ABUNDANCE

How do you want to feel?

At the beginning of every year I ask myself this. How do I want to feel? Above all else and in every aspect of my life what is the sensation I want to hold in my heart. Deciding on an all encompassing feeling isn’t something I take lightly. The word I chose will provide the framework to my growth. And be the compass for my year ahead.

How do I want to feel when I open my eyes in the morning? How do I want to feel as I take my first sip of coffee, as I get into the shower, as I pull up to work? In every moment of every day, for good or bad, how do I want to feel? How do I want to live my life? What kind of person do I strive to be?

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In the past I have chosen beautiful words like, thrive, light, joy, and love. These words have served me well. Even when life would get messy and I would forget my word, the feeling stayed with me in my subconscious. Picking a word is pretty serious stuff.

With a rebellious grin, the first word that came to my mind was rich… I want to feel rich. I want feelings of abundance. Rich me would wear evening gowns and wrap myself in feather boas. Rich me would be fun, flirty and outrageous. Almost as quickly as this picture came to my thoughts, so did image of greed and the wash of guilt.

But what was so wrong with wanting wealth, of yearning for abundance? Stephen Covey, the author of The Seven Habits of Effective People, was the pioneer of the Abundance Mentality. Stephen writes, “The Abundance Mentality, on the other hand, flows of a deep inner sense of personal worth and security. It is the paradigm that there is plenty out there and enough to spare for everybody. It results in sharing of prestige, of recognition, of profits, of decision making. It opens possibilities, options, alternatives and creativity.

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In truth, it wasn’t really the money that I wanted but rather the feeling of freedom that I perceived the riches to afford me: trips away with my family, the roar of the waves and the smell of sunscreen. The release from the everyday mundane and the welcoming of something new. It was ideology of The Abundance Mindset.

We are not yet a full month into 2021, and already there’s been some hiccups. But there have also been so much to be thankful for: we celebrated our daughters twenty fifth birthday, we have found a new love for the outdoors while we hiked trails in our area, our elderly cat had a visit to the vet where he got a clean bill of health, and I have welcomed this second lockdown for some much needed down time. In essence, pretty lush.