Your Money, Your Rules | Money Mindset, Money Management, Abundance Mindset, Budgeting, Spirituality

137 | The Money and Blessings Log: Rewiring Scarcity Thinking Using Neuroscience

• Erin Gray | Spiritual Wealth Coach, Former Certified Financial Planner and CFO

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Have you ever noticed how your brain latches onto financial worries while completely overlooking the money and abundance already in your life? You’re not imagining it. Your Reticular Activating System (RAS) which is the part of your brain that filters information was designed to scan for threats. Helpful for survival, not so helpful when it comes to money and remembering your abundance.

Your brain is incredibly adaptable. With practice, you can retrain it to see and feel the financial flow that’s already here. In this episode, I share a powerful practice that one of my clients found so helpful that she asked me to record an entire episode about it, something I call the Money and Blessings Log.

What you’ll learn in this episode:

  • Why your Reticular Activating System (RAS) keeps you focused on scarcity
  • How to redirect your brain to notice abundance through neuroplasticity
  • My Money and Blessings Log practice
  • How to combine mental awareness with embodied feelings of wealth

Resources mentioned in this episode:

Hardwiring Happiness by Rick Hanson

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From my soul to yours,

Erin

Erin Gray:

I had a client request that I record this episode about an exercise that I had her implement and to help her increase her awareness around the abundance that she already has in her life, and also to train her brain to look for the abundance that's already flowing in and the abundance that's actually coming, that will be coming in. So today I'm going to talk to you about why, or how, our brains actually scan for things, why confirmation bias is. Our brains actually look for what we believe in, our stories and our beliefs and the simple notes app practice that you can start to implement today to start training your brain and your body to look for the abundance and the money flowing into your life so that you can actually feel more resourced and supported right now. I wanted to offer and ask that, if you have found value in this podcast, I would love it if you would leave a five-star review. It helps the show grow and it also helps the show get found by more people like you that are looking for that money, mindset support and financial confidence and empowerment, with that blend of spirituality that I do. You know. My mission is to empower more people like you to have a better relationship with their money and to truly change their life.

Erin Gray:

Okay, so let's talk about your brain for a second. You have something called the RAS, which is short for the reticular activating system, and this system is a network of nerve pathways located in the brain. It functions kind of like think of it like the gatekeeper for this sensory information that enters our consciousness, and so it decides what stimuli warrant our attention. And if you think about it like, our brains are constantly bombarded with, you know, if you have five senses, that's why they have, you know, suggest, with meditation, is closing your eyes. Initially, because our sensitivity to our vision don't quote me on this, but I think it's like around 80%, like, of all the stimuli that is coming into our brain, um, I think 80% makes up our, our vision. So you know, when you close your eyes, how much stimuli are you able to kind of shut off to the brain because your eyes are closed. So think of it like the RAS, like this filtering mechanism, and so it's essential because our brains are constantly, if you think about way back when, when we were cavemen or whatever, and we were constantly on the lookout for threats, right, and so when you are in this constant fight or flight, survival, which a lot of us have been, and we have trained our nervous systems to be this way. We are constantly looking for what's wrong, what's not working, because in a way that is actually helpful to us from a biological standpoint and not a lot of us are like in the caveman days anymore, like probably none of us, right? So when you think about it, it was a very highly useful thing for our brain to do, but it isn't very helpful in today's society and where we live, right? So the RAS is trained by our belief systems.

Erin Gray:

So if you have been conditioned or you have stories around money or just think about your just overall beliefs, I mean we can get into the money part. But like if you just think about your overall perception and perspective around the world, like if I were to ask you what do you think about the world today, the status or the state of the world, what do you think about humans in general? Or, you know, what do you think about your life? I mean, are you going to come back with it's amazing, humans are amazing, our world is amazing or are you going to come back with more of like we're on a downhill or what happened to us or what's gone wrong with humanity, right? So you have to look at, kind of your overall state of being when it comes to your RAS and then also changing your perception and starting to look for those. When I say positive, I don't think anything is positive or negative, it just is, but changing your belief to a higher vibration, a higher frequency in general. So when you think about if you have a belief around, let's just talk about money If you have a belief around money lack and scarcity and not enough, and you know it's not working out for you, your RAS is going to filter that for you. So just think about, like, if you, if you were to go and buy a car and the car color is red, and depending on what brand it is, let's just use a Tahoe Chevy Tahoe and it's red, how many more red Tahoes are you going to see now that you have one? It's not. It's not that they are more abundant, it's just that your brain now is focused on that. So, just being aware and mindful of what you are focusing on, you're going to get more of. So the good thing is because I think I like to be the example on the guinea pig, because I think my brain was as negative confirmation bias as it could get.

Erin Gray:

So if I can change my brain and we can rewire our brains right, they're very what they call neuroplastic neuroplasticity. You know, research has shown that our brains can be rewired right, like our synapses can. Our neural pathways can be changed, so we can all change the way that we think. We can all change our stories and our beliefs. The question isn't can we or can we not? The question is, are we willing? So back to your RAS, back to your brain, so you can retrain this filter right. Our brains are able to be changed, they're able to be molded. Like I always talk about with clients is just the, the neural pathways. Think of it like a highway right now, depending on what your stories, what your belief systems are, that neural pathway in your brain. It's like a highway and you get to go very fast down it right. The connection is very quick, very fast.

