I love the feeling of getting what I need for far less than what it was originally advertised for.  In fact I often peel back the red sales sticker to find out the initial worth put on the article in question.

Now I’m imagining I’m not the only one who is thrilled by seeing that particular four letter word or discovering a rack of clothing ablaze with red-stickers.    Indeed, quite a few of us love it and often can’t wait to share the story of how we acquired our bargain with family and friends.

The marketplace is one of the only places where we feel genuinely ecstatic when getting something, which has had its original value reduced to a mere fraction of its former worth.    And this is where the benefit of diminishing the value of anything ought to end.

However, we often continue reducing the value of things in our lives without even noticing.  This habit of devaluing does not stop at ‘things’, we often extend it to ourselves (and others) by negating, often unconsciously, the value of who we are.

“Birth is the sudden opening of a window, through which you look out upon a stupendous prospect. For what has happened?  A miracle.  You have exchanged nothing for the possibility of everything.”  

William MacNeile Dixon

We were born of and into the creative brilliance of life, of which we are a whole and a part.

You came into this world as a shining beam of light, a unique expression of the creative force of life.  Your birth was a gift of potentiality for yourself and the world.

But we have allowed fear to cover that brilliance with an ever-increasing opaqueness, until one day we finally convinced ourselves that we were nothing special.  This fear came in many guises.  Fear of standing out, fear of ridicule, fear of being excluded, fear that we don’t measure up to some yardstick of socially accepted norm and fear of failure, just to mention a few.

By covering up your brilliance with learned habits of fear-based behaviour you shrank further and further away from the original value of who you came here to be and what you came to contribute to and offer the world.

In other words we’ve greatly devalued our original gifts with red-stickered fear.

“There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do.”

Marianne Williamson

I’d like to invite you to consider this question: How am I lessening my positive imprint on the world by shrinking the brilliance of who I truly am through my own and the assumed insecurities of others?

I truly believe that we’re not so frightened by any perceived character flaws.  We’re also not scared into inactivity by fear of falling short of our cultural yardsticks of what it means to live the good life.

What I believe petrifies us beyond measure is shining our true brilliant expression of life into the world. 

Because shining that light is both an awesome privilege and huge responsibility.

Somewhere there is a quote that suggests that at the end of our days on earth it’s not what we’ve done that gives us regret but what we didn’t have the courage to do or express.

When I was a Girl Guide I remember with fondness sitting around a campfire and singing a song, the lyrics of which I’ve mostly forgotten.  But a couple of lines come back to me, from time-to-time, over the years.

“Hide my light under a bushel.. no.. I’m going to let it shine.  Hide my light under a bushel.. no.. I’m going to let it shine.  Let it shine all the time…. let it shine!

I invite you to respond to the brilliance you brought into this world at your birth… and let your light shine.  Let it shine all the time.  Let it shine!

You and the world deserve and need the brilliance of who you truly are to act as a beacon of inspiration, hope and love.  Now more than ever!

But before we do…. let’s look at some obstacles we sometimes place in the way of that SUCCESS.

Thought Gremlins

The concept that our thoughts greatly influence what we create in the world isn’t new to us.  To a lot of us it makes perfect sense.  However, as I realize in my own life… common sense is not common practice.

That’s why we need to be consistently monitoring our thoughts in relation to what we want to create in and for our lives. 

Remember: If you think you will or you think you won’t…. You’re probably right!

A case of the ‘If onlys’

“Our most important problems cannot be solved; they must be outgrown.”       

 Wayne Dyer 

What are some of the ‘if onlys’ that may be holding you back from creating the successful life you desire.

Here are some favourites – If only I:

• Could help being this way
• Wasn’t so busy
• Had the education
• Wasn’t so young / old
• Had the energy
• Was stronger
• Weren’t so scared
• Deserved it
• Were smarter

If only it:

• Wasn’t so risky
• Wasn’t such a big undertaking
• Wouldn’t create a family drama
• Wasn’t going to take so long
• Wasn’t so difficult

 Some of the psychological pay-offs/rewards for us in making ‘if only’ excuses:

• Avoiding inconvenience
• Avoiding any emotional risk
• Taking the easy way out
• Manipulating others to do what we want
• Feeling superior
• Removing responsibility for ourselves and putting the blame on someone else

 Any of these look, feel or sound familiar? 

