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Prosperity or Poverty: Choose your Mirror
By Maria Mar©2009
A visual storytelling journey
to dispel the thieves of your prosperity.
The meeting got complicated. It would take much of the day. We broke for lunch and I hurried to the bathroom. There I met a fascinating woman. As our lunch hour coincided, we had lunch together in the building’s ground-level cafeteria.
 art by Maria Mar(c)2009. No reproduction, copy/paste allowed.
I felt that a strong, peaceful connection had brought us together and was very curious as to the purpose of this encounter. We began to talk with ease.
I was pleasantly surprised when I realized that Lillianne* was a spiritual catalyst whose inspired writings I had read once when I somehow clicked on a link to her blog.
I recalled that she was a wise woman with an extraordinary capacity for deep reflection into the mysteries of existence. In her beautiful writings, I had appreciated her thorough understanding of the Law of Attraction. I especially admired her awareness of how we create our own universe with our thoughts, emotions and choices.
Lillianne and I talked passionately for a while about these topics, which we both loved. But even through the lightness of this lovely conversation, I could feel that a heavy silence weighed on her. Finally, Lillianne could not contain her anguish any longer. She burst out into tears.
“I am so scared!” she stuttered between sobs. “I have reached the bottom. I don’t understand how this is happening to me. Ten years ago, I began my own business. You may not believe it looking at me now, but I have earned thousands of dollars in a week. I have charged clients in an hour more than what I am making daily in this job.”
Lillianne was trying hard not to burst into tears again in the crowded cafeteria. We left the noisy place and took refuge in a small lobby, where a sofa nested inside a niche was conveniently hidden by a group of tall palms and other potted plants.
We sat, wrapped in heavy silence, now broken only by some quiet sobs. Lillianne stared at her empty hands.
I remembered a time in which I also stared at my empty hands. I had lost everything I had in a bizarre housing disaster. I had to leave all my art and tools, my clothing and most of my possessions behind. I had no idea where I would go. As I recovered my health in a friend’s guest room, I had stared at my hands, empty after so many years of giving the best of my creativity.
In the deeply carved lines, I had read my past. I faced the war I waged against money. I recognized how I spent it as soon as I got it, as if it burned my hands. I realized that I had not created financial structures, strategies or goals in my life. It was a brutal encounter with realities that I had disregarded for most of my adult life. This disregard had lead to that moment, in which I had no emergency money or financial alternatives to recover from this crisis.
“Is this a lesson I must learn? Am I being cleansed of ego?” Lillianne asked abruptly. Her voice reminded me of a little girl who has been punished and is trying to understand what she did wrong. But there was someone else in that voice: the punisher herself, flagellating Lillianne in each of her questions.
“I was so broke that I had to place a PayPal button in my blog. Imagine? I had to ask my subscribers for donations!” Lillianne said, as if that was the ultimate perversion.
Lillianne was thankful that her 10,000 subscribers had sent her so many blessings and kind words and had given her generous donations, which kept her afloat for about a month. But her monthly obligations had to be met, and she had finally caved in. Her eyes were wide with terror.
“I admit that my relationship with money has not been good. There’s a lot of guilt attached to it. I played the starving artist for most of my youth. And now, it appears that I am playing the starving guru,” she whispered with a faint smile.
Lillianne exhaled a pain-ridden sight that traveled through my bones. I tried to piece together the two opposite images I was receiving from the same woman.
Lillianne had shared that her subscribers were very active and often responded to her articles. During our conversation in the cafeteria, she had told me, with badly concealed pride, that her subscribers had suggested that she charge a subscription fee for the blog. When she refused, some suggested that she
“I am not doing this blog to get money,” Lillianne had said, almost angry. “This is for love. To inspire.”
I had assumed then that she had devised other means of earning money. After all, she had coached corporations and organizations and had impressive recommendations about her work.
Now, however, I realized that this Rich-Wise-Woman had not created a strategy to earn money. Instead, she had fed her “Poor-but-Good” Shadow Self.
As I handed Lillianne some tissues, I asked her how she had planned to earn money from the time she invested in her blog.
“No, not from the blog,” she insisted. “I don’t want to charge for that.”
“I got that,” I replied as gently as I could.
I did not want Lillianne to think that I was blaming or judging her. Quiet the contrary. I strongly empathized with her. I had similar Personal Medicines to Lillianne. It followed that I had been given similar emotional wounds in which to hide ?and find? these Medicines.
“But you have a business, don’t you?” I softly asked. “What monetization strategies do you have for your business?”
“I sell products,” Lillianne said defensively. As I had a laptop, she asked me to open it and soon she was showing me her products.
“I have two books, two CDs and several other products,” Lillianne showed me with a trickle of enthusiasm. I could see that she had put a lot of love in these products. I could also see that she sold them piece-meal, without a sense of a system or philosophy that integrated them and added the value of her unique offering.
“But the sales trickle in and do not even cover the business expenses,” Lillianne concluded, as she clicked out of her “Store” tab and into her “About Lillianne” tab.
In her biography, Lillianne had gone into a lengthy monologue about life. I liked her style to a point, because I could hear her voice. But I had no idea of what she could do for me, what her services where, what system of philosophy, if any she had, and what her unique offer was to me. She had wrapped herself in her beautiful, creative words, but remained a lonely island separated from her products and from her capacity to satisfy the growing needs of her readers.
Little by little, I got a picture of Lillianne’s business. Her blog was a plain template with not as much as a header. There was no branding there. I could not get a sense of who she was or the uniqueness of her gifts. Having felt her warmth and caring love, it seemed a pity that these qualities were not reflected in her blog.
She had no social media presence or links and no adsense or google ads. She had no affiliate program, so she could not earn income through joint venture partnerships and affiliate sales, either.
