It was an early fall day, crisp and sunny. I had just moved into my eleventh-floor apartment on the Upper West Side of Manhattan.I woke up with the feeling of being watched. Sure enough, a huge bird was perched on my fire escape railing, staring in at me. I stared back. Could it be an eagle? In New York City? Amazingly, it was. In Native American lore, the eagle is a symbol of power. I took this eagle to be the symbol for New York: powerful, aggressive, assertive, pressing in on me. The bird raised its wings, posing—like the seal of the president of the United States, the image on the quarter, the image on the dollar bill—as if to trumpet, “I am prosperity.”

People think of prosperity as a fiscal bottom line. “When I have X amount of money, I will feel better.” The truth is that prosperity is a spiritual bottom line, and the formula should actually be, “When I have X amount of faith I will feel better.”

Prosperity at its root is a belief in a benevolent something—and a belief that that “something” will guide us and guard us. We will be led in the direction of good no matter what amount of money we have at our disposal. Prosperity is never just about money. 

In my personal history, I have had tight fiscal times and times of greater abundance. I have learned to have a sense of safety based on my conviction that God will provide. But this is not a pie-in-the sky fantasy. Looking back, always, when a demand for cash has appeared, the supply of cash has appeared also. What may appear beyond my means is not beyond the means of the Higher Power. This does not mean that when I wish for something expensive, God provides it like Santa Claus. It simply means that a prosperous heart—and everything we need—is always available to us. Sometimes, when we think we need a bigger paycheck, what we really need is change. In knowing our spending patterns, we know ourselves. Prosperity is not just about money—but to have a prosperous heart, our relationship to money must be brought out into the light, and we must be brave enough to look candidly at it. 

In this book, I will use the word God. You may substitute Good Orderly Direction, flow, even prosperity. Do not let semantics be a block for you. You don’t need to believe in an anthropomorphic God to experience a prosperous heart or use the tools in this book.  If you can’t believe in the boldness of an eagle, try believing in a hummingbird instead. That smidgen of faith is enough.

Why a prosperity book? I have taught creative unblocking for thirty-five years. When I ask my students about money, inevitably the response is emotional. “Money is the biggest block to my creativity,” “I feel like I can handle anything but money,” and, “Do we have to talk about money?” are common exclamations.

Yes. We have to talk about money. 

I believe that every person is creative, and can use his or her creativity to create a life of “enough.” I myself have worried about money—and found that having money does not end this worry. I have also discovered practical tools that have brought my students—and myself—out of money worry, out of an anxious heart and into a prosperous one. I believe that prospering is something we can do, right now, today, no matter how much money we have.

When we look closely, have we ever really been left high and dry? A colleague of mine lost her entire fortune to a Ponzi scheme run by a nefarious financier. On the day he went to jail in handcuffs, she didn’t know whether she could keep her house. Her available liquid assets were so low that she was terrified to spend a dime. And what happened? Friends, family, colleagues, strangers reached toward her, offering to bring her and her husband into their homes, offering to give them money, offering to cook, to lend, to listen. The generosity of the people around her stunned her. But I was not surprised. She is a leader who has always been generous with her knowledge, her vulnerability, her wisdom. Her good—her prosperity—was coming back to her tenfold. To my eye, God was speaking through these people to her.

“But, Julia!” my students protest when I ask them to consider that they are not alone with their financial problems or secrets, no matter how dire they may feel. “How can you have faith that some abstract something is looking out for our money?”

From the front of the room, I can see that my students are visibly uncomfortable in this territory. It sounds too simple, too naïve, too . . . crazy. Ask God to help with their finances? Have I lost my mind? But I stand firm, letting the room explore the beliefs that we as a culture accept without question.

“I’d have more faith if I had more money. If the deal I have pending comes through, I’ll believe that something is looking out for me,” one student stubbornly asserts.

“Isn’t it easier to have faith when you have money?” another one chimes in.

Although we sometimes imagine it would be easier to have faith if we had more money, this is a misplaced faith, a belief in dollars and cents instead of a belief in a caring universe. Faith must be placed squarely in the lap of the Higher Power. How do we do that? The swiftest way is through affirmative prayer—prayer in which we affirm that we are led and provided for. There is always enough. But we have a responsibility, too: we can pray to catch the bus, but we still have to run like hell! We have to take action. We have to bring our numbers out into the light, shake hands with them, invite them to tea, ask them how they are today. And ask our money how it is serving us, how we are serving ourselves.

What we are after is clarity, serenity, a sense of safety—this is a prosperous heart.

Last Saturday I had a date with a writer friend of mine. As we strolled through the Santa Fe Farmers Market, past bins of succulent produce, she told me that she had recently finished a new book proposal and that four companies were vying for it. This would seem like good news, but no—my friend was worried. “Nobody has any money these days. I wonder how much I’ll get.”

