But the golden handcuffs are truly handcuffs that are tying you down and keeping you from your happiness! Ok, I won’t sugarcoat that sometimes the fear of living a different lifestyle…less than what we are living now, can be really frightening. But the unhappiness that goes along with that really great pool, or driving that sports car, or wearing those designer clothes cannot heal a lonely heart. It can’t quiet that haunting feeling, or guilt when you are pushing aside the messages from your soul that there is something else and it is waiting for you! Something that feels more right than the current not-so-right. Something that represents you to the deepest part of your being. So in the end it comes down to deciding… what’s important in life!
On the other side of the coin, when we’re secure in our finances, The Golden handcuffs also come into play in the way we spend our money. Or our fears around spending our money. What can we afford? What money are we willing to part with in order to go after our dreams? Can we unlock the handcuffs to stretch our finances to fulfill a dream? Can we change jobs in order to fulfill our souls versus our bank accounts? Can we take that one very special trip we’ve always dreamed of?
My husband and I recently kicked out a Galapagos cruise website, cruisingtotheglapgos.com …because we have a dream of sailing to these magical islands filled with the most extraordinary wildlife. Have you ever heard of a place where the wildlife have no fear of humans? It happens on The Galapagos. They come right up to you, or casually walk right by you! You can swim with the penguins or surf with the seals. It’s like no experience anywhere in the world. But on the other hand, it is really expensive. I have taken over 200 cruises all around the world and nothing has called to me more than this cruise. And there it was. The bank account Golden handcuffs. Do we dig into our savings and splurge on our biggest dream vacation ever? Or do we let it sit in the bank and collect interest until someday when we may need it?
Maybe it’s the golden handcuffs. Or is it fear around lack? Fear around the unknown what ifs? What if we have a house emergency or a medical emergency?
We talked it all through and then we had a change in perception! It didn’t take us long to realize that life is too short, the world is changing, and we don’t know what our futures will bring us, especially after the Covid hell we have all just gone through. But if I let go of fear, and look at what my true passions and dreams are then why the hell would I not book this trip? And What if the what-ifs are actually a huge financial windfall or success? What if can go both ways!
And there ya have it. The golden handcuffs are really just the word fear wrapped up in shiny gold. And it most often keeps us from choosing our own happiness. I love to have my clients really think about how money affects their lives. Obviously, we need it to survive. So many people have struggled in the last year and so many are still struggling.
So how does that affect the way they look at money?
Have you ever thought about what money is? I have! It’s really just another form of energy exchange!
Think about it… someone creates a handmade chair. They use their creative energy and physical energy to design and build it. Then they sell it and get paid for it. Money is the exchange for their energy!
Then the chair maker takes that money and goes to the farmers market and buys fruit. Fruit that was grown with the energy of the farmer. So the chair maker exchanges the energy he received in the form of money and gives it to the farmer…
Then the farmer buys a dress for his little girl… he exchanges that energy he received in the form of money and he gives it to the dressmaker. And it goes on and on from there! All that energy has just been shared around the world. All that money is is the energy of thousands and thousands of people around our planet.
Now the big stuff….
I like to ask my clients to look at the Golden Handcuffs in a different way. What if the golden handcuffs are not about how much money we have or make… but what if it is about the way we perceive money. And what if the way we perceive money is wrapped around what we believe we deserve in life?
There are so many books on this topic. When I did some of my own internal work around money and what I believe I deserve I was fascinated by what I learned. There is a great book, written years ago called The Dynamic Laws of Prosperity by Catherine Ponder. She talks about the concept of the Vacuum Law of Prosperity. She says that if you want greater good in your life, greater prosperity, and greater happiness then you have to form a vacuum to receive it.
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