Reading Your Own Life with Swami Larry

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This is how we change the story.

We opened the season with a question: can money actually buy happiness?

Eleven episodes later, the answer is more complicated than yes or no. Money cannot manufacture happiness. But it can create safety, possibility, choice, and enough breathing room for happiness to become easier to recognize.

Episode Eleven brings the season home. Why gratitude changes the way we experience money without asking us to pretend everything is fine. What financial freedom really looks like when you take the yachts and jackpots out of the picture. And what The Beatles, a change of clothes, some of the most important albums ever recorded, and a concert for Bangladesh have to do with the freedom money can make possible.

We also return to where so many of our money stories began: the beliefs handed to us by people who loved us and were trying to keep us safe. Honoring their love does not require inheriting their limitations.

Because money was never the enemy.

It is neutral. It amplifies what is already in the hands and heart of the person holding it. And when kind, ethical, self-aware people become more resourced, they have more room to rest, create, help, give, and make something better.

This week’s practice begins with your next purchase and a simple blessing for the money as it leaves your hands.

And then, one final blessing for you.

May your nervous system remember safety.
May your giving be joyful.
May your receiving be unapologetic.
May your financial life reflect your truest values.

Inhale. You are enough.

Exhale. You are ready.

Let this be your beginning.

Season Two of Reading Your Own Life begins Monday, October 12: Meditate Right for Your Personality Type.

Support the show

Reading Your Own Life With Swami Larry is written and hosted by Larry Lee. Season One is based on a manuscript written by Swami Larry with Faith Bleasdale. 

New episodes every Monday and Thursday. 

More at: https://substack.com/@swamilarry

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/swami_larry/

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@swami_larry

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@swami_larry

If the show is useful to you, a rating or a review helps other people find it.

Send us Fan Mail

What if you stopped asking how?

How will I make more money? How will I get there? How will this work?

The question sounds practical. Sometimes it is. But sometimes “how” becomes another form of fear, a way of trying to control an outcome before you’ve even taken the next step.

Episode Ten is about what happens when the need to know every part of the route keeps you from moving at all. Why control and responsibility are not the same thing. What a dark road, a pair of headlights, a handful of sand, and an ancient yogic practice have to do with money. And why letting go of the outcome does not mean giving up on the work.

There’s also Alex, a dream application, an inbox being refreshed like a slot machine, and a different way to hold effort and uncertainty at the same time.

Because active detachment isn’t doing nothing.

It’s knowing what you want, doing what is yours to do, and loosening your grip on everything that isn’t.

This week’s practice needs a page, a line down the middle, and an honest look at what you can control and what you can’t.

I release the timeline. I keep the intention.

Join me next time for Episode Eleven, This Is How We Change the Story.

Support the show

Reading Your Own Life With Swami Larry is written and hosted by Larry Lee. Season One is based on a manuscript written by Swami Larry with Faith Bleasdale. 

New episodes every Monday and Thursday. 

More at: https://substack.com/@swamilarry

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/swami_larry/

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@swami_larry

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@swami_larry

If the show is useful to you, a rating or a review helps other people find it.

Send us Fan Mail

Is it better to give than to receive?

We’ve heard that idea so often it can feel almost virtuous to refuse what comes toward us.

But if you never receive, what exactly are you supposed to give from?

Episode Nine is about generosity, and the part of generosity we rarely talk about: allowing ourselves to receive. Why giving feels so good in the brain. What Buddhism, Hinduism, Christianity, Islam, Judaism, and secular ethics have in common when they talk about generosity. And why true giving has very little to do with keeping score.

There’s also another side to giving. The chronic giver who says yes when the body is already saying no. The person who gives from guilt, duty, or fear of seeming selfish. And the difference between generosity that comes from fullness and generosity that slowly empties you out.

Because giving is not supposed to require your disappearance.

If giving is the exhale, receiving is the inhale. You need both to complete the breath.

This week’s practice begins with one hand over your heart, one over your belly, and one person you can bless today.

Join me next time for Episode Ten, What If You Stopped Asking How?

Support the show

Reading Your Own Life With Swami Larry is written and hosted by Larry Lee. Season One is based on a manuscript written by Swami Larry with Faith Bleasdale. 

New episodes every Monday and Thursday. 

More at: https://substack.com/@swamilarry

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/swami_larry/

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@swami_larry

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@swami_larry

If the show is useful to you, a rating or a review helps other people find it.

