The Global Conversation

How to reconcile having more with helping those in poverty?

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Annie Sims

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How do I reconcile my desire to do and have more in my life with my desire to help those who struggle just to survive? I know there is unlimited abundance in the world because God is unlimited, yet for every dollar I spend on something I want just for fun, that dollar could go to someone who desperately needs it for basic necessities. I give to people on the street and to charity, and I want to do more… but I also want to live a fabulous, fun, free life, without feeling guilty about it. Please help!… Elizabeth

Dear Elizabeth… Please know that your question is one that I also ask myself as I continually work to choose the highest and best way to express Who I Am. It’s an age-old question, really, how to come to terms with this gap between the “haves” and the “have nots”.

Dr. Wayne Dyer said something very interesting once: he said he believes that if we could take all the money in the world, put it in an airplane, then distribute it evenly around the world, in a very short time it would end up right back where it started. What he was saying was, we can only embody that which we have in our consciousness, so the money would end up back in the hands of those who had it in the first place. If I have a wealth consciousness, I will continue to attract wealth. If I have a poverty consciousness, I will continue to attract poverty… unless I decide to dig deep and root out the Sponsoring Thoughts that cause it. Some people feel they are not worthy of being wealthy. Others feel that there is something inherently wrong with being wealthy. Society itself gives us many mixed signals about this, so it’s no wonder people harbor guilty feelings around having a lot of money.

However, as you said, God is unlimited and there is unlimited abundance in the world. I whole-heartedly believe this is true. I also believe that God is Omni-present and in every single person, rich or poor. So to me that means every person has the same unlimited potential for abundance that God has… but only to the degree that they know it.

Another thing Dr. Dyer said that I never forgot: we can’t feel bad enough to make someone else feel better. This is in no way meant to be a callous remark. Rather, he is rightly saying that we do much more good for others when we are in a positive frame of mind than when we are in a negative one. When we are in alignment with God and feeling great, that’s when we are open to receiving inspiration to really make a difference in the world.

At the end of the day, it is up to each of us to discern how we choose to be in relation to everyone… and everything, including money. The opposites of wealth and poverty here in the Realm of the Physical are here to offer us yet one more way to decide and to declare, to express and to experience Who We Are.

(Annie Sims is the Global Director of CWG Advanced Programs, is a Conversations With God Coach and author/instructor of the CWG Online School. To connect with Annie, please email her at Annie@TheGlobalConversation.com

(If you would like a question considered for publication, please submit your request to:  Advice@TheGlobalConversation.com where our team is waiting to hear from you.)

Comments

2 responses to “How to reconcile having more with helping those in poverty?”

  1. Dave Albertson Avatar
    Dave Albertson

    Why will you not post my previous post

    Reply
  2. Dave Albertson Avatar
    Dave Albertson

    Thank you Annie.

    Elizabeth, perhaps God does not want us to reconcile our desire for more in our own life with our desire to help the least among us. Why? Because there is no reconciling with the truth. Acceptance of the truth, regarding our responsibility to be our brothers keeper, with its corresponding guilt if we are not, is a first step to global maturity. But, this maturity can not be won without real action. This action must include sharing our wealth with the poor. The more we share the more we move toward reconciliation. I believe that if we feel no discomfort, no personal financial pain from our giving, we our denied the chance to share in the suffering that leads to even greater understanding and empathy for our brothers and sisters. Other sustained actions can be very helpful to the poor, but for the majority of people such sustained actions are not a possibility. The fact is that most of us can make the greatest impact by sharing heftily our financial wealth with the poor, and taking what ever other concrete actions we can to help them. For example; donate vacation time to caring for the needy here and abroad, support political and social actions that help the poor regardless of the impact on our own pocket book, standing up for the reality that our life-style and consumerism is a tragic mistake in a world that has millions without the most basic human needs.

    I think God is more interested in how I allow him to express his love to others through me than my expression of who I am or how much fun I have. But fear not Elizabeth, for being the hands and feet of God takes us beyond fun to the realm of fulfillment.

    Any suggestion that the person experiencing poverty has the power to change it by digging deep and rooting out sponsoring thoughts is ignorance of the socioeconomic realities of the poor.

    Furthermore, such ideas as: if all money was evenly distributed it would eventually end up in the hands of the wealthy again, and that feeling bad never makes a difference to the reality of the least fortunate, are rationalizations, as are all non-action attempts to reconcile our wealth and consumerism with the poor of the world.

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