money does what we tell it to do (and how what it's doing will let us know what we are telling it) part I

everything is edible (sort of ) cufflinks

I've read money was invented as a way to get the things we needed without us having to barter an exact exchange and this makes sense.

(I've also read it was invented as a way to pay taxes which feels true, too)

Whatever money's origin, what was actually created was a barrier to exchange (giving and receiving) where no barrier existed naturally.

(kind of like those other made up barriers like intelligence exams, international boundaries and child safety caps)

Everything in nature has its own natural rhythm - an innate trusting of life and surrender to its flow. The natural world grows and produces through giving and receiving just by being.

We have manipulated this natural flow of giving and receiving - of feast and famine, of tides moving in and out - with money (you might think "of course we invented money, we couldn't very well have avoided it" and I would agree we would have a very different world if we had avoided it).

Researchers have shown that money has 3 effects on our brains:

(this is totally fascinating so stay with me here)

1. When money is received - the hormone dopamine is released in our brains. When kept in balance dopamine is a healthy stimulus toward positive experiences, but dopamine is also the hormone that plays a large part in addiction, as in give me more and more and more. It always relies on something outside of ourselves as a trigger. Dopamine doesn’t change the pleasure involved with a behavior, just how much we want to do it - it's the total ego hormone.

2) When money is released - when we use it to pay for needed/wanted stuff and services, pain receptors in the brain are triggered (probably why we complain stuff costs us an arm and a leg because it feels like it actually does).

So, when we buy something we want we get that little hit of dopamine to counteract the pain response when we have to part with our money and when we pay for things like internet service or insurance we just get the pain.

3) When money is allowed to flow - given to others without expectations of getting anything in return, it causes the release of oxytocin in the brain. This hormone is the chemical released when a mother bonds with her baby, when couples hold hands, when friends hug each other and when people smile at strangers. Oxytocin is an actual physical manifestation of love.

This research makes total sense because in a world where only love is real - releasing the love hormone when money moves the way it is supposed to or I should say - releasing the love hormone when energy moves the way it would naturally move makes perfect sense.

(some people like to quote the Course in Miracles as saying there is only love and fear and this is not what the course says - the course says there is only love and its lack. Fear isn't the opposite of love, fear is the lack of love - just like darkness is the lack of light - fear itself doesn't exist anymore than darkness does)

This may not mean that we stand on the street corner and give our money away without any expectations of anything in return - although this would be pretty powerful stuff - but it does mean there are ways to work with the natural flow of giving and receiving, especially when the old rules don't work anymore, to create more abundance in our lives.

Part II - money does what we tell it to do (and how to make it listen better than your 3 year old)

happy president's day (or we're evolving caterpillars into butterflies here)

climate change - keystone xl pipeline rally 2/17/13

Some days it feels like everything is just a huge mess. A mess that is so big and so multi-layered and so out of our hands that it is like we are all living in one of those hopeless hoarder houses with the newspapers and the cockroaches.

On better days we survey the world and say ok - this is what it is - we made this mess, we can unmake it - I wish I was starting from somewhere else but I can only start from right here.

Bruce Lipton (check him out if you haven't already, he connects the spiritual with the science in exciting ways) likes to compare civilization's current spiritual evolution with that of the caterpillar.

(and on days when we cannot imagine we could possibly get from where we are now to where we need to be, this little guy is our guy to think about)

Imagine for a moment we are a single cell among the millions of cells that make up a caterpillar. Our little world has been operating like a well-oiled machine and creeping along most predictably until one day the machine begins to shake and shutter. Systems fail. Cells begin to commit suicide. There is a sense of doom and darkness.

But, from within the dying population of cells, a new breed of cell starts to immerge. They are called imaginal cells (really how cool is that).

Clustering in communities they devise a plan out of the wreckage. They create a great flying machine - a butterfly - that enables the survivor cells to escape the ashes of the caterpillar world and experience the unimaginable (and yet not unimaginable because it is the imaginal cells that did it) beautiful butterfly world.

And the most amazing thing of all is that the caterpillar and the butterfly have the exact same DNA.

They are just receiving and responding to a different organizing signal.

This is where we are in the world today - all of us deciding which organizing signal we are going to tune into. The media is reporting a caterpillar world - doom and gloom with every man-made system in trouble.