Erin Gray:

So when you're developing new beliefs, I like to also think that we can also change our belief in an instant, because I know I have been. I have done that. There are some other beliefs in my life. That has taken me a little bit longer and it's not a problem. An empowering thought that I have and a belief that I have is like our beliefs can change in an instant. I mean, think about, I watched this show called food Inc and that night I decided I wasn't going to eat meat anymore. Think about people that have been diagnosed with cancer or they decide, you know, they go to the doctor and they're like you have to quit smoking. Like you, immediately you were a belief had as that you were a smoker, and then now you're not. So our beliefs can change overnight, and also sometimes some of our beliefs just take a little bit more time, and that's okay too. So the practice that you can start today is, if you have an iPhone, which I do it's called a notes app. If you're on an Android, then I'm sure there's probably some types of note app that you use. Or if you pay for a note app whatever it is that you can. I just keep it on my phone but create what I call a blessings log, or money and blessing logs, whatever you want to call it Every time that money flows into your life, no matter how, and nothing is big or small right, everything just is.

Erin Gray:

But if your brain wants to, you know, deem it small, no matter how little it is, write it down. So, the money that you've made in your business or if you're, you know, employed by your employer, how much money have you grossed for the for the week? I would do this every single day. I would look in and and see um, but like what is your? What have you received in from an income, any type of refund, someone offering and actually buying you a coffee, money that you find on the ground, you know, upgrades, anything like that, any type of money that has come into your life, paying attention to it and writing it down. Because what we pay attention to grows. If you think about everything is energy, and if we are paying attention to how much money we already have and how much money we are receiving, the more that we pay attention to it, the more that it's going to grow.

Erin Gray:

And this isn't just a thought exercise, this is also a feeling. So I want you to get into your body and ask and get into the feeling of sufficiency and abundance as you start to see how much money are you actually receiving? Because the feeling of having is what actually creates more money. That is what creates sufficiency and abundance, not how we have been feeling. How a lot of us feel right Is from that place of of scarcity and lack. So when you do this exercise, you are literally teaching your RAS to notice abundance where you already have it in our life.

Erin Gray:

I think a lot of times people think, well, I need to be abundant, you already are abundant. What we're really doing is just removing all of these limiting beliefs and these stories that we have around not being abundant. So it's not like you become abundant, we already are. We are born abundant, we are born worthy. And what happens is we we kind of think of it like you're putting on clothes, so each, each layer of clothing you have are these limiting beliefs. So over time, what's going to happen is your brain is going to start scanning for what is working instead of what's lacking. It's going to start seeing, oh, my goodness, like, look, this is like it will just be on autopilot for you of how abundant you already are. And there's this brain and this body nervous system. You know meshing that occurs right. So when we start to show our our mind how what we have already, we can start to actually relax the nervous system right, we get out of that fight or flight survival state because you actually have proof.

Erin Gray:

You know, like, for me, sometimes I really do have to show my brain when it wants to argue with me, like I do come from the energy of certainty and faith and trust, but I'm a human right, my brain wants to argue with me and it wants to tell me where it's not. And so you have something there that shows you that money is already flowing in and that good things are already happening and more good things are on the way. And so, using that as a recognition and also a gratitude of feeling and of having already money in your life and of having already money in your life. And we know that abundance does not start with having a bigger bank account, because me, so many of my clients, right, we already have the money in the bank account but we don't feel abundant because money or any type of feeling actually doesn't occur outside of us. It is an internal thing first, and then it shows up like right, like we live in this cause and effect world. It shows up first in our internal state of being and then it gets shown in in the observed world, or what we, what we see, um with our eyes. It really starts to train your brain to see what's already here, right, it starts with that feeling, that how we feel, first, and then allowing more to come into your life.

Erin Gray:

So what I would do and what I recommend when you're starting this exercise is to start with it daily. I would look at it in the morning and I would look at it in the night, because there's a couple of things here. Right, like you're building the habit of looking and to notice. Um, there is a book called hardwiring happiness that I read. That was really um, it's not necessarily on money, but it talks about how our brains are actually wired to look for, like I talked about in the very beginning of this episode, to look for the things that could cause us harm or what's not working, because that is from that survival biological state. Right, and so really being disciplined with looking at and focusing on where am I already receiving money? Where and it doesn't have to be just money right, like you could look at all of the blessings in your life, because that's really true abundance. Abundance is not just money, but I know that a lot of you, money is, is a very tender and sensitive topic, so I just started writing down so I could see where all the money was already flowing to me all from different sources as well, right, Um, so I really started to train my brain. You know where we already have money and paying attention to that and feeling grateful for that.

Erin Gray:

If you want support transforming the way that you think and the way, more importantly, how you feel about money, and really change your life, I am here to guide you. I'm here to support you. I would love and be honored to support you on your journey. You know you can schedule a call. I'll put the link in the show notes, you can click on a time that works for you and we can see if we are a good fit for each other. Until next time, I want you to know that I'm rooting for you. I believe in you. I love you. We are all abundant, even though that our body and our minds want to tell us that we aren't. We all are right, like that is our natural state of being. God did not put us on the planet to struggle and to not have fun and to not enjoy our life and to feel lack. That is not our natural state. So I hope you enjoyed this episode and I will see you in the next one.