Abundance

Concepts for Thriving
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Abundance

Abundance is the uplifting feeling that nourishes us when we actively embrace what is beautiful, pleasing, and inspiring in our lives and within ourselves, cultivating a profound sense of well-being and a heartfelt recognition of our “more than enoughness.”

  • Abundance is an antidote to the scarcity mindset that drives so much stress and striving.
  • The energy we get from feeling abundant nourishes our body, mind, and spirit — allowing us to enjoy a thriving life.
  • When we feel abundant, we are more present.
  • Vibrations connected to abundance calm the primitive brain and allow our heart to be more engaged with the choices before us.
  • Helps us feel good about who we are and what we have.

Money Put into Healthy Perspective

People stress about money constantly. And, yes, there are times when a person’s debt is too high for comfort, money inflow is insufficient for comfort, and uncertainty insists we not get comfortable!

But do any of us do our best thinking or most valuable work when we are stressed out and overwhelmed?

Abundance is not tied to our bank balance or net worth. The practice of the abundance mindset means that we allow ourselves to feel abundance anyway.

If the money situation is loud and stressful, practice with something else — something you imagine you could appreciate if you gave it a minute to affect you.

  • Something money cannot buy — like sunshine or a wild tree or a hug
  • Something money bought in the past — a musical instrument you enjoy, or a warm blanket, or a comfortable chair

When you tune yourself to that which is already in your world, and you allow these to calm, comfort, and nourish you a bit more deeply — and then deeper still — you are activating Resources inside you.

It’s true. We’ve become, as a culture, so accustomed to doing work under stress that “abundance” has come to mean, for too many, that full feeling when we eat the entire bag of chips and a carton of ice cream.

True abundance is felt in the first bite… if you let it. It is felt in colors that catch your fancy. And yes, abundance can be felt even when just $5 flows through your life… If you choose… If you allow.

Abundant Love

Oh! If it were only easy to love ourselves!

It’s not. We have billions of dollars in marketing telling us we’re not good enough and that we won’t be lovable / desirable unless we buy their cream, widget, or brew.

Almost all humans these days have also been traumatized. Betrayed. Abandoned. Bullied. Called names and considered “less than” by others. Passed over, fired, rejected, criticized. Ouch.

How in the world do we feel abundance in the face of all that?

Start with what matters to you… that you love… that you want more of in the emotional world.

Let’s say you love and appreciate kindness.

  1. When you offer a bit of kindness to others and yourself, take a moment and savor it. Recognize that there is a Source within us we can tap into and generate kindnesses.

  2. Notice in your world where someone is kind to another person. Become a Detective of Kindness — recognizing and celebrating it. You can even let the kind person know that you noticed!

  3. Speak to yourself, “I so love kindness! Thank you, Universe. Send me more!”

Our primitive brain indeed looks for threats, so “unkindness” (and cruelty) will tend to be seen more readily — unless we practice looking for and amplifying what we truly love… What matters to us.

When we do this and develop a real skill for it, we find that the energies we seek are far, far more abundant than we initially perceived.

LOVE these energies. LOVE what matters. LOVE it when you are true to your hearty nature. Feel the abundance in that… and allow the noise to quiet and your confidence to grow.

Mistaking Yearning for Lack

If it matters to us, we will yearn for it. And yearn for more and more of it.

The “it” can be love, or great food, or safety. “It” can be intimacy, new experiences, or the feeling of making a difference.

Indeed, we imagine that there can be moments of exquisitely uncomfortable yearning if it matters to you!

But what do most people do when they feel that yearning? They turn it back on themselves. They accuse themselves of being a failure. They see other people who have what they want and feel deprived, envious, and hopeless.

Those feelings are definitely not abundance.

It can help us to accept our yearning. We yearn because it matters.

It can help to notice if what we yearn for really is completely and utterly missing from our life… or does it already exist and we resist savoring it as much as we could?

We’re not pretending that a connection over Zoom is at all the same as a cuddle in person. And we can still feel a connection energetically. We can allow it to activate a feeling of a bit more abundance than lack.

In that choice, we’re acknowledging the gap — the yearning we have — between what is already here and what is not (yet!).

Useful Questions

  • Am I focused on scarcity in a way that blocks me from feeling the abundance that is also present?
  • Do I have a belief about abundance that blocks me from feeling good about myself and my life right now?
  • If I am not feeling abundant about that, could I feel abundance in another area of my life?
  • How could Nature help me feel more connected to the vibration of abundance than I do right now?
  • What art, music, or dance might help me feel more abundantly alive to nourish my heart and soul a bit?
  • How might I feel good about Who I Am and What I Have… anyway?

Resources

Related Concepts

Lifestyle Design, Simple Uplifts, Allowing, Trauma, Discernment, Limiting Beliefs

Links

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This fits with my own orientation to money that it is a “facilitator.” Abundance to me says that of the things that are really and truly dear to me, like this work on Concepts, there is enough… enough to make it possible.

