This is a guest post by my dear friend Mark Silver. I jumped out of an airplane yesterday and my head is still up in the clouds. The links to Mark’s stuff are affiliates links because I 100% support his work – he was my coach before he was my friend.

A couple of weeks ago Jen and I held a conversation for all of us whose hearts had been worn out by many of the common approaches to manifesting abundance. It was all based on a manifesto I wrote recently, “Backwards: Why Common Abundance Manifestation Approaches Are Sabotaging Your Success.” (Jen: read this, it’s fantastic!)

We had hundreds of people register for that call, and, from what we heard, many of you received the same kind of relief Jen and I feel from these teachings.

In the hundreds of registrations that came in for that call, there were many questions we just didn’t have time to get to. So Jen and I decided to do it here, on the blog.

Without further ado, here’s what folks were asking (with any identifying information excluded).

Q: It seems greedy and shallow to want LOTS of money.  Yet I’m caught in this cycle of wanting more money and trying to figure out what I can do or offer that people will want to pay adequately for.  I’m stuck and doubtful.

A: I can so understand this, and why wouldn’t we all want more money? Having money can provide ease and generosity to our lives. To be able to buy a gift for someone you love, or to be able to take time off when you need to without worrying about whether you can afford it. You can’t buy love, but you can buy options and ease.

I think the shallowness you perceive is shallow—meaning only one layer deep. I get caught here, too. When consciousness finds me again and I realize I’ve become attached to money, I like to stop and ask, “If I had the money, what is my heart hoping it would get?”

It’s really the same question we ask in Forwards: Heart-Centered Goal Planning (included in the Backwards manifesto I mentioned above), where you are looking for the Divine quality that can nourish you in this relationship with money.

When my heart can access that quality directly, I can relax and find options. Sometimes I see options about how to relax without needing the money I thought I needed. Sometimes I see ways to increase the amount of money coming in.

Either way, my heart is nourished. So please be gentle with yourself around wanting money, that’s quite normal, just look a bit more deeply.

About what you can do or offer that people will want to pay for, that’s an interesting, creative business journey. If you go through the Forwards exercise about this, or even just ask the question above, I’m so curious what options you’ll see about what you might be able to offer, or work toward offering? I hope you’ll let us know.

Q: How do I know if a situation that arises is an opening to say yes or a test to say no?

A: This is such an interesting question! So many things show up in our life, do we just accept everything that comes our way as a gift of abundance? If we do that, we’ll get overwhelmed.

And yet saying No to what comes can seem ungrateful, or perhaps foolish.

Here’s what has worked for me:

When something arrives, I say Yes to it. Not “Yes, I will follow this opportunity.” But “Yes, this opportunity is here.” That little bit of acceptance seems minor, but it’s really critical. It means that I’m not holding the opportunity at arm’s length, but actually letting it in and getting intimate with it. That intimacy allows me to see what it is.

Then I can begin to ask my heart, “What Divine qualities characterize the healthiest relationship I can have with this opportunity?” Asking this question stops me from reaching for what I should do, and instead helps me focus on how to relate to it.

As my heart accesses those qualities, which often takes some time, especially if there is a lot of emotion tangled up for me in the offer, I can begin to rest into the relationship. And from there it becomes apparent what to do.

For example, a while ago, I had someone offer a joint venture to us here at Heart of Business. It was an opportunity to potentially reach many people. As I sat in my heart, I realized that the healthiest relationship to this venture offer was characterized by the qualities of gratitude, and what in Sufism is described as “The Guardian.” As I felt the guardian come into my heart, I could feel a natural distance being placed between myself and the offer.

I could also feel the gratitude. From a sense of safety, I could graciously and with appreciation, say No. My heart was left feeling calm.

To sum up, I think the key is to first accept that the opportunity is there, and then find the right, or healthy, relationship with the opportunity. The right decision and action will then be in your heart without having to struggle to find it.

Q: When is acting ‘as if’ and ‘in faith’ hopeful and when is it irresponsible?

A: Another fantastic question. I remember trying to act “as if” based on the recommendation of someone with whom I was working, and it just didn’t land for me. I always felt like I was lying to myself. Yet to act “in faith” is a tremendously powerful place to come from.

There are a couple of Sufi teachings that feel relevant here. The first is one that many people are familiar with, “Trust in God and tie your camel.” Meaning trust that you are being cared for, while making sure you are awake and paying attention to what’s around you.

Another one, which is similar, says, “Act in expectancy of Divine generosity and in patience with Divine decree.” The meaning here is about catching that subtle place of both surrender and expectation.

When faith buoys up our hearts and we’re filled with an awareness of the love and caring that is here for us, we can move forward with tremendous conviction and courage, taking on ambitious things out of a sense of service and love.

If we can guard in our hearts a surrender that we don’t know the outcome, that things may turn out differently than we’re imagining, and that always the path we’re walking is one paved with love, mercy and compassion, then we can receive things we never imagined.

It’s challenging, but the challenge is asking us to stay awake and present in as many moments as we can. To act in love, and to stay awake knowing that Divine creation is in action every moment.

For me, the “acting as if” is not truly acting. I ask to help access love in my heart, and when I do and am lifted up by the faith I feel, then it’s real. From that place, I move forward, but without expectations of a particular outcome.

Switching from Outcome to Relationship

Each of these questions brings to light the freedom that we can find in shifting from being attached to an outcome, to attaching to healthy, Divinely-inspired relationships.

Thanks Mark for such grounded, inspiring answers. My heart feels bigger just having read them. I hope you will hop on over and read about Mark’s work, especially his Heart of Money Transformational Journey.

This week, I’m choosing to shift from busy-bee hell-bent on making-it-happen Jen (who is very attached to outcome) to pausing to have a relationship with something larger than myself Jen. To act with and in love Jen. Wow, isn’t that a more spacious (and fun) place to be! My whole body  just relaxed.