Follow your money and you will find the Master who holds you at their whim.
As we come to October’s end, we have a chance to reflect on how this month moved through us.
In terms of the finance world, I remember a lot of anticipation at the end of September as people were talking about the October Effect.
For those who are unfamiliar, the October Effect is a phenomenon where everyone anticipates market crashes during these 31 days. The example of many great world crashes including the 1939 depression, all took place in October.
Black Monday 1987, that was a Monday in October.
For anyone outside this phenomenon, it sounds a bit crazy, like when you hear that someone follows and feels the moon and you do not. Certainly a tad superstitious and we may be tempted to roll our eyes at the craziness before us.
As one who does look at the stars and planets to orient myself in my life, the October Effect vibe sort-of checks out for me within and beyond the financial realms.
Financial Seasonality
There are times to spend, times to save, times to reflect on our investment choices, times to dig in and hold our chosen course and times to change.
Back in the day, our choices were determined by everything from changing seasons (harvest versus planting time) to war declarations, to the availability of work and our ability to do the work, among other things.
Today, most of us we are largely ruled by our desires and our choices come from what we don’t have or want. To dig deeper, for many people this means that choices come from fears, lack, poverty, insecurities regardless how how much money they have. This makes sense because unlike the weather, our desires are not seasonal. They are big and the time is now. Being ruled from this place is unsurprisingly problematic.
When I faced this problem in my life, I turned to Seasons for guidance. Not the seasons of weather though; but rather financial seasons that I could start to work with.
I started with Tax Season, which falls in the Spring where I live.
I’ve always hated tax season, even thought I’ve never had to pay any tax. For years it felt like this dreaded time that came every year bringing up great self-judgement within me in addition to feelings of inadequacy, frustration, guilt, lack and even loss.
Good citizen pay taxes and it isn’t that I didn’t want to pay them. I just never saw benefits that correlated to the level of tax levied on citizens.
I took a page out of how famers work with seasons, which is basically, plant seeds in the right season. This is non-revolutionary; but amazingly I didn’t actually practice it.
I figured that if I wanted a pleasant and confident tax season, then I should probably plant the appropriate seeds for it in the appropriate season. I couldn’t do that in the Spring, the day before my taxes were due, that would be too late. So, I gave myself lots of time and chose to do in the Fall, around the time of October Effect.
The way I see it, if I could take some time in October/November to align and prioritize my needs and wants, it was easier for me to re-orient through the holiday season and winter months, making tax season a lot smoother on me and my accountant.
This wasn’t just about budgets and saving; it was also around how my lifestyle would shift in the next few months in alignment to what I wanted to achieve. My desires could ground into goals and the purpose wasn’t to fulfill every goal, but rather engage in a process of learning, understanding and pivoting.
I’ve been doing this for a few years now, and the difference is palpable.
In the now time of Autumn, we get to look at our relationship with wealth (though we can do this in other areas of life as well). We take a snapshot of where we are today, without judgement towards Self, Other or the world and get to know what we have (or do not have), what is coming and going, how we share (or do not share) in our wealth. Themes include but are not limited to:
Questioning our ability to create new income flows, or increase existing ones
Changing our work or living situations, despite being afraid of change or the opinions of others
Pondering what inner power, discipline, self-reliance and integrity look in our inner and outer world
Figuring out how far our currency will take us in the face of rising costs, and pulling in some ingenuity and creativity in the process
Realizing that we may not have a lot of money, but we have help, support, community or an opportunity to lower our expenses by pooling resources
If we share in wealth or business with others, conversations or feelings around our and their relationship with money, contributions may rise. How much of our past fears, guilts or insecurities are ruling these conversations?
Realizing that success to us includes our health and our relationships and choosing to diversity and invest a little more of ourselves in other areas of life.
Maybe because winter is coming, some of us tend to put thought and energy towards sustaining ourselves or simply saving for all the coming holiday season expenses.
