Ready for a miracle in my relationship with money

My finances right now are fucked. I am definitely ready for a breakthrough.

Here's the situation:

• $36,000 in credit card debt
• need $10-12,000 to pay for restoration (under way) of valuable string instrument
• $8000-9000 for my son's college expenses for the next for years

You can definitely describe this as something I'm putting up with and trying to change. "The purpose of the est training," the brochures said, "is to transform your ability to experience living so that situations you have been putting up with or trying to change clear up, just in the process of life itself." And the more I try to change it, the worse it seems to get. "What you resist, persists," was a constant est catch phrase. Putting up with, ignoring, being in denial about, etc., are all forms of "putting up with." It's a way of resisting, of trying to change, rather than letting something be and transcending it. This situation sure is persisting!

In one graduate seminar I took, we were told there were three basic principles of est:

• you are perfect the way you are
• you have barriers to experiencing that perfection
• re-creation causes dissappearance

These "barriers" are (as I understood it) the psychological/philosophical blocks we have "created." Central to est was the notion that we "create" our own experience--the entirety of it. Yet the word "create" has a strong connotation of conscious intention. Many of our self-defeating patterns, defense mechanisms, etc., are not the result of a conscious decision. Their power comes from the way they lurk in the unconscious background, controlling us without our realizing it.

This idea that everyone creates his or her own experience was often misunderstood. What seemed so clear in the training was impossible for many of us to explain to the uninitiated. "Do you really think my father created his own cancer?" was the testy response from a friend to whom I was explaining this new insight. I got stuck, there, of course.

Now it seems clear that the answer is, "not consciously."

Whatever is going on with me I am willing to say I created. But what the hell did I create? That's not yet clear. So I'd say I inadvertently created it. I am positive I did not consciously, purposely, put myself in this financial position. There is no question, though, that I put myself here.

Instead of ignoring what I am interpreting as a problem and sweeping it under a mental rug, instead of trying to invent yet another practical solution, I'm going to let it just be, so I can see what the hell is going on.

Here are the patterns I find myself repeating:

• shame, shame, shame--shame about my debt, shame about my income
• shame about creating a business
• that shame getting in the way of valid business ideas I develop

I'm a musician--a performer and a college music teacher. I had a wonderful idea: get a sales tax license, purchase instruments wholesale, put them in excellent condition, and sell them on the web, with excellent photos and video. I bought a number of instruments--most of them on credit (which explains about half the credit card debt).

Then I froze.

Lots of shame feelings, embarrassment at what colleagues might think, came up. Projecting that people will think I'm bad for wanting to make money, and for mixing being a teacher and an instrument dealer.

Meanwhile, debts mount, and I have three cellos, a violin, and several bows. I have placed two of the cellos on consignment with "real dealers," but they have yet to sell.

I have every skill needed to make this--and other projects--work.

I also have a habit of not keeping track of my spending and consequently spending a bit more than I make each month. This already led to a past bankruptcy, and I don't want to do that again! That bankruptcy was a wonderful thing for me: a chance for a fresh start. And now I've gone and fucked things up again.

So it's readily apparent that I am creating this. And that there is something driving this behavior.

This time I want to observe what's going on, to let it be, to allow whatever's there to come into my consiciousness so I can experience it and release/transcend it.