"Oh God. Where to start? They're similar to the ones Neale, the author of Conversations With God, talks about in his book — minus the 'money is evil' part. I feel guilty earning money for stuff that comes easily to me — and a lot of things come easily to me. I also associate 'helping people' with being paid very little or not at all. And I have trouble valuing my work, which seems to be a common problem amongst women and creatives. Here, listen to this…"

You carry a thought around that money is bad. You also carry a thought around that God is good. Bless you! Therefore, in your thought system, God and money do not mix.

Well, in a sense, I guess, that’s true. That is how I think.

This makes things interesting, because this then makes it difficult for you to take money for any good thing.

I mean, if a thing is judged very “good” by you, you value it less in terms of money. So the “better” something is (i.e., the more worthwhile), the less money it’s worth.

You are not alone in this. Your whole society believes this. So your teachers make a pittance and your stripteasers, a fortune. Your leaders make so little compared to sports figures that they feel they have to steal to make up the difference. Your priests and your rabbis live on bread and water while you throw coins at entertainers.

Think about it. Everything on which you place a high intrinsic value, you insist must come cheaply. The lonely research scientist seeking a cure for AIDS goes begging for money, while the woman who writes a book on a hundred new ways to have sex and creates tapes and weekend seminars to go with it… makes a fortune.

This having-it-all-backwards is a propensity with you, and it stems from wrong thought.

The wrong thought is your idea about money. You love it, and yet you say it is the root of all evil. You adore it, and yet you call it “filthy lucre.” You say that a person is “filthy rich.” And if a person does become wealthy doing “good” things, you immediately become suspect. You make that “wrong.”

So, a doctor had better not make too much money, or had better learn to be discreet about it. And a minister — whoa! She’d really better not make lots of money (assuming you’ll even let a “she” be a minister), or there’ll surely be trouble.

You see, in your mind, a person who chooses the highest calling should get the lowest pay.

Hmmm.

Yes, “hmmm” is right. You should think about that. Because it is such wrong thought.

I thought there was no such thing as wrong or right.

There isn’t. There is only what serves you, and what does not. The terms “right” and “wrong” are relative terms, and I use them that way when I use them at all. In this case, relative to what serves you — relative to what you say you want — your money thoughts are wrong thoughts.

Remember, thoughts are creative. So if you think money is bad, yet think yourself good… well, you can see the conflict.

Now you, in particular, My son, act out this race consciousness in a very big way. For most people the conflict is not nearly so enormous as for you. Most people do what they hate for a living, so they don’t mind taking money for it. “Bad” for the “bad,” so to speak. But you love what you do with the days and times of your life. You adore the activities with which you cram them.

For you, therefore, to receive large amounts of money for what you do would be, in your thought system, taking “bad” for the “good” and that is unacceptable to you. You’d rather starve than take “filthy lucre” for pure service… as if somehow the service loses its purity if you take money for it.

So here we have this real ambivalence about money. Part of you rejects it, and part of you resents not having it. Now, the universe doesn’t know what to do about that, because the universe has received two different thoughts from you. So your life with regard to money is going to go in fits and starts, because you keep going in fits and starts about money.

You don’t have a clear focus; you’re not really sure what’s true for you. And the universe is just a big Xerox machine. It simply produces multiple copies of your thoughts.

Now there’s only one way to change all that. You have to change your thought about it.

How can I change the way I think? The way I think about something is the way I think about something. My thoughts, my attitudes, my ideas were not created in a minute. I have to guess they are the result of years of experience, a lifetime of encounters. You are right about the way I think about money, but how do I change that?

This could be the most interesting question in the book. The usual method of creation for most human beings is a three-step process involving thought, word, and deed, or action.

First comes thought; the formative idea; the initial concept. Then comes the word. Most thoughts ultimately form themselves into words, which are often then written or spoken. This gives added energy to the thought, pushing it out into the world, where it can be noticed by others.

Finally, in some cases words are put into action, and you have what you call a result; a physical world manifestation of what all started with a thought. Everything around you in your man-made world came into being in this way — or some variation of it. All three creation centers were used. But now comes the question: how to change a Sponsoring Thought? Yes, that is a very good question. And a very important one. For if humans do not change some of their Sponsoring Thoughts, humankind could doom itself to extinction.

The most rapid way to change a root thought, or sponsoring idea, is to reverse the thought-word-deed process.

Explain that.

Do the deed that you want to have the new thought about. Then say the words that you want to have your new thought about. Do this often enough and you’ll train the mind to think a new way.

Train the mind? Isn’t that like mind control? Isn’t that just mental manipulation?

Do you have any idea how your mind came up with the thoughts it now has? Do you not know that your world has manipulated your mind to think as you do? Wouldn’t it be better for you to manipulate your mind than for the world to?

Would you not be better off to think the thoughts you want to think, than those of others? Are you not better armed with creative thoughts than with reactive thoughts?

