Students learning “HOW TO START YOUR OWN BUSINESS”

My funny picture and I teaching at Pasadena City College

As I drove past traffic on the LA highways, I thought about what the communal energy was. The energy was probably that of stress- “I have to get to work on time, I am stuck in traffic, I have to pay my bills, work sucks, etc”. What if we thought about our work as a conduit of love? What if we actually did what we love out of a pure energy of love…and we refused to compromise our values for money?

Recently, I started teaching yoga and meditation and spoke at 3 different events this month. I taught young teens how to start their own business and I was genuinely shocked by how easy teaching a big group of people was for me. I felt pure love and expansion in my heart for these mere strangers. I thought about how strange it was that even though I was not getting paid for it, my heart felt strong and powerful. I also noticed that as I teach out of pure love of wanting to help others, I have been receiving more monetarily and even getting more opportunities and promotions in life. As you give (through your work), you will receive tenfold! How much you earn is directly proportional to the value you provide to others.

That’s when I realized that pure love makes money flow with ease and grace. Money is not apart from love, actually money is one way in which we can love others and show them that they are worthy of their talents and skills. When our greed and selfishness for gain gets in the way, our relationships are also distorted. Business is crooked because we start to focus more on the money than on the people that we are doing business with. That is why you see very successful people with horrible relationships, but also people who are poor also have jaded values of what money means. Some people think that money is evil. No, it is the greed that is evil. When we place money above people, that is evil.

In my life, I have studied people, finance, spirituality, growth and everything I have ever been interested in. I sold jewelry, taught lessons, did real estate, wrote for newspapers and magazines, improv-ed, appeared on television, was a marketing manager, instructor, musician, artist, business woman..I danced a lot and took all kinds of classes (flamenco, acting, creative writing, german…to name a few).

My goal was to become successful, and I also wanted to help people. At one point, I found myself wanting money more than helping people. My greed got in the way of my heart. I became constricted and fearful that people were going to rip me off. As a previous freelancer I have had many people rip me off. I have designed and created fashion pieces only to have the woman never pay me. I have learned from my mistakes in my lifetime of playing music for weddings and people not pay me a cent (because well, aren’t we friends?). I have experienced injustice towards the young, people taking advantage of interns because they are supposedly inexperienced and are not worth the money.

However, when I lived in fear, I also noticed that business started to dwindle. Whatever energy you feed into, that will expand. What if we lived with an open heart to love and to serve, business will come easily and gracefully. And if it doesn’t? Many times you are being stripped away of all that is distorted and crooked in your heart. Or perhaps you are being the lesson of being, loving yourself first so you can love others.

In having experienced many things in my lifetime, I can say I am more in tune with how it feels to live in fear or love. When you live in fear of “people are going to jip me”, “I won’t have enough for bills this month”, “business stinks”, you will often feel physically constricted. Your neck will hurt, you will become sick, you will experience stomachaches, you will grow angry at the world and some people start to blame everyone around them instead of taking responsibility.

The fact is, you need to know whatever you want needs to be cultivated in your soul first. You must know that you are worthy. You must know that you deserve a certain amount, you must know that everything that needs and wants to be expressed in the external world first begins internally. You must have faith as well. You must keep trusting and believing when times gets tough and your dreams have not come into fruition. You must keep envisioning and believing when there’s no light at the end of the tunnel.

You must also know that the dream is not the end goal, but the journey is… The journey is, the people you walk near and past, the people you love on in that season of life. You experience an abundance of love when you see life as a spiritual path versus an end goal. Yesterday I experienced a flow of genuine love between a friend I have known for 10 years. I felt that our friendship had endured the test of time due to the fact that our friendship has been pure, without manipulation or this guilt tripping of “I give to you so you must give to me”. In giving out of unconditional love (with boundaries of course), we were able to walk through thick and thin.

Over the years, I have learned to forgive easily and to let go gracefully. There are friends you keep and there are friends you must let go of so you can walk towards greater heights.

Work is a conduit of our love. The world is interconnected in all regards. One person’s thoughts create the energy around them. Do you ever wonder why you walk into a room and feel sick to your stomach? Someone has tainted the room with their negativity. You can become an agent of change by remembering to live in love. What does that look like? Search and you will find, continue to read my blog of course 😉 and continue to read, learn, experience what love looks like. I’m here with you in this journey 🙂

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