Bloom Your Life with Thomas DeSchutter

Today is a new twist. The Spirit of Money is a live talk that I recently gave at the Unity Spiritual Centre of Nanaimo.

Couple of things to note. There is a reference to spiritual teachings, mainly quotes from Buddha and Jesus, and I complete the talk with a live meditation.

I believe that in this conversation of the spirit of money, I believe that money has energy, and I believe. that energy comes from us... from how we deal with it. Our thoughts and our conversations.

Money is really just a construct of our reality, much like music is and much like longitude or latitude, are things that we've created in order to move forward in our lives. 

Money is not a terrible thing, and it's not a great thing, It's just money. Yet it is the overall conversation in our world, for how we exchange things, how we get new things, how we get paid for our services. It is an exchange of energy. 

That is the flow of money, and so money is required.

However, it's not the source.

Today is a little bit different. I have taken a morning meditation, that we were jokingly referring to as my series of sermons on the mount, where a group of friends from Unity would join me online, through Facebook Live. And I decided I would share this because when I listened back, I felt there was something here worth sharing with all of you.

Now, there is a meditation near the end so this is your warning. This meditation involves a visualization where we're going to visualize somebody that means a lot to us, and share some love and gratitude for them within ourselves. It's a great practice and it's something I do frequently, and I wanted to share that with you. Also FYI, my amazing four-legged friend Geddy Lee is with me and so there are times during the meditation where he's barking or whining a bit or chewing sticks and so just allow that to be part of your experience.

In today's episode. You have to set yourself up to win and that comes through practice.  It means paying attention in a particular way, not just paying attention in any way, paying attention in a particular way. And I'll, I'll look at that as paying attention to how I feel in the moment. Using my senses, in the moment. Maybe it's just about stopping the action, just stopping the action right where you are taking a breath and noticing how you feel?

Noticing what your thoughts are, noticing what you see. What do you hear?

Begin to focus on the here and now, like what's happening actually in this moment. Not about what happened 10 minutes ago or an hour ago or five days ago or that argument or fight or whatever it was that that triggered you. It's not that stuff. And it's not a future casting like oh one day if maybe one day then perhaps maybe one day, and all of that stuff. It's about stopping in the moment and grounding ourselves, which is a perfect use of breath then exhaling. You can even ask yourself, "what am I thinking right now.? What's going on? Close your eyes and look within.

I know this is Captain Obvious here, but I truly believe that the more we work at building our lives through our intentions, our mindset, our ways of being, and our practices, in an effort to create positive benefits in our lives, then it stands to reason that the more joy, the more love, and the more gratitude, we're going to experience in our lives. I want to talk about that a little bit because when I think of climbing the mountain of consciousness, it's in order to escape those thoughts and feelings of lack, insecurity, unworthiness, jealousy, fear, and poverty thinking.

All of these things I have experienced at various times in my life and they still show up to this day. It's now become a question of how quickly can I overcome them? How quickly can I move away from them to climb the mountain? That is what I refer to as climbing the mountain of consciousness. If I set myself up to move up that mountain, then I can begin to enter the places of joy, love, gratitude, and feel like a contribution.

2:40 - And in that case, it was Roger Bannister coming out of the last turn, and as Landry looked over his shoulder Bannister blew by him to win the race, and they both ran a sub-four-minute mile. Since that time, more have accomplished it. I believe it's 1497 people that have now run the mile in under four minutes, and I believe we're down to about three minutes and 40 something seconds for a sub-four-minute mile. The point being is that when there is that belief that it can not be done, and then once it is done, the floodgates open, and we had more and more people running a sub-four-minute mile.

What's interesting to me about this is that in my two decades of working in finance I've had some similar things pop up. The first one came early in my career where I remember, I was walking into my house I was listening to the news the financial news on the radio. And I heard that for the very first time up here in Canada, the Royal Bank of Canada had recorded their very first quarter with $1 billion in profit.