You may want to reflect on the ‘if onlys’ you’re holding onto that are limiting you living a life of success. 

Once you’re aware of these limiting ‘if only’ excuses you can begin to take conscious steps to reverse this pattern of thinking. 

Wayne Dyer says there are three life-changing principles that directly relate to making excuses:

• Becoming aware of how we are stuck and the infinite potential within each of us that can make us recover 
• Being willing to surrender to something greater than your ego and admitting that you are a product of the choices you have made in life
• Not wasting thought on the past or on worries of the future

He continues by stating that as we consciously learn & grow from the challenges that life offers us we begin to outgrow the way that we once perceived/viewed those experiences and consequently how we respond to them.  Therefore, he contends that we don’t solve the challenges of our lives we do however, outgrow the ways of relating and responding to them that don’t support us in living the life that we want.  

Whatever defines abundance for you, your ‘if onlys’ will never support you in creating the abundant life that you deserve and desire. 

Passion needs to be aligned with clarity of purpose and a focused plan of action

“You have to find something that you love enough to be able to take risks, jump over the hurdles and break through the brick walls that are always going to be placed in front of you. If you don’t have that kind of feeling for what it is you’re doing, you’ll stop at the first giant hurdle.”

George Lucas

 Passion is the  compelling, authentic high level energy that ignites and fuels you living your intentionally successful life. 

Purpose is how you bring your passion alive – how you manifest it in the world.

Planned Action is the setting, attaining and reviewing of milestones that bring your purpose to life.  

Passion isn’t enough.  Having passion but no clarity of purpose will soon dampen, if not extinguish the flame of your passion.

Having passion and a purpose that clearly defines how to channel your passion still needs to have intentional, focused action to make that purpose a reality.

Often we have some of these ingredients for birthing the creativity our passion ignites but either they’re not explicitly linked or there’s a varying or intermittent level of each available to bring our dreams to fruition.

It’s our choice whether we live a passionate, purposeful and focused life.  Anything else pales into insignificance.

We’ve been told that on our deathbeds it won’t be the things that we’ve done that will cause us the most grief…. it will be the thing we regret that we  haven’t.

In the next blog we’re going to look at the four elements of a successful outcome.

I’d love to hear how passion, purpose and planning have worked for you in creating an abundant life.

Until next time, take care.

“The idea of belonging and membership, being part of a community, is a basic human need. It’s one of the principles of our democratic society. We all have the same needs, we want to be loved, we want to have friends, we want to feel that we are making a contribution in our families, in our communities….We learn about understanding what someone’s interests and point of view are by interacting with them. To include everyone is to open up those possibilities for learning and appreciating our humanity.”

Dr. Joseph Petner, Educator

The “hey what about me” feeling of wanting to belong, or to be included, isn’t foreign to any of us. 

Most of us desire, or have desired, to be included or belong to someone or something at some point in our lives. It’s a phenomenon that transcends age, level of ability, socio-economic standing, sexual orientation, ideological viewpoints, colour and culture.   

However what does the word inclusion really mean?

Inclusion by its profundity of definitions is a messy business and is that part of the fundamental challenge we face when attempting to accommodate the notion of inclusion. 

Is the desire to have a definitive classification for inclusion reflective of a way of thinking that says: “if we have an agreed upon definition then we can go about building processes, practices and procedures that legislates how we respond to anyone or anything that appears to be different from our view of how the world should and ought to be”. 

Further, in building and adhering to those procedures a way of making ourselves and others feel safe.  Will we then feel in control, legislating how we must specifically change our behaviour to accommodate anything we see as different.

I’m not making the litigious, procedural approach to difference bad and wrong.  In fact it’s laudable that we even have the desire to find practices to include whatever we see as outside our box of ‘normal’.

The main point of this blog is to ask ourselves this question:  if our ideal of inclusion weren’t so much focused on mandating processes and practices of what we do but rather focused on evolving our relationship to and way of being with difference then would having a definitive definition and those processes seem as necessary.

