For a very long time, I believed I had a problem with money.
Actually, that’s putting it mildly.
Some major events happened during my childhood and young adult years that led me to believe money simply wasn’t for me.
When I did have some, it seemed to be taken away from me.
And because that happened more than once, I didn’t simply think:
Well, that was unfortunate.
I made it mean something about me.
There is something wrong with me.
Money isn’t for me.
Even if I have some, I’ll lose it anyway.
By the time I reached my late thirties, I had had enough.
I made it my mission to fix this problem.
More specifically…
I was going to fix myself.
And boy, did I try.
I went to seminars.
I read books.
I wrote affirmations.
I had hypnotherapy sessions.
I studied prosperity, abundance, beliefs, success—anything I thought might help me change my relationship with money.
Year after year after year.
And still, I never seemed to have much money.
Usually just enough to take care of my needs.
It was painful.
And incredibly frustrating.
Because I wasn’t ignoring the problem.
Quite the opposite.
I was working on it constantly.
So why wasn’t anything changing?
It took me years to realize that the answer was hiding right there in the question.
I Was Focusing on the Problem
Everything I was doing had one thing in common.
I was focusing on my problem with money.
Of course I was!
How else do you fix a problem?
You identify what’s wrong.
You study it.
You understand it.
You work on it.
And then you fix it.
Perfectly logical.
Except that every seminar I attended to fix my money problem reminded me that I had a money problem.
Every book I read about my money problem reminded me that I had a money problem.
Every affirmation I repeated was being repeated because…
I had a money problem.
I was trying desperately to get away from something while staring directly at it.
And the more attention I gave it, the larger it became in my experience.
Then one day, after years of all this work, I came across an online course taught by an Australian man.
It cost $27.
I thought:
Well… I’m not ready to give up yet.
So I bought it.
Thank goodness I did.
Because somewhere in that little $27 course was an idea that finally reached me in a way nothing else had.
After all the seminars…
all the books…
all the affirmations…
all the sleepless nights…
all the worrying…
all my sincere attempts to change…
I finally got it.
Do you want to know what it was?
Are you sure?
All right. 😄
Welcome to Box A
Imagine that you have two boxes in your mind.
Let’s call the first one Box A.
Box A contains your current reality—the parts you don’t want, anyway.
The bills you can’t pay.
The relationship that isn’t working.
The job you hate.
The thing you’re frightened of.
Your worries.
Your doubts.
Your fears.
Your anger.
Your anxiety.
Your reasons something can’t happen.
And, of course, everything you think you need to fix before you can have the life you want.
I had been living in Box A for years.
Actually, I had decorated the place.
I had furniture in there.
I probably had curtains.
😂
I knew Box A extremely well.
And because I wanted so badly to get out of it, I kept examining everything inside it.
Why am I like this?
Why isn’t this working?
What’s wrong with me?
What do I need to change?
How am I going to fix this?
More Box A.
And more Box A.
And more Box A.
And Then There Is Box B
So what’s in Box B?
Ahhhh.
I’m glad you asked.
Box B contains what you choose to create.
Your desires.
Your dreams.
Your possibilities.
The experiences you would love to have.
Sounds easy enough, doesn’t it?
Except watch what happens.
I’d love to buy a new house.
Wonderful!
Box B.
And then, approximately three seconds later:
Yes, but I could never afford that.
WHOOSH.
Back into Box A.
😂
Or perhaps:
I’d love to start my own business.
Box B!
But what if nobody buys anything?
Box A.
I’d love to travel for three months.
Box B!
But I can’t possibly leave everything for that long.
Hello again, Box A.
We do this all day long without realizing it.
We allow ourselves a beautiful thought about something we desire…
and then immediately ask our minds to explain why we can’t have it.
And our minds are very helpful.
They will provide a complete report.
With appendices.
😂
Box B Is the End Result
There is another trap here, and it’s a sneaky one.
Let’s say I choose:
I’m going to live in a beautiful new house.
Wonderful.
I begin experiencing the house inwardly.
I can see myself walking through the front door.
I know what it feels like to wake up there in the morning.
Maybe I see the trees outside my bedroom window.
I’m sitting with my coffee thinking:
I love living here.
That’s Box B.
Then my mind asks:
But HOW am I going to get it?
Uh-oh.
Back to Box A.
Because the moment I start demanding to know how this wonderful thing could possibly happen, my mind looks at my present circumstances for the answer.
Well, houses like that cost this much…
And I only have this much…
So I’d have to make more…
But how would I do that?
And what if…
STOP!
Box A.
One of the most important things I learned was this:
The HOW is not my job.
My job is to choose the end result.
And then live in the experience of that result inwardly.
Not wanting it someday.
Not hoping for it.
Not standing outside it wondering how I’m going to get in.
Having it.
For me, Box B can be summed up very simply:
This is the experience I choose, and I choose to live it now.
That doesn’t mean I sit on the sofa, imagine my beautiful life and wait for someone to FedEx it to me.
😂
Of course I take action.
But I don’t need to manufacture the entire road before I begin traveling.
I deal with what is in front of me.
