Five Keys To A “New” Abundance For Lean Times

Here’s a ques­tion from a reader of last week’s post on How Are You Play­ing The Scarcity Game?  

How do you imple­ment an anti scarcity cam­paign when it seems all around is just that. I per­son­ally am see­ing a reduc­tion in my work and in my work day, I see so much increased poverty, lack of funds/person power, and peo­ple falling through the cracks. In the past months, I find myself going numb though my anx­i­ety level is pushed as I feel that there really isn’t enough for all peo­ple that I see (pro­fes­sion­ally and per­son­ally). I would so appre­ci­ate any insight you may have.…..

What a per­fect ques­tion to launch into explor­ing a con­ver­sa­tion about what does it mean to be abun­dant when so much of the world is suf­fer­ing from not enough? Is it even possible?

How can one be abun­dant if they’ve lost their job and have no money? How can any­one feel abun­dant when we’re awash in media mes­sages 24/7 remind­ing us to be very afraid, the sky is falling?

I con­sider this to be a topic of crit­i­cal impor­tance for our time, as where each of us indi­vid­u­ally and col­lec­tively comes down on this sub­ject will deter­mine how we’re going to expe­ri­ence this period of human his­tory and our own indi­vid­ual story within it.

So first, what do we mean by the term, “abun­dance”? The dic­tio­nary defines it as:

1. An extremely plen­ti­ful or over suf­fi­cient quan­tity or supply:

2. Over flow­ing fullness

The stan­dard image of abun­dance is a cor­nu­copia over­flow­ing with the har­vest. The mes­sage is “There’s more than enough for every­one. Come, take what you need, there is plenty.” Let that mes­sage sink in for a moment. There is plenty.

Con­sider what is plen­ti­ful in your own life.

How about time? Do you expe­ri­ence time as plen­ti­ful? Do you have plenty of time to do the things you love? If not, how come?

Every­one has the same amount of time in a day to use as they choose. OK, I know, you’re going to say “But I don’t have much choice about how I use my time. I have to work 8 or more hours a day and that only leaves me 16 left. And I have to try to sleep 8 hours a night, so that only leaves me 8 hours left to get every­thing else done. And I spend an hour com­mut­ing to and from work and 2 more hours shop­ping for food, bring­ing it home and prepar­ing it, so when it gets right down to it, I only have 1 or 2 hours/day max­i­mum to spend with my fam­ily or go out with my friends or just catch my breath before doing it all over again tomor­row. No, my time is not enough!”

But what if it is? What if exactly what you have is enough? What if you could choose to regard your cur­rent life cir­cum­stances as enough? Hear me out. Even if you don’t have a job and you’re liv­ing in fear, could you change your mind on the very next breath and bring abun­dant kind­ness, love and com­pas­sion to your­self in the midst of your fear?

Do you have enough kind­ness and love to nur­ture your­self and plenty to give to oth­ers? If not, how come? Where is it? Did some­one take it from you? Or have you closed your­self off and no longer have access to the well of kind­ness and love within?

It’s extremely chal­leng­ing to find one’s inner abun­dant resources much less draw from them when the exter­nal world is awash in scarcity. But maybe that’s the point. Maybe these times are the way they are exactly so we’ll ulti­mately dis­cover, there is no where else to turn but within to find what really matters.

When the exter­nal resources have dis­ap­peared, can you count on you to be there for you or do you aban­don your­self and give your power away to fear? Do you have abun­dant courage to face dif­fi­cul­ties when they arise or are you lack­ing faith in your­self, com­pas­sion for your fel­low human beings?

In the end, it’s not about how many “toys” we have when we die or how many vaca­tions we take, or how many pairs of shoes we have in our closet. It’s not about the “things” we amass, even though we can look around and see there are those whose entire lives are devoted to accu­mu­lat­ing more “things”.

We can also point to the Enron’s and Bernie Madoff’s of the world and see where the game of greed and self absorp­tion leads. It’s never a happy end­ing. Look at all the so-called “celebri­ties”, those in whom our cul­ture invests some false images of plenty. They’re sup­posed to “have it all”. I won­der if Mel Gib­son or Lind­say Lohan are feel­ing “enough” about now? Did Michael Jack­son or Elvis Pres­ley, the most suc­cess­ful record­ing artists of all time, have enough? Did they feel they were enough?

Obvi­ously, the answer is “no”. There will never be enough “stuff” to fill the hole of lack when we think that some­thing out­side of our­selves is the source of love and acceptance.

These times call for a new con­ver­sa­tion about what it means to be abun­dant. We are liv­ing in the after­math of our col­lec­tive binge on excess. We see where that road has led. The “Incon­ve­nient Truth” we all know is that this way of life is not sus­tain­able. It’s irre­spon­si­ble to think only of our­selves and pay no mind to the impact of our choices on future gen­er­a­tions. The day of reck­on­ing is already at hand. Look no fur­ther than right here, right now for the invi­ta­tion to shift your way of thinking.

