Finances Through Spirituality

In this episode we cover the basic ideas and principles of looking finances from a spiritual perspective.

Transcript

Welcome to Life,

Lessons,

And Laughter with your host Glenn Ambrose.

Hello everyone,

Welcome to the show.

Why do you have such a big smile on your face?

I don't know,

I just got really excited.

All right.

It looked unnatural.

It very much is.

What are we talking about?

We are talking about spiritual finance today in honor of the spiritual finance month at the Life Enhancement Center.

Okay.

So I'm having a friend of mine,

Carrie Cudmore,

Come down.

One of the things she does is really focuses on spiritual finance.

It's one of her specialties.

So she's coming down,

She's going to teach a class at the beginning of the month,

The first Thursday.

And then since I've been through her spiritual finance class and I've attended a couple of her advanced community classes,

I'm going to teach a class on the middle two Thursdays of the month.

And then she's going to come back at the end of the month and kind of recap everything.

She also wrote a book,

So she's going to have the book for sale here.

So whoever wants it,

We're kind of going to be going through that book.

That's the idea of the month of March.

The name of her book is,

Let's see,

I forgot the exact name of it.

Well prepared.

A New Relationship with Money by Carrie Cudmore.

Now what is spiritual finance?

Is that how to finance your spirituality?

It can be.

Are we paying to get into heaven here?

No,

Definitely not.

No,

Not in that way.

No,

But the way I heard that when you said it was financing your spirituality.

So like being able to bring more money into your life so you can experience more things like go on spiritual retreats.

That's how I heard it.

The way that I meant it was the way that the Catholic Church used to say that you had so many years in purgatory and you could buy,

You know,

You could pay down the years.

That's unbelievable.

Some people bought it.

I'm a capitalist through and through.

I approve of that method.

I don't know what you're saying.

It's been a long day.

Well,

A long day.

It's still early,

Man.

Well,

Depending on when you're listening to this.

Well the spiritual finance,

The main idea of it is to work on your core relationship with your finances.

Because finances are just like anything else.

If we don't have a good relationship with it,

Then it's not going to flourish in our lives.

So I think when I'm explaining it to people,

The first thing I always do is kind of recap the biggest light bulb moment that happened when I was taking her course.

She has you explore your relationship with money right off the bat.

So I'm in this class with her and the first thing she does is have me ask myself questions about my relationship with money.

And I'm going like,

What the heck is she talking about?

So I thought back to my childhood,

Where did you develop your thoughts about finances and money and stuff?

And I thought back to when I was a kid and being rich was definitely a negative thing for us.

I mean,

It was like when people talked about rich people,

Everybody said how snobby they were and selfish and greedy.

There was just all these negative connotations that they had about rich people.

And that's what I believed.

That's what I heard.

So that's what I believed.

And when I was in third grade,

We got a pool put in our backyard and there wasn't that many pools in the neighborhood.

So that meant I was rich to other kids.

So I mean,

At the playground,

I'd get teased for being rich.

So I was getting in fights at the playground at a very early age because somebody called me rich.

Now for me to have a good relationship with money,

I would definitely have to overcome that.

And to take it a step further,

Being greedy and selfish are not part of my moral code.

They are not things that I would like to become.

So they go against my moral fiber.

They go against who I want to be.

So I need to unconsciously sabotage myself from achieving being rich because if I'm rich,

Then I'm greedy and I'm selfish.

So okay,

Right.

That makes sense.

I have a question.

Now this might just be me being,

I think I'm a millennial.

I'm not sure where the cutoff is on the whatever.

I was born in 87.

So I don't know where that line is,

But I grew up with,

Or at least by the time I was a teenager,

Things like MTV Cribs being a huge show where it's like,

Look at all my stuff.

Yeah.

And I mean,

I guess there was a connotation obviously like there were,

You thought of rich people as being the possibility at least of being bad people.

And then that bad connotation,

You know,

Like Scrooge.

Yeah.

Or when I was really little Scrooge McDuck.