I take the next step.
Then the next.
What I don’t do is hand my mind the job of producing a list of all the reasons the end result can’t happen.
The House That Wasn’t My House
Let me give you a very recent example.
Last fall, I decided I was going to buy a house.
A friend recommended a realtor, and we began looking.
We didn’t need to look at many places because I knew exactly what I wanted for this stage of my life.
I was quite specific.
I also wanted to stay in a lower price range so I could pay the house off relatively quickly. That way, if there ever came a time when I chose not to work—or couldn’t—I could comfortably live on my retirement income.
That wasn’t Box A.
That was simply smart planning.
The third place we looked at was the one.
This was my house.
Then the mortgage process began.
My business was less than two years old, so the mortgage company wasn’t willing to consider that income the way I had expected. They primarily wanted to look at my retirement income.
Suddenly, we had an obstacle.
And my realtor immediately went into Box A.
“Oh well,” she said. “That’s not the house.”
Excuse me?
😂
I immediately said:
“Wait a minute! This IS my house. And I won’t let you give up so easily. You don’t know me. Wait and see!”
She was looking at the circumstances in front of us.
I was living in the house.
Not physically yet, of course.
But in Box B?
I was already home.
I didn’t know exactly how the mortgage was going to work.
And I didn’t make that my job.
Instead, I worked even more deliberately at being in my house in Box B.
This is my house.
I could see myself there.
I could feel myself there.
I experienced being home.
The end result had already been chosen.
And I chose to live it now.
Meanwhile, in the outer world, I did whatever practical thing was in front of me to do.
One issue arose.
What we needed appeared.
Then another issue arose.
And we found a way through that one too.
One thing at a time.
I didn’t have to know the entire path in advance.
And in March…
I closed on my house.
I’ve been living here for six months now.
The house that, according to Box A, wasn’t my house.
😂
Most of Us Live in Box A
My realtor wasn’t doing anything wrong.
She wasn’t trying to discourage me.
She was simply doing what most of us have been conditioned to do.
We look at what exists right now, and from those circumstances we decide what is possible next.
That’s Box A.
And because it seems logical and responsible, we often don’t recognize what we’re doing.
We think we’re solving problems.
We think we’re planning.
We think we’re being realistic.
But sometimes we’re simply asking our present circumstances to decide our future.
Box B doesn’t require me to pretend an obstacle isn’t there.
The mortgage problem was real.
The mortgage company really did have requirements.
Box B didn’t make any of that disappear.
I simply refused to let the obstacle choose the ending.
I had already chosen the ending.
My job was to stay there.
There Was Nothing to Fix
And this brings me back to money.
For all those years, I thought I had a problem I needed to solve.
I thought I needed to fix my relationship with money.
I thought I needed to fix my beliefs about money.
Ultimately…
I thought I needed to fix me.
But there was nothing to fix.
That realization was enormous for me.
I had simply become extraordinarily practiced at focusing on what I didn’t want.
I kept staring into Box A while desperately wishing my life looked like Box B.
When I began deliberately moving my attention to Box B, things started changing.
And much faster than I expected.
Opportunities appeared.
I noticed possibilities.
I made different decisions.
Things I could never have planned in advance presented themselves.
And after a while, I found myself thinking:
Darn. This stuff really works.
😂
Where Do You Live?
When you first hear this idea, you might think:
Well, duh. Of course I should focus on what I want.
But…
is that really what you’re doing?
Listen to yourself for one day.
You may be surprised.
You think about something you would love to experience.
Then listen to the very next thought.
Is it:
But…
I can’t because…
How could I possibly…
I don’t have enough…
What if…
Welcome back to Box A.
The practice isn’t complicated.
But it does require awareness and mental discipline.
At first, you may discover you’ve been camping in Box A for three days before you notice.
Then perhaps you’ll catch yourself after three hours.
Then thirty minutes.
Then five.
Eventually, you’ll recognize the moment you’re heading toward it.
And you can simply say:
Nope.
Back to Box B.
No judgment.
No beating yourself up.
No fixing.
Just redirect.
Again.
And again.
And again.
The Heart Chooses
This is how I experience it today.
The desire arises in my heart.
I would love to experience this.
And then I make a choice.
Yes. This is the experience I choose.
My mind doesn’t get to immediately hold a committee meeting about all the reasons it can’t happen.
😂
Nor does it need to figure out every detail of how it will happen.
I give my mind a different job:
Stay with what I have chosen.
See it.
Feel it.
Experience it inwardly.
Live there.
And when something in the outer world requires my action, I act.
Then I return to Box B.
Again and again.
This isn’t something we finish.
I certainly haven’t.
It’s a practice.
A wonderful inward journey of becoming conscious of where we’re placing our attention and choosing, deliberately, where we want to live.
So I’ll leave you with one question:
Where are you living?
Box A?
Or Box B?
And if you’ve suddenly realized you’ve been camping in Box A…
good.
Now you know.
You don’t have to fix yourself.
You don’t have to figure everything out.
Just pack your bags.
We’re moving.
Box B is this way.
Come on.
Are you ready?
Let’s go!