Money Quote for Monday: Gabrielle Bernstein’s “May Cause Miracles”

After this over-50-girl got past the annoying “supergroovy” and “trippy” vocabulary in the super-popular pop-culture book, “May Cause Miracles,” by Gabrielle Bernstein, I found a couple of memorable money quotes I’d love to share. The book focuses on Bernstein’s learnings from “A Course in Miracles,” a highly regarded metaphysical guide that also digs deeply into our financial mindsets. I am glad to see a book that speaks to younger readers. I will admit that I wish there was an easy-to-digest book like this around when I was in my 20s. (Was there? I began my quest by reading an original, dusty and more esoteric “Power of Concentration” in my early 20s that I discovered while poking around in the infamous Samuel Weiser bookstore that was once located in the Village in NYC.)

Okay, on with my favorite quotes in the book, from Week 5: Raise Your Self-Worth, Raise Your Net Worth (the chapter’s name is a dedication to the popular personal finance blog for women, Daily Worth, for which I was also a guest blogger.)

“Our ego makes us think we want a certain amount of money to make our troubles disappear, whereas what we really want is to be happy.” ~From “A Course in Miracles”

One exercise in this book that actually quickly helped me to uncover a personal block:

“Identify whom you need to forgive when it comes to your finances. Maybe you need to forgive yourself for poor decisions. Maybe you need to forgive a past employer or a family member you resent.” ~Gabrielle Bernstein

Bingo. My mom. She didn’t teach me very well (if at all) about good personal finance and I’m most likely still pretty mad about that because as a little kid, I allowed her beliefs to settle into my own growing belief system, ie: she lived in a mindset of lack. Funny how reading a couple of quotes can open your eyes to see what was always right in front of you!

~Marilyn, TFF