You know,

The evil money corrupts all of that stuff.

But then also there was this whole culture of like the MTV generation and young people with money and look at my mansion,

Look at my ride,

Look at,

You know,

Look at the- So how did that translate to you?

I think that I had a,

You know,

The people that we looked up to were the people that had money,

That were rich.

We liked it.

So I don't look at being rich as a bad thing.

As a matter of fact,

I look at,

I've always looked at it as wouldn't that be awesome if I could be one of those people,

But I still don't have any money.

So what is my,

Like I have a completely opposite track from you.

So how am I sabotaging myself?

Well that's a pretty,

That's a very selfish look though.

Not selfish.

It's a very surface look.

Like you know,

We're just having a conversation.

It wasn't a heck of a lot of thought put into it.

And you remembered some TV show about bling.

That doesn't mean that that's really your core beliefs.

Like I mean,

If you go under and you know,

Really start digging deeper and start looking at it.

And I mean,

Plus that's when you're a teenager,

You already have developed core ideas when you're at a younger age.

You know,

When I was getting fights on the playground,

I had developed it even before that.

So that was in third grade.

So before third grade,

I already had an idea about what money was and what it did.

So you know,

You need to go deeper to really find out about it.

And sometimes it's that,

You know,

In my case,

It was that people were selfish and bad.

You know,

Other times it's just a feeling that it's impossible to achieve.

You know,

Like,

Oh,

No,

Money is meant for certain people,

Not us.

You know,

Financial security is just not the way we live.

And that can be an unconscious thought that can sabotage it.

So it's,

You know,

It depends on the person and it does take it takes a little soul searching to really,

You know,

With me,

It was kind of obvious.

Yeah.

You know,

Plus,

And maybe that was possible because of all the spiritual work I've done to myself up until that point.

You know,

So I mean,

I was well into my spiritual journey when I sat down with Carrie for the first time.

And you know,

When she says,

You know,

Dig deep and,

You know,

What's your thought on that?

I dug deep and it came right up because I'm used to doing that type of work.

You know,

So but that that that core belief system has to be explored.

Right.

I think that one of the I think that the I've this sounds weird to say out loud,

But I think that that's good.

I like to consider myself a generous person.

Yeah.

Especially with money.

If I have money,

One of the best things I think to do with that money is to give it away to other people that need it at the time.

I don't know why I think that needs to be explored.

You know,

My parents are both very generous.

My grandmother,

Who is a huge impact on my life,

Was there was extremely generous.

So maybe that's my uncle who,

You know,

Was the closest thing to being rich that anybody else in my family was or anybody that I knew was very generous.

He was very generous to us.

So maybe that's part of your core belief.

Maybe that's why you never have it,

Because as soon as you get it,

You give it away because you think that that's what you're supposed to do with it.

Maybe.

Yeah.

One of the things of the MTV generation watching things like Cribs and stuff is that,

You know,

The wouldn't it be nice going back a couple episodes,

The wouldn't it be nice if you were in that position,

Always turned to giving it away,

Most of it.

Giving some of it.

I want nice things.

I like nice things.

But yeah,

And it's,

You know,

A lot of times like that.

If you,

You know,

Finances are like everything else.

If you bring consciousness into it,

You start finding out things.

You start figuring out ways that you're functioning unconsciously that you can bring consciousness to and then function better.

So it doesn't mean that you can never be generous.

I mean,

You have to have money to be able to give it away.

So the more money you have,

The more generous you have the capability of being,

You know.

So as soon as it comes,

If you give it away,

Well,

Then that's the end of that.

Now you can't be generous anymore.

So,

If you,

But if you take that money and use it to build yourself even in a better position,

You know,

Or,

You know,

You can take,

Lots of people tithe.

Everything is a wonderful energetic way of having faith that our finances,

Just like everything else,

Come from a higher source,

You know,

Like,

And that's another basis for the program,

Which is kind of out there.

And I don't want to spend too much time on it because you kind of have to work up to that.

