What to Do if You Have Always Wanted to Be Rich (and Never Have Been)
Like many other Americans, I grew up feeling not good enough, not smart enough, not pretty enough, not thin enough, and definitely feeling not rich enough. Though I was raised in Berkeley, CA where the poor and rich lived together side by side, where I’d watch hippies walk by in the park, I’d also see lawyer dads pick their kids up in Porsches, then watch TV where it was all about being rich, beautiful, and perfect. Out of all of these mixed messages I’d received, somehow I decided that being rich was the key to happiness.
To become rich would satisfy my deepest childhood needs and fantasies
From about age 6, I remember somehow deciding that everything would be better in my life if I were rich. Though we had a steady middle-class thing going on in my family and could afford many nice amenities, we weren’t rich, as both of my parents were social workers. As far back as I can remember, I have always wanted to be super-duper rich: mansions, fame, BMWs, Parisian vacations, designer everything. I felt that being rich would give me the perfect life and Id be truly happy!
College: The Biggest Myth to Getting Rich
As I teen, I realized that in order to get into a good college – the path to financial wealth according to my teachers – I had to compete for a spot at the top of everything. Sports teams, extra curricular groups, academics, and even for social status and boyfriends, etc. The rich kids were in the honors classes, had tutors, the cutest outfits, and in order to catch up to them I had to work harddddd. By age 16, my middle class ego got me focusing 100% on living the dream: academic achievement, athletics, eliminating my flaws, diets (I was a size 2!), and I pretty much became my own Nazi and felt not good enough all the time.
It wasn’t until later that I realized that going to college didn’t guarantee you a good job, financial prosperity, or opportunity in the city of your choice. But that is another discussion for another time.
I was a proud perfectionist, overachiever, and self-disciplinarian by the time I could vote
All of my self-hatred driven motivation led me to become a freshman at Duke University, which at the time was a top 3 university in the country (Harvard, Princeton, Duke, then Yale it was. And yes, I cared about this ranking!). When I arrived on Duke’s campus, I realized that I was surrounded with rich, beautiful, perfect people and a lot of old money… And that it would take even more efforts to keep up. I did my best to work my butt off in the pre-med program, trying to ace tests on 2 hours of sleep, exercising in the gym at 3am to keep the college beer off my belly, and blow drying my hair before class because everyone did so.
The harder I worked, the more success people I had around me. We were success-obsessed people who would compete together and never feel good enough! I ended up in a sorority where all the women were super success driven, but many of them were on speed, coke, and on such restrictive diets they could only be labeled as ‘disordered eating.’ During holidays, I would go to my friends’ homes to realize (a) that they were super-duper rich, and (b) that they really weren’t happy at all. Shocker!
These super rich successful people were all on prescriptive drugs and anti-depressants, and they were all too ashamed to admit it. Literally no one seemed happy once you got to see them on the inside (which I love doing, as a child of two shrinks!).
So, by the end of my freshman year, I burned out on the whole perfectionist thing. I was dealing with my own eating disorder issues, academic burn-out, getting hurt by bad boys who broke my heart, and I had no clue about my real self-worth. To top this off, I realized that my desire to be rich was being lead by a fantasy. Hollywood and our culture had built up an illusion which had cost me a fortune in time and financial aid loans to be paid!
As a sophomore, I escaped to Australia to study abroad and heal my body and nervous system that couldn’t handle the late nights and academic stress (like many sensitive people). I spent time in nature, saw dolphins, exotic birds, danced in pubs with crazy Aussies, and studied as little as possible. Bliss became my new fulfillment, and I was determined to live a life of bliss rather than money.
From burnout to bliss to balance
It took me years of spiritual self-healing, and getting to know myself, many countries, many therapists, healers, nutritionists, etc. I got trained as a healer in a dozen different healing techniques and eventually got my PhD in transpersonal counseling because I became so passionate about healing. I opened up to the psychic world, to acupuncture, and energy medicine – it was amazing and held so many answers! But as a healer, I never made any money. I lost money paying for my healing credentials and couldn’t figure out how to make a living off of alternative healing and shamanism.
Not being able to pay rent wasn’t so blissful, and while it was fun using the Law of Attraction to not work hard and just receive abundance through meditation and prayer, it didn’t work well enough to take all the classes I wanted, pay for living expenses, and feel comfortable and safe. So I had to do something…
I started praying for money answers
Before I turned 30, I started using my intuition to heal my money codes. I became determined to blend shamanism and my old desire to become rich (or at least to become financially stable). Angel messages arrived: I was guided to learn about online marketing, got a few spiritual radio/YouTube interviews, and began making YouTube videos.
My intuition and the angels were always my guide, rather than obsessive hard work and logic. I met a few key people who taught me exactly what to do. My prayers were always answered, albeit in divine timing which can seem too late.
Just three years ago, I learned how to turn my passions and gifts into a healing BLI$$ness without being a perfectionist! Steadily I have grown, transformed, and healed my relationship to money and to fitting into a perfect mold.
Sharing my gifts is my BLI$$ today!
I am so excited to help other women through this healing journey of perfectionism, self-judgement, and hating themselves for being “the weaker sex” and trying to prove our worth all the time through sex, money, and beauty. So here I am writing to you, and I hope that you are able to realize that there is a difference between the desire for wealth from the ego space, and the divine desire to express and experience the abundance that you are. Abundance is your divine birthright.
Now, here is the first thing to do if you have always wanted to be rich!
The first thing is to ask yourself Why? Why do you want to be rich? Go wayyyy way back to your childhood. What was happening then that made you decide that you wanted to make money? For me for instance, my busy parents worked a lot and weren’t around, and I noticed that my rich friends often worked less hours and wouldn’t stay in after school as long as I would. So I associated money with the ability to spend time with family, which I hungered for. I also associated money with how cool and happy you were, because of the images on TV, in movies, and portrayed at school by other rich kids. I wanted the best pair of sneakers, vacations, and new toys like any other child. I associated money with love and affection. You probably do too!
Step two is to clear your money codes; remove the feelings of childhood lack
For instance, I associated money with love and affection, and there was never enough of it. I started associating money with a feeling of lack of love and affection. Money had abandoned me, mommy and daddy abandoned me to go to work from 7am-6pm. So I held the association that money is abandonment. In order to break free from my money blocks, I needed to unhook this old money program or BS (belief system) from my consciousness. So, once you identify your feelings of lack associated with money, you can remove them. Imagine whatever dark stuck energy is blocking your money flow from childhood as a gray energy. Then, disconnect this energy from your aura, from your bank account, from your wallet. See a smoky gray energy releasing to the heavens and replace the lack with a golden wave of light.
Next, replace the feelings of lack with feelings of abundance
Posit that this new golden energy represents what you want money to feel like for you. Do you want money to love you? Do you want money to bring you affection? Write a list of attributes you want your money to do for you. Hint, it’s the same list of “Why I want to be rich.”
Finally, take action!
Take action not only to make money, build your BLI$$ness, attract clients. Sure, there’s always that. But most importantly perhaps is to practice bringing in the new energy codes we have reset here from your childhood. So, you have always wanted to be rich, hey? Hopefully now you have taken a deeper look as to what that really means for you and what quality of life money will be bringing you.
Namaste,
Amanda