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Writing from the Deeper Self
"Bringing Your Inner Treasures
to the Outer World . . ."
Book Development
with Naomi Rose
November 2008 Newsletter
MONEY FROM THE DEEPER SELF:
Becoming Prosperous in Your Outer Life by Doing “Inner Work” in Your Inner Life
(Continued from the November newsletter)
My laptop
computer was making very strange patterns, right after the presidential
election. The cursor led itself across the screen, opening up different
programs and then moving on, like a comet shower. “I guess I have
to get it fixed,” I grumbled, and started doing research to find
someone who could. The person I located online, with a reassuring company
name of “My Computer Guy,” told me when I phoned that the
minimum rate was $75 an hour, and that it might take a couple of hours
to fix. I would need to leave the computer there for several days and
then pick it up. I agreed, and set a time to drop it off late that Saturday,
after which I was going on retreat for three days.
When I arrived at the warehouse-like building, I thought I’d be
there a few minutes, sign a piece of paper, and go. But the owner walked
in and sat down, and started my computer up right then and there. He was
a burly looking guy, with bushy eyebrows and a definitive way of talking.
I found myself getting worried that I was going to be dependent on someone
who talked tech over my head, and pushed his knowledge around (not a totally
unfamiliar situation, in my background). So I was a bit prickly from the
start, defensive, hearing myself think things about him such as “You
don’t know everything!” and tensing myself to appear unruffled
so my words and body didn’t betray my annoyance.
And then, as
he sat there and made things happen onscreen, explaining what he was doing
in terms I didn’t fully understand, the reality that I was due to
go on a spiritual retreat hit me. “What are you doing?” I
asked myself. “Why are you judging this person as being belligerent,
competitive, and unfriendly? What is really happening, here? And how much
of that has to do with me?”
All this happened quickly in my mind, as I stood there watching this barrel-shaped
man play arpeggios on my keyboard and tweak what showed up onscreen. And
just that sliver of awareness was enough to shift my viewpoint ~ to shift
it enough that I could withdraw my certainty that he was an adversary.
I began to wonder what his face would look like to me if I cared about
him ~ if I had known him when he was young, if he were my brother, my
son, my father.
Everything softened,
then. He changed nothing, but in that change in me, he changed.
His face was concentrated, now, rather than belligerent. His words were
well informed, rather than overbearing. His efforts to tell me what he
was doing and what was happening onscreen were now clearly his way of
including me, educating me, bringing me into the picture. All this took
place in a fraction of a second; this shift removed a lens, or added a
lens, whatever it was ~ but from that moment on, I appreciated him, I
had room for him inside me, and I found him very interesting. The things
that before had threatened me, which I had protected myself from by judging
him, no longer threatened me. I felt lucky to have found him. He clearly
knew what he was doing, and he was now spending so much time on my computer
that maybe I wouldn’t even have to leave it there.
While he was at my computer, trying unsuccessfully to get the cursor to
have the kinds of hot flashes it had evidenced for me at home, he was
also fixing all sorts of other things I wouldn’t have known to ask
him to fix. He was removing excess programs, excess baggage that had been
clogging the machine and slowing it down. He was explaining about the
need to do a “defrag,” for “defragmentation,”
a process wholly unknown to me that essentially removed the unnecessary
spaces in the computer’s storage of my files, and slowly filled
them in sequentially. I was almost as in the dark as before, illumined
only by his really good explanations and my changed view; but I did recognize
that he was helping me in ways I had not known to ask for help. Furthermore,
being a true “computer guy,” he was giving his all to it,
making it his number-one focus, exceeding his closing time of 5 pm to
stay with the problems and solve them.
In my inner life, I was aware of the potency of the shift I had
made: the movement from feeling threatened and annoyed to feeling interested
and grateful, and aware of his knowledgeable care. But time was moving
on, and I had a retreat to go to shortly ~ and also, I became concerned
about the cost. For we had been there far more than an hour, and was he
just going to keep going, the meter running at $75 an hour, making sure
that everything on my computer was healthy, and that I understood what
he was doing? Was I now bankrolling his own interest? Had I asked for
all this help?
Fear was replacing annoyance. Not knowing what the cost would be.
“Well,” I said, seeking to find a balance between expressing
gratitude for all he was doing and my need to bring this to a close, “it
looks like the cursor isn’t doing what it did, and maybe what you’ve
done is enough.”
“Yeah,” he agreed, “no point in keeping this here overnight.
But let me just try one more thing….” And he launched into
some computer routine that required more time and attention.
Finally I just said, “I need to go,” and hoped that he would
be kind and charge me for an hour’s worth, though it was now 25
minutes over that. Or if I had to, I would ask for a pro-rated price.
I felt somewhat caught between gratitude and dependence, because he’d
helped a great deal; and yet my level of computer knowledge was limited
enough that I had no way of knowing what had really been needed. I might
be paying for his own enthusiasm, for all I knew. But I would just have
to live with it, and cut my losses by saying, “I have to go.”