Because like telling people that,

Well,

Your creator gives you money.

It's like,

You kind of have to have some context around that,

You know,

But I believe that my source is the source of all.

So like,

If I'm sitting here and I have an event at my place and not that many people show up,

I don't sit there and get nervous and go,

Oh my God,

You know,

This isn't,

There goes my income for this event.

No,

The event wasn't my source of income.

My creator is my source of income.

So if it doesn't come in this way,

It'll just come in another way.

And I have faith in that.

And that's why I don't,

You know,

I don't live and die by who shows up to an event.

It's you know,

It's out of my hands.

I just put it out there.

If it doesn't come that way,

It'll come a different way.

Maybe I'll get another client.

Maybe I'll,

You know,

I'll do a show over here.

Maybe I'll,

You know,

Speak over here and get an engagement that way.

It you know,

I leave the finances open to the universe so it can come at me in all different ways.

You know,

If we just pigeonhole ourselves and say,

Well,

My job is the only source of income.

Right.

Well,

Then what if you were going to win on a scratch ticket?

Well,

You just lost that option because you don't believe it's even possible.

You know,

What if getting a raise?

What if finding a new job,

You know,

Were different options?

You know,

Who knows?

I mean,

The universe has a lot bigger imagination than I do.

So,

But you just don't want to limit your possibilities for income.

Do you mind if I,

I'm on Kerry's website right now,

Which is KerryCudmore.

Com.

K E R R Y C U D M O R E dot com.

And she has some of the questions that she asks.

Oh,

Beautiful.

Yeah.

Right up on the website.

So obviously number one was how was your relationship with money?

Number two,

Do I feel stress or anxiety when I think about money?

Yes.

Okay.

So your core beliefs about money are not based on a crib show then,

Because if it was,

You wouldn't be feeling stress or anxiety about it.

Right.

Yeah.

Obviously I always anything with,

I,

When you don't have it,

You stress about it.

Do you see how good that was though?

Like this is how,

This is perfection,

You know,

Because this is how people,

This is how we generally think of things.

If we don't slow down and go really deep in our,

In,

In our questions,

The surface answers are based on our surface knowledge.

They're based on the material world that we're bouncing around in.

And that's why we can't make sense of it.

Anything.

Like if I were to say to somebody like,

Well,

Do you have a poor relationship with money?

They go,

Well,

No,

I love money.

Right.

So that's your surface answer.

Of course you love money.

Everybody loves money.

You know,

On the surface,

Everybody intellectually,

We know that we want it,

But yeah,

Many people don't have it.

Why is that?

Well,

There's gotta be something deeper than the intellectual.

Yeah,

Give me it.

Yeah.

Money's good.

I want it.

Well,

No,

What's underneath that.

And then when you start going underneath it and you start noticing your feelings and you start taking the time and you go,

Oh,

You know,

When somebody asks you the right questions,

Which this book and these classes do,

Oh,

I do have anxiety.

Oh,

Okay.

So there's more to it.

That's where you actually start doing the work.

And that's when it's,

And experiencing shifts.

And that's whether it's with spiritual finance or relationships or your happiness or anything else,

You know,

Going down and getting the real answers to the deep questions.

So I would say yes.

I definitely have stress or anxiety when I think about money.

Usually I only have it when I don't have it.

You know?

You have the stress and anxiety when you don't have the money.

Yeah.

Right.

Which in turn can perpetuate you not having it.

Right.

Because you're functioning from a place of lack.

The energy you're putting out to the universe is I don't have enough.

So if that's the vibration you're putting out,

That's what the universe matches.

That's the old law of attraction.

For example,

I've been producing plays for 11 years and for 11 years,

Every time we start a show,

We don't have any money to do the show because you have to fundraise and you know,

It takes a lot to do it.

By the end of the show,

I've probably done 40 shows in 10 years or more.

By the end of every show,

We've made a profit.

Right.

Yet,

I am stressed until I count the money at the end of the last show for ticket sales.

