Ok, I’m going out on a limb here. Maybe I’m channeling Shirley MacLaine.

I was visiting my favorite personal growth forum tonite Powerful Intentions, and a guy asked about using different words for the word “DEBT.” I thought about it for a minute… and I realized how many times I’d put myself through all kinds of lousy feelings about my relationship with money, just by being afraid of looking at the outstanding amounts I owed on whatever big purchases I’d agreed to finance. I remembered the tough times, when I couldn’t pay off my debts as fast as I wanted to, and how angry I got with myself and the world over it. It flooded out of me, seemed like 20 years of animosity towards cashola seemed to be squirting out of a fire hydrant. Then poof it was over.

Then the light bulb went off! I lifted into the AHA moment… the insight… the revelation that I have a new tool to deal with that strange guilty, shameful feeling.

I just finished this absolutely AWESOME book called Busting Loose from the Business Game, by Robert Scheinfeld.

This will likely appear kinda weird if you haven’t read the book. This is the context as I understand it. The author describes learning how to think of spending money as expressing appreciation.

I love the Law of Attraction, and this aligns with it flawlessly to me.

Here’s how: Everything we buy, every bill we pay, every debt we accrue… can be remembered & emotionally experienced, 2 different ways. When you pull out your wallet, cash, credit card, or make a payment with your computer… you also can choose to decide if that transaction is going to give you feelings of “not good” or feelings of “good.”

Men, when you buy that fishing rod, it feels good. You know how it’s going to play, you imagine the fish on the end of the line, even how big it is. And even tho this might sound sexist (’cause I’m the one in our house with the shoe addiction), Ladies, when you buy that purse of pair of shoes, you feel good. You parade around and show your new stuff off, you hope someone notices, and it brings you joy to display your new stuff. And when men or women are also concerned with paying for high quality, it happens even more. We are proud of our high quality choices… they feel good when we spend money to gring those things in our lives.

Scheinfeld’s concept, is that everything we pay for, was a decision we made about agreeing to have an item or service into our lives. We accepted the price, because the thing we are agreeing to pay for, is bringing us JOY. When you pay for gas, you are agreeing that the gas will give you feelings of joy, because you want to drive your car. When you pay your electric bill, it’s because you agree that you WANT to experience life with electricity. When you pay for your taxes, it’s because you agree to play by the rules of your country’s tax laws. When you buy a house, you expect to have pleasure in that house.

Every single time you spend money, cash or credit, it’s because you want the pleasure that the thing you are paying for, will help you experience. You are saying that this thing you are spending money on, will bring you pleasure.

Do you get this? It was very hard for me to get my head around it at first. Spending money on taxes making me happy… not bloody likely. Now I choose to remember the feelings I had that caused me to spend the money.

Now… imagine spending your money, is your way of saying thank-you, for the experience you are paying to include into your life. That money you spend, is your method to express appreciation for a product or service that you would rather have in your life, than not have.

So when people call money owed “debt,” they are also choosing to forget the joy they willingly paid to experience. People make a decision to choose the most negative experience to remember. They block out the joy they had, and choose to remember the residual feeling of LACK instead. Why do we do this? Yes I’ve done it all my life too.

By putting a little more emphasis on feeling good, it is possible to look at spending money as expressing appreciation for the things we want to experience. And if you really get into it, expressing appreciation is LOVE. Now you can get all pouty & argue with me or Scheinfeld all you want, but I know this is something that can turn your feelings around, with regards to debt, or spending money. And when you make a decision to shift your feelings or choose more positive thoughts… great things change quickly.

So from page 158 of the Busting Loose from the Money Game book by Robert Scheinfeld, here is a very cool new perspective on how to label paying out money.

Cost…………….. Request for appreciation in the form of money

The Bill ………….Request for appreciation in the form of money

Expense ………..Expression of appreciation in the form of money

Overhead ………Fixed monthly expressions of appreciation in the form of money

Price …………….Requested expression of appreciation in the form of money

How Much? ……What is the requested appreciation for this illusion/ creation?

Payment ……….Expression of appreciation n the form of money.

Again, these may be tough to get your head around. But if you remember the times you spend money and how good it felt to acquire the experience of the thing you decided was worth your money… it’s easier to remember what we’re talking about.

The different wording takes away the pain of having to spend the money, and reminds you of the joy you felt knowing that you valued something enough to spend money on it.

Scheinfeld believes that the more we change our thoughts and language like this, the easier it is to pull ourselves out of the negative mindset trap we create by forgetting about the joy of the expense. I’m going to go along with it. It’s gotta be better than my old scared beliefs.

Debt thinking be gone! Enjoy spending and remember why you agreed to spend.

Steve