In a meditation on abundance, I met my financially free self

Not long ago, I joined an online community filled with more than a hundred interesting people. We often discuss personality types, cognitive growth and different ways of understanding the world, and I frequently come away with a new perspective.

A few days ago, someone in the group named Yan shared her recent experience with a money abundance meditation. Not long afterwards, she unexpectedly received what felt like a response from the universe.

I found the story fascinating.

So last night, before going to sleep, I tried the meditation myself. I was curious about what I might see and whether the experience would offer any insight into wealth.

I want to share the images that appeared during the meditation, how I came to understand those symbols, and what the experience taught me afterwards.

If you are curious too, perhaps you could try it before bed tonight. I have included Yan’s meditation method and guidance at the end of this article.

When I closed my eyes, I found myself in a town on the South Coast of New South Wales that I had once visited shortly after the devastating Black Summer bushfires of 2020.

I was standing in a eucalyptus forest on a coastal cliff, a forest that had been completely burnt.

I still remember how deeply the bleakness of that dark woodland affected me when I first visited.

In the meditation, I stood among blackened tree trunks, scattered ash and pale dead branches lying across the ground.

There was not a trace of green.

It was as though all life had been drained from the forest.

To my left, beneath the cliff, was a brilliant blue ocean. In the distance, I could faintly see mountains where the sea met the sky. Sunlight scattered across the waves in flashes of gold.

The ocean and the burnt forest seemed to belong to two entirely different layers of reality.

Yet as I stood inside that black-and-white landscape, I felt a sense of desolation, but no fear.

In the distance, I saw a small wooden cabin.

I stepped carefully over the charred branches and began walking towards it.

But after only a few steps, a group of colourful butterflies, mostly blue, suddenly appeared around me.

At the same moment, the distant cabin seemed to move instantly closer.

I opened the door and walked inside.

The interior was much larger than it had appeared from outside.

The first thing that caught my attention was the window directly opposite the entrance.

Beyond it was a garden in full bloom—colourful, abundant and overflowing with life.

The contrast with the fire-damaged forest outside could not have been greater.

When I looked back into the room, I saw logs burning brightly in the fireplace to the right.

They crackled loudly, and the flickering golden light filled the entire living room with warmth.

A woman was reclining lazily on the leather sofa in the centre of the room.

I could not see her face clearly, but I knew that she was me—or perhaps some presence deeply connected to me.

She looked very different from the person I am in everyday life.

She had thick, loose waves of hair falling freely across her shoulders and wore a pair of gold earrings. Her arms were long, and her body was slender and light.

She seemed relaxed and effortless, yet powerful.

She held a glass of red wine in her left hand, while her right arm rested naturally along the back of the sofa.

There was complete ease in the way she carried herself, along with the confidence of someone who knew everything was under control.

In front of her stood a large solid-wood coffee table with several gold coins scattered across it.

She did not speak.

She simply looked at me calmly and with certainty, inviting the timid version of me standing in the doorway to come closer.

If this woman represented my relationship with money, what was she trying to tell me?

Her calm confidence seemed to offer an answer.

Jungian psychology includes a practice known as active imagination.

In simple terms, it involves consciously entering an inner image while awake and interacting with the scenes, figures and emotions that emerge from the unconscious.

Carl Jung believed that the unconscious does not always communicate through clear language.

More often, it speaks through images, symbols, dreams and stories, presenting the parts of ourselves that remain hidden from ordinary awareness.

This means that oceans, forests, houses, gardens and animals appearing in dreams or meditation can be understood as the language of the unconscious.

One contrast in my meditation felt particularly striking:

the forest destroyed by fire outside the cabin, and the garden bursting with spring life beyond the window inside.

This contrast can be understood through the death–rebirth archetype, which represents the process of moving through crisis, growth or spiritual awakening.

In Jungian thought, death and rebirth do not refer to physical death.

They represent psychological transformation.

This often occurs when a person experiences a major crisis or turning point—the collapse of an old self and the birth of a new one.

Life contains many moments like this.

You apply desperately to your dream university and are rejected.

A long and meaningful relationship comes to an end.

A plan you had looked forward to for years leads nowhere.

We often interpret these moments as failure and remain trapped in regret, shame and disappointment.

But perhaps these experiences can also be understood as signs that an older version of ourselves is being transformed.

Ruins, wastelands and burnt forests appearing in dreams or meditation may be the unconscious telling us that it is time to clear away what no longer serves us.

Old beliefs and old patterns of behaviour must sometimes be released before new wisdom and strength can emerge.

This interpretation also connects with the butterflies that appeared next.