That's a long time to be stressed.

That we're covered to pay for everything.

There is only one show that we've ever done that didn't make the money back.

Other than that,

You know.

So you even have evidence that shows you over and over and over and over and over again,

But you don't rely on that evidence because your core belief is stronger.

Right.

The second show that we ever did,

Which was 10 years ago this week,

When this airs,

10 years ago this week,

When I noticed.

.

.

Your memory is insane.

Do you know that?

Do you notice that,

Dave?

He knows dates,

What week it is,

How many episodes.

I know stupid stuff.

You know all that stuff,

Man.

I know Dave's nodding.

I know stupid stuff.

I know unimportant things.

So yeah,

It was the end of February 2006.

We were doing The Odd Couple.

We were renting a building that was probably too much money for us.

We didn't think we were going to have an audience.

We were doing too many shows.

It was crazy.

Instead of enjoying the show,

I spent the entire weekend almost sitting in a chair by myself in the basement of the building.

That's healthy.

I could write under the stage where I could kind of hear the show.

But I was.

.

.

Yeah,

I was a wreck.

It's gotten better since then.

I think it's time to shift your relationship with money,

Ben.

Yeah.

Yeah,

That'd be nice.

And even now,

Things do better because we've gotten better at it.

I'm still very stressed all the time about it.

Think where they'll launch to when you're not coming from a place of lack.

I mean,

You just got a couple new shows,

Right?

And were you coming from a place of lack when you went to get those?

No.

Right.

And you know what I'm talking about.

Energetically,

You weren't sitting there going,

Oh my God,

We're probably not going to get this.

We don't get this,

We're screwed,

And you weren't coming from that place.

Right.

Those were a little bit different situations.

Well that's just you rationalizing it away.

We can give you evidence and then you'll just slap it away and say,

No,

Let me give you an intellectual reason why this isn't really the way things are.

Yeah.

No,

It's a spiritual podcast.

We're going to go there.

I mean,

Yes.

Some situations,

We're very fortunate to fall into our lap and we were,

And I actually- Did you go to a meeting?

I actually said that last night.

They fell into our lap,

But I'm happy that we did the work to make that happen.

Yes.

You took action.

You weren't sitting around and then all of a sudden money came falling out of the sky into your lap.

You actually took action to make that happen.

Yes.

I am less stressed about those things.

And that's,

So you're already shifting.

You're working through it.

You're getting this stuff.

You're implementing this stuff.

And this is,

Like what we're talking about today is spiritual finance.

So it's really focused on that,

But it's energetic.

Like the other podcast,

Wouldn't it be nice?

It's the same type of idea.

It's the energy in which you're carrying around the things that you think are possible,

What your expectations are to some degree.

It's not that we're trying to,

We can't choke the life out of things either.

A lot of times what we'll do is we'll just say,

Okay,

Well,

My job is my only source of income for the entire family and it's the only way we can get money.

And there's never any promotions that come up except once every six years.

And there's one coming up and if I don't get it,

I'm screwed and I have to get it and I have to get it.

And if I don't,

I'm going to have to wait another six years.

And that's coming from lack.

You're putting out nerves and lack and then you don't get the promotion because you've pigeonholed yourself into only one possible option.

You've given the universe no room to work.

And then on top of that,

You came from a place of lack and then you wonder why it doesn't happen.

What do you,

Well,

This is completely off topic so I'm not going to.

.

.

Okay.

Yeah.

We'll see what happens.

I was just,

About that,

About putting out the positive energy,

What do you feel about stoicism and acknowledging the worst case scenario?

The reason for it is to acknowledge it and acknowledge that that's not the end of the world.

Right.

Yeah.

I do that all the time.

It's just a fear lurks around where,

On the surface.

If you go underneath it and follow it through and like that situation I was talking about and you go,

Okay,

Well,

If I don't get this raise,

Are we going to be able to have food on the table?

Are we going to be homeless?

Well,

Probably not seeing how you're paying for your home and food up until this point with the job that you have.