Doesn’t mean (like I used to believe) that there’s enough money to necessarily have ALL the support and team that I could possibly fantasize!

Can I? If the answer is yes, then there’s abundance.

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Wow, gosh. I so need this right now. I want to find greater kindness in ‘me’ who has always been hurt for his “inability to be manly, brave and courageous, that which stands up for himself” like all the other tough kids. And finding even just a bit of abundance in my instruments that may not have been the best, as compared to some other more expensive guitars of there, but enough to help me make music enjoyable enough while I continue planning for better ones in the future.

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I believe the notion that more expensive is better is a marketing delusion that a lot of people have bought into. Heck, it is hard not to shortcut the decisions: “Oh! This must be better because it is twice or 10x as expensive!”

(Side note: there are clients who have rejected me because I do not charge $400+ an hour like the “excellent coaches do.” It is one way that it helps ME to clarify that what something costs is not a direct correlation to value. It feels abundant to me to both be someone who offers intangible values and ‘musicality’ without paying any kind of unnecessary brand-marketing luxury premium…)

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Haha @RickThrivingNow . It’s a shame. I think I have so much of that belief within me! It’s so easy to be swayed by it as we live in such a consumeristic culture and that more expensive = better quality. There’s certainly truth in that belief but often times, we follow it blindly to buy whatever that others recommend, or say is better, without asking ourselves if that is what we REALLY want/need/matter to us. I do want guitars, and sometimes I feel ashamed for having that “want”, because there will be that group of people that will label me as being a spendthrift. But yet, if I let that belief become my truth, I limit myself in the pursuit of freedom in my musicality and not being able to honour what matters to me. Yet, I value kindness and compassion, so when I do “fail” in either being too frugal and limiting myself, or buying too much that I don’t need, I want to still show kindness to myself that it’s all a big experiment, that which I’ll only get better at.

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I do believe there is a sweet spot for each person, a place where they find that sense of living in abundance… where Yearning in and of itself is not a signal there is anything wrong! There is simply yearning for growth, and being comfortable with that.

For me, Abundance does mean becoming comfortable with unmet desires, with yearning. Why? Because the more alive I feel the more experiences I want. Things (a guitar, a car, a new computer) are ways and tools for experiences.

Emotional Freedom embodies self-congruence, where what matters to us is deeply considered and grounded.

There are people who think guitars are horrible! I… honestly do not care about their opinion… just as I would hope the bagpiper who loves his instrument doesn’t care that the noise it produces makes me want to scream! No, I could never share a home with someone who loved their bagpipe and needed to play it each night before bedtime. Perhaps there are those who would not be willing to share a home with your guitars… just as there would be people who would love to share a home with you and your guitars!

Suppressing our desires means we won’t feel abundant with what we have. Rebelliousness (“I’ll buy any damn guitar I want and no one can stop me!!! Including me!!!”) also won’t feel like abundance.

The sweet spot will feel abundant… and alive.

We can definitely yearn for more (variety, choice, etc.) and still feel abundant in the now without suppression or rebellion.

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That’s amazing Rick! Such wisdom! I wish my mum could’ve said things like these to me, or the church! Just this slight exposure of awareness in abundance made me realize how scarce my mind, body and soul is (or just how much scarcity-driven thinking i was taught since young).

  • if you waste your money on “useless” things, you are a mistake.
  • if you love your dad, you’re useless and not my son.
  • if you believe in God, you are a deluded kid and deserves punishment and correction
  • if you choose to leave God, you are a sinner and deserve to be in hell since you chose to leave.
  • if you don’t love me, I’ll make you feel guilty until you do love me.
  • if you don’t “man up” and stand up against your father, he’s going to take advantage of you and make you suffer, just like how he’s made me suffer.

Reflecting on these does hurt me, and I could just not recognize how much “unkindness” and lack thereof I faced. I had to survive by validating these views, only to suppress more of them within me to create an inner chaos.

And now, I can start to realise that I don’t need to be, do or have what they told me that I should have. I yearn the safety in my personal space, and that’s why I left for hostel. I yearn for freedom to buy what works for me and dump those that doesnt. I yearn for a sense of belonging that isn’t dependent on my action or lack thereof, and therefore I left the church.

I desire, and you’re right! I hope to see that there’s nothing wrong with desiring!

And yes! Wow, it did hurt me when the hostel warden officer came knocking at my door, telling me that there were students that find that my singing and guitar playing was too loud and disturbing their studies. I mean that’s the hard part of living closely with other people when their rooms were a door away from mine… but yes. Finding those that share that same desire is absolutely priceless. I’m thankful that my neighbors at my current home hasn’t complain about my noise for so many years yet​:pray:t2:

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There comes a time when we’re strong enough and clear enough and independent enough that it’s okay to “finally” look at those ways we were pressured to conform.

