If you just think the right thoughts, you’ll get rich.

That’s the promise of most prosperity programs.

And while it’s true that changing your consciousness about money can enhance your real-life experience with money, there’s a lot more to financial freedom than simply thinking rich.

Check it out:

Financial freedom has two main components, both of which are equally vital to its attainment.

The first component involves opening to the flow of abundance in our lives.

And by this, I mean abundance in every sense of the word.

When we start to understand that abundance isn’t just about money but includes money, then we’re on the right track to tapping into the mother lode.

We’re surrounded by abundance every day.

An abundance of air.

Of sky.

Of sun.

And, if we’re open to it, an abundance of friends.

And love.

And, yes, money.

This first component is what most prosperity programs are all about. Some of them help you to open to abundance in the larger sense of the word. Others just focus on the money part.

But without the second piece of the puzzle, this one-sided focus can create a mess.

And by mess, I mean the opposite of financial freedom.

So what’s the second piece?

The second piece is lowering our expenses.

What?! Isn’t lowering our expenses the opposite of everything we’ve been taught about prosperity consciousness? Isn’t prosperity consciousness about expansion? And isn’t expansion limitless? As in, without any frickin limits?!

Here’s the thing: The one-sided focus of many prosperity programs is a product of our materialistic society.

A society that posits that More Is Better.

And Too Much Is The Best.

There’s a great book called The Soul of Money by Lynne Twist. (Have you read it? If not, check it out.)

One of her main – and beautiful – points is the idea of sufficiency.

Take the growth of a tree, for example.

A tree doesn’t just keep growing and growing, gobbling up all the resources in an unending cycle of greed and need.

A tree grows until it reaches an individual, level of expansion.

In other words, there are limits. There’s a point of enough.

See, we don’t need tons of stuff to be happy.

We do need a sufficient amount of stuff: food, shelter, clothes.

But once we hit sufficiency, the quest for more and more stuff starts to defeat the purpose.

A prosperity program that only focuses on attaining more, and doesn’t have you take an honest assessment of how much you actually need, can leave you less prosperous than you started.

True financial freedom is all about creating a nice big fat gap between your monthly nut and the amount of cash flowing into your life.

It’s like a pond:

Make a nice low bottom, fill it with lots of water, and you have lots of room for the fishies to swim around!

The bigger the gap between the bottom and the top, the more financial freedom you have.

This isn’t to say that some people don’t take the second component too far. You don’t want to pinch off your expenses to the point of deprivation.

Sufficiency is just that: Enough.

But most of us – especially in the U.S. – think we need way more than we do.

Melissa and I have found great freedom in cutting away stuff we thought we needed. That, and figuring out ways to pay less for things.

It’s like a game – a game that results in big fat flow of peace and freedom.

That said, there is an exception to the sufficiency rule, a bonus third piece that brings it all together.

While it’s true that we can reach an optimal level of stuff, there are other things we can open to in limitless amounts.

Things like love. And peace. And freedom.

The trick is to not confuse these things with material objects. Or expect material things to buy you love. Or peace. Or freedom.

So what does financial freedom look like?

1. Raising the prosperity bar, opening to abundance in all forms
2. Lowering our nut, establishing a satisfying level of sufficiency
3. Remembering that material goods are not our God. Spirit is our God. Love is our God. Peace is our God.

Put those three together, and you hit the mother lode:

True financial freedom.

What’s your experience with financial freedom? Share your comments below!

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