Your monetary resources will definitely become limited when you first start your career. You will face several responsibilities you’ll need to manage throughout your professional life. As time goes on, you might become worried about your kid’s college expenses and planning for a safe retirement.

A positive outlook and confidence will take you a long way. Life is full of obstacles, and if we lose our faith, we may not achieve our desired goals. So, even in the midst of the COVID pandemic, we should remain enthusiastic about life and our financial wellbeing.

Many people remain unemployed or live on a reduced salary during this crisis. Some people are financially strapped. They receive threatening letters from creditors on top of their everyday problems, or they are getting banished from their social circle because they can’t pay bills. This tension can deplete energy, divert your focus from your job, and negatively influence your judgment.

However, we should strive to enhance our financial wellbeing during this time to cope with the financial stress that the pandemic has imposed. We can improve our financial condition and gain the confidence needed to achieve our goals by following a solid discipline.

A few strategies to avoid financial stress and enhance financial wellbeing are included below.

We must recognize the almost endless cycle of pressure, anxiety, anger, and regret that always appears with the promise that if we follow some branch of negativity, it will lead us back to the source of understanding where we’ll be free at last. In fact, that branch we’re tempted to follow belongs to something that can never complete itself, and that requires our energy to sustain it.

Instead of trying to complete the moment through what anxiety, fear, or anger tell us to do, we must be completely present to those thoughts, completely present to that pain – a pain that promises freedom in a time to come, but is really the continuation of the consciousness that is pain itself because it lives apart from the true Vine and the true life. 

Instead of trying to untie all this experience that seems to be the product of unwanted conditions we try to control, our real task is to sever our relationship on the spot with anything in us that wants to continue trying to free itself in time.

This may sound impossible. We’re concerned about what will happen to us if we don’t serve that master.  We feel stress and anxiety, we wonder what will happen if we don’t do again what has never freed us in the past, but hope may work this time.

Travel can be a sacred act. Many people on the planet are waking up to the idea that true  “pilgrimage” is a tangible possibility. Traveling mindfully is an intentional process, an active rather than passive way of traveling.

Intentional, sacred travel, even, is a process by which we can connect to the deeper meaning of life.

In his The Art of Pilgrimage, Phil Cousineau writes, “The art of pilgrimage is the craft of taking time seriously, elegantly. What every traveler confronts sooner or later is that the way we spend each day of our travel . . . is the way we spend our lives.”

Phil isn’t only a well-read, adventurous author—he’s also one of our veteran tour leaders who’s been crafting expansive journeys with us for many years. 

It’s because of leaders like Phil that we’re reminded of the importance of how to best travel. . . and how to best spend our lives. 

“Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul
And sings the tune without words
And never stops—at all”
—Emily Dickinson

A key component in any transformative life experience, personal or planetary, is hope. Not half-hearted or faint hope, but hope that is steadfast, sturdy, resilient, like that in Emily Dickinson’s poem. Hope within the human soul cannot be extinguished, no matter the hardship or loss. Despite the challenges of life, we humans endure because of that intangible something within us that holds us to life. Yet, there are times when hope seems shaky—as tenuous as a single candle flame wavering in a strong wind. Times such as now, when political discord, a deadly global pandemic, or personal crises erode our belief in a positive outcome. This is when hope is needed most.

In 1958, Francis Crick, co-founder with James Watson of the DNA genetic code, defined the concept referred to as The Central Dogma. This dogma described how the organizing information in biology represented a one-way flow from DNA > RNA > Protein.

The Central Dogma provided the foundation for the principle of Genetic Determinism, the belief that genes “determine” the character and quality of our lives. While I taught this concept to medical students for over a decade, it was only after I left academia that I looked-up the definition of Dogma: A belief based on religious persuasion and not scientific fact. At that moment I realized I had been teaching religion in medical school.

When confronted with the real definition of dogma, Crick responded, “I used the word the way I myself thought about it, not as most of the world does, and simply applied it to a grand hypothesis that, however plausible, had little direct experimental support."

The main point is that The Central Dogma, a hypothesis that was never tested, has been repeated so consistently over the last 60 years that people have bought it to be a scientific fact. This dogma has always been an unverified “suggestion.”

The most powerful person in the world is the person who doesn’t need anything from anyone anymore. That is power. Power isn’t control, rage and intimidation, that’s weakness not power. Power isn’t having everyone in your life being afraid of you. 

Power is not needing anything or anyone in your life. Why? Because you already are everything. There is nothing missing in you. And this is a very different way of living your life. No matter what your circumstance, and how you are living, when you realize you are powerful, because you have the capacity to be peaceful, you are free. In that peace, everything starts to align and work out for you. 

Your need to initiate something is a repetitive cycle or pattern. And, where you are initiating from  is a place of pain . . . you are initiating a relationship dynamic because you are avoiding feeling the pain of being alone. 

Do you want a little extra magic in your life?  Are you seeking a new career and sending off resumes?  Maybe you are applying to your dream college or program of study.  Wherever you are, knowing how to welcome success into your life, by creating a blessing ceremony can help you live abundantly.

I love the magic of ceremonies.  There is something about slowing down and being very intentional with our thoughts and actions, that I find beautiful.  It is almost like weaving love into my thoughts, dreams and actions before I send them off to the Universe.

There are ceremonies for almost anything in life.  You can have a releasing ceremony to help you let go of what is not serving you.  You can create an abundance ceremony when you are struggling with your ability to see abundance.

The list of possible ceremonies is endless, but today we will focus on a blessing ceremony.

I am in the final stages of putting together a book proposal.  This has not been a solo journey.  My editor has helped me.  I also rely on another person to make it look great and to put everything in one file.

My Guides, Angels, Universe and ancestors are also helping me. It is in recognizing the unseen, that I will create a blessing ceremony and make the send off of my book proposal a sacred event.

I am being very intentional on what I am bringing into my blessing ceremony.  Keep reading and discover some possible choices you might include in your next blessing ceremony.

Before you begin planning your ceremony, be very clear with your intention.  Also remember that in the ceremony we are offering our desires to the Universe.  We have no control in how they will manifest.  However, we know it will be for our highest good.

One more important aspect, all ceremonies should be held in the space of love and light.