How we are being in the presence of difference is enforced and reinforced by our perception of difference and what it means to us.

Do we see difference from the perspective of scarcity or deficit, either our own or others?  Or do we see the difference we encounter as an abundant source enabling us to evolve our understanding and interaction with ourselves and others.

Do we think that everyone must contribute to the world in the same way?  Or have we recognized and realized that each and every one of us contributes to the whole of life in a meaningful and unique way. 

“When the world was separated into various tribes and nations, each developed its own story, reflecting the wisdom of their times and environment. Today, to survive, we need a new story, one that is inclusive of all of humanity and, even more importantly, that transcends human isolationism and honors the entire earth community.” 

Rev. Vicky Elder

Being inclusive grows from a mind and heart–set, which accepts that individuals may look, think or act differently from our biased norm. 

It’s only when we habitually (often so deeply imbued in our psyche that it’s unconscious) compare and judge something or someone different from that norm that we feel challenge and discomfort. 

Sometimes those feelings are underpinned by the fear that the difference we see in others could also happen to us.   We fear that there’s only a thin veil between our lives and the lives of those who are less able, vagrant, or old.  And that scares us so badly that in some cases we want to eradicate those individuals from the landscape of our lives. 

When we are being inclusive we’re:

• Not just accepting difference but attracting it into our lives so that we are able to learn and grow from it
• Open to learning from a broad spectrum of difference rather than attempting to imprint our own brand of what life should and ought to be like on others
• Creating an environment of mutual understanding and respect, which includes honouring those who don’t want to be included, without ostracizing them
• Not only inviting people into our circle but allowing an ever-expanding, organic circle to be created
• Celebrating the diverse contribution of each person to the whole – no matter what their race, gender, age, sexual orientation, religion, differing level of ability or other characteristics
• Knowing that we can’t maintain a community of inclusion but we can foster it. 

However, whether we’re able to foster totally inclusive environments is debatable, if not downright impossible.  There will always be some thoughts and behaviours of others, that no matter how accepting we are, we will never be able to even tolerate.

For myself I’d find it hard to be inclusive of individuals and practices that permit six year old girls to be married to twenty-five year old men. 

This type of behaviour is just so alien to my values. 

I know that I’d need to take a very deep breath and condemn the behaviour rather than the person who grew up in a culture that condones such action, while using every ounce of respectful persuasion to change the system that allows those actions. 

I know that, in this case, attempting to separate the behaviour from who the individual is wouldn’t be easy for me. 

However, I may just learn something in the process.  After all that specific behaviour isn’t all that individual is or has to offer. 

When I stay open to the entirety of who that individual is there’s an opportunity for me to evolve my perspective of and relationship to myself and others.

“In today’s world we can progress as a civil society only when we have an inclusive approach and recognize each other’s strengths.” 

Oscar Fernandes, Nelson Mandela Award Recipient

The choice is always ours!

 What are your views on or about inclusion?  I’d love to hear from you.

 In the meantime have a perspective altering time!

My journey took me over 760 kilometres of undulating terrain during 27 walking days.

At the end of the talk I read the list of lessons I’d written, while sitting in the Santiago Cathedral, about what I thought it meant to be a pilgrim of the Camino.   

As I read them to the group of women  I realized that those lessons were just as a good a guide to living life as they were for Camino.  

 Always remember:

• To revel in the joy of laughter and play – often
• To stop to watch the sunrise, sunset, evening sky and every other wonder of nature –  and know what a gift it is
• To not make a mess along the way, but if you do be prepared to clean it up 
• To be prepared to stoop (even if you have a heavy backpack on) to pick up refuse that someone else left 
• To have your smile go all the way from your heart to your eyes when you greet someone with Ola along your Camino 
• To say gratis and mean it
• Life doesn’t throw us anything we can’t handle  
• We aren’t what happens to us along the path – what defines us is how we relate to those life events
• That we reveal our true selves in the silence
• Everyone else is on their own unique path – and following their signs the best they can
• Everything and everyone is a gift – even when some are really big gifts
• To be grateful  to those who have gone before and painted the yellow arrows, laid the stones across the streams and lain the path - which makes our unique path just a little bit easier to traverse