Send us Fan Mail

Why does spending feel so good, and then so bad?

Sometimes the pleasure starts before you buy anything. You see it. You want it. You imagine having it. The anticipation itself can be enough to light up the brain.

The high is in the hunt.

Episode Eight is about what happens when spending becomes emotional. Why tapping a phone or swiping a card can disconnect us from the feeling of money leaving. How flash sales, social pressure, and the need to be seen can pull us into purchases we never planned to make. And one question that can tell you whether you’re buying something because it matters to you, or because you want somebody else to notice.

There’s also debt. The “buy now, pain later” effect. Why postponing the payment can make the real cost easier to ignore, and the difference between debt that helps move your life forward and debt that leaves you working harder just to stay in place.

Spending isn’t the problem. The question is what’s driving it.

This week’s practice begins before you tap. Four letters: HALT.

Join me next time for Episode Nine, Is It Better to Give Than to Receive?

Support the show

Reading Your Own Life With Swami Larry is written and hosted by Larry Lee. Season One is based on a manuscript written by Swami Larry with Faith Bleasdale. 

New episodes every Monday and Thursday. 

More at: https://substack.com/@swamilarry

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/swami_larry/

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@swami_larry

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@swami_larry

If the show is useful to you, a rating or a review helps other people find it.

Send us Fan Mail

Can money and love live in the same house?

Of course they can. But two people can love each other deeply and still speak completely different languages when it comes to money.

One saves because money means safety. One spends because money means being alive now. One needs a plan for the plan. Another would rather not look at the numbers at all.

Episode Seven is about what happens when those money styles meet inside a relationship. The saver, the spender, the avoider, and the controller. Why financial tension lives in the nervous system as much as it does in the bank account. And why sometimes the most useful thing you can say during a money argument is, “I am for us, not against you.”

There’s also a first date, three rounds of drinks, a cab ride home, and one sentence that told a woman far more about her date than the amount of money involved ever could.

Because financial compatibility isn’t necessarily about how much either person earns. It’s about trust, transparency, values, and whether money becomes something you can talk about together instead of something you use against each other.

For couples on solid ground, money can become another form of intimacy.

This week’s practice is a date night. There may be dinner, a drink, even a candle. Just don’t make it feel like a visit to the tax office.

Love first. Numbers second.

Join me next time for Episode Eight, Why Does Spending Feel So Good, and Then So Bad?

Support the show

Reading Your Own Life With Swami Larry is written and hosted by Larry Lee. Season One is based on a manuscript written by Swami Larry with Faith Bleasdale. 

New episodes every Monday and Thursday. 

More at: https://substack.com/@swamilarry

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/swami_larry/

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@swami_larry

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@swami_larry

If the show is useful to you, a rating or a review helps other people find it.

Send us Fan Mail

Do you believe you deserve wealth?

Not want it. Deserve it. Answer with a yes or a no, and notice what happens in your chest while you do.

If a knot showed up, or a quiet "not for me," that's the episode.

Most people want more financial stability. Fewer believe they've got it coming. And that gap does real damage, because a nervous system won't let you keep what it's decided you shouldn't have.

Episode Six goes through the beliefs that keep the gap in place. I don't deserve wealth. I have no control over my finances. You have to work harder to make money. Money always runs out. They aren't stone walls. They're Jenga pieces, and you don't need to know where each one came from to lift it out.

Underneath all four is the same question, and it isn't about money at all. The market can price a coat. It can't price your courage.

This week's practice needs paper, and it ends with the paper gone.

Join me next time for Episode Seven, What if Stillness Doesn’t Feel Safe

Support the show

Reading Your Own Life With Swami Larry is written and hosted by Larry Lee. Season One is based on a manuscript written by Swami Larry with Faith Bleasdale. 

New episodes every Monday and Thursday. 

More at: https://substack.com/@swamilarry

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/swami_larry/

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@swami_larry

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@swami_larry

If the show is useful to you, a rating or a review helps other people find it.

Send us Fan Mail

They pull into the driveway with the thing you've had your eye on. Something moves in you before you've had a chance to decide anything. Maybe envy. Maybe the thought that they must have done something shady to afford it.

That reaction tells you nothing about your neighbor. It tells you quite a lot about you.

Episode Five is about comparison, and why your body treats someone else's win as a threat. What envy and jealousy actually are, and how they differ. Why your nervous system can't tell the difference between scrolling a feed and competing for food. And the two questions that break the loop, both of them short enough to ask standing in your own driveway.

