This month we tap perhaps one of the most mysterious yet common financial matters for individuals, couples and families – young and old; the budget!  Reflecting on this popular topic, I offer that budgets fall on a continuum. From extremely rigid to spacious certainty, your budget style depends upon your unique money flow situation and your unique way of being with money. Before I delve into the nuances of Conscious Cash Flow and this continuum, I want to emphasize that budget is the same concept as these following terms: spending plan, cash flow statement, money allocation, values based spending, spending management; perhaps you know of others.  In the past ten years, some new words or phrases have developed to face the practice of budgeting.

For many, the word budget conjures up mixed and deflated feelings of failure, fear, and paralysis.  If this experience happens for you, simply notice that the word budget ties you in a knot. Breathe into the contracted space and continue reading.  The truth is: everyone has a budget. Whether one is conscious about their budget, and where they are located on the cash flow continuum, is the interesting exploration.

Conscious Cash Flow is a phrase I use to describe a person who has embodied the following attributes:

1. he or she is aware of where money flows in from, and where money flows out to;
2. he or she chooses where money flows out with a clear awareness of how much money is flowing in;
3. he or she is aware of the most beneficial “place” to be on the continuum for his or her unique situation at the present time.

The three statements are all equally important to embody conscious cash flow. In most practices and models, the first capacity is the focus, and the remaining two are ignored. The first capacity is to be conscious of where you are spending your financial resources, to be mindful of your values and to ensure that your money goes to what you value the most. The second capacity is a little more refined and requires individuals to be aware of money generation in relation to money outflow.

The second attribute is key. Here’s why:  As humans we get used to a pleasurable way of living, especially when income increases. It is called hedonics. If our income is a certain level, we can easily spend to that level. When and if income drops, it is generally difficult to cut back our spending habits to a lower level. Money income needs to be directly proportional to money outflow. Because we don’t always do a spectacular job with this relationship, emergency funds, savings and investments are built into financial plans to support shortfalls. The third capacity is a little more refined than the first two.  It comes online when capacities 1 and 2 are well practiced.

Depending upon your unique way of being with finances and form, you will be most effective with your money flow in some particular place on the continuum. For example, if you enjoy precision and like to create spreadsheets, quicken reports, and supporting measurements to provide clarity around your money flow, you might be most comfortable near the rigid side of the continuum. You would prefer to balance your checkbook (or cash outflow) each month and you value practical forms, provided in myriad selections, to document your financial situation.

On the other hand, if your cash flow – flows – and your unique situation does not warrant a tight management or you have delegated the practice to a bookkeeper, you might be on the spacious certainty side of the continuum. I want to emphasize there is no right or wrong place to be on the continuum. Most important is to embody capacities one and two, and consciously determine which practice serves you well, for number three.

Performing a Google search you will access many budgeting formats and opportunities to improve your spending practice. The simplest form I like to offer is described below.  When practiced with intention and care, it builds a strong foundation for money flow clarity and opens the portal for the next practice toward Conscious Cash Flow.

Conscious Cash Flow

Each person’s budget includes fixed expenses and variable expenses. Fixed expenses are items that do not change from month to month. Examples of fixed expenses are: rent, mortgage, loan payments, cable, phone plans, utility bills, retirement plans, gym membership and so on. Variable expenses are items that do change from month to month. Examples of variable expenses are dining out, entertainment, dry cleaning, gifts, and so on. Each person is living his or her own unique situation. This means that your fixed and variable expenses will be different from your neighbor’s expenses. Even in my examples above, you may have a fixed dry cleaning bill each month rather than a variable expense.  For this reason…

1. Your first step toward conscious cash flow is to determine your fixed and variable expenses.
2. The second step is to determine under each category how much you value the item you are allocating money to. For example, you may spend a fixed $50 a month on a gym membership and determine that you no longer value this membership because you are not using it. This is the opening to make a new choice and follow that choice with an action (i.e. recommit to going to the gym – higher value, or cease spending money on the gym – align current value with money allocation.)  Another example you may determine that your variable monthly grocery bill is all over the map and you would like to create more awareness around your monthly cash allocation to food. This is the opening to make a choice for a fixed grocery allocation and develop a new food spending practice for your food.
3. Third step:  After you refine your budget for fixed and variable expenses, calculate how much of your budget is fixed and how much is variable. What is the ratio to fixed and variable?
4. Fourth step:  Now look at your cash income. What is the total income and how much of your total income supports fixed expenses and how much remains for variable expenses? These simple calculations illuminate your cash flow patterns. If the majority of your income goes to fixed expenses, your flexibility for variable expenses is limited. Please note, having high fixed expenses is not a problem; unless you are unaware and overspend each month.
5. Fifth step:  If you determine that you would like to shift the proportion of fixed expenses and variable expenses, your next step is to look closely at where you allocate your money and see if any items are candidates to change.
6. Finally:  If there are items to change, your next action is to make the change in your budget and create a practice to build the capacity to sustain the change.

How often you review your budget and cash flow is determined by where you locate on the continuum. In the beginning of this practice, you are generally on the more rigid side of the continuum and a monthly review is a satisfying beginning point.

As indicated, there are a plethora of budgeting and cash flow models to use in order to gain skills in your Conscious Cash Flow.  My offering in this article is to get you interested – starting with more awareness about the three attributes – and allow you to determine the next steps that support you on your financial fitness path.

This article was first published on April 26, 2012 on integralchicks.com, where Gayle is a monthly contributor.

