snicholsblog has moved to snicholsblog.com

So this is it! Goodbye, snicholsblog@blogspot.com and hello snicholsblog.com (also hello lowercase text--that's the new style over there)

Go over there and subscribe if you want to receive an email every time I post.  You may have to subscribe twice because I will be setting up a different system soon.  But you wont get it twice. I'll take down the other one.  

Snicholsblog in the Shutdown

Snicholsblog.blogspot.com is in transit right now from that platform to a stand alone site at snicholsblog.com  In the meantime, you can read my blog here.
As the world is in shutdown so is snicholsblog.  Both only sort of.  I'm still posting every day but I'm posting on https://tinyurl.com/re3lt2u during the shutdown of my blog.  I post on Facebook and Twitter pretty much every time I write at the catchy domain above, but those of you who are subscribed to my blog have not been receiving an automatic email since I'm not posting it here.  If you want to see it, you need to check social media or the link above.

My Blog is in transit to snicholsblog.com!!

Hi, I am happy to announce that my blogspot blog that I've had here for 16 years at blogspot.com is in the process of migrating to a new dedicated domain snicholsblog.com.  That will take a few days to complete (because we want all the old content to come with it and be findable). 

In the interim, I will be posting my posts on Sara Nichols facebook page and excerpting to Twitter.com @snicholsblog.

I'll let you know when the transition is complete.

It's a safe bet that nobody is as excited about this as I am. lol

Pay yourself first: The magic of 10% savings

It is a spiritual axiom that what you give you will receive but have you heard about tithing to yourself?  Check this out.  It is the easiest way I've found to increase your abundance and decrease financial stress.  Read on to find out about how and why to pay yourself 10% of your income first before you spend the rest.

So for years I have been giving away 10% of whatever comes through my fingers back to what I consider to be my spiritual source (which is my church or center for spiritual living).  I have heard so many powerful stories where people were down to their last ten dollars and it in no way made sense to them, but gave away a dollar out of gratitude and it came back to them tenfold.

This way of living (augmented by, I hasten to admit, a lifetime of privilege and inherited wealth) brought me a life where I have experienced a constant easy flow of money, it comes and it goes in equal measure.  Whenever I need it, it’s there.  However, what I have not accumulated is the habit or the experience of savings, an important part of money management.  Fortunately for me, my husband had done that for me.  Unfortunately, my unwitting decision to rely upon him to provide this service has meant that I had never actually developed the habit of savings.

A few years ago someone introduced me to the concept of “pay yourself first" (aka "tithe to yourself")  In this model, I “give” 10% to myself by saving it off the top.   The off the top part is particularly important for both of these.  I have been told (and have experienced) that for either the giving to others or giving to myself to work, every single dollar that comes through my fingers, 10 cents of it gets given away, 10 cents of it gets saved and then I only have the other 80 cents to spend.

There can be a strong belief amongst those who have experienced living paycheck to paycheck that there is never enough, and that there simply won’t be enough and that I will be lucky even to pay the mandatory bills let alone anything discretionary like tithing or saving.  For those who are in debt, it seems terrifying to put any “extra” money to savings instead of debt reduction.  And it seems doubly foolish.

And that is an entirely rational conclusion to draw if that has been my experience.  However, I have learned and coached others with that experience through an experiment with paying themselves first just to see how it goes.  I mean, really, since its savings, what’s the worst that can happen? I can always dip into the savings if I really need to, right?

How to experiment with paying myself first:

o   $1000 lands in my hands or bank account. 

o   I immediately take $100 out of that $1000 and put it in an actual savings, or in a safe jar or envelope marked savings. 

o   Now $3000 lands in my hands or bank account.

o   I take $300 out of that $3000 and put it in envelope or savings

o   At the end of the month, from my $4000 income, I have $3600 still available to pay the bills and $400 in savings which I tell myself is “untouchable.”

