(Challenge Update) Lessons From the Universe

I posted this in the 90 Day Money Challenge FB group, but thought I’d send it out to everyone, too.

So I’ve been struggling with the balance of budgeting vs. feeling abundant. As a finance person, budgeting is important to me. But it’s also very easy to get caught up in the minutiae of categories and such. I’d start to get stressed out towards the end of the month as the spending categories ran low, yet we still had thousands of dollars in the bank. We just spent $1,000 on a trip to attend Christine’s sister’s wedding, so for the last week I’ve been really trying to pull back on unnecessary spending. But, probably too much.

The other day the Universe kind of taught me a bit of a lesson with this.

I had been wanting to purchase the latest Abraham workshop recording ($49). No money in the budget category, so I wasn’t going to do it. Then I was thinking about how mildly ridiculous that is when I had enough cash to purchase 100+ workshop recordings. How much sense did that make? It was my own preconceived limitations that kept me from making what should be a simple decision.

A little while later, Christine wanted to buy a book on Kindle. We each get an allocation of what we call “fun money” every month (5% each of total income) but hers had run out. But she’s been sick and really wanted it so, sure, go ahead and get the book.

Then a little voice in my head said, “So why did you do that for her, but you won’t do it for yourself?”

Touché, Universe. I bought the workshop. It was easy enough to move around some money to make it happen. It was only my focus on sticking to the budget that made me feel like I didn’t have enough.

I think there’s a lesson in the Tao for that. The Tao Te Ching says:

so the hard and unyielding belong to death
and the soft and pliant belong to life
an inflexible army does not triumph
an unbending tree breaks in the wind
thus the rigid and inflexible will surely fail
while the soft and flowing will prevail (Ch. 76)

I’m still working on seeking that balance. I like the structure and security of a budget. I like knowing that money is allocated to places it needs to go. But, quibbling over something that is less than 1% of my liquid cash is probably going a bit too far.

And of course, if we have the understanding of LOA, feeling lack or deprivation will only create more of that. So we should use a budget as a guide, but not as a stick to hit ourselves over the head with. Lately I’ve been trying to look more at what I do have, not what I don’t, and that’s really helped. It’s balancing the big picture with the small details. Both have value, but in different contexts.

At the end of the day, the action really doesn’t matter. You could be totally organized on an extremely detailed budget, but it makes you feel deprived, and so what do you get? You get manifestations that reflect deprivation.

Or you could be totally loose with your money, just spending freely with no plan, but it makes you feel abundant to do so. And so what would you get? You’d get manifestations that reflect your abundant feeling back to you.

Personally, I feel too insecure with no plan whatsoever. But, I feel deprived with an inflexible plan or one that is too strict. So, again, it’s been about finding that balance.

And as the balance is struck, I will have a new feeling about money, which must be reflected in the outside world.

If you’d like to keep up with this challenge or discuss this post, feel free to join us over in the Facebook group!

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