Your wealth is not your bank statement

The title of my column this week is an axiom of Carl Jung – the father of analytical psychology.

I came across it just before sitting to write and it could not have come at a better time. You see I found myself in observation mode, detaching somewhat to truly examine my life – you know…what I’m doing and how I’m doing it.

I had a stiff neck that wouldn’t quit, and felt that lately I had become very serious with a worried look on my face for the duration of most of my days.

Where was my happiness? Where was my joy? Is it that my life had become a never ending to do list reminding me of a lack of accomplishment and all that was missing in my life?

It was clear to me as I detached from my routine that what I was doing was no longer working for me. Upon examination, I realised that I had been subsumed into a way of being that really wasn’t my own. All these rules and regulations about how to be, what to do when, what time to wake up, what time to exercise had exorcised Giselle completely out of the equation. I no longer had any skin in the game. I was operating on auto pilot for so long that I had forgotten who I was. I was allowing Guru Tom and Expert Jane to tell me what I should do and how I should do it, but on my own, I had no clue as to what Giselle wanted.

I had become so far adrift from my core, no wonder I felt so lifeless, joyless and unhappy.

Then this perspective by Jung shows up on my doorstep.

What have I not yet faced?

Well for certain all those dragons that loom in the darkness within, of unworthiness and not being enough, not deserving, feelings of inadequacy and incompetence; voices of well and not so well-meaning folks who have spoken into my life at one time or another and I believed them because I thought of myself as less than and that they “had it together so they should know” and before long I had drunk the kool-aid and believed.

What I have discovered is that there aren’t just dragons in the darkness of my being, there are treasures too.

We have over a period of time learned to equate wealth to money. This has thrown many of us out of the game of life, feeling like we could never win. Your wealth is not your bank statement. Your wealth is what you’re left with when you lose all your money.

Within you lies that part of you that knows instinctively what to do and how to be. Within you lies the path that you need to follow. Many of us are operating at a fraction of our true potential because we are not following our natural path so life continues to feel like “hard to get.”

The Tao Te Ching’s 19th verse reminds us that we aren’t saintly because we follow the teachings of organised religion; that we should change our view of self-importance because of degrees we’ve received from educational institutions.

Each of us has a game that is most suited to our own natural habits and talents (our true wealth), and no one can tell you what that is. The answers to how you need to play your game will only come from you.

What you need right now is not another course or book. What you need is clarity in determining your personal path of least resistance to wealth creation, how you need to apply yourself, when you should take action and more importantly, when you should not.

This comes, believe it or not, from trial and error. From taking action and reviewing those actions regularly to determine if we are attracting what we want or pushing it away.

In those critical moments of our lives, our instincts count the most. At those times we cannot rely on our intellectual learning to guide us.

When we are not following our path it would feel like hard work. If what you are doing is no longer working then that’s a clue telling you that you need to change your path.

You will know when you are following your path because it would not feel like hard work. It will come naturally. The longer you accept, embrace and follow, the more naturally your game will evolve.

The inner confidence of knowing your own game I believe is the goal of life.

I know now why I felt so off-key and disenchanted. I was following the rules to a game not meant for me to play.

I am now willingly looking into the dark.

Look inward. Only you can discover your heart’s true desire. No one else can tell you what that is.

In my book, Become a Well-Paid Professional, I show you ways to discover and master your own game. Send an email to possibility2profit@gmail.com to get your copy.