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BOOKS TO BRING YOU HOME TO YOURSELF
A publishing house for your inner garden
Naomi Rose, Publisher
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THE PORTABLE BLESSINGS LEDGER
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A Way to Keep Track of Your Finances
and Bring Meaning & Heart to Your Dealings with Money
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by Naomi Rose
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What if every time your hands, mind, and heart touched money, something wonderful happened?
The Portable Blessings Ledger helps you bring your heart and finances together in an immediate, hands-on way —
and reap the benefits and blessings that accrue.
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THE PORTABLE BLESSINGS LEDGER
enables you to:
(1) Easily keep accurate, consistent records of just about every aspect of your financial life, so you always know exactly what you made and what you spent, etc. (the left-brain part).
(2) Include your heart, mind, and spirit as you track your financial transactions (the right-brain part), so you feel connected to yourself as you reflect on and make decisions about your finances.
Where keeping track of your financial life may once have been a chore (easily procrastinated), now it becomes a path to wholeness and creativity (the short “stories” you’ll get to write).
In the process, not only do you receive blessings and give blessings but your relationship to money itself also becomes a blessing.
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"This financial roadmap guides you to a place where money is the vessel that illuminates your inner wisdom, brings peace to your home and family, and expresses your deepest values in the world. What a gift!” — Hal Brill, President, Natural Investment Services; co-author, Investing with Your Values
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What's your experience of money and keeping track of it? Is it easy? Is it difficult? Do you tell yourself you should, but you don't? Do you do it consistently, in a way that works for you? Does it seem like more than you can do? What if it were so simple and engaging that it became natural for you?
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What's your level of intimacy with money? Does it feel friendly? Does it feel connected with the rest of your life — your hopes and dreams, your human relationships? Or is it just numbers — numbers that have consequences? Does it help you feel a belonging to humanity, or is it more of a survival-based separation?
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What if the missing ingredient is you? What if tracking what you spend and make (etc.), while at the same time making written contact with what happens inside you as you spend money, make money, invest money, worry about money, even think about money can yield a treasure-house of riches that exceed your expectations? (Money-riches, but also a great deal more.)
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The premise of this book is that if you approach every financial transaction with a willingness to discover the blessings connected with them (both those that come towards you and those that come from you), they’ll appear.
The promise is that if you keep this Ledger, the process will transform your life . . . your finances . . . your heart . . . your community . . . and your planet.
The benefits include a no-stress way to record every financial transaction down to the penny, and how your transactions reveal — and help to heal — your deep inner life. (Good for your record-keeping, budgeting, taxes, and emotional and spiritual well-being, too.) And let’s not forget the benefit of practice in spontaneous, no-fault writing!
The format of The Portable Blessings Ledger enables you to keep track of everything you make and spend, down to the penny. You are given simple guides for painless and precise record-keeping, as well as forms for Spending, Income, Musings, Celebrations, and Assessments (Financial & Life-Story) — and the stories that unfold in the process that connect your relationship with money to your deepest inner being.
BY OPENING YOU TO YOUR INNER LIFE, THE LEDGER INFLUENCES WHAT THEN HAPPENS IN YOUR OUTER LIFE —
Budget, keep accurate records for taxes and personal/business assessment, and learn where your money goes — and why.
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Writing down the stories that show themselves through your monetary transactions shows you important, surprisingly positive truths about yourself and the world — and makes them even more possible.
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Enhancing your writing ability happens as a natural consequence of recording your stories. Writing them down in your Ledger as close to their moment of happening as possible gives you no-fault practice in writing, and even helps you discover more about your spontaneous writing style.
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All this connects you to the blessings that you get to have and to give through the vehicle of money.
All this, simply because you are present to yourself whenever money comes into the picture.
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"This is a remarkable achievement. You've found a way to bring the inside outside, and relate it to money, in a way that brings into the world the mirror that was missing.
"We never learned how to be present with ourselves through our finances. The Portable Blessings Ledger should be everywhere, including taught in schools. You've pioneered something we can all use." — Doreen Hamilton, author, of Essential Speaking: The 7-Step Guide to Finding Your Real Voice
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“The book is very nonjudgmental. You're only asked to observe yourself. This allowed me to actually use it and notice what's going on in my finances and inside me. The beauty and care and loving nature surrounding this book opened my heart to the mystery of money, and its ebb and flow. It is always surprising to see how much goes out, with so little remembrance; and how lovely the gratitude always is, when the flow returns to our shores, supporting and sustaining us. ” — Risala Mary Laird, Book Arts Educator, Artist, Spiritual Teacher
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“I am so touched by how The Portable Blessings Ledger is all put together. It has lifted up my own standard and has inspired me to find a way to balance my life and to write from a much deeper and more heartfelt place. I feel very grateful to connect with your generosity of spirit.”
— Shelley Klammer, author, Collage for Self-Discovery
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EXAMPLE from the book:
INCOME FORM
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Date: Thursday, April 7th
Transaction #: 2
Source of income: Book Development client, Patricia S.
Conditions under which this payment took place: I had already worked with her husband on his book, so she knew of my work in terms of him. But when she saw my ad, she realized that she could enlist me to help her write her own book.
