Become Stress Free About Money

Hello,

And welcome to another podcast.

My name is Douglas Grumman,

And I'm going to share some insight with you on money and how to be stress free and free from stress from money.

The year 2023 ended kind of hard for me.

I had to put my puppy down,

And I also scheduled some biopsies to be done and remove some moles that were questionable,

Especially one that was under my arm.

And it's weird,

The one under my arm was totally black,

And it was more like a spot than it was a mole.

It wasn't,

It was just like a growth on my skin.

And it started in 1998,

My first year that I ever went to California,

And if you guys listen to some of the tracks I've laid about my life before,

Then you know that that was a very mystical time of my life.

And anyway,

So yeah,

I decided to put Mila down before the year started because I didn't want to start the year off with all that to deal with.

So Mila,

My dog,

She couldn't even stand up anymore.

She couldn't hold her bowels anymore.

She just got to the point where it's just like,

Okay,

Daddy,

What are we going to do here?

I mean,

I was trying to hold on as long as I could,

Because nobody wants to lose their loved ones or anything like that.

And it's been a long time since I've lost anyone really that close to me.

It goes back just a little bit farther back into like 2017,

I lost my father.

But losing my puppy was even,

I think,

Harder than losing my father.

My father lived a long life and his time had come.

And,

You know,

So we let that go and we moved on.

And when Mila died,

It made me reflect a lot.

It made me think about what I wanted to do and how I wanted to proceed with the next year.

So I had the biopsies done on my arm and I was told by the doctor that one of the biopsies,

The one that's actually in my armpit,

In my left armpit,

And they had to remove it.

So I had to go back in and they cut a big old hunk of five millimeter skin around the existing wound that they already cut when they did the biopsy.

And being a surfer,

That put me out of the water for two and a half months.

They told me I couldn't get back in the water for about two months and they were right.

It was weird.

The stitches,

They didn't really put stitches in it.

They used this glue and I won't put down the VA,

I guess they tried,

But they stretched the skin from the upper arm almost to the skin of my chest and put glue on it and that kind of held it for a little bit,

For like three days.

Anyway,

That didn't last and it didn't work at all.

So I had to heal with this open wound for months and it was very excruciatingly painful.

It was extremely uncomfortable to try to sleep with or just to function with anyway.

So here I was stuck with all this downtime and it's not that I can't sit still.

It's not it at all.

What it was,

Was that I just felt it was a good time to sit down and maybe write another book.

I've written two books so far.

The first one was called 10,

000 Waves and it's available on Amazon.

It's a journey similar to some of the stories I've shared on Insight Timer before.

So 10,

000 Waves I wrote in 2013 or 2012 and then two years later I put out Songs of the Buddhas,

Which is a very good book about four songs that I've made commentaries on almost like how Osho would make commentaries on the sutras and stuff like that.

I wrote about these songs because these songs are kind of like sutras too.

So anyway,

I felt it was time to maybe sit down and write and I decided to write about all the ghost stories that happened in my life and I took the time and work was a little bit slow too,

So it kind of worked hand in hand.

I wasn't able to do a lot of physical work anyway,

So it was just a good time to reflect and share these stories of my life with y'all.

In the meantime,

While I'm writing this book,

I crossed the paths of a YouTube video of this guy named Ken Honda who wrote a book called Happy Money.

I was facing hardships recovering from the surgery,

Not being able to work and everything,

So I was a little bit worried about money myself.

Ken Honda made me feel so much more relaxed and accepted to any given situation with money,

Whether it be good money or bad money,

Or if it's debt,

You think it's bad money,

But in a way it's not because like Ken Honda said that when people let you or trust you that you'll pay them back with money,

Then that's a good thing because people trust you.

That trust is a very good thing,

And even though debt is looked at as a negative thing and people stress out very severely about it,

Ken Honda said that a lot of Japanese people kill themselves.

They commit suicide when they get too far in debt because they can't save face.

In Japan,

Saving face is very important.

I was fortunate in my life also to have my father who was very good at experiencing life and living life for the moment,

And basically he never thought of tomorrow or how things were going to work out.

He just basically put his faith in God,

His trust in God,

And lived by the shoestrings.

While my new wife,

Her father basically was almost the opposite.