Celebrate:

• The expression that is ‘you ‘as a valued and valuable part of the mosaic of life.
• The simple and appreciate the complex. 
• And love even when it’s not easy

Finally – Just get up and walk your unique path one step at a time

• Remembering to watch for signs and signals along the way.  Knowing that you will make false starts, take diversions that don’t look like they’re going to get you to where you want to go
• Understanding that your desired destination may be further away than you think – even when it’s in your sights
• Realizing that you most probably will grunt going up the steep hills (of life) but the grunting will lessen along the way without you noticing

•  The point is that there are no excuses – however we walk our path is a matter of choice

Re-reading the lessons  I’d written at the end of  my Camino trek brought a surge of warm remembering.  It also bought to mind a template that I’d set myself with respect to living the abundance of life.

What lessons have you learnt along the way and incorporated into how you relate to the abundance of your life?

The first question to explore is what is meant by the notion of character. 

‘Everyone has the obligation to ponder well his own specific traits of character.  He must also regulate them adequately and not wonder whether someone else’s traits might suit him better.  The more definitely his own a man’s character is, the better it fits him.”                CICERO

Author and internationally renowned scholar James Hillman, refers to character as “…that specific composition of traits, foibles, delights and commitments…that identifiable figure bearing our name, our history, and a face that mirrors a ‘me’.”

Hillman states that our character forms the contours and expression of our face.  It forms our habits, our friendships, our peculiarities, and the level of our ambition.  Character influences the way we give and receive.  It affects the ones close to us.  It walks us home at night and can keep us awake long after it would be better that we were asleep. 

He also states that our character is uniquely ours. 

“Every human being is intended to have a character of his own; to be what no others are, and to do what no other can do.”           William Henry Channing

 No one else possesses a character quite like yours.  Your body and mind will change and evolve however, as Stanley Kunitz reminds us in a line from his poem The Layers “some principle of being abides”. 

There’s something about you that holds true through each and every stage of your life.  And that ‘principle of being’ is what makes you unique from all others.  It’s the distinction with which you make your impression in and on the world. 

This principle of being was described by the pre-Socratic Greek philosopher Heraclitus as ‘daimon’.  Psychologist Stephen Diamond says that our ‘daimon’ is “inborn and immortal, embodying all innate talents, tendencies (both positive and negative), and natural abilities.”

Others describe this principle of being or daimon as your genius.   Jungian analyst John Sanford believes that it’s important to understand the nature of your daimon or genius.  He states that “If you have a genius for building houses or putting automobile engines together you pursue a very different course in life than if you have a genius for art or psychotherapy.”  

Hillman refers to this inherent character or genius as your calling in life.  He also says that your mission in life is to realize its imperatives.     

The second question, then, is what has any of this got to do with creating abundance in your life?

Simply this; following your authentic passion, calling or vocation has nothing to do with a survival response to life. 

It has everything to do with staying true to and expressing the uniqueness of you, that longing deep inside that calls you to be and do all that you are.   

And giving into that expression not only brings abundance to your life but to the lives of all the others you touch.    

“Doing what you love is the cornerstone of having abundance in your life.”     Wayne Dyer

 Bibliography

Diamond, S., (1996), Anger, Madness and the Daimonic: The Psychological genesis of violence, evil and creativity,  State University of New York Press, ISBN-10: 0791430766  ISBN-13: 978-0791430767

Hillman, J. (1999), The Force of Character, (Random House, New York, ISBN: 0-375-50120-7

Hillman, J., (1997), The Soul’s Code: In Search of Character and Calling, Grand Central Publishing,  ISBN-10: 0-446-67371-4   ISBN-13: 978-0-44-667371-6

Kunitz S., (2002), The Layers from The Collected Poems of Stanley Kunitz , W.W. Norton & Company Inc.  ISBN-10: 0-393-32294-7

Levoy, G., (1998), Callings: Finding and Following an Authentic Life, Three Rivers Press, ISBN-10: 0609803700 ISBN-13: 978-0609803707

Sanford, J., (1995), Fate, Love, and Ecstasy: Wisdom from the lesser-known goddesses of the Greeks, Chiron Publications, USA    ISBN 0-933-02996-9

The other day a Facebook friend shared this poster.   