Satisfaction level: Incredibly high
Amount received: $113.00
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AND THE STORY UNFOLDS
Patricia is one of the great treasures in my work, both in allowing me to help develop her book and in continually reminding me that everything is part of the journey. She reads me the short pieces of writing she has been able to carve time for ~ a triumph, considering her very young child. I listen to her read the writing she has wrested away from sleep, her voice low and evoking forests, rivers, a city in Illinois I have never been to before now. My head is as clear as I can make it so that I am of good use to her, my imagination traveling with her through the lakes and trees, the woundings and callings of her childhood and beyond.
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“Thank you for receiving this,” she says to me at reading’s end, lifting her eyes up from her laptop computer, taking in my deep listening, and handing me a check.
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“Thank you,” I answer, almost speechless, exalted by the beauty of her search, her recording, her gifts; realizing that serving the deep Self is the greatest privilege.
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Blessings in balance: As they say, “I get paid to do this?” In truth, if I had to, I would pay her to help her birth this difficult and exquisite story that reveals so much of me to myself, as well.
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EXAMPLE from the book:
SPENDING FORM
(Written directly on the receipt):
I had a very sweet experience at a gas station one day. Wanting to preserve it, I jotted down some key words and a sketch on the receipt. You can do this kind of thing too, once your Portable Blessings Ledger has shown you how and why. Here’s what happened:
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I was standing at the counter of the store behind the gas station, along with some other people. When it was my turn, I extended my debit card and asked the cashier for $4 of gas. I already had an almost full tank. It was really to get some cash back;
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One of the men on line, overhearing me, took a $5 bill from his wallet, leaned forward, smiled broadly, and held cash out to the cashier. “It’s for her,” he said, meaning me, in the most musical accent. “Use this for her.”
I realized he must have thought I was down to my last $4. (At one point years before, this would have been too true.) The kindness of this gesture charmed me.
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But I quickly assured him, “No, no, really, I have money. $4 of gas is honestly all I need. But thank you!” The wattage of my smile, genuine as it was, could not match the brightness level of his.
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As he returned the money to his wallet, he told me, “I’m from Mozambique.” Ah! That explained his musical voice. But did it explain why he had done what he had done?
“Is this how things are done there?” I asked him, suddenly hungry for that kind of culture.
He beamed and nodded. “We care about people,” he said.
I felt far wealthier than when I first had come in.
Soon after, to preserve this choice moment, I made a few notations on the printed receipt, and did a quick sketch of the man from Mozambique. That way, I would remember the blessing, its context, and its unique atmosphere, as well as how much I had spent, when, why, and where.
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Here is the receipt (front, and back):
And here's a more legible translation of what I wrote on the back:
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The blessing of the man from Mozambique who gave the cashier $5 for me when I asked for $4 worth of gas. (I wanted mostly to get cash for my meeting with ____ tomorrow, because I didn’t want to run out of gas on the freeway. I had an almost full tank of gas.)
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I told him this. He beamed, and insisted that I take the money until I explained the situation to him.
“Are people like that in Mozambique?” I asked him.
“We care about people,” he said. His smiles were filling the space.
It’s good you’re here," I told him. “We need you.”
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In the following audio, the author reads 2 stories from her own Blessings Ledger: one on how the usually ordinary experience of food shopping can be transformed by a Blessings-Ledger consciousness, and the other on how getting a post-office box can illuminate the different worlds that the consciousness of blessings (or lack of them) bring about.
[NAOMI, INSERT LINK BELOW]
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ABOUT NAOMI ROSE
Naomi Rose is the publisher of Rose Press, the creator of Writing from the Deeper Self, and a Book Developer & Creative Midwife by profession. She helps people write the book of their heart by listening to and with them so that what is essential inside the writer becomes known through the writing. Most of her clients have successfully completed and published their books., to their great satisfaction.
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If you were to keep a Portable Blessings Ledger for your own sake, you might find your writing becoming more direct, connected, fluid, and alive, because you'd be connecting it to your real-life experiences, both inner and outer. It's certainly one way to cross two rivers with one small leap.
To learn more about Naomi's approach to writing, see https://www.naomirose.net.
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The Portable Blessings Ledger: A Way to Keep Track of Your Finances and Bring Meaning and Heart to Your Dealings with Money
is part of the Rose Press "Money & the Inner Life" series.
Most of us learn that money is something outside us, and that how much of it we have depends on such factors as luck, hard work, constant attention to getting it, and so on. But our inner life — our connection with, or separation from, our deep nature — is the real key to having what we need, and to trusting life to support us totally.
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The books put out by Rose Press are meant to last and last and last.
Unlike many books that are published to make a temporary splash and then fade out into dim memory or total forgetfulness, Rose Press books are meant to live in your heart and in your life.
So not only do they remain on your bookshelf (or your hard drive, portable reading device, etc): they also remain inside you, part of the impressions that make up your inner being. And sometimes ~ much like a sudden affectionate thought about an old friend with whom you’ve been out of contact ~ the desire will come to pick up and read these books again and make their acquaintance (and your own) again from the place where you are now.
Some of these books are already perennials: issued and reissued to encounter new readers and re-visit old ones. Others are brand new and just putting down roots, to return to readers’ attentions in their own passing seasons.
Books that go deep take time to write, so quality may win out over quantity, here. We hope you will content yourself with the current varieties in this “garden,” and look forward to new blooms to come.