The Year I Did Not Put Money First

The Reason I Was There Was Cleaning

For a long time, I have used the processes I learned in the SITH Ho’oponopono Business Class in every area of my life.
Both when I was working full-time and now, when I am not.
And what I realized is this: “Life itself is a business.”

What has become clear to me over the course of my life is that I do not know what I am doing, and that there is very little I can decide for myself. But I have come to understand that when I clean on each thing that happens, the cleaning helps things line up and everything fall into place.

At work, irritation and anxiety, the ever-increasing speed, competition, and a sense that joy is slipping away can come up.
At such times, it is easy to think, “This is outside of me,” “It’s someone’s fault,” “It’s the industry’s fault.”
Yet all of these are simply memories that determine our experience. They are within us. And work gives us the opportunity to clean what comes up in it. To take these opportunities to clean as my own and to choose Ho’oponopono—that is my divine work.

I Decided Not to Look at the Target Numbers

For many years, I worked in fundraising. It was at a nonprofit organization, in a position where I had to secure a certain amount. There was a monetary target. Yet it was mostly beyond my control. After all, you cannot force anyone to donate.

The organization dealt with emotional wounds, addiction, domestic violence, adults with disabilities, education, and medical care. It was work that brought me into contact with a great deal of pain and suffering, and with the families of those going through it.
So I was always asking myself: “Why am I here?” “What in me is keeping me here?” “What is happening within me that is making me see this?”

There is a way of thinking that says, “At work, put money first,” “Money is the ultimate goal.” I decided not to do that.
Having goals is good. Goals, too, can be cleaned. But instead of making money my goal, each time money came up, I chose to clean the memories between myself and that money.
I simply did my work. I went to meet people, cleaned with the people I met, and cleaned on my own experiences. I cleaned on my colleagues, the organization, the land, and all of their identities.

Money and Computers Have Identities, Too

In our work, we are given the opportunity to come to know our “true self,” the self just as Divinity created it. And we realize that this identity is within everything.
In living things and in nonliving things. In the places where we work, in money, in projects and plans, posts, designs, and electronic devices.

Work itself is a precious and beloved being. I say “I love you” to my computer, my desk, and my home. Now my home is my workplace. My home is taking care of me.

Money is good. We need it to eat, to have a roof over our heads, to live.
Yet there are fears around money—the fear of not having money, the fear of not earning enough, the fear of losing our jobs, the fear of losing a source of income. All of these are opportunities to clean.

Our Job Is Simply to Return to Cleaning

To say to Divinity, “I will do this, so I want this,” is arrogance.
We do have expectations and hopes at times. When we do, we can simply clean on them. Expectations of ourselves, the expectations others have of us, expectations of our own results—all of these can be cleaned.

It is very simple. Our job is only to return to cleaning. It is not to decide how things will turn out. Only Divinity can decide that. To ask, “Please release whatever is within me that is having this experience.” That is our job.

Once we step aside from deciding things ourselves and let Divinity solve the problem, the solution is sometimes far greater than we expected.
There are times when we keep cleaning and cleaning and still think, “Nothing is happening.” Yet one day, we look back and think, “I don’t even know how I did it all.”

And the wonderful thing is that we can begin right where we are now.
After all, this moment is all we truly have.