The Abundant Universe with Michelle Medrano

[00:00:01] This is Josh Reeves and you're listening to the Mile Hi Church Podcast. Labor Day weekend, Zamira, Jackie, and myself are facilitating a meditation and prayer retreat. It's about meditation and solitude, but it's just as much about connection and community. We'll be creating a space of healing, introspection, and inner joy and fun. So consider joining us, learn more about this and all sorts of stuff at milehighchurch.org. I love that today we're talking about abundance.

[00:00:29] We're continuing our conversation on abundance on a day, as Reverend Rama said, that in this hemisphere is the longest day of the year. Lots of daylight. So you have lots of time to reflect on what we're going to talk about here today, which is good. The more light we can bring to this subject, the better. And of course, Father's Day, a day to honor dads. I'm very blessed. I got a new dad this

[00:00:53] year as my almost 80-year-old mother got married a few months ago. Yes. So I'm very honored to have a new father, Roland Tomsic, a beautiful man, has wonderful children in his life, and my brother and I get to be counted amongst them. So it's a beautiful blessing. And I always like to remind us all that even if you're not a dad and you don't think there's anything to celebrate, we all have a dad somewhere.

[00:01:21] So here's what we get to celebrate. I think if we're wise, no matter what our relationship with our father has been or is, this is a day where every one of us as children of a father somewhere get to reflect upon and deepen the healing journey of what it means to be that child of that person.

[00:01:44] That might mean it's a deeper time for reflection and forgiveness, a letting go, of grieving if we need to grieve, of feeling the sadness of that loss, whatever it might be. But Father's Day has something for all of us if we're willing to take it and receive it. As does this conversation about abundance. We started it last week. Last week, this is the second part of my series, An Abundant Universe.

[00:02:10] And we talked last week about the dance of abundance and about the moves of abundance being like a dance that we could take on. And today we're talking about money specifically, one channel, one form of abundance. There are lots of forms of abundance as I talked about last week, but we're leaning in specifically today to money. I want to say if you knew that and you came to church

[00:02:35] anyway, congratulations. Sometimes people don't like to talk about money. We're resistant to it. And some of you might now, if you didn't know, that's what I was talking about, might be like wanting to run or thinking I'm going to ask you for money. I want you to say until the, to know, until the offering, I'm not going to ask you for money. I think that money is a very important topic and we don't talk about it much here from this platform on Sundays. We usually like to say about

[00:03:04] once a year, we want to pause and invite us all to evolve our relationship with our financial life, that this is important for us to do because of what we believe here and what we teach here. And because I know that just like that song, most of us do have a million dreams of the world we'd like to make. I know for me, the world I like to make is enough money for everyone. I'd like to make a

[00:03:33] world where there's more than enough of good. And we may not think that we have a part in that, but each one of us does because every time one of us cracks this nut, if you will, of choosing to rise above beliefs and ideas of lack and limitation into the true nature of abundance with regard to any topic and especially with regard to money, where we become less defended, less shameful, less fearful

[00:04:02] about money, we make the way for every other citizen on this planet to be able to rise up into it. What I know for sure is you and I are doing no good to anybody by continuing to practice practices and thoughts and energy of lack and limitation about any topic and especially about money. If we want a more abundant planet, if we want a more abundant country, if we want a more abundant family, if we want a more

[00:04:31] abundant life, we've got to confront ourselves around our limited ideas about money. And we've got to be willing to heal and evolve. My favorite quote from Ernest Holmes has to do with life moving through us and flowing through us and looking at all of the factors that might be contributing to that. I

[00:04:59] mentioned, of course, as we've been talking all day, it's Father's Day. And a lot of times I'm going to talk up the end of my talk about the influence that family can have on us, the old ideas that we bring forth and ideas that fathers can give us. I heard this cute little story about Betsy and Billy. And Betsy was trying to teach Billy more about math. And so she says to Billy, okay, so now if you have

[00:05:21] two dollars and your father give, you ask your father for two more dollars, how much will you have? And Billy says, two dollars. And she says, Billy, I don't think you know your math. And he says, I don't think you know my father. Some of us might have had those kind of feelings. And we're going to talk about that. But what is really important is to understand how this universe works. Of course,

[00:05:50] a basic teaching, Ernest Holmes, founder, one of my favorite quotes. Holmes says to us, God can only do for us what it can do through us. God can only do for us what it can do through us.

