CREATING MONEY ADAGES

Unlike money, money adages do “grow on trees.”  They are abundant and your job is to select those that work for you.  If you are comfortable and never worried about your debt, then one money adage might be “seek as much credit as possible.”  If you want to be known as being generous then one adage might be “give away what I don’t use.”  Creating money adages only requires that you determine what pleases you and what makes you comfortable.

With couples, money adages need to be discussed and negotiated.  Just like blurting out what you might like sexually, saying what you want with money can be trying and difficult.  There are two forces at work that inhibit discussion and negotiation.  First, is the fear of being rejected for your (cherished) point-of-view.  Secondly, and this is related to the first and more pernicious, is your desire to be seen as being “right” about money.

It is fairly straightforward to deal with the fear of being rejected.  What lies at the bottom of this fear is not being “heard” by your partner.  Learning to listen to your partner and to draw that person out making sure to repeat what you heard to get the understanding absolutely clear is the key.  It does not require judgment.  Rather you listen with curiosity and demonstrate your understanding.  No guidance or helping hand is necessary.  Just listening and understanding.

How do you give up being “right” about money?  This is a deeply emotional issue for most of us and maybe more so than in sexual matters.  Growing up we were a party to literally hundreds of ways to deal with money from close family members to other relatives, neighbors and our friends and their families.  All that time we were determining what was “best” and therefore what was “right” about handling money.  We do not see money as an individual thing.  We believe there are “right” ways and “wrong” ways to deal with money.  After all, we’ve seen so many examples of “failures” and a few “successes” in our lives.  Instead of being outside ourselves, money matters come from within.

To start to tap what is within us I nudge people to do two things: give up being right and draw your inspiration from a place of abundance.  We don’t usually think of money as being abundant, but it can be.  Yes, we work for a living to feed, clothe and house ourselves and the people close to us, but that isn’t all there is out there.  Abundance doesn’t mean free.  It just suggests that there are ways to have more money pass through us if we choose to pursue more and ways to accumulate it if we so choose.

Abundance also implies stewardship of money so you can do the things money allows you to accomplish.  Stewardship applies to both how you spend money to live now and how you manage or invest it to bring passive income to you in the future.

Finally, how you view and use money changes over time so your adages need to be flexible.  Evaluate how you are meeting your adages every three months or so and then see if they have shifted or changed.  Make modifications, additions or subtractions to your adages as they are discussed and negotiated.  Change is inevitable so anticipate change over time and make it part of your money life together.  At www.thecenterformmarriage we assist you in creating money adages so you can be more at ease with money and in agreement with your spouse.

Where Neglect Comes From

I ain’t got no book learnin’ about psychology and emotional stuff. I only can relate my own experiences, the experiences of friends, the experiences of those who I have worked with and the people I observe from day-to-day. In my own experience of a failed marriage, I can clearly say, “I didn’t see it coming.” In watching other marriages fail, I sensed that these failures, as well as mine, were due to neglect.
I have been “listening” for a few years for neglect in relationships. I had accumulated a jumble of observations that did not reveal to me the nature of neglect and how it works. The pieces came together for me during an Episcopal Church service. The service had a script – God’s Word – and there was no deviation from it. The Word extolled a single system of belief in Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit and the Father.
As I listened to the service, I became aware of my own past penchant to treat the world as deterministic – understandable and predictable, really. I sense that this belief kept me in a trance, listening only for things that I could make understandable and were predictable from a logical thought pattern I had developed.
I developed this way of thinking so I could get to where I was going – a financially successful person, a good parent, with a home, a wife and a stable, calm existence. I was constantly striving to attain this success, I guess because it was so elusive or because I wanted to maintain the appearance of having it all.
As a result of being elsewhere with my thoughts, I was not aware of the things that were happening around me. I was also not open to making changes or even to recognize change as it occurred around me. By focusing on attaining something not in my grasp (yet sure it was within my reach), I was not in touch with others or with myself.
We don’t choose neglect directly. It happens when we are pre-occupied with being something other than what we are. I now have faith that I am, at my core, a perfectly formed person (in God’s image). I can be anywhere and listen to this part of me that was unavailable when I was in a trance. Awakening from trance is a vital part of the work we do at http://www.thecenterformarriage.com/.
I enjoy the uncertainty of life now because I know I don’t know as yet who I am in my fullness and richness. I am more cognizant of the emotional quality of my life as I take action in the various aspects of it. I am learning about my self in relationship with others and in a special, intimate relationship where my fullness of spirit is readily accessed and revealed to me.
Yet, I can back lapse into the trance – as we all can. Life is about remembering and forgetting. When I start listening again, I can notice neglect and be open to all that might be there right in front of my nose whether understandable or not. It brings me to a place of freedom where I get in touch to that God within. It ends when I forget by tricking myself into believing things are predictable. Then I remember to listen.
As I age, the periods of forgetting diminish in length until I see the beauty in life again.