If this is coming up for you, then know that this is a great and perfect season to have these conversations and evaluate the relationship to wealth, the diversity of all you're tangible and intangible investments and how wealth will serve you and yours.
Because in the end, money is a wonderful tool for exchange.
What is need not be is a weapon or a torture device.The only power money has in our lives, our decisions, our sufferings and our wins, is what we give it.
If it isn’t coming up for you, I offer that this is a great time to align, prioritize and communicate with the people you love on desires, plans, values, goals and budgets.
I once heard that Jan 20th is one of the most depressing days of the year because it is when the credit card bills from the holiday season come in and that adds to the ‘winter blues’.
The medicine of a little consciousness, awareness and creative effort in this area of life, can do wonders in alleviating stresses caused by wealth and money, shopping and expectations, way before it happens. It’s an amazing way to break some repeated patterns by facing our material realities and the realities of the world.
Me & The World; The World & Me
Today (late October 2022), every major currency is being minted and printed into oblivion. This has been happening for two years.
If this means something to you, then you already know and see the inevitability of this.
If you are unsure what means, pause a bit and awaken your current understanding of prices and value of everyday things you buy and childhood lessons of demand and supply as they relate to price.
Maybe you need to do a little research; more likely, you already know but haven’t realized.
The powers-that-be may weave all sorts of tales to place the blame of this inevitable inflation and beyond, anywhere but on them.
Money is amazing, because there is little else we give so much physical power to in the world.
So much so, it shows us exactly who has power in our lives.
Follow your money and you will find the Master who holds you at their whim.
This is difficult because we are often wrapped in our illusions of freedom, power and sovereignty.
Our money relationship tells us:
Who we give your power to, when it happened and how it happens;
What insecurities, fears and doubts we repeatedly make our decisions from, without realizing it;
It will also show us our relationship with authority and responsibility
If your family finances are determined by people out side your family, it will always feel lacking, helpless, disempowered and deeply frustrating, even desperate. It is a place that many find themselves in today, but have no idea why, because to be this vulnerable makes us susceptible to great trickery.
You and I may not be able to change monetary, fiscal or tax policies of our nations, but we can learn to take charge of personal and community finances, one step at a time.
Once we take our power back in our personal finances, we get to see our place and value in the collective financial world, and realize how small changes impact in big ways.
The first step starts at home.
When we ask ourselves questions about our own values and priorities with money value and finances, we need to allow safe spaces for our desires, insecurities and fears to rise.
This needs to happen because we learn to feel our emotions, not fear them.
Once we feel them, they no longer have power over us, and we get to learn from them.
As we go deeper, we get to sort things out for ourselves and then later, as a family unit. We learn to talk about money from a place of understanding, patience and harmony, versus attacking each other because our insecurities got the better of us.
This is a process, not a static place.
We realize great peace and power in being vulnerable within the Self, so that we come to neutrality with our scary feelings and make decisions from more loving places. This helps us when we need to have certain conversations as well.
Talking to our family is a big next step, because here we see if we can actually articulate the work we have done and the realizations we have had. This is where we learn to see how our fears affect others and theirs affect us. Here, we are humbled as we learn patience, grace, courage to stand in our knowing and be strong enough to be flexible instead of rigid.
Then, we get to take that out into the world and act those changes to pivot our lifestyles, investments and work choices.
Having been here many times in different ways, I can tell you it is absolutely glorious. But do not believe me. Walk it yourself and see!
Once we get more sorted with our personal money matters, we get better equipped to ask these questions of our community and nation’s leaders.
More importantly, we can discern truths from half-truths, and ascertain the impact of policies from a more wholistic lens.
Armed with both our intellect and our intuition we get to stand in our true power and call out the folly of decisions that only serve a few, because we are underwhelmed by poverty mentality and resolute in the face of distraction tactics.
The October Effect may be a time where everyone expects a crash and there is great collective fear. How much we are plugged into that fear and how much we allow it to permeate our knowing, our wealth vibration, our mental and emotional health and our decisions - that is our choice.