It prompted me to think about how often we look for external ways and means of creating abundance in our lives.  How we believe that we need something or someone else to fashion the life we desire. 

Then that still, quiet voice within reminded me that the capacity to craft the life we want comes from the core of our abundant, creative energy within. 

However, at some level we still hold onto the notion that we’re somehow separated from the profusion of life’s offering. We think we must do just the right combination of things in order to share in life’s wealth.    

While our focus and push remains external to make the right connections, to mould ourselves into what we perceive as a sociably acceptable model of perfection, or push to create the exact combination of circumstances that will make abundance flow into our lives we’re missing a vital point.

The point is this:  if we simply allow who we truly are to flow naturally and effortlessly in the world then we’d attract all the abundance we desire.  In other words we just need to be ourSelves.

I’m not talking about the limiting facade of our sensory reliant, ego-based self. 

Our ego-based self:

• Believes we need to fight for the scare resources of life. 
• Wholly subscribes to the notion that only the fittest survive. 
• Exhaustingly protects us from the fanciful but debilitating terror of annihilation and death.        

I’m talking about our Self.  The Self that some describe as spirit or spark of awareness.  The Self, that emanates from the unified, powerful, ever-flowing and never-ending force of Life.  

The Self:

• In touch with our unique expression of life and the Life of the Universe. 
• That realizes why we’re here and what we have the ability to do. 
• That knows the map of our soul and the treasures within.

Cease practice based on intellectual understanding, pursuing words and following after speech.  Learn the backward step that turns your light inward to illuminate within.  Body and mind of themselves will drop away and your original face (Self) will be manifest.

Eihei Dōgen (1200-1253)

The heart of our Self beats in recognition, realization and wonder of its abundant, creative force. 

In experiencing life through Self, every feeling, thought and action flows from the wondrous knowing of the inter-dependent, integral connectivity of everything. 

Our ego-self’s tendency is contraction, conformity and control while our Self is forever seeking creative expansion, expression and allowing.

The ego-self relies on creation through push and force while the Self creates by allowing and magnetic pull.  Our Self knows how to attract and work with the infinite energetic exchange of Life to create abundance in our lives.   

By its very nature ego-based force creates resistance.  Therefore, if we rely on force to create what we desire in our lives we’ll also create an equal amount of resistance to that creation.  The harder we push the more resistance. 

However, if we begin by knowing that we are both whole and part of the infinite and energetic magnetism of Life then whatever we desire to create becomes a whole lot easier.     

The choice we need to make is to trust our Selves while acknowledging and loving our selves. 

Easier said than done….. but it’s worth the constancy of practice. 

I’d love to hear your stories about what you’ve created in your lives when you’ve trusted and honoured your Self.

Until next time.

It’s achieved through passion, clarity of purpose, focused pragmatic action, and faith.

When talking about living life abundantly some pundits suggest we solely focus on what we really want in life and stop concentrating on what we don’t want. 

Great advice, but in itself that won’t get you your heart-felt goals and aspirations.  Especially when positively focusing on what you do want doesn’t give immediate results. 

That’s where faith comes into the equation. 

The faith that I’m talking about here is what The Free Dictionary defines as:

1. Confident belief in the truth, value, or trustworthiness of a person, idea, or thing.
2. Belief that doesn’t rest on logical proof or material evidence.

“Faith is a gift of spirit that allows the soul to remain attached to its own unfolding.”    Thomas Moore 

The Toltec teachings suggest that most of us use faith to create or recreate the stories we tell ourselves about our lives.  They say that any thought you have about the truth of your life is made in faith about the truth of that belief.  That is, whatever you have cognitive faith in, you’ll feel able to create in your life.  

However, as we see from the above definitions true faith isn’t based on logical proof or material evidence.  Faith isn’t true when invested in what we think. 

It’s true when based on what you know or feel from the depth of your soul. This unreasoned faith is faith in the moment, faith in life, and faith in yourself.  This type of faith-awareness is powerful. 

