How to survive the financial crunch.

It is hard to ignore the difficult financial times that have descended on the USA recently.
Financial weakness is also shaking the Asian and European markets.
Long standing financial institutions are falling down like deck of cards, while stock exchanges globally are plummeting daily.

It seems hard to invest money in anything safe.
Stocks with healthy fundamentals are dropping along with everything else.
Just like in a healthy and jolly environment we have the aphorism: "a rising tide lifts all boats", so it is in a stormy market: “A horrendous hurricane sinks most boats in the open sea”.

Which of course shakes the way people feel about spending money.
Wealthy people invest their money in a way that generate income for their chosen life styles.
When markets are weak, people tends to spend less.

And then there are those people who are losing their houses, failing on their mortgages and losing their lives savings. We read sad stories on the news daily.

America had always had a gap between the wealthy and the poor, this gap is shrinking now when the wealthy are seeing their savings grow smaller under the financial crunch.

Out of the 301,139,947 people living in America today,
there are 37 million Americans living below the poverty line.
Globally, there are 1.4 billion people living below the international poverty line, earning less than $1.25 per day.
So how do we keep on going in these troublesome times?

- We remember that like a storm, or even the hardest storm, this too shall pass!

- We look onto the things in our lives that we love and that ARE working. Each one of us has dozens of things that bring a smile to our faces, be it a child, a sunset, a good book, a funny movie or a TV show, meditation, a yoga session, a good meal, writing, painting, our loved ones, a walk in the forest, baking cookies, a good coffee, a prayer, working on a project that excite us, day dreaming, making love, working in the garden, hoping and so on.

- We realize that the earth plane is a plane of illusions. It is only a dim shadow of the real world (of spirit) in which we truly reside. Things in the earth plane come and go and by trying to hold onto things, we make them stagnant, smelly, we block the natural flow of things.

- The money we lost will come back to us through a new channel. It wasn’t really ours to beginning with.
Things come to us for our enjoyment, it stays for awhile and it goes away.
More comes to those with open hands and hearts who do not hold on to guilt and do not entertain self abashing habits.

- Anyone who ever “owned” a large piece of land knows that we are only guardians here on the earth plane. we do not actually own anything.
We care for the things we think we own, but really we fix and clean the house we own in return for shelter and privacy.
We pay our taxes and bills in return for our services and entertainments. There is no ownership in truth.

- We create our own reality!
This one is a biggy.
It is important to remember that in every situation, in any environment and in everything we deal with, within or without, we have the power to make new choices that will direct our reality.
Reality is fluid and ever changing.
The best example of how a person creates his own reality, has been demonstrated recently by the artist Damien Hirst who in September 2008 (less than a month ago) had a $200,000,000 record breaking auction of his art.

So keep on examining your belief system and affirm only what serves you well.
Move forward filled with the intention to ride these times the best you know how.
Remember: “Recession, depression -you don’t have to participate”.