What Even is Wealth Anymore?
How Happy Pocket Full of Money helped me redefine
Some horoscopes crafted by a favorite astrologer hit so deep, I cut them out of the local weekly to be placed in plain view for as long as feels right.
This one’s had staying power:
“Some people feel that ‘wealth’ refers primarily to financial resources. If you’re wealthy, it means you have a lot of money, luxurious possessions, and lavish opportunities to travel. But wealth can also be measured in other ways. Do you have an abundance of love in your life? Have you enjoyed many soulful adventures? Does your emotional intelligence provide rich support for your heady intelligence? I bring this up, Aquarius, because I believe 2024 will be a time when your wealth will increase. The question for you to ruminate on: How do you define wealth?”
I came to one moment in one conversation in 2022 when it hit me: My marriage was ending. And like a flash flood, roaring in out of nowhere on a sunny, clear-sky day, it felt as if I’d lost everything.
It was instantaneous, the overtaking of this natural disaster.
And confusing because I hadn’t been stripped of a single dime.
Money. I’d held on to it with a death grip. Knowing I had it gave me a sense of safety. Stability. Security. I feared running out of it. Not having a job that provided it. Being without a home without it.
It held me together.
It held us together.
I’d convinced myself it gave us freedom. We had no debt to pay, no kids to raise. We could travel. Explore. But we rarely did.
I often faced off with the neurotic part of me, her stance defiant, hands on hips, any time I considered stepping away from work to recharge. Because what if it was a good enough reason to get my name on a list for the next round of cuts. The ones that always came.
Fear. It’s a real fucker. Sometimes it saves your life. Sometimes it destroys it.
Want for nothing
I wanted the cat.
Not the couches, not the TV, not the dishes. Not the dining table and not the patio furniture. Not the dressers I’d refinished, nor the setup in the guest room, nor the bed we slept in.
This was new to me. This realization that I could actually, adamantly, acceptingly, walk away from every material thing we’d acquired over 20 years.
I did choose to take some clothes. Some sentimental items. And two foldable floor shelves that could serve as a perch for the feline and a library for me.
Everything else was given away.
Sorting, packing, and unpacking both my physical and metaphysical worlds, I had a lot of time to reflect on what I actually, deeply, gave a fuck about. What I wanted to be present with and cultivate and nurture and invest in and have compound in interest.
As it turned out, it wasn’t money.
I desired two things: radical self-love and deep soul connections.
That’s it.
Two things I’m certain I can take with me when I go.
Happy Pocket Full of Money
As I was kneading the dough of wealth’s meaning in my hands, and in my heart, this book called Happy Pocket Full of Money by David Cameron Gikandi came recommended.
He helped move the definition of wealth beyond the monetary. “Being wealthy is an internal state,” he said, encouraging “the expansion of your consciousness and awareness into the wealthy parts of your Self.”
The wealthy parts of your Self. The one with the big S. Beyond ego.
In its essence, Gikandi’s theory challenges readers—or in my case, listeners—to live as if you already are the person you desire to be, or feel the way you want to feel, or have the experiences you want to experience. In doing so, we invite, attract, or dare I say, manifest, the wealth that resides deep inside.
“You already have it all,” he wrote. “It has been said that before you ask, it was already given to you.”
He could’ve left it there. But instead, he put forth an invitation. To create a list of everything one desires to be, feel, and do in this lifetime. No limitations, no boundaries, and no attachments.
The only rule: Each line had to begin with “I am.”
I am living from a state of radical, divine self-love.
I am a manifestation of my soul’s deepest desires.
I am a full-body feeler of pleasure, staying grounded in self-worth and majesty.
I am a published writer.
I am using my self-study and trained therapy experience to help others through periods of deep transformation.
I am the owner of a multi-unit beachfront property at a surfable break where I live in one and rent out the other.
I am finally speaking some fluent, fucking, Spanish.
Is this who I am today? Gikandi would argue that, essentially, it is.
And I think I understand.
Interest rates are ridiculous, and a down payment these days requires offering your firstborn.
I’m beyond child-bearing age, but when I collapse time and put myself in that space. When I let myself embody the imagined feelings. When I wake in the morning with a coffee in hand, feet in the sand, looking out to the sea—I am free. I am in awe. I am completely dumbfounded that this is my reality.
And all of a sudden, the whole world beams with possibility.
> The ritual: While I recommend listening to Happy Pocket Full of Money in full, preview the list conversation around the one-hour, 14-minute mark. If you’re so inspired, build a list of your own. I have mine as a Note on my phone, with pictures that make the statements feel visceral. Tangible. Timely and true.
Something about self-worth
This mind shift about wealth, shifted my mind about me.
On July 20, 2024, I journaled, “Listened to the ‘happy pocket’ book. It’s been, so, great, helping my mind focus on me. On the present moment. On how I’m showing up—now. On feeling and being—now. How I want to feel and who I want to be in the future—now. This is my life. And I’m going to love the shit out of it. Out of me.”
The next morning, I woke from a dream. A wise elder woman, stopped me in a whirlwind of confusion, of near collapse, as I searched for an admired man who’d disappeared without word.
She took my hand, squeezed the tip of a finger, looked me dead in the eyes, and when I asked what she was doing, she simply said, “Alchemizing your readiness.”
My earthly ego had been in a space—again—of putting my mental energy on “other” while my own Self got further out of view.
The book, the list, the dream, helped me redirect. Recenter. Remember that there was a lot I wanted to do to get my house in order before inviting anyone in to stay a while.
They helped me realize that money matters, yes. But not to the extent I’d believed.
I matter. My health. Relationships. Happiness. Flexibility. Freedom. Dreams.
“It is the great tragedy of contemporary Western society that we have virtually lost the ability to experience the transformative power of ecstasy and joy,” Robert A. Johnson wrote in the late 80s in Ecstasy: Understanding the Psychology of Joy.
And that ability, costs nothing.
We’re free to feel ecstasy and joy, simply because we’re alive.
Because we’re worthy.
And there in lies the value.
Rip Tide
Undercurrent of attachment Sweeps me out to sea Further from shore Tossing about In tidal waves Of torment Until Next to me Lands a feathered friend A fluttered reminder That I too Have wings Am uncaged And fly free
May you witness the wealth within you, Everyday Alchemist. Until next time, I’d love to hear your most wild, outrageous, outlandish, deeply stirring “I am” proclamation. Who are you—now?
“I Am… I Can…I have…”
As an adult we teach kids this phrase at an early age but, often forget to reflect as an adult! “I am one bad ass bitch” 💪🏼😛
I love the happy pocket of money book! I need to reread it. Thanks for sharing your experience and inspiring words.