So you're going to survive.

Things might be tight.

You might have to cut off cable.

Oh my God.

Can you imagine that?

But you'll survive somehow.

It's not the end of the world.

And you can use that to take some of the fear out of it and to loosen you up so you're not walking around with that fear of lack like this situation is do or die and all that fear based energy.

Right.

Yeah.

Do I relate to money and finance willingly,

Easily and comfortably?

No.

No,

I don't.

No,

I do not.

Okay.

Well,

Then you might have some work to do there.

Do I readily and openly speak with others about money?

What does that tell?

That is really interesting.

And it's cool because I use it all the time in business now.

Because in business,

You have to talk about money more.

So it can be anything where somebody says,

Boy,

I'd really like to go to your event,

But I don't have the money.

Well,

I have to stop and look at that and go,

Okay,

Well,

Do I have room to wiggle with this particular event?

And if I do,

I have to be at peace with whatever decision I make.

I can't put the other person in control of my finances.

One thing that I do with people that,

Like let's say somebody comes and asks to borrow money.

They say,

Hey,

Can I borrow 20 bucks?

Well,

I ask myself,

One,

Can I afford to give away $20?

Not to get it paid back because I don't know what's going to happen in their lives and I can't put my financial stability in somebody else's hands.

So it's just,

Can I do without $20 right now?

And if the answer is no,

Then no,

I'm sorry,

I can't lend it.

If the answer is yes,

Then I have to ask myself another question.

Am I going to be resentful if they don't pay me back?

If I'm going to be resentful towards them,

Then I go,

No,

I don't have it to lend because again,

I'm not putting my happiness in their hands.

So part of it is taking responsibility for your own happiness and your own peace.

The other part of it is just being open and honest.

Talking about money with people in our society is like talking about death.

People don't want to talk about it.

People are fearful when they talk about money.

You're going to offend them or something.

So it's like if there's a situation where somebody,

Like let's say somebody,

I'll go back to the example,

Wants to go to an event or something.

And they say,

Geez,

I'd like to,

But I can't afford it.

There are times in my past,

This happens every once in a while,

I try not to do it too often because I'm not in a financial position to.

But when I'm in a financial position,

I'll sit there and go,

Okay,

Look at your finances and let me know what you can afford.

And then I'll let you know if that's okay with me or if it doesn't work for me.

And that's such a good exercise because there's that fear that you're going to be judged.

And people will be very fearful to be like,

Well,

I could give you three quarters,

But they don't want to offend me.

So it's very uncomfortable for them.

And it's a good exercise because it gets them to make an offer and talk about money,

Bring it up into the light and go,

This is what I have,

This is what I can afford.

Can you do that?

Is this okay on your end?

And when they do that,

Then I have to be honest with them and sometimes say,

You know what,

I'd really like to help,

But I just can't do it for that right now.

Maybe in the future we can work together.

And if I can do it,

Then I'm like,

Yes,

Okay,

I can do it for that.

But that's amazing how difficult conversations about money can be and bringing it up to the surface and taking all the judgments off of it and the guilt and the fear and brushing all that off and being able to talk about it back and forth is really a good exercise.

I think that that's something that I definitely have to work on.

It's always difficult anytime.

You have to ask in your business,

You have to ask for money.

You have to ask for money and you have to tell people what,

Like hiring musicians to play in the pit and stuff for shows,

Hiring assistant directors and stuff.

And if there's a lot of fear around it,

That comes across in the energy in which you're presenting it.

If I'm saying,

Well,

I understand,

But I need to get this.

I have bills to pay.

Honestly,

It's something that a lot of people have to deal with and it's getting more and more so as the entrepreneurial society expands and even more and more because the spirituality genre is growing and the self-help genre is growing.

There's a part of us that used to think that,

Oh,

Anything spiritual,

Well,

We can't get paid for that because that's not spiritual.

We're bringing goodness to the world.

What deserves more of an exchange than that?

And that's all it is.