The car may have taken them two years of saving. It might have meant everything to them. You don't know, and not knowing is the point.

Someone else's light doesn't dim yours. This week's practice is one breath in, one breath out, and a few simple words.

Join me next time for Episode Six, What Do You Do When Your Mind Won't Stop

Support the show

Reading Your Own Life With Swami Larry is written and hosted by Larry Lee. Season One is based on a manuscript written by Swami Larry with Faith Bleasdale. 

New episodes every Monday and Thursday. 

More at: https://substack.com/@swamilarry

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/swami_larry/

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@swami_larry

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@swami_larry

If the show is useful to you, a rating or a review helps other people find it.

Send us Fan Mail

My father was born during the Great Depression. He built a good life and rarely spent anything on himself, because he had learned early that money can vanish. My mother lost her father in 1943 and was raised by a widow counting every dollar out of necessity. She gave my sister and me everything and kept almost nothing for herself.

Neither of them sat me down and taught me any of that. I absorbed it anyway, and for years I thought the caution was simply who I was.

Episode Four is about where your money story actually started. What children take in from the tension around bills long before they can add. Why caution and recklessness come from the same place. What epigenetics suggests about hardship that outlives the people who lived it. And a friend whose family rule was "never borrow," and what happened when they finally broke it.

This isn't about blaming anyone. Your parents were shaped by their times the same way you were shaped by yours. But you're allowed to look at what you're carrying and decide what stays.

This week's practice needs a blank page and three circles.

Join me next time for Episode Five, Why Does Your Neighbor's New Car Bother You?

Support the show

Reading Your Own Life With Swami Larry is written and hosted by Larry Lee. Season One is based on a manuscript written by Swami Larry with Faith Bleasdale. 

New episodes every Monday and Thursday. 

More at: https://substack.com/@swamilarry

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/swami_larry/

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@swami_larry

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@swami_larry

If the show is useful to you, a rating or a review helps other people find it.

Send us Fan Mail

Does money corrupt people?

Someone in my family once told me when I was young that they didn't want money because it corrupted people. It scared me. If money could do that, staying away from it seemed like the safest thing.

That fear runs deeper than one conversation, and it isn't only inherited. Most of us are carrying some version of it.

Episode Three takes the fear apart. Why money gets blamed for things it never caused. What dopamine actually does when you get the raise, and why it never stays. What the research says about power and empathy, and why that still isn't an excuse. And a Sanskrit word for force that means the same thing whether it heals or harms.

Then it turns the question around. If money can't change you, what exactly are you afraid of? The answer usually isn't money. It's what more of it would ask of you.

Money is neutral. It amplifies the hand that holds it. Stop blaming it and something else comes into view.

This week's practice involves a number, a list, and paying attention to what your body does while you write it.

Join me next time for Episode Four, Whose Money Story Are You Living?

Support the show

Reading Your Own Life With Swami Larry is written and hosted by Larry Lee. Season One is based on a manuscript written by Swami Larry with Faith Bleasdale. 

New episodes every Monday and Thursday. 

More at: https://substack.com/@swamilarry

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/swami_larry/

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@swami_larry

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@swami_larry

If the show is useful to you, a rating or a review helps other people find it.

Send us Fan Mail

What's the first emotion money brings up in you?

Fear. Excitement. Anxiety. Relief. Sometimes shame.

Whatever came up first, it came up before you had time to think about it. Your body knows the story of money before your mind explains it.

Episode Two is about what money does to the body long before it reaches a spreadsheet. A woman who stayed after a workshop with something she hadn't said out loud. A man with all the money he needs, still chasing the next deal. Two people who look like opposites, and aren't.

It also goes somewhere you might not expect, by way of a scene from The Matrix, a phrase carved above a doorway, and what that has to do with what you charge for your work.

You can budget down to the penny and still feel a knot in your stomach when you open the banking app. That isn't a math problem, and it never was.

This week's practice is short, and it asks for a pen.

Join me next time for Episode Three, Does Money Corrupt People?

Support the show

Reading Your Own Life With Swami Larry is written and hosted by Larry Lee. Season One is based on a manuscript written by Swami Larry with Faith Bleasdale. 

New episodes every Monday and Thursday. 

More at: https://substack.com/@swamilarry

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/swami_larry/

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@swami_larry

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@swami_larry

If the show is useful to you, a rating or a review helps other people find it.