OR WHAT DEATH TEACHES US ABOUT THE RICHES OF LIFE
When we think of abundance, mostly we associate it with more money, more wealth, not worrying about financial aspects of life. Sometimes it means being in the flow, not worrying, being taken care of. If we dig a little deeper, it has to do with relaxing, trusting, being carried and held.
Lately, the concept of abundance is tightly linked to the idea of manifesting wealth, and we have the notion that we need to become an emotional and energetic match to what we want. Practically, we need to feel as if we were already rich, we need to feel deserving. And when we do, so the teachings, the abundance comes by itself. So we focus on setting our mind right, letting go of limiting negative emotions about ourselves and our possibilities in life.
And with everything we do and how ever we focus on it, abundance remains something we need to attain, achieve, work on, go for. In our basic understanding, abundance is something separate from ourselves.
Abundance is so Much More
As I see it now, abundance is primarily a state of consciousness. We really don’t want those things that we strive for. We want what we think they will make us feel. For everyone it’s different what we associate with “having” more than enough, but it’s somewhere along the lines of ease, peace, joy, flow, movement, gratitude and aliveness.
If we experience these inner states, we can perceive life and ourselves as abundant. So when is it most possible to access such inner states?
I’ve come to recognize that abundance is tightly linked to the balance between giving and receiving, and to the concepts of flow in life, and self-love. Let me explain.
- If we cannot receive, we have nothing to give. Someone who always puts other people first will burn out and then get frustrated and negative.
- Being able to receive has to do with our perceived worthiness. Do you deserve to feel free, abundant and loved? Do you deserve a better life than most people on the planet? ( Because let’s face it, even reading and thinking about abundance, having the time, resources and space to do that, puts you into the most fortunate part of the world population.)
- The more we accept and love ourselves, the better we can care for and nurture ourselves. When we do that, the energy rises, even in difficult situations. So self-love and self-care are important doors and pathways towards a world of abundance.
- Self-love and self-care are the practice of receiving – from a source that you control 100%: You alone decide if you give to yourself.
- If you receive, you can connect with a sensation of flow in life. Flow, or a certain ease, life supporting you in your endeavors – those experiences are linked to abundance. Flow is the degree of your capacity to be aligned with positivity and to – at the same time – not resist the life you are having. It is your ability to see your abundance in what you already have. And the more you see it, the more you can enjoy it, the more it multiplies.
- When there is no flow in life, you can get frustrated. You can resist your experience or think there is something wrong. And that’s where we get stuck in lack and negativity – because of our inner apprehension that something lacks and isn’t right. But maybe all it needs in those situations is to let go and surrender, and to find a way to love and nurture yourself – because that opens the door to receiving.
Death Gives Us a Different Perspective
I’ve been experiencing the process of dying, accompanying a loved one in his last days and hours.
It is a strange experience – everything shifts. You see the mobile phone laying on the night stand, and realize, that it’s worth nothing. That all the communication and connection will disappear into formlessness, be forgotten. That the time it took to earn the money for this phone, is gone, and the phone itself is not important anymore. That there is a whole house full of things that will be given away, reused in best case, or thrown out. The person leaves this life and this body – and all those things stop having meaning, and loose value.
It made me realize how crazy it is that when we think about abundance, we think about what we don’t have, what we want, what we lack – and how to get it. We don’t think about the many things we do have! So in our perception, we split things into two categories – what we want and what we don’t want – and then we spend all this time thinking about the things we want and don’t have yet. And isn’t it crazy, to realize that so many things only have meaning in the first place, because we assign it to them? That the meaning of something to us is, essentially, arbitrary. And that means that we get a choice: We can place meaning on what we don’t have, or on what we do!
Now that is something that I’ve known for a while – on an intellectual, mental level. But to feel it, how the meaning of a thing, its value, disappears, has an impact I didn’t expect. In that moment, sitting at the death bed, I realized in the essence of my bones and cells and in my core – that what is really meaningful, really abundant, are the laughs we shared, the connection we felt, the support we gave and received. Meaning is in the aliveness we shared together, in the contact, and in the moments when we were able to enjoy life and make it even richer because of our appreciation of what we had.
Let’s Focus on What we DO HAVE
I’ve decided, and I hope you’ll join me: I am done searching for abundance. I am done thinking about what I need to do in order to get. (Ok, yes, I will probably still be thinking about it. But I will know, that it’s not that what is important.)
Instead, I will find the joy in what I have in as many moments as possible. I will open my eyes to all the riches, all the love, all the support, all the luxuries that I get to experience every day. I will remind myself of all the things I do have, and of how fortunate I am. And I will be more grateful, more aware. Because there is nothing to achieve. It is all here. It is now when I can decide to be aware of all the abundance in my life.
We give value to things, people, situations. All the value we get to experience is the value we assign. Then, I intend to give the highest value to all the love, joy, and beauty, connection, possibility and freedom that I have. I still have time here on earth, and I intend to be as alive as I can, savoring every minute. And having decided this, I feel fortunate. I might almost say, I feel abundant.
And then, I remember those teachings, that you need to feel abundant in order to be it. Should it be that easy?
