Signs of Inner Prosperity vs Inner Poverty

I have written a lot about inner prosperity and how essential it is for health, wellness and success in life. Check out my book Vibrational Healing if you want more info on the concept. The fascinating thing about inner prosperity is that it has so many levels....so much depth and complexity to it, that it's impossible to define it. I can talk about it, and the experience of it, but inner prosperity is a highly personal concept, as is beauty. 

While beauty is a pinnacle concept, inner prosperity is more about depth and creating meaning. Most every person on the planet would say, "I love myself and I value my existence," but is that really true? On one level, yes. On a basic level of belief. On another level, an integrated level, it comes down to how much of your time, energy and thoughts you spend on making yourself happy.

Here's some questions to ask yourself if you want a meter of your own inner prosperity. Be honest with the answers, and yourself, if you want the deepest insight possible. This will show you the difference between saying you value yourself highly and actually living that experience:

When you sit still, what do you feel?

Maybe start by seeing if you can even sit still and do nothing at all but breathe for 30 or 40 minutes, without distraction. If you can't, if you feel you are going to crawl out of your skin and can't even sit and just "be", I would say you lack inner prosperity. This comes down to not being able to be okay with something inside of you, and until you are completely okay with everything about yourself and accept all things, how can inner prosperity find a home in your heart?

Here's some of the possibilities, on a spectrum. You can't sit still. You can, but it's difficult. You sit and feel empty inside (don't fool yourself into thinking this is some profound spiritual experience...it's not). You sit and find yourself journeying out of body (another form of avoidance and a sign of lacking inner prosperity). You feel parts of your past. You dream about your future. You don't feel empty, but you're not sure what you feel. You feel completely ok, and nothing past or future comes in. It's just an experience of right now. You feel a deep seated bliss, arising out of nothing. You feel bliss, and it inspires you to create the life of your dreams. 

When you take time to reflect, where are your thoughts?

What is it you think of? Positive or negative things? Other people or yourself? What percentage of your thoughts go into each category? Map this out over a week and be honest. Inwardly prosperous people spend much more time focusing on themselves and what they can do for the world than on trying to appease or make others happy. Happiness is an outcome you have no control over in someone else's life, so to worry about it is fruitless. And anyone who says "if you do X, I'll be happy" is a liar. Focusing on your talents and strengths, those things that you are passionate about and make you happy, and what you can contribute to the world shows you are on track. Aka, your process is much more important than its outcome.

What do you want to be when you grow up?

You're probably already an adult, but you get the point :) What do you really want to be? Are you working towards it, or did your life get diverted? Do you even know what you want, or are you too busy living someone else's dream for your life? Or worse yet, are you living a societally expected script of life? Contrary to what you might think, the last two will not make you happy and are clear signs that inner prosperity is lacking. It means you've bought into someone else's story and dream, and are ignoring the voice of God within your own heart. Is the voice of others louder than your own inner guidance? 

If you want to find luminosity and utter brilliance, you have no farther to look than in your own heart. When you nourish and support that which *YOU* are, you'll find the richness and jewels beyond explanation. When you don't, that inner abode will remain elusive. And God is only in that inner abode. You can work your whole life to please others and do what's expected of you, but that won't elevate your relationship with Self or God....it will merely appease the inner poverty in other people, leaving you inwardly bankrupt. And whatever you don't do in this life that you were meant to when you got too busy living the expectation of others, you'll find yourself redoing in the next lifetime, but with more difficulties (difficulties are meant to bring clarity to a situation and force you to make better decisions, they are not meant to hinder you). If you don't believe in multiple lifetimes, it's even worse to live someone else's dream of you because you'd have no way to rectify that mistake.

Avoid externalized projections of God or purpose

The importance of inner prosperity is why I am not fond of ritualistic worship. It does nothing to bring you closer to the God within or to your own life purpose. It takes you to an externalized projection of God and further masks the ability to find God within yourself. Because frankly, who cares if you "find God" or think you do? If you're not able to integrate it with your life and live a life on purpose fulfilling your destiny, it's all merely an illusion. A clever diversion to fool those who are not perceptive enough to know the difference.

Let's make this concept simple. Don't be a parrot. Don't spout off someone else's beliefs, or a tradition, or a religion, or anything like that. People who act like parrots, or walking encyclopedias, are shallow. You'd have zero need to speak someone else's words if you've lived your own experience. Find your depth, your personal experience of divinity, Self and purpose and have the courage to live it.