My friend owns her own house and has a lucrative coaching practice. She is far better off than many people, but a lack of money haunts her. She is full of blunt questions: “How much money did you get for your new book? How much money do you make teaching?”

My answer to both questions is, “Enough,” but that does little to steer the conversation to sunnier climes. No, my friend predicts impending doom for both of us, and any telltale optimism on my part is put down to denial. To hear my friend tell it, realism and pessimism are one and the same. She is habituated to worry, and worry about money is the most deeply grooved worry of all.

Although our culture invites us to dwell on negativity, there is an alternative that we can encourage in ourselves. That alternative is the prosperous heart. The prosperous heart recognizes that prosperity is a spiritual bottom line, not a fiscal one. Our faith, not our cash flow, is what brings to our lives comfort and ease.

Over the next twelve weeks, you will meet yourself and your finances. You will cover spiritual and financial terrain that may sometimes be bumpy, but ultimately will take you on a path to viewing yourself, your dreams, and your finances with more clarity and more faith.

In 1992 I published a book called The Artist’s Way: A Course in Discovering and Recovering Your Creative Self. Twenty-five years later, I still teach this course regularly, online and in person. The need seems to be as great now as it ever was, and inevitably, one topic in particular seems to be loaded for my students. That topic is money.

Over lunch with my publisher, Joel Fotinos, I broached the idea for a new course, a course that is about money, but that is about something more than money: true prosperity.

“What is true prosperity, in your view?” Joel asked. Joel has always been a muse for me, and his thoughtful questions and keen ear inspired the shape of this book.

“I think prosperity is about having ‘enough’—having a life beyond need and worry,” I told him. “It’s about more than prosperity in financial terms. It’s more about being satisfied, about having a prosperous heart.”

And so, a course that is about money—and not about money. A course that is about more than money—about having a prosperous heart—about finding satisfaction in our lives, improving the lives we have, and creating a life of “enough.”

And yes, straightening out your finances, too.

This book is a twelve-week course, divided into twelve chapters. I suggest that you work through a chapter a week. Be gentle with yourself: a chapter a week is fast enough. Some of the essays within the chapters will include short exercises for you to complete as you go through the book. At the end of each week, there is a check-in and a list of “prosperity points”: do as many as you can. You do not have to do all of them—and in deciding which exercises to do, choose the ones you are most attracted to and the ones you are most resistant to. Our resistance often points us toward “pay dirt.” Commit yourself to trying the tools for twelve weeks. The results may surprise you: I often find that when my students shake the apple tree, oranges fall. And oranges may have been just what they were looking for after all.

Prosperity is a spiritual matter. It is the amount of faith we have, not cash, that determines our feelings of abundance. Following are a few simple tools that will cultivate feelings of prosperity in us. You will recognize two of them (Morning Pages and Walking) as classic Artist’s Way tools you have used before in other incarnations. They have been refashioned for this program with a stronger emphasis on developing a prosperous heart. Through the use of all of these tools, we become solvent. The key to prosperity is spiritual willingness. It takes willingness to commit to using the tools. You may feel intense resistance to some of them. Simply acknowledge your feelings of resistance; then move ahead anyhow.  The degree of resistance you feel will be in direct proportion to the usefulness and value of the tool you resist.

MORNING PAGES

Morning Pages are the primary tool of a creative recovery. They are also a primary tool for establishing prosperity. Three daily pages of longhand writing, strictly stream of consciousness, they provoke, clarify, comfort, cajole, prioritize and synchronize the day at hand. This daily writing, coupled with Counting, will bring you to emotional—and financial—clarity. You will discover your true values—personal and monetary—and uncover the actions that will lead you to a life that is truly your own. Morning Pages are to be written by hand—no speeding ahead by computer. They are to be done first thing in the morning, and they are to be shown to no one. They are private; they are personal; they are important. Best done on 8.5 x 11–inch lined paper, they are three single-sided pages. Do not be tempted to use a smaller journal—smaller pages tend to also make your thoughts smaller. Conversely, be sure to stop at three pages. As tempting as it may be to keep writing, it is important not to overdo. We do not want to become so immersed in exploring our psyches that we fail to act in our lives. Three pages are enough to make deep changes, while also maintaining a functional existence in the world. Write about absolutely anything, and if it is hard to think of what to write, write, “I can’t think of what to write.” Just keep writing. There is no wrong way to do Morning Pages.

 A day at a time, a page at a time, we explore our lives, seeking to make our expenditures of time and money align with our personal value system. Morning Pages are like getting up in the morning and
telephoning yourself. Not only are you contacting yourself, you are also contacting your self. Over time, Morning Pages lead to a sense of wisdom and a nurturing belief in the benevolence of universal
flow. Just what do we mean by that? Morning Pages allow us to move through our lives with greater ease. There is an intermeshing of our inner and outer worlds.

