything we're talking about here can belong to money, love, relationships, or whatever you want. When we talk about wanting being in the future, underneath it is the lack. Anytime there's a want, there's a lack underneath. There seem to be 2 phenomenon at play – we have an attachment to something and we have an aversion to something. Those aversions are our negative feelings. The aversion part is why we don't have something and the attachment is the wanting. We need to clean up the feeling around both sides of this. You can look at this for any habit that we have – if you look at overeating, there's an attachment and aversion as well; same thing with smoking. Again, we identify the feelings and see if we can't break down the attachment and aversion.

Let's look at the attachment to money. Think about your first feeling or thought to your attachment with money and what pops up in your head. Has anybody got one that they would share about how they're attached to money?

XXX: What do you mean by that?

Drew: I really want that new car.

XXX: Or, I want to survive.

Drew: Okay. Who's got one?

XXX: I think of stability and security.

Drew: The idea here in this is that we can break down those feelings into 3 areas – that first feeling that comes up for you around that attachment to money is a wanting for approval, a wanting for control, or a wanting to be safe. Do you see that?

XXX: Yes (multiple voices)

XXX: I panic; the first thing that came up to me is panic.

Drew: And I think back to the days when I got a bill in the mail and I would panic because I couldn't pay it. The feeling was around security.

XXX: What would be a control example?

Drew: How am I going to get that? How is that going to work out? That's about trying to control the idea of figuring it out.

XXX: And then the approval thing is about deserving.

Drew: Yeah, it can be. My example would be about approval; I want everybody to like me.

XXX: I want to look good to the in-laws.

Drew: Yeah, that's about approval. The more I got into this research in attachment – the idea here is this. Again, it's going to come down to the feeling and the ability to identify them. When these feelings come up, they manifest themselves in your body. That energy stays in your body. Think about it; when you think about when you're really fearful or not feeling good about money or anything else, that's going to manifest itself in your chest or stomach area. To really get in touch with that how that feels in your body is important. For me, it shows up in my stomach. I know exactly where it does. Can anybody else relate to that?

XXX: Yes (multiple voices)

Drew: Is it the stomach?

XXX: Yes (multiple voices)

Drew: The idea is to come up with that place where you feel attached to money; see that as wanting approval, wanting control or wanting to be safe. Pull up that energy in your stomach and then visualize it leaving your body. Allow that energy to pass through you. You don't have to see it as good or bad; you're just going to allow that energy to pass through you. As an exercise, it takes some time and some practice.

XXX: How do you just let go?

Drew: That's the practice leg; to visualize it in your body and then to feel it leave your body. The idea is to acknowledge it, to understand where it is in your body, and to let that go through.

Warren: I had a couple of feelings come up and I'm not sure where they fit. One is that when you don't have enough and you want people to feel sorry for me and the other one is to feel like a survivor and you're not spending the money on stuff.

Drew: Where do you think the first one would go?

Warren: Approval?

Drew: The first one that I thought of is that you try to control other people's impressions of you.

Warren: I guess the 2nd one would go there as well.

Drew: Yeah, that could be approval as well. With an attachment, it's probably not just going to be one thing. By releasing the feeling, understand that doing it at one level is probably not going to be enough – you're going to have to spend some time doing this. Whenever you start to shop for something and you feel guilty, that's the time to call up that feeling and let it go. That's what it does for me – it gives me the power to take charge of them before it multiplies.

Here are other questions to ask yourself – what advantage is it for you to have that money? When that feeling comes up, which of the 3 areas does it fit in. Find that feeling and let it pass out of your body. The 2nd question would be what would be the disadvantage for you to have money? If you can't think of something, make something up. These are all attachments – see what feelings come up. Finally, imagine never, ever having money again. Imagine that you can't ever have money again – what feelings does that bring up? Bring that feeling up and pass it out of your body.

Warren: I would imagine somebody else taking care of me. I wouldn't have to worry about earning it or having it.

Drew: Does that feel good?

Warren: Sure.

Drew: The idea is to identify these and flush them out.

XXX: I don't get what the 3rd one is supposed to do.

