2010 ~ The Year of Abundance

One of the obstacles I faced last year, especially after getting arrested, was financial scarcity. Money wasn’t really an issue when I was working as an escort (not much of a surprise there
) but I’ve had a lot of trouble finding a job since. I’ve been working odd jobs since July and it’s been a huge stress to try and meet all my expenses. A lot of energy has gone into worrying about money that I could be putting into things that are way more fun.
Finding a more conscious, loving way of generating financial stability has been an interest of mine for years. I’m familiar with plenty of theories on how to create abundance, but I’ve never committed to creating abundance in my life the way I committed to learning courage last year. In fact, when I reflect on it, long-term conscious creation of abundance was often put on the backseat for more immediate financial needs. (Hmm… Maybe 2010 should also be the year I focus on patience?
)
From what I’ve learned, the first step in creating abundance is building a vision of what you want to experience and making my inner self a match for that reality. We create the world around us, so something within me has been attracting scarcity and needs to be retrained to attract abundance. To help me get started, I visited some of my favourite resources to develop a plan of action.
Back in November, Steve Pavlina had posted a video blog about creating abundance. I’d been meaning to watch it for months but never quite got to it. I took the opportunity to watch it and sure enough, the first step he suggested was teaching yourself to sent out an abundance vibe to the universe. You do this by imagining a new reality of abundance around you and opening yourself to feel what that experience would be like. By creating that feeling repeatedly, you’re teaching yourself how to hold that state of being throughout your daily life.
Since watching the video, I’ve been practicing holding that state in the morning when I wake up and at night before I go to bed. The process has made me more aware of how limiting my casual thoughts during the day really are. It’s been helpful to take a moment when I notice these thoughts to replace them with a groovy abundance vibe. Way more fun than stressing about scarcity. I’ve been practicing reiki since last year and it’s helped me to become more aware of shifts in energy in my body and consciously altering my state of being. When I get to the right emotional state of abundance, I can feel a huge difference in my body. I feel lighter, often feel a little shiver go down my spine, and smile.
The shift isn’t always easy. Certain thoughts seem more like habits more than products of my thinking. I’ve probably thought them so many times before that they just kind of fill the space in my head when I’m not conscious of it. Fortunately, that’s just a matter of re-teaching my brain and reinforcing the new thoughts as often as possible. Depending on where I am and what I’m doing, it might take longer. But no matter how long it takes, it is so important to stop giving that energy to an experience I don’t want and redirect it into creating what I do want.
Sleep schedule and eating habits are big factors in my emotional state. I’ve noticed that if I’m tired or eaten a lot of sugar, it’s harder to change my thoughts. The gardening season has started so I’ve been getting up much earlier and leaving the house very soon after I’m out of bed. If I want to have a productive day, I need to make time to go through a morning ritual before rushing off to get things done. If I wake up slowly, spend time focusing on my vision and getting myself to an abundant emotional state, eat something alive and fresh, plan out my day, and then get started on what I need to do, my emotional state during the day is much more stable, focused, and positive. I experienced a lot of disconnect last year and after brushing up on Steve’s work the last few days I’ve come to accept that as part of learning to live consciously. I experienced first hand how acting out of fear can drop us right back into the old habits we were trying to grow past. Taking time for those steps every morning is a great environmental support to holding the new, abundant experience I want. If I skip them, I feel off-balance and less present/in control of my reality.
The second step offered in the video was the need to exercise courage to completely move into the new reality. You have to let go of what’s going to keep you in the old mindset and go for the new opportunities that will show up. You have to follow your heart and trust it to lead you. Luckily, I built some courage muscles last year to help me with that.
Another useful resource is daily “Notes From The Universe” sent from Tut.com. The notes also have a very similar two step process for creating the life you want. They encourage creating a vision and taking baby steps in the right direction and trusting the universe will support you. It’s a treat to open my email and get these notes once a day. They’re helping me to rewire my brain with the right, empowering messages.
An important component to creating abundance is figuring out what my contribution to the world is and how I want to give value to others. Companionship is extremely important to me, but I feel like need more training to do the job the way I think it should be done. I currently volunteer a lot of my time to food politics and community gardening and I’ve been getting messages about how crucial those things are. I’ve been feeling pulls towards the arts and event planning, as well as develop my skills as a healer using energy and herbalism. I know I need to write and I love being involved in activism, attending workshops, and cheerleading. I feel like I’ve been doing good work but I wasn’t being compensated for it, focusing on sex work as my only source of income. That was limiting and I need to expand my thinking to include being compensated for the various types of work that I love.
I was planting wild strawberries this afternoon, digging in the ground with my bare hands, and I was struck with gratitude that I was a gardener. It teaches me so much about generosity and service. It’s supportive to my health, my happiness, my home, and helps me give to those around me. Gardening has been my teacher of abundance over the last few years and as the weather warms, I’m excited to see what this year’s goals and garden will bring.