I opened up my purse to get my checkbook, walking this delicate inner
tightrope between gratitude, the discomfort of unwilling dependence, and
the wish to complete this with some dignity. “What do I owe you?”
He squinted for a moment. “Well,” he said then, “I usually
charge $75 for laptops.” (Oh good, he’s going to ignore the
extra 25 minutes, I thought.) “But I’m going to charge you
what I charge to work on regular computers: $45.”
I blinked. “You mean, the total charge is $45?”
“Yeah,” he shrugged, “why not. I didn’t find the
cursor thing, and you’ve got such an old computer.”
Warmth flooded my heart. “Thanks very much,” I said, and wrote
him a check for $45. And I realized, as my outer appearance was coolly
writing the check, that inside, I felt blessed, I felt cared about by
this reduction of his fee. I actually could have afforded $75 plus the
extra time, and I didn’t like the thought that I was just trying
to get a lower price. It felt bigger than that. It felt like the inner
work to see him, to value him, and to receive what he was giving ~ with
all the original difficulties in so doing ~ had connected me to him somehow,
had formed a bond between us. And his offer had a friendliness to it that
meant something to me, it wasn’t only about paying less. It was
as if something underneath the surface in each of us recognized a deeper
way of being together, a deeper human connection. It made me wonder if,
when I first had shifted how I saw him to a more appreciative way, he
had somehow gotten that. Whether he had breathed easier, felt some care
coming his way, expanded into it in a way that took the form of wanting
to make my laptop as healthy as possible, as defragmented as possible.
I felt that something miraculous and just about hidden had happened. “I
really appreciate this,” I said, handing him the check. “You’re
a good teacher. What did you do before you worked on computers?”
I don’t usually ask strangers those kinds of things, but with all
the inner shiftings going on within me, he didn’t feel like a stranger
any more.
“Oh, that?” he said, looking a bit startled. “It was
so long ago. I was ~ a teacher,” he grinned.
What do we really want for ourselves and from each other? Is it discounts?
Or is it not to be discounted? Is it to be seen, and wondered about, and
in some way cherished? Can we pick up when this happens, without a direct
word being said? Are our ordinary occasions to be with other human beings
invitations to see into who they are more deeply, with money as the outer
exchange, and something yet more precious as the inner exchange?
This experience is still with me. I am very grateful for it, and for the
closeness to God it gave me (seeing through one’s ego defenses does
bring one closer to God), and the connection to another person it helped
form.
Was that harmonious prosperity? After some false starts, yes, it was.
Naomi Rose is the author of several books on money and the inner life,
some of which are available from The Creating, Comfort, & Centering
Store, www.essentialwriting.com/bookstore.html. She will facilitate future
“Money from the Deeper Self” workshops. If you are interested
in attending or hosting one, please contact her at naomirosedeepwrite@yahoo.com.
Copyright 2008 ©
by Naomi Rose. All rights reserved.
Here follows a description of the workshop referred to above. Although the workshop has already taken place, future workshops are intended. If you are interested in attending or hosting one, please contact Naomi at naomirosedeepwrite@yahoo.com.
MONEY FROM THE DEEPER SELF
Healing
Your Relationship to Money by Understanding Its Connection to Your Inner
Life
In this time of economy uncertainty, it’s more essential than ever
to look for wealth in the right place.
Most of us learn that money is something outside us, and that how much
of it we have depends on such factors as luck, hard work, constant attention
to getting it, and so on. But our inner life ~ our connection with, or
separation from, our deep nature ~ is the real key to having what we need,
and to trusting life to support us totally.
In this workshop, we will explore some common assumptions about money
as an "outside" experience, and begin to look more closely at
how our real nature was obscured or set aside early on, in favor of a
partial self that believed it had to "do something" to get its
needs (material and otherwise) met. As we begin to recontact our original
nature, which is supported even by breath and the earth, and to understand
some
of the early decisions we have made keeping us from accepting all the
blessings life hasto shower on us, and how these have related to money
up to now, a shift can take place, enabling us to relax into our ground
of being and ask for, and attract to us, everything we need.
Texts: MotherWealth: The Feminine Path to Money,
and The Portable Blessings Ledger: A Way to Keep Track of Your Finances
and Bring Meaning and Heart to Your Dealings with Money, by Naomi
Rose.
DATE: Sunday, November 2, 2008
TIME: 10 a.m. - 4:00 p.m.
LOCATION: Chochmat HaLev Meditation Center, Berkeley,
CA
FEE: $150.00. Cost includes the two books. $25 discount
($125 total) if registered before October 15th.
REGISTRATION: To reserve your space, send a nonrefundable
deposit of $75 to
Naomi Rose at P.O. Box 21622, Piedmont, CA
94620. Or you can pay by PayPal by going to www.essentialwriting.com/classes.html.
The balance is due by the workshop
date.
NOTE: Be sure to include your mailing address, so you can receive
the texts before the Workshop.
For more information, e-mail me at naomirosedeepwrite@yahoo.com, or phone
me at (510) 465-3935.