In Jungian psychology, the butterfly is one of the central symbols of psychological transformation.

It represents the movement from an ordinary physical state - the caterpillar - through withdrawal and difficulty - the cocoon - and finally into spiritual rebirth and freedom - the butterfly.

From larva to chrysalis to butterfly, it must first pass through a stage that looks still, closed and inactive before it can grow wings.

The time inside the cocoon appears to contain no progress.

Yet it is precisely during this stage that the most important transformation takes place.

We are far too accustomed to judging ourselves through external results.

We want high marks, impressive KPIs and immediate rewards for our effort.

We treat stillness as failure and confusion as regression.

We want to rise, but forget that growth also requires roots.

The Chinese writer Qingshan once wrote:

“Life needs pauses. A pause means temporarily having no thought, no goal, taking a brief rest and simply existing with yourself.”

People are afraid of pauses.

But a butterfly never doubts whether it will one day fly simply because it is still inside the cocoon.

It quietly and patiently completes its transformation.

Perhaps the blue butterflies I saw were telling me not to dismiss my current life too quickly.

Many periods that appear to produce no visible results are quietly accumulating energy for the next transformation.

Continue doing what you believe is right.

Give it your full attention.

Then wait patiently for the moment when you finally break free.

The calm woman sitting in the centre of the living room seemed to represent the final form of the Self after transformation and rebirth.

She was relaxed, composed and certain.

For Jung, the ultimate goal of personality development is not success.

It is becoming whole.

This integrated, complete inner being is what he called the Self.

If the burnt forest outside represented the collapse of an old identity, and the butterflies represented the process of transformation, then the woman sitting in the centre of the cabin seemed to be a more complete version of me after that transformation.

In conventional terms, financial freedom may mean unlimited material wealth.

But what my unconscious showed me was a deeply relaxed way of being alive.

The woman simply sat there, yet she radiated abundance.

She possessed the confidence of someone who had everything and feared nothing.

I realised that the wealth I longed for was not only material satisfaction.

It was the confidence and capacity to allow abundance into my life.

Many of us live according to a familiar logic:

“When I earn enough money, I will stop feeling anxious.”

“When I succeed, I will finally feel capable and secure.”

“When I prove myself, I will finally be able to relax.”

But perhaps the unconscious was asking me to reverse this order.

Like the woman inside the cabin:

She was not relaxed because she was wealthy.

She allowed wealth to move through her because she was relaxed.

She did not become confident after succeeding.

Her confidence made it easier for her to create success.

We do not need to wait for an external result before allowing ourselves to become certain of who we are.

Perhaps this was the limiting belief the meditation revealed to me.

Change the order in which you understand yourself, and an entirely different path through life may begin to appear.

As I write this, I suddenly remember that eucalyptus trees are extraordinary organisms.

Deep within their trunks and roots are dormant buds.

After a severe fire, they do not necessarily die. Instead, they can use the fire as part of the process of regeneration.

The intense heat can trigger fire-resistant seeds to open, while the flames remove competing plants and create more nutrients and space for new growth.

For eucalyptus trees, a bushfire is not always the end of life.

It can also be the beginning of new life.

The blackened landscape I saw on the South Coast of New South Wales would, only months later, begin to grow again.

Destruction and rebirth exist at the same time.

They are connected.

Is life not the same?

Repeated rejection, repeated failure, effort that appears to lead nowhere, and all the moments when we doubt ourselves can leave us feeling trapped inside ruins.

But years later, we may realise that these experiences were burning away old attachments and beliefs.

They were part of the process through which we destroyed and rebuilt ourselves.

One meditation may not create an immediate or dramatic change.

But I feel certain that one day I will open that door and walk towards the calm, abundant version of myself.

For me, true financial freedom may be the moment I stop viewing myself through the eyes of scarcity.

It means allowing life to move through me and accepting whatever gifts the universe brings.

Even when I fall into difficulty, I can remain at peace while rising again from the fire.

Until the cocoon opens.

Until the flowers bloom.

If you would also like to try a money abundance meditation, you can follow Yan’s method:

Close your eyes and take three deep breaths.

With every exhale, feel your body sinking slightly deeper.

Then say silently to yourself: “I give myself permission to look.”

Imagine a path. Walk along it until you reach the end.

There, you will find a door. Open it.

Look at what your money energy appears to be. It may be a dragon. It may be a faint light, a cloud of grey mist, a small child, or perhaps nothing at all. Whatever appears, do not be afraid. Do not judge it.

Walk towards it and say: “I see you. I am only here to look.”

Then become still.

Listen to what it wants to tell you.