[00:06:14] Now many of us who practice this teaching, who participate here at Mile High Church regularly, who are practitioners, who are budding metaphysicians, who are spiritual, believe that to our core. However, what we tend to practice when it comes to money is that God or life or the government or the

[00:06:42] economy is doing something to us. And Holmes in this quote is saying, uh-uh, life can't do anything to us. It can only do through us. Therefore, what matters in any subject to change or create more,

[00:07:07] what matters is looking at what is inside of me in terms of my beliefs, my ideas, my decisions, my pains, my successes, my failures, my ideas about myself, about the world, so that I can change my consciousness, my ideas about what's possible, my beliefs about myself, so that when it comes to this

[00:07:36] topic or any other topic that is important to me, I'm paying attention to what life is doing through me, not to me. Indeed, I would even suggest to us that though the great, great psychologist Maslow said that there's a hierarchy of needs that humans have that includes shelter and food and water and things

[00:08:02] like that, there's a whole list, that little thing he created, I would say that the greatest hierarchy, the hierarchy of needs doesn't really start with any of that. It starts with consciousness. It starts with belief systems. It starts with attitudes. It starts with what's healed or unhealed inside of us. And when it comes to meeting the needs and the desires of our life, we must start here. And where we're tempted to start

[00:08:31] is in the world of form. What can I get? How much can I make? What can I do? How can I create? How can I influence? What can I do to manipulate the world so I can have more money? And that's fun. I'm not saying that's not fun. I'm not saying we don't do any of that. But what I am saying is where we start, where we

[00:08:52] know that this process begins is within. Even when it comes to money. God, life, abundance can only do for us what it can do through us. Consciousness is everything. It's not just, yeah, that's important.

[00:09:21] It's everything. And we must begin here. It eludes us sometimes because we get so caught up in the shiny objects and the fun things. But it's important. Years ago, when I was a practitioner here, I was working with a woman to do prayer work for her. And she first came to me and said, every month at the end of the month, I'm about

[00:09:46] $100 short. She said, could you please do prayer work for me to manifest that shortage, that $100? And I said, well, yeah, I can do that. And then we talked a little bit about her belief systems and what might be happening there. And then I said to her, you know, there's a way that we can be with

[00:10:10] abundance where we could work on shifting your abundance consciousness so that you just have a consciousness that whatever is needed is provided. Would you be interested in that? And she got really quiet. And then she said, no, I just want the $100. Oh, okay. I said, okay, I'm, I'm a practitioner,

[00:10:34] prayer partner. That's fine. We'll go with what your desire is. So we did the prayer work. Work. She went on her happy way. She came back a month later and she said, it worked. I manifested the $100. And she told me the wonderful story about the amazing way it manifested in her life. And she was so happy. And then she said, can we do it again? Sure, sure. So I prayed again. This went on for a

[00:11:01] few months, tell you, you know, mind you, she, she just kept coming back and the $100 just kept showing up. And finally, I think it was about four months or so. In the fourth month, she came in to see me to do the prayer. And then she said, now tell me that thing you said about abundance consciousness again. What was that? We talked about it. She became open to that bigger prayer. She became open to that

[00:11:26] bigger work, to that deeper look. And I never saw her again. And I know why it's because it worked. And she no longer needed that once a month, $100, small potatoes. She expanded into a greater consciousness so that all that was needed was provided. That's what I'm talking about. You and

[00:11:52] I may be tempted at times due to fear, to small thinking, to focus on, I just need that $100. And I get it. It happens. And I'm talking today and inviting us today to look at money as a substance of God,

[00:12:12] as an expression of the divine, as a, a expression that is in alignment with our beingness and that we can, we can change our experience of money by doing two key things that we talk about here. Cleaning up the places where we're caught up in lack and limitation and pain and, and disappointment.

[00:12:39] Cleaning it up, forgiving, letting go, moving on, healing, healing, healing, and embracing the notion that I'm in constant cooperation with the divine presence such that I am a place where good flows through me into my world. A new design for money. It's an important design. And I've brought three

[00:13:09] R's today that I think can help us with this. The three R's are reverence, responsibility, and release. Now reverence isn't about worshiping. We are not talking here. Some people think that this new thought movement, this religious science movement is all about worshiping money, that we worship money somehow. No, it's not about worshiping it. It's about living in balance and

[00:13:38] harmony with it and believing that there's more than enough for everyone. And that I am placing myself in consciousness in a way such that I am making myself available for it to be expressed. And that with reverence comes a healthy respect, comes a healthy understanding of the flow and how this works.