And yet, everywhere, human imaginal cells are waking up to a new possibility. They are clustering and communicating and tuning away from the signal of fear and into the signal of love.

Love is not some mushy gushy sentiment reserved for Valentine's Day, but the vibrational glue that will help build us our new flying machine.

We are those imaginal cells - although it may not seem totally evident to us now - the future is literally in our imaginations; in our thinking.

Positive thinking isn't the opposite of negative thinking. Positive thinking is the opposite of wishy, washy thinking. Positive thinking isn't about flowers and puppies; it's the other definition of positive - the one that means certain. 

Yesterday I went to the largest ever U.S. climate change rally - tens of thousands of people (I think 50,000) marching and laughing and singing for change.

( I never sing in public, saving my Lucy Ricardo voice for the shower and poor Olive, but even I was singing yesterday, in fact my throat hurts today - I feel a little like Adele, well except for the genius and the millions of rabid fans)

On the one hand we were hoping to catch President Obama's attention regarding his upcoming Keystone XL Pipeline decision but we were very focused on what we were gathering for, not what we were gathering against (pushing against stuff only gets us to the place of more of this stuff we are pushing against - it puts us in vibration with it - when what we really want is to evolve higher).

Happy President's Day all - I'm off to accupuncture and then going to clean my messy house - the hoarder references have made me a little uneasy ....

Part III - Do I have to stick my tongue to a flagpole, people!

a little cork love from olive

Now, it is quite clear to me, through the liberal use of my Magic 8 Ball and a reader's comment (thank you Janell) that we are still not feeling it.

(and it is a proven fact that if one person says something, ten other people are thinking it, so I will trudge on here, plus I like to think ten people are reading this)

This word artist feels like something someone over there is doing - maybe someone with an art degree

(although I know many women with art degrees and some who teach art and call themselves teachers or art teachers, but still choke a little bit on the word artist)

maybe someone with a canvas and some oil paints

(although I know women who paint everyday and because they don't sell what they paint they choke a little bit - or a lot - on the word)

maybe someone with talent.

Gulp, yup, I think it's the "t" word that gets us.

(that little voice that says who do you think you are and not a sweet "who do you think you are?" like we are stumbling around with amnesia and a kindly little old lady asks us our name and hands us a cookie, but more like "who do you think you are?" as if the salesgirl at Bloomingdale's, maybe the one with the super elastic looking eyelashes - I just want to grab them and stretch them out and see where they end up - and the bottle of cologne perched in her hand mid-spiff - has spied us removing our coat with the saggy lining - wth has happened to my coat lining?? - and trying on that $800 leather jacket)

It's the talent thing.

Not, that we see ourselves as talentless, of course, we are damn good at what we do, we are makers after all - we are all in agreement on that one.

We make scarves and necklaces. We make e-books and soap. We make conversations and cookies. We make a business (maybe, maybe not). We make a life with our makings (always). Yes, we are makers.

In what way is a maker not an artist? Name one.

(I double dog dare you on this one)

I think we are I have been a little chicken to use this word. I think it is this little chicken part of me that keeps me from getting accepted into certain shows and certain categories within certain shows. I have been practicing though. I say, "I am an artist" and feel where the tension (block) is in my body and work on releasing that.

(a great release exercise, works for me with pain, too - based on accupressure points and psychology is the tapping solution - very easy to do, google it if you are interested, Cheryl Richardson has a video on youtube - I wouldn't do it in line at the post office, but it is strangely effective)

I say it in the grocery store.

"Paper or plastic?"
"I am an artist."

I say it in the restaurant.

"Lemon in your tea?"
"I am an artist."

I say it to hubs every night.

"Anything good happen today?
"I am an artist."

It's starting to work (I am an artist).

Anyhoo, if this is a conversation that interests you, Seth Godin has an excellent new book, The Icharus Deception, how high will you fly, that may get you thinking about "why we have decided we are not artists and whether it is worth considering why we made this decision and what it might take to unmake it."

No answers from Olive on this one, just more questions - I am feeling the need to relate the word artist to anyone living an authentic life and touching other people with their authenticity - someone focused on the journey and not the finish line - someone like us.

(I am an artist)

Happy Valentine's Day XO