Listening to Your Spouse

Marital therapists often focus on communication styles when couples need some help, but what is most important in doing this work is where you come from when you are speaking and listening. Listening, really listening, requires curiosity. With practice, you can learn to listen with curiosity and to deal with any blaming, judgmental or defensive thoughts that may arise as your spouse speaks to you. Author and spiritual teacher Eckhart Tolle refers to these negative reactions as an unconscious virus eating away at our spirit – our” pain-body.” It is aligned with our “little ego” – the part of our “mind” that developed early in life to protect us from pain. This “mind-pain-body” lurks in all of us and serves to separate us from others, and can interfere with the way we communicate in our relationships.

The first step in effective listening is to become aware of our little ego or mind-pain-body. Spend a few days or weeks noticing how you listen in all your conversations. Continue observing your listening habits until you see the role of your little ego in your listening. Notice what is going through your mind. Are you thinking about the next thing you’ll say? Do you sense some anguish in the speaker and want to make it better? Are you judging the speaker or anyone or anything the speaker is saying to you? Do you conclude there is a clear “right” or “wrong” answer to the situation the speaker is describing as they speak? All these places your mind goes to – interrupting, judging, fixing, evaluating, and many more – arise out of the little ego. It is always working even when someone else is speaking

The result is that you never hear what the other person is saying. You may have an impression of what was said, but it’s only what the little ego wants you to remember. How many times has your spouse admonished you for not hearing what was said? Sometimes there are assumptions and subtle evaluations built into your listening like, “Gee, I’ve heard this before” and “Oh God, I’m in trouble!” Whenever you tap into the vast reservoir of assumptions contained within you, you stop listening. Any time you judge, want to fix or interrupt, evaluate or take sides, you have stopped listening. If you aren’t listening to your spouse, how will you be able to listen to your children, your boss, the news, or a clerk at the grocery store?

It takes practice to get the ego out of the way so you can hear what anyone is saying to you. At first, just become aware of it and practice becoming curious instead. Practice with your spouse, someone who will greatly appreciate your efforts. The most tried and true method of listening is to sit, face-to-face with your spouse and have them tell you about anything, such as what would be their ideal vacation. Let your spouse talk without interrupting them. Then repeat back what they said. Your spouse can then add anything you omitted or correct any misunderstanding you had right then and there. You cannot help but be curious when you need to repeat what someone said back to them.

You may not get the impact of this kind of listening until you reverse places. Have your spouse listen to you and gain understanding of what you think and feel about the same subject. Afterward, notice that you will feel heard, really heard. That’s what went on with your spouse, too. You will also begin to feel safer in saying what is on your mind.

When leading couples in this exercise just to practice the procedure, I notice that the listener often interrupts the speaker (against the instructions) with some type of response prior to the speaker finishing. This can be viewed as an enticement to further revealing your thoughts or a barrier. It can go either way. Avoid any interruption. It’s good practice.

Listening without assuming, fixing, taking sides, judging and evaluating is very hard to do. It is harder the more your mind pain-body controls your life. Become aware of the little ego and consciously move toward curiosity. Listening in this way brings you close to who you really are – a caring, understanding presence in your spouse’s life. Course 1 offered at www.thecenterformarriage.com focuses on listening.