When Money Doesn’t Look Like Thought in the Moment

When I first started working with Paula, she was a multi-tasker who used to start out strong at the beginning of the day, but by lunch time her mind was a muddle.  After receiving coaching and gaining the benefits of understanding the intelligent design of the way our minds work, she was able to maintain her mental clarity throughout the day.  The result was that Paula took her company from a net 5% loss to a 29% profit in one year.

Now, however, Paula was in a situation that she didn’t know how to handle.  One of the factories that manufacture her clothing line had been shut down due to flooding.  Thousands of orders had to be put on hold. She didn’t have the cash flow to keep the company going until the problem got straightened out.

Paula was in a financial crisis that threatened the survival of her business.  She felt panicked, discouraged – even hopeless.  This happens to all of us at times – it’s not like you can control your reactions to challenges even when you understand the role that Thought plays in your experience.   When there’s a real crisis like this one, it can stop looking like our feelings are coming from thought.  But the mind always works the same way – no exceptions.

As we talked, it became apparent to Paula that, while the financial issues she was facing with her company were real, her thinking in the moment was still the only source of her feelings about the situation. She realized that her feelings of panic and stress fluctuated throughout the day, even though the crisis remained the same.  Paula even realized that she had moments of light heartedness, like when she was with her daughter, or had a positive encounter with someone at work. Nothing had changed about her financial crisis, and yet her feelings were completely different.  What had changed?  Her thinking in the moment.

As she remembered where her experience was actually coming from,  Paula calmed down.  She realized, once again, that if thought in the moment is really the only causal link to her feelings, her panic had to be thought-created, not crisis-created.   With her new found mental calm and well being, she began to have a trickle of common sense about how to handle the situation – she became responsive, rather than reactive.  She remembered that there was another factory that she had considered hiring to manufacture clothing as her business expanded.  She managed to get a short term contract with them to supply the clothes at a reduced rate until her financial crisis was resolved.  They were thrilled to have the business and Paula was able to meet her customer orders.  The unexpected bonus was that with this added factory she was able to expand her business ahead of her projected time schedule,  and increase revenues by an additional 23%!

What brought about the turning point?  “Remembering that even my experience of a financial crisis was being generated by thought in the moment,” Paula said.  “As my mind settled down, the creativity that I needed to meet the challenge emerged.  And then the challenge turned out to be an unexpected opportunity!”