Yet your mind is filled with reactive thought — thought that springs from the experience of others. Very few of your thoughts spring from self-produced data, much less self-produced preferences.

Your own root thought about money is a prime example. Your thought about money (it is bad) runs directly counter to your experience (it’s great to have money!). So you have to run around and lie to yourself about your experience in order to justify your root thought.

You are so rooted in this thought, it never occurs to you that your idea about money may be inaccurate.

So now what we are up to is coming up with some self-produced data. And that is how we change a root thought, and cause it to be your root thought, not another’s.

You have one more root thought about money, by the way, which I’ve yet to mention.

What’s that?

That there’s not enough. In fact you have this root thought about just about everything. There’s not enough money, there’s not enough time, there’s not enough love, there’s not enough food, water, compassion in the world… Whatever there is that’s good, there’s just not enough.

This race consciousness of “not-enough-ness” creates and recreates the world as you see it.

Okay, so I have two root thoughts — Sponsoring Thoughts — to change about money.

Oh, at least two. Probably many more. Let’s see. Money is bad… money is scarce… money may not be received for doing God’s work (that’s a big one with you)… money is never given freely… money doesn’t grow on trees (when, in fact, it does)… money corrupts.

I see I’ve got a lot of work to do.

Yes, you do, if you’re not happy with your present money situation. On the other hand, it’s important to understand that you’re unhappy with your present money situation because you’re unhappy with your present money situation.

Sometimes You’re hard to follow.

Sometimes you’re hard to lead.

Say, listen, You’re the God here. Why don’t You make it easy to understand?

I have made it easy to understand.

Then why don’t You just cause me to understand, if that’s what You truly want?

I truly want what you truly want — nothing different and nothing more. Don’t you see that is My greatest gift to you? If I wanted for you something other than what you want for you, and then went so far as to cause you to have it, where is your free choice? How can you be a creative being if I am dictating what you shall be, do, and have? My joy is in your freedom, not your compliance.

Okay, what did You mean, I’m unhappy with my money situation because I’m unhappy with my money situation?

You are what you think you are. It’s a vicious circle when the thought is a negative one. You’ve got to find a way to break out of the circle. So much of your present experience is based on your previous thought. Thought leads to experience, which leads to thought, which leads to experience. This can produce constant joy when the Sponsoring Thought is joyous. It can, and does, produce continual hell when the Sponsoring Thought is hellatious.

The trick is to change Sponsoring Thought. I was about to illustrate how to do that.

Go.

Thank you.

The first thing to do is reverse the thought-word-deed paradigm. Do you remember the old adage, “Think before you act”?

Yes.

Well, forget it. If you want to change a root thought, you have to act before you think.

Example: you’re walking down the street and come across an old lady begging for quarters. You realize she’s a bag lady and is living day-to-day. You instantly know that as little money as you have, you surely have enough to share with her. Your first impulse is to give her some change. There’s even a part of you that’s ready to reach in your pocket for a little folding money — a one, or even a five. What the heck, make it a grand moment for her. Light her up.

Then, thought comes in. What, are you crazy? We’ve only got seven dollars to get us through the day! You want to give her a five? So you start fumbling around for that one.

Thought again: Hey, hey, c’mon. You don’t have that many of these that you can just give them away! Give her some coins, for heaven’s sake, and let’s get out of here.

Quickly you reach into the other pocket to try to come up with some quarters. Your fingers feel only nickels and dimes. You’re embarrassed. Here you are, fully clothed, fully fed, and you’re going to nickel-and-dime this poor woman who has nothing.

You try in vain to find a quarter or two. Oh, there’s one, deep in the fold of your pocket. But by now you’ve walked past her, smiling wanly, and it’s too late to go back. She gets nothing. You get nothing, either. Instead of the joy of knowing your abundance and sharing, you now feel as poor as the woman.

Why didn’t you just give her the paper money! It was your first impulse, but your thought got in the way.

Next time, decide to act before you think. Give the money. Go ahead! You’ve got it, and there’s more where that came from. That’s the only thought which separates you from the bag lady. You’re clear there’s more where that came from, and she doesn’t know that.

When you want to change a root thought, act in accordance with the new idea you have. But you must act quickly, or your mind will kill the idea before you know it. I mean that literally. The idea, the new truth, will be dead in you before you’ve had a chance to know it.

So act quickly when the opportunity arises, and, if you do this often enough, your mind will soon get the idea. It will be your new thought.

Oh, I just got something! Is that what’s meant by the New Thought Movement?

If not, it should be. New thought is your only chance. It’s your only real opportunity to evolve, to grow, to truly become Who You Really Are. Your mind is right now filled with old thoughts. Not only old thoughts, but mostly someone else’s old thoughts. It’s important now, it’s time now, to change your mind about some things. This is what evolution is all about.

Conversations With God Neale Donald Walsch