At first, Morning Pages may seem negative. “All I do is gripe!” you might exclaim. Reluctant to create—or perpetuate—negativity, you may wish to avoid “meeting your shadow.” But suppressing
negativity only allows it to fester; by contrast, dumping your negativity onto the page each morning lets your shadow get in its two cents’ worth rather than allowing it to darken your whole day.             

Morning Pages are very powerful: you may experience them as a propulsive flow, a sort of creative river underlying all of life. They will become a best friend, a safe place to vent, to celebrate, to mourn,
to wish. Although at first doing it may take some getting used to— getting up half an hour earlier, carving out an uninterrupted window before the day begins—Morning Pages quickly become a sort
of positive addiction. I have been doing Morning Pages now for thirty years. On the rare occasion that I miss a day, I find myself out of sorts and slightly removed from the day at hand. My students
have experienced the same thing: the act of doing Morning Pages “clears the slate” on a daily basis—leaving us available to be present in our day and, ultimately, in our lives.

Morning Pages are intended to both challenge and comfort us. In our pages, we ask questions and receive answers. The “still, small voice” grows louder and clearer as we go inside to hear it. Clarity is the reward of Morning Pages. We know what we want and why. Over time, we are guided to action. The actions we choose to take, however small, will ultimately lead us to create a deeply, thoughtfully
handmade life.

COUNTING

The bedrock tool of prosperity is a very simple one: Counting. You are asked to keep a ledger—a small notebook will do—of money in and money out. Counting brings clarity, and clarity is one of the
first and finest fruits of prosperity. No amount of money is too small or too large to be counted. The loan you make to your brother and the packet of gum you buy at the newsstand are both subject to
recording. The unexpected bonus from work, the inheritance check from your late aunt’s estate—these, too, must be counted. Counting is an old-fashioned tool. Many of our elders practiced it. You will be joining a time-honored tradition, so let yourself count.

ABSTINENCE

The third basic tool might be seen as a nontool: stop debting. We call this tool Abstinence. Before practicing Abstinence, our life is like a boat with a leak. When we commit to practicing Abstinence, we plug the leak, and the boat stops sinking. Abstinence means no more borrowing ahead on paychecks—no more borrowing, period. No more loans for which we have no collateral. A house loan or a car loan is permissible—as long as the house or car we choose has a monthly
payment that we can afford. But we cannot indulge in loans for our rent or basic services. While this may seem severe, it leads straight to prosperity. It’s hard to feel prosperous when we are debting. 

WALKING

The fourth tool is a deceptively simple one. Unlike Counting and Morning Pages, it requires no intellectual effort. What is this tool? Walking. Walk at least twice a week, for a minimum of twenty minutes. You will discover when you walk that many events fall into a healthier perspective. You may walk out with a problem and walk back in with a solution.

Walking is an opportunity to immerse yourself in the present. You may set out distracted by your thoughts, but you will soon become interested by the details of your surroundings. Walking is an opportunity to enjoy the beauty of the world—the cat on the windowsill, the window box filled with velvety petunias, the forsythia bush flaring gold in early spring, the mother pushing a stroller, the lovers strolling hand in hand, the elderly couple sitting side by side on a bench, the cocker spaniel puppy plunging ahead on its leash—all these sights and more fire your imagination. You are replenishing your inner well, stocking it with sights and sounds.

There is a benevolent Something interconnecting all of life. We sense that Something when we walk. Walking is a time-honored spiritual tradition. Native Americans walk on vision quests, aborigines go on walkabouts, Wiccans trace the ley lines. Walking brings a welcome sense of connection. It brings optimism and increases energy. Walking gives a sense of health and well-being.

Walking here in Santa Fe, I startle a lizard, which scoots off the path. I feel a sense of magic. My heart leaps up. The lizard’s unexpected beauty announces Mother Nature—always powerful, always
surprising. It is common when we walk to experience a sense of expansion. Walking is a luxury, an escape from our frantic pace. When we walk, we experience the richness of the world. When we
walk, we experience our own inner prosperity.

TIME-OUT

The fifth tool is a “time-out.” Once in the morning and once at night, take five minutes to sit quietly. You may use this time to consciously count your blessings. You may use this time to simply rest. Time-outs put us in touch with our own inner resources. They help us to know how we are feeling and why. Time-outs give us the chance to review our choices. In sitting quietly with ourselves for
a moment, we are able to reassess our day and begin anew. Ideas often come to us in our time-outs that prove to be effi cient and guided.

A deliberate time-out off ers us a chance for self-appraisal and self-approval. We may feel a sense of conscious contact with a benevolent universal source. I am often asked whether prayer and meditation count as time-outs. Yes, you may use this time to pray. I am also sometimes asked whether taking a time-out will allow selfcritical thoughts to emerge. My experience has been that it does not. Time-outs tend not to put us in touch with a critical, egodriven voice, but rather to put us in touch with a deeper, kinder, wiser part of ourselves. The point is to stop what you are doing and
take a moment to listen to yourself think. I suspect that what you hear will be encouraging.