Washout Day 1/4 Reflections on Wealth and Beauty
I’ve spent a little bit of time reflecting on my insight from last night, and it’s crazy. Here I was thinking that my addictive issues were somehow part of my relationship to women, or love, or romance, or something like that.
I’ve spent so much time thinking and acting as if all these different aspects of myself were separate, however, now I’m starting to see that it’s just not the case.
The mind is just too strange, mysterious, and complicated. My relationship with wealth is directly connected to my relationship with my body and my physical appearance, or vice versa, doesn’t really matter.
It still tastes strange in my mouth, but it’s starting to make so much sense how these strange associations could have formed in my early subconscious mind. We don’t exist in a vacuum, and when I think back more honestly about how I viewed wealthy people when I was young, it makes sense.
The poor people that I knew (which included me and my friends and family) were shorter, less attractive, overweight, typically drinkers, typically smokers, typically not very physically healthy or active. The list goes on. This is what I saw as a child, and with my childhood mind, it seems like I started forming associations between poverty and the attributes that I listed above. Don’t get me wrong, these attributes are stereotypes and I don’t consciously view people that way, but that didn’t really matter to my early childhood psyche, now did it?
The rich people that I encountered were what? They tended to be taller, more attractive, and leaner, if they drank, they didn’t get wild drunk, were non-smokers, played sports or did other physical activities, had nice hair, and the list goes on.
In my childhood mind, I associated wealth with beauty and health, among other characteristics. This association was bolstered by the media that I was consuming, I knew at a very young age that famous actors were typically very wealthy, and they were also the most beautiful people, almost godly in their legendary beauty.
A more objective look at reality will reveal that many A-List actors are really not “that beautiful” and if you were to see them working at a gas station, you probably wouldn’t think too much of their appearance. However, the aura of wealth and power influences our perception of their beauty.
In the same way, the more I align myself with wealth consciousness, the more beautiful I see myself as. In previous journals, I’ve talked about how low my self-esteem has dropped, well guess what? My self-esteem has dropped off right alongside my recent financial hardships. The less money I made, the more ugly I began to believe that I was.
It’s really amazing, actually, to finally understand these things about myself and it explains so much, so very, very much about the last 10 or so years of my life.
When I think about times in my life when I’ve rubbed elbows with millionaires, they always (so long as I played cool) instinctively saw me as one of their own…which also gives me pause. The exterior world, in some capacity, does reflect a wealth consciousness within me, but there is still a blockage.
I have some strange deep inner conflict with wealth. I’m half in and half out. People have often perceived me as being wealthy, because in many ways, when I’m out and about in the real world, I have that energy.
Addiction and money. That’s what’s happening here.
I think, my addictions are what tie me to poverty consciousness…
I think that’s the mental block.
Part of my psyche is a rich man, and people see that, but the part of my psyche that still wants to drink, smoke, and be fat is a poor man.
Remember this isn’t true, it’s stereotypical, however, that’s how my SubC sees things, it sees my habits as poverty habits…and I think there is something more profound about that, that I don’t quite understand.
I think my bad habits are all that tie me to my poverty consciousness…I think they are the chains.
So I have 2 choices. Either I can try and convince myself that having addictive tendencies is fine, or I can cut all the trash out of my life and embrace the inner rich man.
The choice is obvious.
I’ve met many millionaires, and they simply DO NOT engage with food and alcohol the way I do. I drink, eat, and smoke like a poor person, so I need to train myself to drink eat and smoke like a rich man.
How does a rich man eat, drink, and smoke? He always has his eye on his image and reputation. If it would look bad for him to smoke at that moment, he doesn’t smoke, if it would look bad to eat, he doesn’t eat, if it would look bad to drink, he doesn’t drink.
It’s funny, years ago I was hanging out at the house of this millionaire dude that I knew and he saw me smoking and made a comment, he said. “Yeah, I never wanted to quit smoking, I love smoking.” I didn’t respond, I just nodded, and he walked back inside, but now I knew what he was REALLY trying to tell me. He was trying to tell me that he had to quit smoking because rich people weren’t allowed to smoke. That’s just how American culture is right now. In American consciousness, only poor people or rebels smoke. It’s just not the right image for a rich dude, especially not one in his shoes.
This was a man who made himself a millionaire, he quit smoking because he HAD TO because he HAD to present the SOCIAL IMAGE of wealth, his continued success depended on it. In America, cigarette smoking is associated with poverty, that’s why even though many wealthy people smoke, they do it in private, in secret, and only when no one is around.
This reminds me of years, and years ago when Obama got elected into office, he was a cigarette smoker at the time, and photos of him smoking got out so then there was the whole story about how Obama quit smoking. Why did he quit? He quit for his public image.
Guess what? Obama never quit, in his memoir, he admitted that he never really quit, he just got really, really good at hiding it from people. It was all for PR.
My point is that…
Yeah, I’m just rambling because these insights are blowing my mind, but they seem important.
Rich people have addiction problems too, however, rich people don’t do it the way that poor people do. Most rich people won’t just smoke anywhere because the public perception might not be worth the risk.
So many insights. So many insights about myself.
I ran it last year and it was WAY too much for me.