How it often is experienced

o   At the end of the month, somehow the $3600 “magically” seems to be enough to pay the bills. 

o   Either an expense that I usually pay has gotten lower or extra income has come in or my consciousness of saving has caused me to reduce some discretionary expense, whatever causes it, it works.

o   The next month I’m interested to see will this really work again?  It works again.  Now I have $800 at the end of the month.

o   I resist the temptation to begin planning a vacation or something else with that money.  This isn’t what this particular savings is for.  I can save for a vacation in a different envelope now that I get the idea.  THIS is my prudent reserve that I don’t touch unless I absolutely need to.

o   At the end of a year I have somehow MIRACULOUSLY saved $4,800—whaaaaat?  How can that be.  It is not anything I have ever been able to do.  I feel more secure, less stress, more possibility.

What if this pandemic of fear is only a spiritual fire drill to prepare us to spread love and wellness to all?

Perhaps the Covid-19 worldwide pandemic of fear is a spiritual fire drill designed to expose the weaknesses in our systems. 

Can we sit quietly on the lawn during our fire drill? and where are our hats?

Think you cannot fully fund public health?

Think again 

Think it works for people to have to be out of pocket $1,000 to get tested for something that affects us all?

Think again

Think its safe to have a world leader who isn’t grounded in truth and sees everything from the point of view of his own political interest?

Think again

Think that you don’t need other people in order to be safe?

Think again

Think that you can wall yourself off from the rest of the world?

Think again

Think that fear keeps you safe?

Think again

This pandemic of fear is exactly that.  Flu kills people every year.  Often we have strains where we don’t have a vaccine.  The same people are vulnerable.  We all need to wash our hands and not touch our face during flu season.

What energy, space and consciousness can we and our bodies be to spread a pandemic of wellness and love throughout the world?  How can we allow the wellness in us to recognize and know the wellness in others?  Can we wash our hands of fear, xenophobia, hatred and the illusion of separation?

Soon, when it is revealed that this was only a drill, can we not just breath a sigh of relief but can we also do our spiritual and material work to operate from the point of view of the truth:  that there is more than enough love and wellness to go around, that we can afford as a world to support that wellness and that we cannot afford not to.

(:)(:)(:)(:) for Jesus Christ Superstar original film digitally re-mastered wide-screen – Eerily applicable to our times

Tonight I thought I was going to a lightweight sing-a-long movie with friends, instead I was treated to a cinematic tour de force with a story eerily applicable to our time.

This 2000 year old story brought to Broadway by Webber and Rice and moved to big screen by Norman Jewison in 1973 openly employs the music, costumes and sensibilities of its time to tell the story of the last days of Jesus’s life.  The multi-racial cast, new to its time, with the exception of white Jesus (nonetheless brilliantly played by Ted Neeley—who was appeared live and person tonight with the film) still seems exciting and fresh in our times.

What I didn’t expect was how apposite the story and lyrics seem to our presidential election.  Check out these lyrics from high priests Caiaphas & Annas plotting to overthrow Jesus:

Ah gentlemen, you know why we are here.

We've not much time, and quite a problem here

The man is in town right now to whip up some support.

A rabble rousing mission that I think we must abort.

He is dangerous!

We dare not leave him to his own devices.

His half-witted fans will get out of control.

But how can we stop him?

His glamour increases

By leaps every moment; he's top of the poll.

I see bad things arising.

Our elimination because of one man.

Fools, you have no perception!

The stake we are gambling are frighteningly high!

We must crush him completely,

So like John before him, this Jesus must die.

For the sake of the nation, this Jesus must die.

And then later of course, when Jesus throws the merchants out of the temple and heals the lepers, he’s gone too far and seals his fate. 

Also struck by Judas’s words in “Damned for All Time/Blood Money” – wondering how they’d land with Pete Buttigieg or Kamala Harris right now:

Now if I help you, it matters that you see

These sordid kinda things are coming hard to me.

It's taken me some time to work out what to do.

I weighed the whole thing out before I came to you.

I have no thought at all about my own reward.

I really didn't come here of my own accord.

There's more but I'm off to bed.  That'll do, pig.