He liked to live and everything,

But he was very smart about money.

He was a Greek man,

And most Greek people are pretty smart about money.

So anyway,

Ken Honda shares with us that money is an energy.

It's an energy field,

And it can be a good energy or it can be a bad energy.

Bad energy is when you have money coming in and you're grateful that the money comes in.

So Ken would say,

Thank the money.

When you receive money,

He used the Japanese word arigato,

Arigato your money.

I thought that was beautiful.

I thought that was really cool and very inspiring,

And since I watched this video,

I've basically been doing that.

Even though times have been rough,

Money would come in,

And I was very thankful for it.

It kind of just takes the stress right off of the feeling of the debt or the feeling that the insecurities that we might come along in life.

So I think it's very beautiful,

But it is an energy,

And he even says that money has like angels.

I know that sounds a little far-fetched,

But basically,

He's saying that it's possible that there are angels in heaven that when you not worship money,

But when you're thankful for it and you're grateful for it,

Then these angels,

These money angels come down and bless your life even more.

So if you're grateful for what you get in life,

Then it's a positive energy.

It's a positive energy field.

And if you're ungrateful or if you're greedy,

Then money can have a negative effect.

Money can be hurting you in a lot of ways because if you're greedy,

Then you're not giving to others and you're hoarding yourself,

And hoarding is actually only going to hurt you more.

So think about that in life as we face all of our challenges in life.

And I'll share this dream I had with you.

So because of Ken Honda,

I wrote the book.

I finished it in two months.

So I mean,

I took some time.

I had several days with nothing to do but write.

So I wrote 40 years of my life and all the spooky ghost stories from very first encounter through all the crazy things that have happened in my life.

And because of Ken Honda,

I'm like,

He's an author.

And of course he wrote Happy Money and he's written a couple hundred other books in Japanese.

But he's become successful because he gave a lot away.

He gave a lot of his writings away.

He gave books away for free and by giving these books away,

It turned around and blessed his life in many other ways.

He became more famous and shared his experience about his wisdom with money that was given to him because he was raised in a money smart family.

But he shared it and it blessed him even more.

So he realized something.

He was like,

Oh,

Hey,

You know,

This is a better way to live.

I mean,

He studied families and millionaires that were very happy millionaires.

And then he also studied millionaires who were miserable and he found the differences was the miserable ones are the ones that are greedy and hoarding.

They are never happy no matter how much they get because they always want more.

Whereas the millionaires who are happy,

They were just happy with whatever came their way.

So they worked hard for it and the happy people would share their money with the thought that it would keep coming in and keep coming in.

So let me tell you about this dream I had.

So like I said,

I was a little bit worried,

I guess,

Going to bed one night.

I was a little worried about how it's going to make everything work out over the next couple of months.

And then I finished the book and I decided to give my book away for free.

I was like,

You know,

You really don't make that much money off of books anymore anyways.

So I said,

You know,

I'll just I want all my friends to read this book because I read it a few times myself and I thought it was pretty good.

So if I think it's good and I read it a couple of times and I enjoy reading it,

Then I think others might enjoy reading it too.

So I got on platforms and shared it for free.

I shared a link for it.

And if it was possible to share a link here on Insight Timer,

I don't know if I can,

But I would be more than willing to try and do that if I could.

But anyway,

So I gave the book away,

Not asking a dime from anybody.

I just I just wanted to share it because it's a good story.

It's an amazing story that makes one really think about life and death in the afterworld and how it kind of all ties together.

And I did a really thorough in-depth job from all the stories tying in how I think everything works in the afterworld.

And I was reconfirmed a lot of these things from some other people who had near-death experiences.

If you know it,

I had my near-death experience in California in 1998.

But there are other people that have near-death experiences where they died for 45 minutes.

Mine was like a minute at the most,

But mine was as close as you can get to death without actually dying.

So that's why it's a near-death.

It wasn't a death experience.

But there are some people out there that have experienced near-death experiences where they actually died for 45 minutes,

Were actually brain dead for days,

And then they went to heaven and experienced things and experienced what Jesus looked like,

The real Jesus,

What he looked like.

A little different from what the storybooks show.

But anyway,

It was quite interesting watching these YouTube videos while I'm not writing.