Why had Lillianne refused her clients’ request? Why hadn’t she created a paid monthly support, even though they had expressed their need for this?
It wasn’t that hard to create protected blog pages for paying subscribers, and she could still delivered the free access pages she was writing now.
Her clients were ready and eager to participate in deeper conversation, to receive her guidance. Instead, Lillianne had continued her long-lasting conversation with the world in her blog, refusing to monetize her writings.
A light bulb turned on. I understood too well Lillianne’s resistance. I had been given a devastating message as a teenager, when my mom stopped giving me lunch money so that I would not stay in college for rehearsals. That was her way of trying to stop me from pursuing my acting career. This had also been the beginning of my eating disorders, as I had stayed for rehearsals, forsaking lunch and dinners for days on a row, until I was severely undernourished.
The price for self-loyalty, I had learned, was poverty. That had been the beginning of a war between creativity and prosperity. This war went on for decades during my adult life. I knew from experience how insidious this polarity could be. In the ten years of healing my issues with money, I had tracked down how deeply and invisibly one can sabotage one’s prosperity in the most absurd ways without even realizing it. It came as no surprise to me, then, that Lillianne had not charged for her creative, spiritual writings.
I could now touch the heart of the matter. I found Lillianne’s tiny orphan-self, hiding behind her wise words. She was a little girl seeking belonging, giving endlessly of her vast gifts in an effort to be loved.
Lillianne was not valuing her wisdom as a service that she gave to others for their benefit. She had written some words in her blog that said this. But she was not living it. She did not believe it.
Perhaps when she went to a corporation and did a workshop she saw herself as giving a service. But not from her Essence, not from her writings ?from her
creativity. In her eyes, to use her words as a service and charge for it would have been to betray her soul.
Lillianne’s underground orphanhood and her war with money were sabotaging her life’s purpose.
These were only a few of the battles in Lillianne’s Inner War.
Lillianne got up and threw the crumbled tissues into a nearby garbage can. I felt that her hopes were as crumbled as the tissues and my heart felt heavy for her. She swept some crumbs off her overall uniform and picked up her dirty maintenance globes.
As we returned to the fifth floor, she waived a sad goodbye and returned to the toilets left to clean.
As Lillianne moved away, I saw a woman in war with herself. This woman had looked into two different mirrors and had secretly chosen the familiar one, though it in no way reflected her Essence.
 Art by Maria Mar (c)2009. No reproduction, copy/paste allowed.
The Poverty Mirror In the mirror she had secretly chosen, Lillianne was an abandoned, unloved orphan trapped in poverty.
Guided by guilt and fear, she had erected an unforgiving God-parent who stripped her of “ego” (her own desires, her power to manifest, her true value?) by punishing her with a poverty that in no way reflected her inner richness.
The true punishment was however, self-inflicted. Lillianne refused to charge for the services she came here to give. Instead, she had chosen to beg for them.
 Art by Maria Mar(c)2009. No reproduction, copy/paste permitted. In the mirror that reflected her Essence, Lillianne was a Wise Woman, a radiant being full of wisdom-treasures.
She had the rare courage to dive deep into her Soul and to bring from those depths unfathomable riches searched and needed by millions.
Her hands were filled with plenty. Her life could but reflect her inner riches and her generosity of spirit.
For now, the orphan had won this battle. But by now I knew Lillianne. I knew that she would push against the bottom and rise in full majesty.
I looked at my hands then and remembered that day in my friend’s guest room, when I stared at my empty hands.
In those deeply carved lines, I had read my present. I had seen the extraordinary value of the wisdom that had been handed me. I had traced the grace of my words and my art. I had weighted the substance of my gifts.
My hands were not empty. They were filled to the rim with valuable wisdom, tools andinspiration. They had been bestowed to me with the charge to pass them on.
That day I had created my business, firmly founded on my writings, my art and my spiritual wisdom.
As the bathroom door swallowed Lillianne, I sent her a blessing.
May you look at your emptyhands and see the treasures overflowing.
May you value each word of wisdom that flows from your lips and hands as a sacred treasure with the power to transform the world.
May you receive the river of affluence that flows right now from the Universe to you. May you allow it to shower you in prosperity.
May you open your heart to receive the riches you already have.
I hold this blessing in my heart, for myself.
I send it to each of you in these challenging times, with the invitation to choose the mirror that reflects your richness and release the fear that drags you into a place of fear and lack.
Light and love, Maria Mar PS: If you feel that you need help with your Shadow Selves, self-sabotage or manifesting your dream, please check my coaching services at: http://www.catchthedreamexpress.com/coaching.htm _________________________________________
* The name and circumstances have been changed to protect this person’s privacy.
Photos courtesy of Morguefile.com
Art copyright of Maria Mar(c)2009. No reproduction or copy/paste permitted.
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Lillianne had not released the Cloak of Ghosts. Many of us inherit this heavy mantle of learned beliefs and toxic emotions from our elders. It is passed to us by our family of origin and culture. Lillianne’s Cloak of Ghosts was filled with guilt, shame and anger against money and attachment to poverty, which she saw as proof of goodness.
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Maria Mar(c)
You can use this story in ezines, web pages and other online media as long as you include my name and copyright mark and the paragraph below, with functional link:
Maria Mar is the Dream Alchemist, an inspirational speaker, poet, coach, author and spiritual teacher who helps women create the life of their dreams. Visit her at: Catch the Dream Express!
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Maria Mar is a Sacred Storyteller and shaman who champions you to change your old limiting story to create the new story of your brilliance illuminating the world. She helps you awaken your magic, express your creative genius, embody your purpose and live your potential now.