Prosperity: The Wealth, Health + Happiness Within

Images by The Travelling Light + Emanuele Rosatelli in Fratte Rosa, Marche, Italy

On prosperity and the 10-week course with Kevin Burk that helped me understand what that was and how to create it in my life…

It’s the middle of a cold and dark January, I’m in Paris, France and I’m stuck in a cycle of negative thoughts and anxiety I can’t quite get myself out of. I'm low on money, work and morale – this affliction often strikes in Januaries as many freelancers would attest to – my health is in a downward spiral and I know I’m not my best self right now. I’m not thriving, I’m definitely not prospering, I don't think I even know what prosperity is, I just know things could be better and I have a sneaking suspicion it all starts with me. Enter spiritual teacher, Kevin Burk, who's been helping me through his courses and 1:1 sessions for years now, and his 10-week Practical Prosperity course, just the thing I needed.


I’d known for years I had some funny thoughts around money – 'it’s evil', 'it’s dirty', 'nothing good ever came from it', 'I don’t deserve it', 'I live a life I love so I don’t get to have lots of money too', 'when I earn it I take it away from someone else/an angel loses their wings' – that sort of thing. I’ve never liked invoicing people or talking about money with clients, I always put off invoicing until the very last minute and the whole money thing just made me so uncomfortable I knew there must have been something deeper going on that I’d have to look at one day. This course was my chance to look at it, that ‘one day’ was here.



Weird, fortuitous things related to money started happening from the minute I started thinking about signing up for the course. The last week of registration I had no money coming in to cover the course cost and I said to myself that if that money somehow appeared, I’d take it as a sign to register. The next day I remembered something I hadn’t billed a client for yet, and when I added it up the invoice came to the exact amount I needed for the course. The client paid the amount immediately so I knew exactly how I’d be spending my last dollars, I signed up that evening. Almost immediately after this, I had two clients show up offering me work I was very excited to do, it was like I was starting to unblock a channel just by committing to look at my money issues. But I soon learned it wasn’t just about money this prosperity thing.



So what is prosperity? To prosper is to thrive, to be well, to do well, to be at your best, if you ask me. It’s about feeling good, happy and fulfilled. Prosperity is about wealth, health and happiness. It’s what we all want for ourselves and we’re taught from birth – most of us anyway – that all of it comes from something outside of us we must create, build, achieve and manipulate into being.

The funny thing is, I’ve learned again and again, especially through this course, that we have it the wrong way around. It’s not – get the job and then you’ll be fulfilled. It's not – make lots of money and then you’ll be free. It's not even – move to a new city and then you’ll be happy. What Kevin has taught me, over and over again because I always seem to lose touch with it, is that nothing outside of me is the cause of how happy I feel. I've learned that everything I experience as I walk around in my reality is just the effect of whatever’s going on inside me, within my consciousness.



If I'm feeling stressed in Paris, it's not because Paris is stressful, it's because I've created a state of stress, allowed myself to become stressed and the thing that shows up around me to match those thoughts is a stressful city with lots of challenges. If I'm low on money and work, it's not because there's no money or work for me out there causing the situation, it's because I'm low on energy and positivity and that kind of consciousness doesn't necessarily mean amazing, high vibration opportunities will pop up left, right and centre.

The way I've learned to see things now is more like — fill the position you’re in now and be happy, thrive where you are (and the exciting job listing or promotion or client might just present itself to you from that energy). It's more like — realise you are free with or without money and feel grateful for what you have now (and maybe your money situation will begin to match that abundant feeling in your body). It's like — start to see how you can feel happy where you live now, how you can get the things you seek in a new location where you live right now (and maybe further opportunities to change your location to match the feeling you seek will pop up).



Whatever we create internally is what shows up around us, so it’s no wonder we’ve got it the wrong way around, they show up almost simultaneously, it's hard to keep track of which came first. And you can't create good thoughts just so the money or the job offer or that move to Tahiti shows up in your reality — that can’t be the reason why you do any of it. Your state of consciousness is never any guarantee prosperity will show up around you.

But through this course I've learnt to re-wire my thinking to see you never need the external stuff anyway to feel happy, healthy, wealthy or well. We have the power to create the feelings, change the thoughts and create happiness inside of us at any time. It’s just a nice side effect if the things outside of you start to improve and change to match your state of consciousness.

From all this I’m learning and proving to myself, just how much power we really have over our lives and feelings. We have the power to create unfavourable situations in our lives and equally we have the power to create positive ones. It all starts and ends with our thoughts and state of consciousness. This is what you’ll learn, except you'll learn this truth far more deeply and profoundly with Kevin than I could ever describe it here, in Practical Prosperity.



So where do I find myself now, five months on from that dark, cold January where nothing seemed very hopeful or prosperous, since doing the work of this course? Towards the end of the course, I found myself in India at an Ayurvedic retreat, tending to some health problems and learning to deal with stress and anxiety in a better way. I know I wouldn't have had the courage or faith to make that leap to India if it wasn't for the course. And now for the summer, I've taken another big leap I know Kevin helped me take. I've created a situation where I'm living in a very beautiful small town on a hilltop in rural Marche in Italy for the next four months. I'm naturally spending less money here so I have more money, I'm living in a lovely house with plenty of space and my own office/yoga/meditation room with incredible views over the mountains, I'm sleeping well for the first time in a year, I have time to exercise and be in nature often, I eat abundantly and well, because...Italy, I finally have the space to work on creating more of the work opportunities I want to attract, and I have the time to better keep in touch with the people I love and am surrounded by so much beauty and beautiful people here. Life's not perfect here, there are challenges too, but I know my reality has changed so much because I could change my internal world first. In all, I really feel like I'm thriving right now.

Course details: Practical Prosperity
Duration ♢ 10 weeks
Start date ♢ Monday, 1 July 2019
Format ♢ Online with weekly video lectures, daily (weekday) homework and a forum for sharing
You'll learn... ♢ Practical prosperity — how you can be happy right now. And when you learn how to be happy, you’ll experience prosperity, and when you’re prosperous, money just shows up.

Check out the course in more detail here, including a testimonial video I'm featured in and an incredible and detailed intro lecture from Kevin you can access by providing your email address.


p.s. This is not a sponsored post, just a kind of review of the profound learnings I've had through this course with a teacher I truly believe in.