Soul Currency
Investing Your Inner Wealth for Fulfillment & AbundanceArchive for Excerpts
Converting Counterfeit Currency into Soul Currency
Changing your thinking takes awareness, because negativity is deeply ingrained. But it is possible to convert counterfeit currency into spiritual capital. Here’s how. Begin each day by resolving to be the advocate for your strengths and dreams. Do this conscientiously without allowing judgment from your Committee. At every opportunity when your subconscious wants to lapse into lack and limitation, write down what you have to be thankful about. In the beginning be conscious of doing this every hour, even if you are not actively thinking about your beliefs of lack or limitation. After a few days, what you notice will begin to change.
You will be noticeably happier and more peaceful because you are connected to your “greater self” that is not focused just on you but is inclusive of all of life. Your thoughts of gratitude will gradually shift to “being” rather than having. Your horizon will change from “the right in front of you” view to a broader connection with the creative flow of love in a distinctly non-material way. This is the expression of you as both the Creator and the participant.
Soon you will become aware any time you lapse back into a negative focus on limitation, judgment, and unworthiness. If you are fantasizing about a negative outcome, immediately stop and change the thought by giving it a positive outcome. If you are awaiting an important yes or no decision, focus on a “yes” outcome, rather than thinking of all the possible reasons why you could be turned down. If you look at something in a store window and your first reaction is, “I can’t afford this,” change the thought to, “I create the prosperity to buy this and more.”
Perhaps you grew up believing in some form of the adage: “Hope for the best, expect the worst, and take what comes.” You now have the opportunity to transform this limiting belief and embrace a new, brighter guiding principle: “Envision love as an unstoppable force that creates great outcomes, be unattached to how your results look, and see only good.”
(Excerpted from Soul Currency. © 2007 Ernest D. Chu. All Rights Reserved.)
Connecting with the Collective Consciousness
Being conscious of the oneness of all things-and our own role as a member of the whole-enables us to strengthen our social networks while affirming our participation in the flow of love. Connection opens the heart to the “greater self.” It helps us transcend our self-cherishing consciousness and move in the direction of service to the greater good. When we perceive life as unity, life in turn supports us-and sometimes in the most unexpected ways.
The power of collective consciousness transcends corporate boundaries, and manmade obstacles. Don Tapscott and Anthony Williams, authors of Wikinomics, begin their book with a story of a publicly held Canadian gold mining company that was concerned that its gold reserves would be depleted. The company was faced with the expensive and uncertain proposition of investing large amounts into exploration. But the CEO was considering another way, offering a program of collaboration and tapping into the expertise and experience of others, including possible competitors. The only problem was that he would have to open up much of the data on all their properties, which every gold mining company guarded jealously.
The CEO did the unthinkable: He put all the data up on the Internet with an offer that if anyone came up forth with a well documented proposition of where to drill on their properties, the company would share the revenues if they were successful. Instead of getting a lot of crank propositions, nearly 80 percent of the many responses they received eventually led to commercial discoveries. The company, instead of having declining reserves, nearly tripled its reserves in a relatively short period at a fraction of what they would have spent for exploration.
By seeing the power of connecting and co-creating with stakeholders, the old paradigm of “win-lose” has given way to collaboration and cooperation in many industries. For example, the communications and computer industry has benefited from doing collaborative research to set industry protocols for data, voice, and video transmission. Chipmakers are collaborating on new technologies that use light as a connector to make chips smaller and faster. The television and display industry has been able to introduce vastly improved products at lower costs through collaboration. Doing the “unthinkable,” such as sharing development costs with traditional bitter industry rivals, has had the effect of expanding the market faster for everyone involved.
(Excerpted from Soul Currency. © 2007 Ernest D. Chu. All Rights Reserved.)
Be Willing to Play Big
The world is waiting for you to think “big” and emerge through your adventureprise as a full-blown adventurepreneur. As Marianne Williamson so aptly puts it, “Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone.”
Nor does your playing small allow you to soar from the self-cherishing enterprise of life to adventureprise, the enterprise of the soul. If you choose to stay in the comfort zone of fear, rather than embracing the occasional discomfort of change and empowerment, your life will look, feel, and be a series of “could haves” or “might have beens.”
More importantly, if your life has always been about “chasing dollars” or taking on two jobs in order to make ends meet, the greatest gift you can give yourself is the permission to break out of that cycle by developing talents and interests that truly call you to action. Seek to understand your unique spiritual assets. Open to receive a flow of support. Then the business of adventureprise will take care of the adventureprise in your business.