Learning about how it all ties together,

How it makes sense,

And not really an overview,

But basically a deeper understanding of spirituality and of life and death.

And like I say in my book,

Life and death really can't be separated.

It's one word instead of two.

It's life-death or death-life.

And it just kind of rotates back and forth,

Back and forth between the two.

Like a clock's pendulum swings from one side to the other side and back again,

And it just keeps going for eternity.

So anyway,

I was very thankful for Ken,

And like I said,

This dream I had,

In the dream I was worried about money.

And then God hands me this token,

And the token's worth like a billion dollars.

And he gives it to me.

And I'm like,

Oh,

So grateful,

So thankful,

I'm rich now.

Oh gosh,

I don't have to worry about money anymore.

But all these evil people in my dream were trying to steal the token away from me and steal the billion dollars,

However they could do it.

And one day in the dream,

As days can go on in dreams,

But one day I just said,

You know what,

You want the money,

Go ahead and take it.

So I gave the billion dollars to these evil,

Greedy people.

And then God handed me another token,

Another billion dollar token.

And I'm like,

Wow,

God,

Thank you.

Oh my gosh,

That's something.

And then more greedy people came around,

Or other people wanted the money.

So I just shared the money and gave it all away.

And then God gave me another token.

And this went on and on for a while in the dream.

And I finally got the point.

It's like,

I think what God was trying to imply was just like,

Look,

You shared your book,

You shared your life story,

Your inner darkest secrets with the entire world,

So it could learn and grow from you.

And you'll be rewarded.

It may not be financially rewarding.

It may be rewarding in other ways,

But you will be rewarded.

And I woke up from the dream at exactly 3am,

And it was on the time change day.

So it wasn't really,

You know,

3 until that pretty much moment.

But it was at 3am,

I woke up,

I looked at the clock,

I'm like,

3am,

Okay,

Great.

But I went to bed stressed about money,

And I woke up with this dream that just happened.

And I was just like,

Wow,

You know,

Everything's going to be okay.

Everything's going to be all right.

God's got your back.

God's got your back.

And if you keep giving,

If you keep sharing,

Like with these podcasts that I make with everybody,

If I just keep making them and keep sharing them,

Then we all benefit.

Everyone benefits.

I talk about stress.

I talk about sleep disorders.

I talk about addiction.

I talk about happy things.

I talk about sad things,

Like losing my puppy.

It's still,

Now it's been two and a half months since my dog's gone,

And I still miss her dearly.

But I told myself,

You know,

When my,

I guess like a year ago when my puppy was getting on in age,

I said,

When she does pass away,

Then I'll be free to travel again.

And I wasn't able to travel in her older years because I couldn't expect anybody else to take care of her when she can't,

You know,

Walk or take care of herself.

So anyway,

This whole book thing was because of Mila.

Mila was my inspiration to write the book.

And if you guys come across it out there,

Hopefully people are sharing the link.

I don't know.

But if you come across it,

It's called The Wave Whisperer.

And yes,

It tells some of the story about how I was given the nickname.

I know a lot of surfers in California,

They say if you surf Santa Cruz long enough,

You'll get a nickname.

Well,

I surfed Santa Cruz plenty of times.

But my friends in Texas are the ones that gave me the nickname,

The Wave Whisperer,

Because I kept showing up to the beach and the waves would get better.

But anyway,

That's another story.

Okay,

I guess we'll end it there.

But thanks for listening to my podcast.

I hope it inspired you and give you a little courage to be giving to others.

And it's better to give than receive.

And that's so true.

And like I said,

I'm giving this audio track to you.

And in return,

Maybe you can give.

Maybe not to me,

But you could give to somebody.

You can give something yourself.

And this giving makes us feel so good.

That gives us a positive energy field.

It gives us something to feel good about.

And that's so good to have that something to feel good about,

To give.

Anyway,

We'll end it there and wish you guys hopefully a great 2024.

It started out a little rough,

But I think we'll get through it.

You know,

Things happen in life and we have to adjust and move on.

Anyway,

Thanks for listening to this podcast.

Anyway,

I appreciate everything you guys do for me.

And I hope you stay strong and live worry-free and stress-free and have a beautiful,

Spiritually rich life.

Take care then.

Bye-bye.