Money is energy.

It's manmade it.

We've decided that that is a form of energy that we're exchanging with people.

So when I give my services to people,

If I give and give and give,

It's supposed to be a full circle.

I can't give of myself and not receive anything because then I'm walking around in the energy that I'm not worthy and I don't deserve.

And I am worthy and I do deserve.

So it's that full circle exchange.

I give of my services and in exchange,

The energy in the form of money comes back to me for my services.

I've gotten a lot better at hiring people and saying this is what we can pay you.

That's easy now,

But we're more easy,

Easier.

The most easiest.

The difficult one that I'm finding is the video and audio services.

I can talk to people about why we can make a commercial for them or why a podcast would be beneficial for them.

Why we're the right people to do it.

That's all wonderful.

And then it's the closing of the deal and then giving the price.

We have very low prices,

But for some reason,

I'm still just the feeling like you're justifying your service.

Yeah.

Well,

And that's a big part.

I needed to get through that with personal training.

That was a good training ground for me to get through that.

But also with the spiritual services because you actually enjoy what you do and I enjoy what I do.

So there's that preconceived notion that we shouldn't be receiving money for it.

That can be an unconscious thought that we need to get over.

It's like,

Oh,

This is fun,

So I shouldn't be getting paid for it.

It's easy for me.

Like personal training,

I did it for so many years.

It's not difficult for me to train somebody to give a half hour,

An hour of my time to put somebody through a workout.

That's not some big difficult stretch for me.

So there's that unconscious part that used to come in and go,

Well,

Then you don't really deserve anything for it because it's so easy for you.

And that's the part we got to get over.

So there's a couple more questions that we don't have time for because we just talked so much.

Do I trust that money will always be there for me,

Which we kind of covered?

Or would I benefit from a different relationship with money?

I think we've talked about those two questions.

Yeah.

And I mean,

You can go into detail on them too,

But that's what the class is and the book is for.

The goals for this class,

Stated from Kerry,

Are understanding your personal relationship with money and finance,

Retooling how you relate to prosperity,

Abundance,

And success,

Clearing the emotional clutter of limiting financial beliefs,

Having a clear understanding of why it is spiritually okay to be prosperous,

Being comfortable in the money conversation,

And creating a healthy and empowering relationship with money and finance.

Right,

And just to clarify that what we just read off of was Kerry's website about spiritual finance class series,

Which she does on her own at different places and stuff,

And it's a wonderful class that I've been through.

Since she's up in Massachusetts and I'm down here in Rhode Island,

We couldn't get a format where it was worth it for her to come down for these classes because she needs a substantial amount of people to do that,

Which she gives scholarships for people to go through those.

So what she did is I got together with her and her and I designed this finance month that I described earlier,

Where she's bookending the month with a class and a class.

So just for clarity's sake,

What we just read is from her class series.

It's not exactly,

But we're going to be covering basically the same stuff and it's going to be out of her book and all that stuff.

So I'm sure it's going to be very close if not,

It may be exactly on,

I don't know,

But this is the first time we're doing it.

So since we described a different thing,

I just kind of wanted to be clear about that.

So yeah,

If you can make it down to one or all of the classes and you can pick up Carrie's book on her website,

I'm pretty sure it's on Amazon as well,

But it's great information and it can really change your relationship with money.

So I highly recommend it and hopefully we'll see some of you for the class too.

So thanks for listening everybody.

That's going to do it for this episode.

You can find me at life-enhancement-services.

Com.

You can find me on Facebook and you can find me here in Coventry,

Rhode Island at the Life Enhancement Center.

So thanks to Dave and Ben for helping out and that'll do it for today.

Take care.

Reviews

Finances! The other F word. Haha! Another great one!

An area I need to delve into. Thanks for sharing.

Real talk, and down to earth. I really enjoyed this.

Very good. Gave me some new perspectives on money

Very interesting 🙏

Wow wow wow! Very interesting! Look forward to listening to more of your talks. 🙏❣️