Returning to the concept or philosophy that money is energy and that money is what you trade your life energy for, doesn’t it follow that if clutter gets in the way of your life energy, that clutter also gets in the way of your potential for cashflow, and ultimately, wealthbuilding in general?

It’s intuitive, after all. Stuff takes up space like cholesterol clogging your arteries and unfinished business and baggage wearing you down emotionally. Stuff is an obstacle on the road to success, the travel on which can go much faster if you have a bit of wealth to help you along and support all those great opportunities that you’re ready to jump on.

Opening the floodgates to your future, right here, right now, is often said to occur when one releases attachments to things that are holding one back. What are these attachments? Attachments to things, “stuff,” junk, clutter, that all keeps you in the past. We know this.

It’s one thing to get rid of your clutter, but you need to be able to prevent it from coming back in the first place. It’s one thing to pay off your credit card, but you need to know that you’re not going to use it (or a new one) again. It’s one thing to bring in some new money, but if you spend it, you’re not growing your cashflow.

So how do we control the flow? Surely it’s not just about stopping the flow completely (e.g., never spending any money, never using any more credit cards)?

I’m currently in the process of decluttering before a big move. I have a lot of books that I don’t have room for, but which I think I still need. Some are rare-ish. Some just hard to get. Some are definitely fluffy, but I haven’t finished reading them and I’d like to. Some were definite impulse buys. As I was sorting through some of these piles, I thought about how silly some of the purchases were. But then I remembered that I also bought each one consciously, for a specific reason. This indicates several things:

(1) one part of me bought the book, another part of me sees it as “stuff” or as “potential money” if I sell it;
(2) these purchases were symbols, like little role models, representing to me a change that I had to make, or a direction that I wanted to go in or take action on. I bought them because they most represented that change or direction and I thought they would aid in my getting there.
(3) these purchases were also meant to be reminders, in case I forgot where I needed to go, what I needed to do, change, or learn. In case of going too far in one direction, a book I bought three months ago can remind me of an important step that I wanted to take. Again, it’s all about remembering why I bought it. It’s why I think that:

If you start purchasing consciously, your purchases take on the characteristics of your own conscious processes.

Talk about increasing your money consciousness. Consciousness has often been described as a “flow” — you know, the stream of consciousness, the fact that thoughts are unbreakable “wholes” and other aspects of metaphysical continua. So what does this say about flow in general? Let’s break it down:

(1) Consciousness is a flow;
(2) Life processes are a flow (they’re cyclical, always running);
(3) Monthly income is a flow (cyclical, re-occurring);
(4) Consumption is a flow (depends directly on #3);
(5) Living (the expenditure of life processes) is a flow (depends directly on #2);

Before you start thinking this looks too hokey or complicated, I just mean to make the point that there’s a case for thinking about all of these cyclical processes as part of the same overall flow, or at least, they’re interlinked in some very important ways. Suppose the following familiar scenario:

Bounds of energy and passion translate into doing a great job at work.
Your great job gets you a raise and calls about other opportunities.
More opportunities brings in more income.
More income can go to work making more money (through reinvestment etc.).
More money, eventually, gives you more options for living, which can lead to more energy, freedom, and passion for starting this cycle all over again and building on itself.

Maybe this sounds too simple, but you can see my point.

We should want to create leverage in our own lives. Our financial lives are often thought to be a microcosm of all of the other life processes we’re engaged in: social, emotional, physical, mental.

Creating leverage depends upon building synergy. “Life leverage” would be what I would call the “opportunity for options and actions.” The opportunity to have five choices instead of one. The opportunity to take a certain action and follow it through to produce a tangible result.

So I’ve raised several questions so far:

(1) How do we create synergy in our lives (and maybe, what is it?)?
(2) So what if our purchases take on our conscious characteristics?
(3) How do we “increase the flow”? (”More money!”)
(3) How do we “control the flow” (accumulating, borrowing, spending)?

I’ll take a stab at it:

The higher the level of consciousness (as in “conscious awareness”) you can maintain consistently throughout all aspects of your life, the greater will be your synergy and life leverage.

This synergy is a potential. It’s a kind of life energy (or “life leverage”) that can provide the springboard for accomplished action. It can help you both increase the flow and control the flow.

Use your purchases like you use your receipts. They tell you where you were, what you bought, why you did it even. Tally it up and do the balances. Did that source of “income” (the new purchase) match up with a corresponding “outcome”?

Obviously I can’t answer all of these questions here, but I wanted to open them up for discussion and further thought. I’d love it if you help me work on these and try to figure out some of these relationships. If you’re new here, you might want to subscribe to my feed for more updates, and please also leave a comment below about what you think. How are you in control of your life energy? How are you increasing your life leverage or “moneyenergy” as I also like to call it?

There’s probably a good reason why we use the language we do when we say we’re feeling “stuck” or “broke.” I think there are real connections, and I’d like to understand them better. I don’t just want to swallow some Hallmark recipe for “the law of attraction.” C’mon, let’s figure out what it really is! We can do that by starting to pay closer attention to the things I’ve talked about here.