However, this doesn’t mean that just because we focus our efforts in living from a faith that isn’t based on logical proof or material evidence we can believe that we’ll instantly and forever be living life abundantly.  Absolutely not!  This soulfully fuelled type of faith is far from blind.

Thomas Moore reminds us that there is at least two dimension to this kind of faith – that of being a ‘believer’ and a ‘disbeliever’.  Soulful faith is germinated in the richness of both wonder and questioning. 

Initially you might think that being a believer and disbeliever in the same instance might dilute or even cancel the power of faith.  But nothing could be further from the truth. 

Robust faith requires pursuing living life abundantly by acknowledging both the light and shadow side of faith. 

• Belief (light) that you will create whatever you desire in your life; or that someone will be what you expect them to be. 
• Uncertainty (shadow) that life and others will be just as you expect.

In other words honing your soulful faith means holding both wonder in life’s creative nature and the strength of your faith, even while you question that wonder and strength. 

If you refuse or forget to hold these seeming opposites in the same instance you run the risk of becoming cynical, when whatever outcome or person you put your faith in doesn’t come through in the way you thought they should.   

As Moore reminds us “to the soul they are [both] necessary”…. “the creative shadow actually strengthens faith by filling it out and ridding it of its perfection”. 

True faith isn’t blind to its shadow.  It recognizes and realizes that if you don’t allow some uncertainty into soulfully practicing your faith you may, as Moore suggests, fall victim to neurotic excesses, feeling superior or cynicism. 

What part has soulful faith played in you living life abundantly?  I’d love to hear your comments.

Until the next time honour both the light and shadow of your faith in living life abundantly!

In the next blog we’ll explore what trust has to do with faith and living life abundantly.

Resources:

Theun Mares (1997), Cry of the Eagles, Lionheart Publishing, Marietta, GA 30060, USA

Thomas Moore (1994), Care of The Soul, Harper Collins, New York, New York

A few weeks ago I attended a WXN networking event in Mississauga where I heard Linda Fitzgerald, President of NCR Canada Ltd, speak.

She has spent 30 years working for the top names in the Information Technology industry. She is one of just a handful of females leading an IT company in Canada and understands the challenges facing women looking to make their mark in IT or any industry.

Linda is passionate about promoting IT as an excellent career choice and encouraging more women into the fray.

The following are the 7 key pieces of advice Linda had for women entering and staying in the career of their choice.  Although her talk was specific to women and the IT world I believe the simple wisdom of her advice is applicable to anyone (women or men) following their vocational passion.  

1. Don’t let your perceptions of barriers stop you from following your passion
2. Leverage your unique strengths e.g.
   • Effective communication skills of which listening is an important component
   • Relationship building
   • Analytical skills
3.  Have passion for what you do – if you don’t have passion the journey  towards you goals will not be sustainable
4.  Reach out for support e.g.
   • Peers
   • Team members
   • Mentoring from a more life/work experienced individual
5.  Surround yourself with good people
6. Develop your relationships in an authentic way e.g.
   • Continue to network
7.  Maintain work-life balance – look at each challenge that faces you individually and deal with them in bit-sized bits

Linda, didn’t list these in terms of importance.  She suggested you need all of them to reach optimum results, success and fulfillment. 

Another thing I noticed about Linda was that in spite of the level of success she has attained she is one of the most down-to-earth people I’ve met in some time.  So for me the 8^th suggestion she made by way of example was that no matter what you don’t let your success go to your head.

What do you think are the key elements of attaining success in your life?  I’d love to hear from you.

In the meantime have a great week and take care of yourself and others.

There is a story of a farmer who grew award-winning corn. Each year he entered his corn in the state fair where it won a blue ribbon. One year a newspaper reporter interviewed him and learned something interesting about how he grew it.The reporter discovered that the farmer shared his seed corn with his neighbours. “How can you afford to share your best seed corn with your neighbours when they are entering corn in competition with yours each year?” the reporter asked.

“Why sir,” said the farmer, “didn’t you know? The wind picks up pollen from the ripening corn and swirls it from field to field. If my neighbours grow inferior corn, cross-pollination will steadily degrade the quality of my corn. If I am to grow good corn, I must help my neighbours grow good corn.”

The farmer is obviously aware of the connectedness of life. His corn cannot improve unless his neighbour’s corn also improves.

