Everyone wants to know how to make extra money these days. Times are tough financially, and lots of people are looking for new avenues to bring in more income. My life work and passion are teaching the path to peace through forgiveness, breath, intuition and communication. For my teaching, guidance, time and energy, I need to be paid. I have bills to pay, just like everyone else.



This leads me to the question - is it possible to make money with forgiveness?

Leading marketing experts always counsel - tell people how they can make money with your "product". But making money with forgiveness? This question leads me to a brick wall. Why? Because FORGIVENESS IS FREE. It is available to all people, all the time. It is the soothing balm in our aching hearts, and it doesn't cost a dime. The only thing we give up when we reach toward forgiveness is our own misery.

Forgiveness is free because Divine Love is free. We are already connected to it, every moment of every day. If we are alive and breathing, then we must ask: who or what gives us the force to continue? We find that the Life Force, that which animates all of nature, is identical to the Divine Love that offers forgiveness and peace.

If we are here on Earth, experiencing Life, then we are already plugged in to the greatest mystery there is. Some call it the Holy Spirit, the "peace that passeth understanding", the Great Spirit, or our Buddha nature. Whatever we call it, we all want it. And it is so good to know that it is absolutely FREE.

So, I have to be honest and tell you that I don't have a "get rich quick" scheme to sell you. Once you get over your disappointment, you will realize that money isn't the only thing that seems to be missing in your life these days. How about peace and freedom? Isn't that what we actually want money for - to give us peace of mind and the freedom to travel, have fun, and serve others?

What forgiveness offers is the opportunity to go toward honesty, openness, and healing before, during and after we focus on material gains. Forgiveness turns our heads and hearts around, placing them back in the direction that brings us happiness. This is the direction toward Divine Love...not away from it.

If you only focus on the material level - getting a job, paying the bills, surviving simply to survive - then you miss out on the point of life. I don't know anyone who is completely focused on physicality who is happy. But I do know a lot of people who, whether they have money or not, know how to be happy because they let forgiveness and its peace into their lives.

With traditional forgiveness, we seek to "let bygones be bygones" though it seems to take a long time, and we never know if we are really finished. There is an assumption that victims and perpetrators rule the world, even if we manage to forgive. While it takes a lot of courage to forgive in this way, personal lessons may not be learned. In many cases, we realize years after we've "forgiven" that the issues are still alive within us, and we haven't forgiven, after all.

Ecstatic Forgiveness, on the other hand, offers the fascinating viewpoint that nothing happens by accident - including the worst things that have ever happened in your life or anyone else's. There are always gifts, hidden within the sadness, fear and pain, and forgiveness is the shining light that reveals them. We realize that traditional forgiveness is unnecessary because on a spiritual level, "nothing wrong ever happened", and there are no victims or perpetrators. In its place, we ask Divine Love to teach and heal us.

This philosophy is also taught in the spiritual text, A Course in Miracles, and in Radical Forgiveness as well. Ecstatic Forgiveness adds deep awareness of our breath and bodies, emotional release, and prayer. It offers us access to intuition and inner wisdom. It welcomes us to jump into the River of Love; we float downstream in the joy of knowing that we are eternally loved, and eternal love itself.

So after all that, I have to tell you that you won't be making big bucks from forgiveness itself. There is a connection to wealth, though. As we jump into the River of Love, we make room for more health, awareness and vitality in our everyday lives. We aren't hauling our painful past around all day, and this opens our minds to new, outrageous, creative ideas, and the trust inside to try them out. Our bodies get healthier, we feel calm and we sleep better. We are able to listen to intuitive wisdom - finding ourselves at the right place at the right time. We start swimming in the Flow and sincerely desire to share it with others.

This is true wealth, and directly experiencing it is the reason we are here on Earth. Once we let go and allow Divine Love to heal us, anything is possible. We are open to miracles. As a byproduct, we find that we have exactly what we need when we need it - not earlier or later. So yes, we will make money. But this isn't the priority. It is merely the wink in God's eye that lights our way as we walk, together, directly into Heaven.