Heck, parenting at its best always has aspects of conformity!

Adulthood brings us size (literally) and choices we did not have before. Even in the most primitive ways, adulthood is a time of breaking free – sometimes completely and sometimes just breaking a “family rule” or ten.

It’s true that for many of us, our parents were not high functioning. Meaning, trauma impacted their parenting significantly! But they didn’t necessarily realize it.

And there are none so certain of the rules as the unhealed traumatized person. You can hear it in their MUST DO’s and feel it in their threats and coercion. That’s unhealed trauma, passed along generation to generation.

I honor you for all you’re doing to break that trauma chain. It isn’t easy. I’ve found it profoundly worth it.

Love you!

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Indeed. Thank you, @RickThrivingNow !:pray:t2::raised_hands:t2:

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“The more you praise and celebrate your life, the more there is in life to celebrate.” - Oprah Winfrey

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Working with this concept today as it arose in me and I read through this discussion. So much to consider, ponder and process here.
So interesting about the yearning…… I had not realised the self judgment on that and that there could be another way to notice and look at my yearning from a more helpful and supportive and meaningful way. I do have a tendency to feel envious and resentful, I know I’ve mentioned that here before, so this is definitely a different way to connect more with my own abundance and what matters to me and open up to the possibilities for me in my own life. I’m hopeful I can use what I am learning in the centre and calls to build on this inner feeling of abundance and connection with myself and my own life.

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I know when I feel envious, it’s because I’m not actually connected with myself. I’m using an “outside reference” for something that actually matters to me.

If I stay focused on “them and what they have” it becomes rancid and rotten (resentment).

If I focus on what matters to me (for example, freedom, or deep safe luscious connection), then I can feel for ways I am compatible with those, and how they have showed up in my life, how I am shifting myself to be ever more compatible and agreeable and confident in those.

I remember feeling really resentful of people who had their own business. It was only during a time when I was working for a company. I had shifted from valuing Freedom and Choice to… security. It was more secure to work for another company.

And… when I connected to the truth that I value freedom… I started to recognize the way that having a “job” meant I was free from having to do the marketing. No accounting tasks! No having to hire or fire people, either, like my last self-employment required.

The resentment I was feeling guided me back to the abundance of freedom I had with this “job” – and also reminded me that adding more freedom into my life mattered to my core.

And thus Thriving Now, LLC was born.

And 6 years later I left that “job” and made Thriving Now fulltime, when it was ready, and I was.

I believe in the intelligence behind feelings like envy and resentment. I also recognize that my primitive brain is pretty gross about what to do with that energy. Fight, take, pout, give up, seethe. All primitive brain reactions.

The rest of me is far more abundant with choices and perspectives than that! Thank Goodness!

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Thank you for the time and thought you shared to respond Rick. I have been sitting with these ideas and your example for a few days and I really appreciate the lens of looking for the messages in the jealousy/ envy and resentment and opening up to the potential options available to me in that space if I am open to looking for them and exploring them. Including looking at what matters to me and bringing the lens back to myself and what i want and value.
Throughout this work with you and the circle I have definitely begun to review my experiences of anger - at times- with the lens of curiosity around what matters to me here and what might I choose to do in that space. I guess it’s the shame around having these types of ‘unacceptable’ emotions of jealousy and resentment that I have been stuck in. Nice to feel a little bit of acceptance of my feelings without harsh judgment and shaming……… perhaps some more tapping for me around being told how ungrateful and selfish I am might be helpful too, and loving little Nicole who just felt sad for lots of reasons she couldn’t express well, or wasn’t allowed to express and was shamed and rejected with rage. Thanks again. :sparkles::smiling_face:

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You speak to the truth that children do not feel shame when they are angry. Adira reminds me of this!

They are SHAMED, using a tool of behavior control that, well, works. So many things I was shamed about, too, that I now see were never part of my own standard of integrity.

If I go outside my own clear integrity, there is a feeling of shame. For me personally, that is useful… as a guardrail to keep me in integrity.

But dang, the shaming in school just for defending myself! The shaming over not being the Perfect Good Boy…

I’m not sure it is possible to not get confused about shame, at least in the culture I grew up in. Yet it is such a fruitful path towards freedom to decide (!) what it is we are willing to feel shame over… and what we are not.

Anger is a Holy Ouch. A Fiery Hurt. An Uncontainable Disappointment.

YES!
All Real and Human!

Of course, anger that result in violence at others, especially the innocent, I want to redirect. Shame in such cases can be a useful friend… “Hey, learn to direct this in healthier ways.” But feeling shame for anger at the person who is being cruel to you… well, no shame useful there.

That’s my posture, and it feels like it works so much better than shaming (and learned self-shaming) as behavior control TO SERVE OTHERS.

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