The lesson for each of us is this: if we are to grow good corn, we must help our neighbours grow good corn.  For the welfare of each is bound up with the welfare of all.[i]  

For me this story illustrates the relationship between giving and getting.  It’s an example of how, when we focus on authentically giving to others we receive in kind.  In other words we attract abudance by giving authenticaly. 

The key word here is ‘authentic’.  

In a world where there are plenty of examples of a ‘me first’ mentality, giving to get feels like the accepted norm. 

When we truly understand the connectivity of all life and live from that place we don’t give to get.  Giving authentically to someone else means disengaging from our own story in order to hear, respect and acknowledge theirs. 

When we give from the heart we realize that whatever we give to someone else we also give to ourselves.   

When we shift our perspective from a ‘me’ to a ‘we’ mentality, abundance simply flows naturally to us all.   We attract abundance by authentically giving.

The following questions assists when reflecting on the nature of our giving:

      From what place does my giving mostly flow?

      Am I giving what is easiest or what is needed?

      Whose need am I fulfilling with this giving?

Generosity is a movement of the soul that erupts when you are pierced by the recognition of your direct connection to another soul.                Dr. Alan Morinis

What do you think about the nature of authentic giving and abundance?

I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Until the next time, take care.

“‘Entitlement’ is not only the opposite of achievement; it undermines incentives to do all the hard work that leads to achievement.”             Thomas Sowell

When I was lecturing at a UK university a few years ago a student came up to me at the first session of the semester and said, “Can I get a distinction in this class?” 

After clarifying exactly what he meant, that is, could he get a distinction just for showing up I said, “I don’t know.  Are you capable of earning a distinction in this class?”

There’s quite a bit of literature out there suggesting that an attitude of entitlement is an affliction of today’s adolesence and individuals in their 20’s.  Other literature says that this phenomenon is a predisposition of anyone born from 1970 onward.  However, before thinking it’s a generational issue let’s look at some of the characteristics of an entitlement attitude? 

Someone with the feeling of entitlement might think or make some or all of the following comments:

• “Everyone else has ‘X’… so I want it too and right now.”
• “If you really loved me….. you’d give me ‘X’ now.”
• “Why should I?  What have they done for me?”
• “They, the organization, the government, life owes me something.”
• “I deserve to have it now.”
• “I want more and I want it now.”
• “Someone with my level of education or socio-economic status, should be entitled to ‘X’ (e.g. the best service – whatever the service – now, an abundant lifestyle – now, without having to put a whole lot of effort into creating it).   

If these comments are indicators of having a feeling of entitlement (to have or get whatever we want, when we want) then I’d venture to say entitlement isn’t just a generational challenge but fast becoming a societal one. 

Well this is all well and good but what’s it got to do with the notion of abundance?

If we believe we’re entitled to an abundant life, whatever that means to each and every one of us, then we may not be willing to put in the effort needed to create that life. If we want it all, then we’d better be prepared to roll up our sleeves and work towards achieving ‘it all’. 

It’s about exploring what abundance means for us, whatever that means and then going out and creating it!  

“A great source of frustration for people with a strong sense of entitlement is unmet expectations….”[i]                                       Paul Harvey

Life doesn’t always turn out the way we planned on our first, second, third or hundredth attempt.  Some individuals we meet along the way aren’t what they initially appear to be.  Or we may feel that others, who seem to possess what we desire, have gotten it without much effort on their part; while we diligently persevere with little success.     

Creating an abundant life isn’t about expecting any person, institution or windfall to make it happen for us.  Life doesn’t owe us anything we’re not prepared to work towards. 

Creating abundance in your life is about having a clear vision about what you truly want your life to look and feel like and doing whatever needs to be done to attain it! 

For those of us who live in developed countries we’re already blessed with so many life-enhancing opportunities and resources.  Unfortunately, because they’re so readily available we forget, in the first instance, to be grateful for what we do have.  Instead we’ve a tendency to focus on what’s missing rather than the gifts of life that are already all around us. 

I’d love to hear your comments about the notion of entitlement.

Until next time, take time to remember all that you have and reach for all that you desire!