That was the first time that a bank or a company in Canada have recorded a quarterly profit of $1 billion dollars. Once that was achieved, once that boundary of $1 billion in a quarterly profit had been achieved, now the five major banks in Canada regularly record over a billion dollars in profit in their quarters, and in some cases like RBC and TD Bank, they are over the $2 billion mark in quarterly profits. Again, the thinking before was that it might not be done, or It couldn't be done, or nobody had done it yet and then once that is achieved. Boom. There you go.

A few years back, no company had ever reached a market cap of $1 trillion. Apple broke through that barrier of $1 trillion, and now we have four companies with a market cap of over $1 trillion, and more are on the way. It also brings up the conversation around, billionaires, multi-millionaires and all of that.

Once those amounts were achieved by somebody, then that possibility flows through to the consciousness of all humans, and now, the game is on. We ask, how can I do that? What do I need to do to be there? People then line themselves up to start doing something, and achieving something that may have been before, thought to be impossible, but once it's done all bets are off.

It even makes me think of landing on the moon.

Episode 15 of Conscious Cache and today's the day. Name change. A name change in that we're sticking with Conscious Cache; however, we're changing it to CACHE, and here's why. Because I found that as much as I love to talk about money and money will come up in the conversation, it's not everything I want to talk about. And so, I've been thinking for a while now about this idea of cache as in a computer's cache and the storage of data, quick at hand. So, imagine that we can have quick access to the things that we need mentally to move through a situation. Now, the definition of cache memory is an area or type of computer memory in which information that is often in use can be stored temporarily and got to especially quickly, and that's what I see. Wouldn't it be great if in any given situation where we're suddenly feeling that pain, that lack, that inability to move through this, or when we're triggered by something, that we have access to that information quickly; that information that will allow us to move through it?

02:23

This to me is cache. And, and it's like don't we also need cash? When we need cash, we need access to it pretty quickly right? So, it kind of works, you know what I'm saying, are you with me? It works. I like it, I like the way that feels. And so that's how we're going to unfold going forward.

I have these two kids, and I do have a responsibility and maybe speeding through the streets of Vancouver isn't the best thing for me to be doing? Maybe taking on that responsibility of a father is a really good idea? I guess the point I'm getting to here is that I've had to go through many transformations as a father.

Now with my girls as teenagers, managing that as a dad and seeing the amount of love that I have to bring to the relationship, the amount of understanding that I have to bring to the relationship, and the amount of forgiveness and allowing. As a father, I'm totally blown away by it and it's changed me as a person. It's about allowing them to be human beings.

It's forced me to try to be a better man, to be the principle of what it means to be the masculine energy in the house and to also adopt the feminine energy and become more; to open up my heart more. And so I guess for today, being Father's Day, I really see it as anybody's job. It doesn't matter if you're male or female, you must be willing to open up your heart and be the mark of leadership. To be that principle of what father is. That Guiding Light.

You know I really see my mom in my life as that nurturing soul. She was the one that stroked my hair, and you know made sure when I was sick that I felt better and gave me the chicken noodle soup. But for me, my dad's energy was all about leadership, and being a better person and striving to be the best that I could be.

Here are some helpful links and tools:

· Living in the what is as opposed to the what-if.

I was having a conversation with my wife about this, this morning. What is versus the what-if. When we head into the what-if, it tends to be negative and based on fear. What if they implement this social distancing forever, then what am I going to do? Or, if this, _____ happens, then what am I going to do? What if all my customers leave, then what am I going to do? Right! That's what I'm talking about. That's the what-if. And getting caught in that cycle, that mindset, that consciousness is not going to serve you, and quite frankly, if you're going to get caught in the what if, let's make it fun. What if I win 100 trillion gazillion billion dollars then what would I do? What if I was on a beach right now, living perfectly and people were feeding me peeled grapes? Seriously, if we're going to live in the what-if, make it an enjoyable “WHAT IF” not something that's awful. Remember this gem, living in the what is, breathing into the what is–that is powerful. With that, you can begin to shape your day. You can begin to say, “here's what I'm doing next” because of what is right now. What is actually the best thing that I could do to achieve what it is I'm looking to achieve? What is the best thing I can do right now to experience more life? What is the best thing that I could do right now to appreciate my children? What is the best thing I could do right now to create more opportunities for a flow of cash or for a flow of money? You see, that's when we can begin to shape our lives by breathing into what is, by being in the moment. Curious, what's coming up for you right now? What is it that you're thinking about right now?

