The Sensitive Man - The Power of Gold

A Blog about Sensory Processing Sensitivity from the Worldview of a High Sensing Male
                                    
Prem Kumar: Final question for twenty million rupees, and he's smiling. I guess you know the answer.
Jamal Malik: Do you believe it, I don't!
Prem Kumar: You don't? So you take the ten million and walk?
Jamal Malik: No. I'll play.
From Slumdog Millionaires
 
Why do HSPs seem to struggle with making money? Is it because of our strong spiritual sides and not understanding the spiritual foundations of money? I have written before about how difficult it is for HSPs to adopt the persona of a modern capitalist. Our thinking is not predatory, and our energy makes it difficult for us to be aggressive, without overstimulating or overwhelm. We are not creatures of capitalism, but money isn’t necessarily about capitalism either. Capitalism is an economic way of dealing with money, but it isn’t the only way.

What do we know about money? Money in its material physical form is a verifiable record accepted as payment for goods, services or debt. It is a medium of exchange, a unit of accountancy, a store of value, and a standard of deferred debt.

Money in our culture is represented by paper notes issued by the Federal Reserve Bank on behalf of the US Treasury. These notes are promissory notes to pay upon demand a certain figure of said money — we use this for exchange for goods and services. Our money system is based on fiat money, which is money not backed by a valuable commodity, like gold or silver. The government backs the money and requires it’s acceptance.

Most of us work for money so that we can live, eat, and do activities that bring us pleasure. Money can be earned and given away; it can be hoarded, invested and used to pay taxes.  If you think about it, money flows from one individual to another often without the physical paper being exchanged, like an electrical current it flows, is seldom seen and is a powerful energetic.

That’s right; money is really energy. Energy can neither be created or destroyed. Countries come and go, currencies come and go, but money is always there. Money energy is really quite invisible, but the energy behind money provides the vehicle for our material creations. Without our material side, money is without use. You’ve heard the saying, “You can’t take it with you, “ well, you can’t. We use money as a conduit to express our creative side. It is the spiritual currency that manifests in material form.

I like to think of money like a river. The river generally flows unimpeded from an infinite supply source of “water,” or energy.  The river flows downstream where it touches all material beings, manifested spirits if you will. We are all trained early to believe that money is scarce and should be protected. We guard it, we protect it, invest it, measure and treasure it.  This mentality about scarcity drives our economy and our lives.

Instead of seeing the river, we see a lake or a pond. The notion of a lake or pond promotes the idea of storage of a scarce commodity. The energy is changed from flowing to stagnant. Lakes and ponds don’t flow like a river. They serve more like a battery a place to store energy. It holds and confines the energy not allowing it to flow freely. Hence, the resource is seen as scarce and not plentiful.

I believe that we all have access to this energy as long as it is flowing. We each carry buckets, which reflects our self-worth. Some of us see ourselves as carrying large, generous buckets, others are smaller , perhaps, inferior buckets with leaks and holes. The reality is that the bucket we carry is the belief we have about the availability of money, and we are often taught this by our parents and family. For some, poverty and scarcity is an inescapable reality. They can’t see how to escape their plight.

On the other side of the spectrum, those with plenty, carry large buckets to the river. In fact, because they also believe in scarcity, they tend to channel off the river, create temporary dams, and ways to hoard the energy, to stockpile in private pools the money they are afraid will disappear on them.

But, what if the money is infinite? What if there was no scarcity? What if the supply could never run out? What then? How would that change your mind and view about money? What if you could request a bigger bucket? What if you only took out of the river what you needed, always knowing that you could go back and get more at any time? How would that affect the way you live? The choices you make. Could we not live a bolder, freer, braver life, knowing that you couldn’t run out of energy (money)?

Money is in many ways a creation of our minds, and our limitation is our mind’s limitations. This energy is not limited. Money is a representation of energy potential, can it not be abundant? Can we not do things with money, if we know that the resource is not scarce. Great things for all mankind. Great humanitarian projects that would benefit all of humanity? And at a personal level be able to  live more fearlessly, able to make decisions, make mistakes and know that our mistakes are not irreversible or tied to a lifetime of hoarding our own private pool? How liberating would that be?

HSPs would be great advocates for this type of money vision. There is some substantiation for this idea in Modern Monetary Theory, an economic policy advocated by progressive economists. It is in a very brief nutshell -- a fiat system like our own current system, that subscribes to the notion that government creates the supply of money out of thin air. When it needs more money, it simply prints it, creates money and uses it. This is, of course, is oversimplified but seems to support the notion that money is like energy, it is simply channeled into notes then distributed into the population.  The energy is simply transferred and allowed to flow into the economy.  It moves from a position of scarcity to one of abundance. 

Interestingly, banks do this all the time, by creating money via loans to customers. The money flows into the economy, and the economy grows.

Understanding a detailed picture of economics isn’t necessary, the idea is that the money supply or our river, is out there. The energy behind it is waiting to be used. It’s all in the perception. Are you a scarcity person or an abundance person?

If you adhere to scarcity principles you see: scarcity, lack, you are ultra-competitive, you hoard your money, don’t offer help to others, you are suspicious, dog eat dog, fearful, gloomy, see resources shrinking, avoid risk and fear change. If you are an abundance thinker you see: plenty, brighter horizons, you collaborate, share, help, trust, welcome competition, see growth, are positive, take risks and own change in your life.  Sharp contrasts, but do you see the difference in perception? Do you realize how that perception shapes your life? It is classic reptilian thinking versus mammalian thinking, selfish survival thinking versus sharing the abundance thinking.
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Can we be new advocates for abundance and not scarcity, where the limits of scarcity determine who gets  money and who doesn’t? Not everyone wants to be or needs to be wealthy. The definition of wealth would certainly change. What wealth means need not be about accumulation to excess but about how much happiness we have? That would change the game entirely and free us from the power of gold.
 
Christopher Gardner: [after playing basket ball] Hey. Don't ever let somebody tell you... You can't do something. Not even me. All right?
Christopher: All right.
Christopher Gardner: You got a dream... You gotta protect it. People can't do somethin' themselves, they wanna tell you you can't do it. If you want somethin', go get it. Period.
From the Pursuit of Happyness
 
 
References:

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_system
2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_Monetary_Theory
3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Money
4. https://aaronendre.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/abundance-thinking-and-scarcity-thinking.jpg