Money, Money, Money

I love that song by the Ojays.  It served as the perfect soundtrack for Trump's show The Apprentice.  "For the love of money, people will lie, rob, they will cheat/ for the love of money people don't care who they hurt or beat."  There's another song I love even more that I think is sung best by Dianne Schuur but was immortalized by Billie Holiday.  It's called "God Bless the Child" and the lyrics go like this:

"Money, you got lots of friends, hanging round your door.  But when you're gone and spent in hands, they don't come round no more.  Rich relations get crusts of bread and such.  You can help yourself, but don't take too much.  Mama may have, papa may have, but God bless the child that's got his own."

I see so many, way too many, families fighting over money.  I know I've blogged about this before, and so you know my opinion on this matter.  Don't fight over  money.  I don't understand a person who dies and leaves a child out of his/her will.  Does that person really think, "Oooh, now I'll show him.  When I'm dead, then he'll really be sorry."  Really?  Is that all you mean to your child?  Money? Is that how you want to be remembered?  And do you really want to put your other kids in the very weird predicament of getting that money and spending/saving/sharing it knowing that their sibling is feeling hurt, angry and left out?  Really?  This is how you want to exit the world?  God, I'd love to see that life review.  I can picture the guardian angel now, "So after a lifetime of accruing money and using it to manipulate others, you then finished your life by using said money to permanently hurt your own flesh and blood.  And now you'd like to go to heaven.  Is that correct?"

Yikes.

But this week, I met a wonderful soul who bypassed all that pain by taking matters into her own hands.  When I connected her with her father, he kept waving a piece of paper in front of me and saying, "Tell her thank you for handling the will."  So I asked her, "Were you the executor of your dad's will?  He's thanking you for what you did with the will.  It's a relief to him that you handled that."

She smiled and sat back in her seat.  "No, my older brother was the executor, but I know what he's talking about.  Dad left my other brother out of the will because he didn't like his wife.  Well, that and a lot of other things.  They were never close.  But Jimmy and I felt terrible about his decision, so after we settled his estate, we just gave our brother a third of everything.  It's been great because now we're all getting along like we did when we were kids."

I was so pleased to hear her say this.  I can't tell you how many times I see siblings fighting over their parents' will and it makes me so, so sad for all involved.  It's just money.  It's an illusion.  It's simply a piece of paper we use to trade with people to get things which are also an illusion.  None of those things or green pieces of paper matter.  It's what we do with those green pieces of paper that matter.

And what we're supposed to do with our money is this: SHARE.

When I teach my workshop on manifesting, I always finish with an abundance exercise.  I make everyone stand in a circle, and then I take out a $20 dollar bill, 2 $10 dollar bills, a $5 dollar bill and 5 $1 dollar bills.  Then I begin passing the bills out one at a time.  After a moment or so, I stop the flow by holding onto the money when it comes to me.  When we pass on money, when we share it, we're contributing to the flow.  We're giving and receiving.  But when we hoard money and hold on to it out of fear, anger, vengeance or just plain stinginess, no one's happy.  The flow has stepped, and you're left with a lousy $50 bucks.  Yippee.

If you are dealing with this situation in your own life, if someone in your family or step family was purposely or inadvertently left out of a will and are now left with hurt feelings, please consider sharing with them.  You will be rewarded with so much more than green pieces of paper.