[00:14:02] Money is current. It flows. And so I am allowing myself to be in reverence and honor. I am telling myself and reminding myself that money is not some dirty substance that's been touched by a billion people. It is a holy substance that I make myself available for through my work, through the work that I do,

[00:14:28] that it's an expression of the divine, and that I'm available to it, and I'm available for it, and that I choose out of reverence to do the holy sacred work of living my life utilizing the beautiful tool of God as money for myself and for the benefit of others. And that that's a healthy sense of reverence

[00:14:54] around money, that I learn to have respect for it. I don't treat it as though it doesn't bless me. I don't treat it as though it's not a blessing, that I see that there are many channels. This is an important element of it, that when I understand and have a healthy reverence, I also don't myopically

[00:15:18] focus on one channel. I don't chase after it like, my job is my source and they better give me a raise for gosh sakes. No, I understand that I would prefer to be paid more for what I do. And there are so many channels through which this good can come. There are limitless channels of money. This is one of the ways we lose our sense of reverence is that we get caught up in my investments are the source of my

[00:15:45] money. My job is the source of my money. My ex spouse is the source of my money. My aunt Matilda is the source of my money. And if the source runs dry, I'm in trouble versus developing a healthy reverence for money and the channels through which it comes that are multiple channels, multiple channels that I can

[00:16:10] understand and be available for all of the channels of good that come. And therefore, then I experience great surprises and synchronicities and a feeling of being in the current, in the flow, making myself available. That's reverence. Responsibility then is that I am a conscious and conscientious steward

[00:16:34] of that which does flow into my life. I don't just take it lightly or treat it lightly. I am grateful for that which comes my way. I take responsibility for it and understand and give myself credit. I'm so grateful that my consciousness was open enough to allow that good to come my way. I'm so blessed

[00:17:00] and I see my blessings. I'm conscious and awake to the financial good that comes to me. We talk a lot in the abundance classes that I am blessed to teach here about avoiding something I call intuitive banking, where I just kind of guess how much money I have maybe. I don't really like to look at it. I don't

[00:17:22] like to look at it. It's so depressing. No, if I am in reverence and responsibility, I look right at what I have. I look at my bank accounts, not obsessively, but I know what's there. I know what's in my savings accounts. I know how much debt I have. I know, and I choose to be responsible. Sometimes our fear and

[00:17:48] our shame cause us to look away, but someone who is spiritually courageous around money can look right at it and say, I know what's here. I know what I've got. I know what I don't got. I know what I'm choosing to create. I've got a million dreams of the life that I want to make. And I know that being informed and awake and conscious is part of how I choose to be responsible. This is important for me

[00:18:18] to move forward in responsibility. I also think that a person who especially is spiritually responsible takes time and is willing to pray about their finances. I've gone to my practitioner about my finances, my prayer partner about my finances to increase or to have wisdom or clarity. I pray before

[00:18:44] we pay bills. Oh my God, do I pray before we do taxes? We pray before we do budgeting. We pray before we plan. We get ourselves centered. So we don't go into those experiences like, oh God, I got to do this again. I got to pay the bills again. I send the money out when I pay the bills with joy and gratitude.

[00:19:09] I talk a lot in the abundance classes about, I pay the electric bill and I'm so grateful because you know, I kind of like electricity. It really, it works for me. So I'm really grateful that I get to pay. I like my car. I'm so grateful that I get to have this beautiful, I like my house, that mortgage payment,

[00:19:30] that rent. It means I have a roof over my head. I don't take it for granted. I'm present to it. I see it. I celebrate it. I acknowledge it. I'm responsible for it. And then release. I allow myself to be in the flow. I allow myself to circulate financial good through these different ways that I

[00:19:59] might pay bills or pay for things or gift people or share in, in giving money away in certain instances. And so I'm in the flow. I allow myself to release it. I allow myself to circulate it. I allow myself to be in that process and to understand, see, this is one of the things that happens that people don't circulate. They spend and then they're afraid because they spent it. And if I spent it, that means it's

[00:20:29] gone. But a person who understands that they're in the flow can circulate because they can say to themselves, there's more where that came from. There's more where that came from. I'm in the flow. I'm in the flow. I gladly and willingly surrender and circulate this good. One of the ways that we do that here a lot at Mile High in classes, some of you've probably experienced it, is through our

[00:20:57] unexpected income club. This is one of my favorite things we do in classes. We make it available. No one has to do it, but they're welcome to do it, to join the unexpected income club. And what that means is that when unexpected good comes our way, we give back from it. So if someone pays for your coffee or if someone buys you lunch or you get a rebate or something that was unexpected, you give

[00:21:22] from that into life. You might share it with someone you love or an organization that you love or a charity that you love. You might circulate, but it's a way to really be in the flow of that unexpected good and to celebrate it and be in joy about it. And so we have a wonderful stewardship team here at Mile High. We're going to start making that unexpected income available for anybody and finding ways to

[00:21:47] celebrate it and honor it and be a part of it because it's such a beautiful practice of circulating and just releasing and letting go in love and joy. So those are the three R's. And the last one is the one that I promised earlier. It's the one that has to do with healing the hidden layer. The hidden layer