Before I offer a discourse on this month’s article about embodiment, I want to thank Nicole and Kelly for inviting me to join Integral Chicks as a contributor. When approached, my body began to tingle, my chest opened, a soft delightful buzz filled my body. Of course, the answer was…”yes.” My body offered clear, clean, and direct feedback of the truth. This experience can be described as a “whole body yes” (*) and it is how I make decisions. It reflects a practice – a way of being – to live as an embodied soul. It is how I choose to move through a field of many dis-embodied souls. The exciting news is that our culture is moving toward embodiment; we simply have a few growing pains and practices to engage to gain full access to this way of being. This is why I am excited to start my contributions with this topic. My intention with each offering is to connect the body – to every situation – however clear or obscure. We’ll see what happens along the way!

Recently the “concept” of embodiment stared me in the face and rekindled one of my challenges with the term and use of the word. I was at a training on a fairly complex and edgy topic and the presenter spoke frequently about embodiment. However, as we all know, the map is not the territory. Yet all too often the head talks about the concept of embodiment. You will know, sense, and grok embodiment in yourself when you have a direct experience – in your body. And you will know, sense, and grok embodiment in another person when you are in the field of an embodied person. Their embodiment touches your own embodiment – there is ease and flow, alignment with truth, thought waves in and out – head, heart, and gut enliven the spine. I can promise you, he or she will not just be talking about it. Embodiment just is — it’s palpable — and supercharges all lines of development.

Embodiment is not a destination; it is the proverbial journey of claiming our human wholeness. Like a spiral that is oriented upwards but dips down and rises over and over again, we revisit experiences through our body until we eventually become whole. The simplest framing of embodiment is inspired by the classical Hindu Yoga theory of the Five Koshas. The stages are: Hear, Reflect, Understand, Practice, and Embody. As integrally informed people, we know that humans lead with the cognitive line of development. We first hear something, we reflect on it, and then we understand it. Each of these stages on the road to embodiment is keying up the cognitive line. Cognition is necessary, but not sufficient. Often when we come to understand something, we frequently make the mistake of “thinking” the concept is embodied, even when we know that practice is required for embodiment.

Most of my professional career has been steeped in the financial world. Financial folks, on the whole, are perhaps the best examples of disembodiment. My hand is raised, and I include myself in this category. I’m, perhaps, a recovering disembodied financial freak. I love facts. I love philosophy, psychology, money matters…scintillating conversations about the economy, world affairs, and Wall Street. There are so many ways to get further and further distracted from the body when it comes to money. If I counted the time I have spent in financial conferences – sitting and listening to a download of data – it would be counted in years, maybe even decades. Ouch. At the end of my life I don’t want to see that I’ve spent so much time sitting and listening to a talking head!

These conferences often include sessions to build human skills, such as, how to effectively communicate, how to build client trust or have the right conversation, or any number of ways to relate to others in various situations. After an hour and a half presentation, or maybe even a weekend course, we THINK we can now effectively manifest client trust through the data that we heard, but it’s just not so. While I am picking on my own breed, financial folks are not alone; there is a whole world of people (and professions) where this situation applies. Should I now pick on Coaching?

The first three stages of learning-to-embodiment, together, are a version of futurizing. After mentally digesting information, our minds immediately go toward HOW it can be applied. Our minds work so very fast that we are not aware of what’s happening. Futurizing is a form of predict and control – we predict and control to stay safe within our comfort zone.  And again, it’s just not enough.

What is the next move after hearing, reflecting and understanding? Opening. The fourth stage, Practice, begins with opening. When we open, practice is an elegant energy that naturally arises.  There is little compulsion to figure out the next move because it happens as a body impulse. We practice, experiment, discover, jump into the deep end, and eventually learn how to swim.

Life is a big playground for practice: this and only this leads to embodiment. Understand all of the concepts you want, fill your mind with facts and figures, read theories until your brain explodes. In the words of a rather crude and direct uncle, “it won’t make your pecker hard” – or, for you integral chicks, it won’t make your yoni wet! I apologize to those who are offended by the graphic language, but perhaps you can appreciate the metaphor – this is all about experience.

As your body is the vehicle in which you enact these practices, and have these experiences, it is helpful to drop in and consciously include it, regardless of what you are trying to do or learn. This will help supercharge your embodiment. It’s not so hard. Here are a few ways to play with this in the moment:

• Where is your body? Bring your awareness to the entire felt sense of it while you read these words. What do you notice?
• Find your feet, your legs, and your buttocks. Lengthen your spine. Open your chest. What do you notice?
• Feel gravity holding you. Rest your torso in the earth. Lift your chest and neck. What do you notice?
• Pay attention to the movement of your breath. Be with the sensations and movement and entire felt sense of your breath in your body. What do you notice?
• Continue to include your body awareness in all of your activities. When you “lose” your body, reclaim it in your awareness.

Your body is your ally, and longs to be included in your awareness, every moment. When awareness consistently includes the physical form, in all activities – from meditation to eating to mowing the lawn to web searching to relating to others – your way of being is embodied. Every new learning and capability starts with hearing, the first stage. Then we reflect and understand. Once our understanding is tapped, we open and practice. We practice and learn until our body-mind merge into one way of being.  Embodiment accesses all aspects of self thus catalyzing capacity in all lines of development. Your body offers more space to grow, to move, to feel, to love, to express, to create – in all situations.

Where is my body now?

Hmm, wow, I feel tingle and buzz coursing through my body, a whole body yes – in celebration of you, me, and all, toward embodiment.

* The phrase, “whole body yes”, comes from my study, practice and play at the Hendricks Institute with Dr.’s Gay and Kathlyn Hendricks.