Few single things you do will ever change the world. But many things you do will change your world. Since you are an important piece of the fabric of life, your adventureprise and your world is important to both the present and the future world of spiritual consciousness.
(Excerpted from Soul Currency. © 2007 Ernest D. Chu. All Rights Reserved.)
Love leads to Prosperity
Love and forgiveness of both yourself and others is the requisite for fulfilled living and prosperity. You are constantly in the flow of energy. Any thoughts of fear, resentment, and anger, vengefulness, or unworthiness repel the very energy that circulates goodness. In the presence of these types of thoughts, the energy of creative flow takes a detour, moving around you instead of through you.
The Infinite Intelligence is always moving us to become more than we are and to open up to love. Our souls are always creating gentle taps on our shoulders to love ourselves and to recognize, in each moment, how to express Spirit. Part of the secret of the journey is to be able to live in the mystery. There is an urgency within us that is so insistent that we often co-create circumstances where the need to love ourselves becomes too loud to ignore.
If you’re not feeling as prosperous as you’d like, remember that prosperity and love are integrated. You can walk through either doorway and end up in the same room. Your discomfort could be your spiritual wakeup call. For some people it is easier to understand love than money, so they seek to connect with love. In most cases, people find it easier to start with the outward symbols of prosperity-and then learn to work with spiritual equivalents of those symbols and in the process discover love.
(Excerpted from Soul Currency. © 2007 Ernest D. Chu. All Rights Reserved.)
Launch Your Intentions
How can you launch an actual intention? Writing it down on a small piece of paper that you can tuck into your wallet and carry around with you is one way. The written word is very powerful, especially if you go back and read it afterwards. Hanging a list of affirmations pertaining to your intention in a place where you’ll see them frequently, such as on the bathroom mirror or on the door of the refrigerator, also keeps your mind focused on the end result. Some examples are: “My inner wealth blossoms now,” “I am grateful for receiving more and more good each day,” and “I attract only love and prosperity.”
Saying your affirmations aloud while looking in the mirror is a technique that compels more of your brain to participate in grounding an intention in reality. We all have stronger and weaker senses, so taking advantage of the power of all our physical senses to make us believe in the possibility of a goal being realized is important. We benefit from thinking it, hearing it, and seeing it-even feeling it-as real. Many highly visual people find the creation of treasure maps or dream posters-collages of inspiring words and pictures clipped from magazines-useful in focusing. Every time you cast your eyes upon your artwork, it will remind you of your intention.
Being conscious about your intention in quiet moments during the day, and entering your thoughts and feelings about your intention in a journal are two more ways to invest your focus and love in the preferred outcome.
(Excerpted from Soul Currency. © 2007 Ernest D. Chu. All Rights Reserved.)
Focus on Your Intentions
The great American business philosopher, Jim Rohn once said, “Pay attention. Don’t just stagger through the day.” Try making a choice to focus upon one intention for a couple of days and see what happens in your life. Many of the students in my abundance course get excited when they discover that virtually everything they do, everyone that they meet, and everything that they learn seems to apply to their intentions when they test their focus in this way.
Focus is like having a conversation with Spirit, as it opens up a two-way channel of creative energy and intuitive listening. The trick-if you can call it that-is taking the messages you receive seriously. Look around you. There are many examples of how focus guides the lives of people you know.
For a moment, allow yourself to reflect upon occasions when you got caught up in an activity and perhaps lost a sense of time passing. What were you doing that captivated you? Are you capable of focusing on specific tasks for reasonable periods of time? Focusing on a specific intention even for short periods of time every day-perhaps as few as ten minutes-anchors that intention in our subconscious mind. This is the area of our mental and emotional activity that pursues (or resists) what we desire. Your focus is the fuel that propels your dreams forward.
(Excerpted from Soul Currency. © 2007 Ernest D. Chu. All Rights Reserved.)
Focus is a Spiritual Asset
The field of intentionality is why goal setting processes work in life and in business, and why on a particular occasion you may recall asserting, “When I really make up my mind that I want something, I get it!” But even the greatest intentions go nowhere unless they are activated by focus, because the field is responsive. It requires clear instructions to take a particular form.
The energy of the universe is pure potential, except when there is a thought. Focusing on a thought starts a reorganizing process in the field of intentionality that we share in common. Most startling is that, despite the multiplicity of the trillions of thoughts of the billions of people on Earth, our focused thoughts create order out of the seeming chaos. How can the universe support everyone’s intentions at the same time? Because everyone and everything is part of a unified energy field, which is inter-dimensional, aware, and responsive to thought.
