Emotional Pro

This morning I felt inspired to look myself–Ilene L. Dillon–up on the Internet by doing a Google search. I am PRESENT on the Internet! Listings for Full Power Living, my Internet radio program. From 1999 a listing of my husband, Dr. Bob Fink, and me presenting papers at an International Conference in Beijing (which we did on our Honeymoon and ended up with the most memorable experiences!), along with a listing in the Yellow Pages! Then there is the Psychology Today directory, the National Speakers Association directory, and various web sites that list my books, including my Author Page on Amazon. I’ve been writing and putting myself “out there” for many years, now.
The lesson is that I haven’t done it smartly. So far, these listings haven’t brought me more gigs, increased income, or collaboration possibilities, though it has brought some psychotherapy clients. I was raised by a bureaucrat and a stay-at-home Mom. What did they have to tell me about entrepreneurship (even though my Dad had my sister and me selling fabric glue door-to-door when I was a pre-adolescent, attempting to teach us to “go for it.” In addition, their biggest arguments were about money. They took my hard-earned money, when I was a teenager, in the form of “fines” levied on the basis of my drawers or closets not being sufficiently neat (boy, do I enjoy throwing my shoes into the bottom of my closet now!). I was in debt from the age of 12. My father found out, for the first after I was in college, that my mother had five years earlier set up a savings account in a bank in another state, to which she insisted I contribute. She knew that he had opened a mutual fund account (they called it something different then) to which he insisted I contribute monthy. Bottom line, my money wouldn’t go around that far–fines, savings account and mutual funds—so I was constantly in debt, even though I babysat up to six nights a week when I was in high school.
Do you know the Berenstain Bear’s book entitled “The Bike Lesson?” It is one of my favorites. I have never tired of reading it. The father brings home a bicycle for his son, yet insists on teaching him safety lessons before he’ll hand it over. The father has the worst possible outcome for every lesson he teaches, with his son rescuing him from cliffside, farmer’s hen houses, and the like. After every lesson, the son says something like: “Wow, Dad, wow. That sure is a good lesson for me, that number three. Can I ride it now, Dad? Can I ride it now?” Not until ten lessons are (painfully) taught, does the son get to ride the bike!
That’s the way I have felt about money for most of my life. And I have worked on this issue. I read all of Catherine Ponder’s books on prosperity, made and spoke aloud dozens of Affirmations, made prosperity charts with magazine pictures, passed my bills to others so that George Washington constantly looked at me from his picture, stopped saying “I don’t have enough,” and practiced acts of Faith with money, such as buying lunch of others when I was down to my last penny. It has worked quite well. I have made great strides and am no longer a penniless individual, even though I was the sole support of my family for 25 years (something for which I was ill-prepared, but which I learned as I went along. With two children, the most I ever got was $350 per month in child support, and no spousal support, which even in the 1980’s wasn’t much at all!). My latest, and most favorite books, are Gregg Braden’s “The Isaiah Effect” and Esther and Jerry Hicks’ “Ask and It Is Given”.
What is all this leading up to? 2006 is, I have decided, my year to “go for it” with money. I’m deciding now that money isn’t a “dirty word,” doesn’t keep me distanced from my humanity, isn’t embarrassing or a burden to have, and is okay to “go for.” Accordingly, I’m writing my book, taking Teleseminars like they will disappear tomorrow, and organizing my business plan in a way that it will work. I KNOW that whatever I put my mind to, I can do.
What has this got to do with Emotional Literacy? In my learning, money represents love. I have been spending my entire life learning about love, having had numerous challenges to my understanding and experience of love from the time I was first on this earth. The “date” I know about where this was first challenged was when I was 6 months old and my birth mother left me at a babysitter’s for “a few hours.” She did not return for 3 days. In the meantime, I nearly died of Whooping Cough, except for the willingness of the babysitter to take me to the doctor and pay for the visit herself. Bless her. I don’t know her name, yet I owe her my life! If this life is a “Giant School,” then I have packed far too many “lessons” into a single lifetime! Yet, I say with both pride and gratitude, “I’ve been learning my lessons!” 2006 is no different. I am confident I will restore myself to greater balance and emotional integration this year, as I manifest my millions at last!