Drew: That's to take it to the extreme and flush that out.

XXX: Because you know logically that's never going to happen?

Drew: That is a concern for somebody in the extreme; their deepest fear is that they'll never have money.

XXX: I don't understand why it's important to go there.

Drew: To see what comes up; if you don't experience something negative, then perhaps you've got far enough.

XXX: So by doing this, we're getting at the feelings that are behind our attachment to money and that awareness is going to allow us to release the attachment so we're not desiring that negative stuff.

Drew: And this is all based on a wanting, which is lack . We've broken it down into those 3 areas – wanting for approval, wanting for security, and wanting for control. You want to bring up the feelings in all the areas so you can't bring up any more feelings around it.

XXX: So you're – when I think of never having money again, I imagine myself homeless on the street, and very uncomfortable.

Drew: How do you interpret that?

XXX: Maybe it's both approval and security.

Drew: Okay, so start with one of them – bring that feeling up and release that.

XXX: Got it.

Drew: That's the idea behind it; that's the practice.

XXX: I'm struggling with how to release it.

Drew: It's a visualization exercise and it will take practice. You should be able to feel it in your stomach and then what you do is to think of that energy passing through your stomach – whatever works for you. After this, you should feel a little lighter than when you started. I wouldn't expect it to happen right away; I would encourage you that if you're struggling with it right now, keep at it. The awareness and the practice is really important. you will get better at that.

XXX: Do you recommend any NLP references for that?

Drew: I don't know anything about NLP really.

XXX: When you first start doing this, it can be really hard because this stuff doesn't want to leave. It's almost like they have a life of their own -that's what my awareness has been.

Drew: They do have a life of their own because they're something separate from you. We keep thinking that it's us and it's not.

XXX: And we have to remember that it's build up over 40 years, and it's going to take time to get rid of it.

XXX: Just allow yourself the possibility.

Drew: Yes; thank you all very much. The other part of this is the aversion; if we're not experiencing the wealth we desire, then we have an aversion. What's the feeling that comes up? Does it bring up any of those 3 feelings? These are the questions to keep asking yourself about this. I'll just give you the other questions quickly because we're going to run out of time.

What do you like about money?

What do you not like about money?

Imagine having all the money in the world – you can't get away from it, you have so much. Is there any energy that that brings up in your stomach?

Those are the questions to ask and bring up those feelings and release them. Again, this can work for anything, not just money.

We're going to close here with the point that it's going to be a practice. Continue to go deeper on those feelings and release them. Continue until those feelings in your stomach are gone.

XXX: What's the feeling we want to end up with?

Drew: You just don't – it's more of an absence. You don't want to feel any negativity in your body; you've just let that part go.

XXX: After you've tried, you'll feel a release?

Drew: Yeah, you'll feel a release because there's nothing you're holding in there.

XXX: And that means more room for joy.

Drew: Yeah, 4 steps to attracting wealth. The first one is to be wealthy; decide to be wealthy. It doesn't depend on anything external – just decide. Know that Number two – think. You'll get exactly what you think about. Any sort of affirmations that you do or any negative thought will cancel out that thinking. Think wealthy thoughts because your thoughts will create. Think wealth and you attract wealth. Number three – speak wealth. Your speech should be filled with ‘I am…' statements, not ‘I will'. Those future statements have no power. Number four – act wealthy. Go where wealthy people go; it's not about spending. While you're doing it, think and speak wealth. Warren, are you still with us here?

Warren: I'm with you.

Drew: I went on a ski trip with Warren a couple of years ago, and at the time, the trip was above my means – it was a stretch for me to do that trip at that time in my life. When I did that trip, though, it changed me forever. On the day I didn't ski, I just sat and watched people and could feel the wealth. All that rubbed off on me. Act wealthy! Throw in the gratitude – those are a good way to shift from a negative to a positive. Give whatever it is that you want to receive.

We have pushed this class to the very limits. I hope that you've found this valuable and found something you can take out of this. I wish I had more time to talk to you all. Thank you very much for your participation and all your energy in class!