[00:22:12] is that if we are struggling in any realm of our life and we don't feel we have enough or it's been challenging or we can't quite get in the flow, what we learn to do here is to go within and say, what's hindering the flow? And it could be some old belief. We all had parents and caregivers and

[00:22:35] adults around us who modeled for us, not only how they behaved, but I think children are little sponges that absorb our energy. And so when we do what we do, how we do it matters. I suspect if we really think about it, most of us would say, well, my mother and father always seem to have enough money, but I could sense the tension. Every time my mother wanted to buy a new purse or every time it was time to go buy the

[00:23:05] groceries, I could feel the tension. Well, that tension that we might've felt and taken on can be present even now, no matter how old we are, as we approach our own money life. And so what we get to look at and what we get to work on, again, this is in any subject in our life. What we teach here is we get to look at who do we need to let go of? Who do we need to forgive? Who do we need to heal

[00:23:33] our relationship with so that we can experience greater abundance or greater good in our life? And sometimes it's simply that someone showed us a way or modeled a way of being that despite our best efforts, we are just naturally duplicating in our life. And the work, the holy sacred work

[00:23:54] of letting it go can be done so that we can be a greater, more open channel for that good. That can look like our inherited beliefs. It can look like releasing fear, fear of loss. Maybe we saw somebody struggle their whole life. A key person struggled with money. And so we would say, what's your definition of money? Oh, it's struggle. It's hard. You got to work hard to get more money.

[00:24:23] But I know people who haven't worked very hard and they got a lot of money. That isn't always necessarily so. We might have guilt or shame about wanting money. That can plague some of us very spiritual people. It's not spiritual to want money. Who would ever say it's not spiritual to want food or

[00:24:47] to want to succeed or to want to fulfill our dreams. We wouldn't say that. There's nothing that says it's not spiritual. If everything is God, everything is spiritual. Money is spiritual. Money is God in form. So we get to dance with that conflict possibly. And a big one is our identity. Some of us have built

[00:25:11] identities around who we are, who we think we should be, or we compare ourselves to other people in ways where we lose out. And when we look within and begin to see those belief systems about money, and we can challenge those and say to ourselves, I don't need to be anybody but me. I need to find my way. And maybe my way isn't to be a millionaire. Maybe my way is to have all that I need when I need it.

[00:25:40] That feels good. Finding our way in our money life is important. Not comparing ourselves or contrasting ourselves to anyone, but finding our way. Not being beholden to what our parents decided. Some people, I remember reading from a book, have what they call an upper limit problem. An up, an upper limit problem.

[00:26:09] Just an underlying, I shouldn't ever make more than my father made. Because that's disrespectful. Sometimes a belief like that, that just kind of is a hidden layer. We get to explore those and confront those lovingly and heal those while we're building this consciousness of abundance. Sometimes we're just not reacting to money itself. We're reacting to everything we were taught

[00:26:38] and believed about money. And we get to look at that. So here are some affirmations that I would offer us in closing about finances. We partner with money. Spirit is my source and money is one of its expressions. Money, my good is bigger than any one channel. I am in relationship with the flow.

[00:27:07] These are some things that we can take on and say to ourselves because all of us can stand in the joy of abundant living through every way, including money. So this week I encourage us to do that work, to notice how we are, to pay attention to how we're being with our money and to flow and flow and let it

[00:27:31] all go. Let go of the stuff that limits us. Let go of the belief systems that keep us playing small and stand in that flow of the good that God is. God can only do for us what it can do through us. Be a channel for good. Let us pray together now. I invite our practitioner prayer partners to stand with me in this prayer and remind us all that afterwards they are available for us to come down

[00:27:57] front and do some prayer work for any subject, including our money life. We give thanks for the good that flows to us, through us, and as us now we allow ourselves to celebrate it, to be present to it, to stand and witness of it. We see that God is all there is, including this holy sacred experience of money, of the good that flows through our life and through the life that we share with all other

[00:28:25] humans everywhere called our money life. We allow ourselves to feel this holy sacred awareness and be at one with it right here and right now, knowing that we are in the flow of that good. We choose it, we claim it, we proclaim to ourselves that we are in that flow and that our expression of our money

[00:28:50] life continues to expand and be uplifted because we are loved just as we are, because we are revered just as we are, and therefore we allow ourselves to be in the flow of love and reverence with regards to every subject, everything, including this beautiful tool called money. We are blessed, we are blessed, and in gratitude I simply let this go and let this be, knowing it is done as it has been spoken,

[00:29:18] and so it is. Amen. Thanks for listening to the Mile High Church podcast. This podcast is made possible by the generous contributions from listeners like you. To make a donation, please visit milehighchurch.org.