Focus is a spiritual asset. We often call it by other names: determination, attention, commitment, concentration, single-mindedness, and obsession are among them. These names speak to the degree of the focus that we are bringing to bear on the needs of the moment.
(Excerpted from Soul Currency. © 2007 Ernest D. Chu. All Rights Reserved.)
Choose to Connect to Love
Living in the flow of soul currency is not simply an act of faith; it involves a synergy of purpose and intention. Flow is living from a sense of grand sufficiency, but it is not about having. It is about connecting to, and being the source energy of the universe: love. The greatest rewards come to us when we function as an integral element in Spirit’s circulatory system.
The ability to focus is one such reward. Mindfulness is easier in an environment of support and love, such as being around people who are positive, empowering, and cheerful-especially friends and family. Set your intention to be loved and supported. You will find that difficult people begin to drop away.
Our health is also affected by choosing to connect with love’s flow. Recently, The Institute of HeartMath conducted extensive research showing that good health starts with love and that love can reduce stress.The Institute has clients that include companies such as Hewlett Packard, Shell, Unilever, Cisco Systems, and Boeing. They have developed a consistent track record helping managers and employees to decrease stress and increase joy in their lives and work. Their research shows that quick, simple exercises, such as re-imagining a cherished memory, can significantly improve your health when done on a regular basis.
(Excerpted from Soul Currency. © 2007 Ernest D. Chu. All Rights Reserved.)
The Fortune in Front of You
Often people take spiritual assets for granted. Even in regard to the assets they appreciate, they undervalue what they have. You fall into this category if you are aware of your potential, and yet have learned to live as if you had no part in creating your life. Do you tend to focus on what you don’t have, rather than what’s inside you waiting to emerge? Do you judge yourself harshly when you “screw up,” and almost never pat yourself on the back when you do hundreds of little things right each day? Do you have moments when you wonder if you are good enough to be deserving of success and love? If so, then this message is especially important for you.
Almost everyone has heard some version of Russell Conwell’s story of the South Asian farmer who ignorantly tossed aside many of the black stones he encountered in the soil on his property as he scratched out a living. After many years, he finally sold his farm in order to seek his fortune elsewhere. Little did he know that the black stones that peppered his fields and streambeds and that he considered a nuisance were actually raw diamonds. These acres of diamonds ultimately became the famous Galconda Diamond Mine, one of the richest mines ever, and producer of such crown jewels as the stunning Kohinoor diamond of England and the fabulous Orlov diamond of Russia.
“If only he were more observant he’d have become wildly wealthy,” may have been your first reaction to this tale. Indeed, that’s the lesson for everyone. Look carefully. You have your own acres of diamonds within you. Your spiritual assets are legion. Like the farmer did with the black stones, you may be paying more attention to the superficial appearance of what your life holds, rather than the truth that you have everything within you that seems “missing” to enable you to create wealth, happiness, fulfilling relationships, and more.
(Excerpted from Soul Currency. © 2007 Ernest D. Chu. All Rights Reserved.)
Struggle v. Challenge
People commonly mistake struggle for the nobility of rising to meet a challenge. But there is a distinct difference. While in wrestling with your challenges, although you may feel at times like you are struggling, in taking on any challenge for real you gain energy that is expansive and life giving. Overcoming a challenge transforms us and rewards us with a sense of accomplishment. Struggling drains our energy because it is pointless. It robs us of life giving purpose. Struggle feels like drowning or spinning your wheels in deep mud.
Your true nobility lies in diligently overcoming your challenges. Challenge is the soul’s call to bring out your deepest spiritual assets and put them to work. Struggle taps your liabilities and is a counterfeit currency. It keeps you stuck in fear, unwilling to move forward, or prompts you to take steps backward. Meeting challenges requires you to find renewed courage and fresh creativity when you thought you already reached your limit. Challenge is the triumph of the soul. It fashions the sword of your character like the finest steel forged in the hottest flame. Struggle, at its best, is series of small victories for the ego. Struggle focuses on the flame, rather than on the malleable steel.
There is inspiration all around us for how we may rise to meet our personal challenges. An armless man in Florida owns a landscaping business, handles a chain saw with his feet, and also regularly loads and drives a truck. Another armless man is a musician. He inspires people with the beautiful music he creates by playing a guitar with his teeth and feet. If these two gentlemen can overcome their mutual challenge to build successful careers and generate income, what fearful beliefs must they have downsized to do so? You too can make the decision to “downsize” the beliefs that interfere with your purpose, abundance and love.
(Excerpted from Soul Currency. © 2007 Ernest D. Chu. All Rights Reserved.)