Here are some helpful links and tools:

I have been thinking about this a lot, the fear of loss and more importantly, the fear of missing out (FOMO). So, let's talk about the fear of missing out. This is when, for example, you go to the dentist and you're sitting in the chair. The dentist is working on you and you can't really talk because you've got your mouth full of stuff, and they're just espousing whatever's going on in their world. Now, let's say they're an avid investor and all of a sudden, they give you a stock tip, and you're thinking, “Oh, that's great, thanks for the information.” You are thinking, “Oh, my dentist just gave me a stock tip and I don't want to miss out.” Now, the first question you might want to ask is, why am I even thinking about investment tips from my dentist. But secondly, is that fear of missing out, I am going to miss out on the potential.

You don't even know what that investment looks like and you’re not really sure what the company is, however, somebody that has our respect as a professional has said something to us and now we're left with this fear of missing out on the opportunity.

Now, maybe you go and invest some money, and it might even be money that you can't really afford to put at risk, but you do it anyhow, because of this fear of missing out. That feeling, that something else is better, potentially than what is going on right now or what I am currently working on myself.

The feeling is that you're going to be left behind. You don't want to feel foolish and you don't want to look like an idiot, so you act on this. Maybe it works out? However, most of the time when we're in a place of wanting to take investment tips from our dentist or hairstylist, it's usually when the market is frothing over; in other words, lots of money is being made and everybody's a genius.

To me, that's not the best time to be doing this. The fear of missing out, however, is a massive driving force against us. We can see it in our comparisons to others. What does my neighbour have? Ooh, they just bought a new car, or I'm missing out because they just went on vacation. So, we begin to make decisions based on other people's lives and experiences, rather than what's real for us, and that's where we want to check-in. Am I making this decision based on this is what I really want?

I don't like the word budget because it sounds like restriction, it sounds like a limitation. I want to spend my money, even if that spending is on housing, or on clothing and on food. I'm happy to go spend my money at the grocery store for the things that I want to eat.

It's about reframing the use of our money. Instead of, "Oh, I only have so much money to spend here," it becomes, "Hey, I get to spend this amount of money." Do you see? It's all about an abundance of flow and money being enjoyable. Let's not make this unenjoyable...let's make it enjoyable.

Free Tools:

I love that lyric, “But I chased that thought away before it had time to lay roots in my brain.” I've never shared this on here before, that opening music is actually from a band I was in, it was on our first album, or as they used to say CD, and t's called, it was the last track on that album and it is called The Train Song. And, you know, I'll share a little story about this, the train song was if you get to the end of that song, do you like that? If you get to the end. Yes, because it's, it's that terrible. Not If, when you get to the end of that song, let me reframe that when you get to the end of that song. There's this, as a drummer as a musician, there is this great piece for me, where I emulate the sound of a train rolling down the tracks. I was using these plastic brushes on my snare drum that just gave it a tickety, tickety, tickety, tickety, tickety, tickety, tickety, tickety, tickety, tickety, tickety, tickety, tickety, tickety, tickety. That sound of the train going down the track and then fading off into the distance. And my mother, who used to just love the fact that I played the drums, she loved that part. For her, I think that was the greatest thing I ever did as a musician, was the emulating of that train going down the track.

Back to the lyric, “I chased that thought away before it had time to lay roots in my brain.” Yeah, Dave. Great lyric because of a lot of what we talk about here, on conscious cash, is controlling our thinking. Being responsible for what we think, how we feel, and our perception; that's consciousness. In the world of money, I know I started off the show with this isn't about getting and rich it's not about having all the money; It is certainly about having money and it is certainly about creating abundance in our lives. It is certainly about our ability to live our best life and clearly, at least where I live in Canada, money is a big part of that.

We look to opportunities right now that can serve us. We look for moments that we can spend with people. We look for ways of being that can serve others.

When we step into the creative and we allow ourselves to fully express who we are and the things that we care about; when we fully express it to the people we love, that's when life becomes life. We can create miracles.

We get from life what we expect not what we want.