Lynne Twist, founder of the Hunger Project, global activist, and author of the best sell­ing book, The Soul of Money, says about the times in which we live:

It’s a dif­fi­cult time. I don’t deny that.

But it can also be a beau­ti­ful time. Because we can move towards thrift rather than accu­mu­la­tion; we can move toward appre­ci­at­ing what we love rather than being afraid of what we’ve lost.

We can focus our atten­tion and inten­tion not on what we’re los­ing, but on what we already have that’s so valu­able and nour­ish­ing to us. And we can stop clam­or­ing for more of what we don’t really need and take care of what we have.

This is a time that I think his­tory will look back on and say, “These are the peo­ple, this is the gen­er­a­tion of humankind, that made the changes that went through a trans­for­ma­tion that made the future of life pos­si­ble. These are the peo­ple who had the courage to make pro­found changes in the way they were thinking–as well as in the way that they were behaving–that gave the future to life itself.”

So, I’m priv­i­leged to be liv­ing at this time. I’m excited about being the gen­er­a­tion that goes through this coura­geous period.

It’s a gift, it’s a bless­ing; a tough one, but some­thing that will cre­ate the pro­found trans­for­ma­tional change that’s absolutely nec­es­sary and required for us to have a future on this planet.”

How’s that for a reframe?  So in answer to the reader’s open­ing ques­tion: this is not an “anti-scarcity cam­paign”. If our focus is on com­bat­ing scarcity, we just pro­duce more of it, since the Law of Attrac­tion brings us more of what we focus on.

Five Keys To Claim­ing Abundance

1) Trea­sure what you have- Grat­i­tude begets abun­dance, so count your bless­ings every day. Not like in a Hall­mark card, but seri­ously, for real. Read Anne Naylor’s won­der­ful arti­cle on Learn­ing To Trea­sure Your­self. It’s impos­si­ble to be fear­ful or depressed while con­tem­plat­ing what you already have and are grate­ful for. What are the biggest bless­ings in your life? Fully acknowl­edge and appre­ci­ate them. We get more of what we’re focused on, so why not focus on what you have instead of what you lack?

2) Give from gen­eros­ity  - What we share mul­ti­plies in the giv­ing, what we hoard shriv­els and dies. Do you have enough love to give to those you love and those who need love? Love increases as you give it. So do kind­ness and com­pas­sion. The more you give, the more you have to give. What would the world be like if we were less about get­ting and more about giv­ing? Remem­ber the story of the Loaves and Fishes when a lit­tle boy gave up his five loaves of bread and two fish to feed a crowd of 5000 and every­one got fed? This is a para­ble intended to teach us about the power of giv­ing from gen­eros­ity. Giv­ing expands abundance.

3) Stand as the source of abun­dance- Abun­dance is who you are. Claim it. You are an infi­nite pos­si­bil­ity unfold­ing every moment and there is always enough of what you need on every breath. On this breath; know that noth­ing is miss­ing. On this breath; know that all is well. On this breath, know that you are loved. On this breath, know; and know that you know, that you are enough. Know that the source of your sup­ply is infi­nite and that you always have access to it. Know there is noth­ing to fear.

4) Choose what you have- No mat­ter what it is, choose it. You already have it. Lost your job? Choose it. Don’t have any money? Choose it. And then, in the fact of all “that”… Declare your­self enough. Declare your life enough. Declare your­self as cre­ative, resource­ful and coura­geous enough to come through these times with fly­ing col­ors, not in spite of your cir­cum­stances, but because of them. Choose to have what you have and make it work to your ben­e­fit and to the ben­e­fit of others.

5) Bless those who are afraid- Breathe in love, breathe out fear. Pass it on. Become an infec­tious agent. Start a pan­demic of lov­ing gen­eros­ity. Seri­ously, if we were all breath­ing in love instead of fear, no mat­ter what the world says, we’d have this thing licked. Those who are afraid are sim­ply reflect­ing your own fear. Bless them and in so doing, you’ll be bless­ing yourself.

Know that, as Lynne Twist bril­liant reminds us; today, right where you are, you can be part of a crit­i­cal mass of human beings, trans­form­ing the col­lec­tive con­scious­ness from fear and lim­i­ta­tion, to being abun­dant; liv­ing in the flow of enough.

Know that your time here is short, so make the most of it. Know that you mat­ter. Know that what you think mat­ters and the actions you take mat­ter. Live from this know­ing and you’ll be liv­ing in abun­dance, no mat­ter what the world may say.

Tagged as: abundance, activist and author, Anne Naylor, Bernie Madoff, cornucopia, dr. judith rich, Enron Creditors Recovery Corp., food, harvest, Human Interest, Lindsay Lohan, Lynne Twist, media messages, Mel Gibson, Michael Jackson, Rx For The Soul, scarcity