ABUNDANCE 2020

ABUNDANCE 2020

“Plant seeds of happiness, hope, success, and love; it will all come back to you in abundance. This is the law of nature” 

Steve Maraboli

I love to start my blog with a quote to set the tone of the writing and give the readers a vision of the  article’s content. At the beginning of a new year people tend to work on setting goals that helps them to keep track of their progress through the journey, and probably the family finances may be one of them. That’s the reason why I decided to write this first blog about abundance. What is abundance? It is the same as prosperity? Well, there is a difference between abundance and prosperity, and it is defined in the dictionary. Abundance includes the inner self, the body, mind, and spirit. Like the quote of Steve Maraboli, abundance includes happiness, hope, success and love. It is the whole package. Prosperity is material wealth. A person can be prosperous and have no abundance.

Nevertheless, abundance and prosperity have something in common, both of them are based on the mindset or what we call a state of mind. When we contemplate God’s creation, we see abundance, there is enough for everyone. Unfortunately, the beliefs we develop in our childhood become part of our state of mind. We either believe in abundance or scarcity. Most of our beliefs come from learning what the adults surrounding us said, or through their actions. When we are little we absorb as a sponge all we see and hear because is the time of learning. We internalize those teaching and start developing our mindset. That is why parenting skills and knowledge of how to help children to develop a healthy state of mind are extremely important.

 The mentality of scarcity is focused in what you don’t have, and usually has as companions’ feelings of fear, competency, jealousy, and lack. Part of that mentality comes from believing you are not good enough. You think you don’t have enough talent to create a successful business, don’t have enough knowledge to excel at what you do in our job, cannot learn as fast as others, and on and on… that mentality is like a wall that stop you from the fulfillment of your dreams. Is difficult for you to understand that you can change that mentality, but the truth is that most of what is happening to you today is based on experiences from your childhood. Once you understand that your limitations are your own creation, then you will be able to switch your mindset of scarcity into a mind of abundance.

When you have a mind of abundance your thinking is focused in what you have, the world of possibilities available for you, and the gratitude for what you have. A mind of abundance increases your creativity, bring joy even in difficult situations because you know it is a temporary situation,  so you focus in what you can learn from it, instead of on the problem itself. You become a problem solver while you analyze the problem itself, look for creative solutions, look for advise from someone who has experience in similar situations to work as a team, and guide your mind into the path of faith, leaving the final outcome to God.

The mindset of abundance has no fear of competitors. It understands that sometimes you will win, sometimes others will win. They need to survive as much as you do and when you lose an opportunity without greed or resentment, a new and better opportunity will show up at your door. The person with a mind of abundance bless their competitors and wish them well, that will be returned into more abundance.

We now can distinguish pretty good the sets of mind and how they impact our lives, now we need to learn how to transform a mentality of scarcity into one of abundance. The answer is practice on daily basis. Is like any other thing in life. You want great health? Eat healthy, exercise, pray, have positive thoughts but it needs to be done every single day. People who wants to learn how to create beautiful art need to take classes and then practice every day, learn how to play an instrument? Same thing. It is through practice that we can master anything including training the mind.

Some tips of how to transform our mindset and bring abundance into our lives in 2020:

• Faith

The base of any positive mindset is faith. Easy to say, difficult to achieve? I agree up to certain point. At the beginning things look difficult but as we practice it becomes easier, up to the point that what we considered so hard become a natural part for us. When you really believe that you are the creation of God and understand the meaning of being created in his own image, you discover the profound meaning of its creation. You need to ponder and meditate in your heart the  real meaning of being created in His image. We have inside us all His attributes, but because we don’t understand it, we are not able to develop them at full capacity.

Every time we think we are not good enough we are diminishing the value of God’s creation. We all are different, we have unique talents according to what we need, but we all have the potential to live a magnificent life. You have to discover what your talents are, then you can use them to create abundance while loving what you do. 

• Mindfulness

Mindfulness helps you to be aware of the thoughts that contribute to have a mindset of scarcity or abundance. If you notice thoughts of fear, they will most likely be accompanied by feelings of scarcity, not having enough, and not being good enough. When you are aware of those thoughts you are able to make a switch by remembering you are a spark of the divine spirit that lives inside your heart. You are not powerful in your own, but you are powerful through the power of the Divine.  When you live in  autopilot you are not aware of the fear that sabotage your life. That is why mindfulness is a powerful tool to live a fulfilling life.

Gratitude

According to an article of Psychiatry NMC “Gratitude is the appreciation of what is valuable and meaningful to oneself; it is a general state of thankfulness and/or appreciation”.

When you are grateful for what you have and recognize all your blessings, even the small ones, you attract abundance into your life.

This is what I found in Harvard Medical School about gratitude “ In positive psychology research, gratitude is strongly and consistently associated with greater happiness. Gratitude helps people feel more positive emotions, relish good experiences, improve their health, deal with adversity, and build strong relationships” these benefits of gratitude goes along with the definition of abundance that includes body, mind, and spirit. Gratitude brings abundance into our lives.

Here are some tips that will help you to practice gratitude:  1) Before going to sleep write every night 3 to 5 things for what you feel grateful. They should be different every day. It will boost your feelings of relaxations and peace to get ready for a good sleep.2) Share your abundance with people in need or donate to causes that are worthy 3) Wish love, wealth, health, and peace to those who are suffering for any reason; you don’t need to be specific or know them. Just send your love to everyone.4) Bless your competitors and be grateful that they motivate you to be more productive. Wish them well.

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If you would like we to write about an specific subject please email to gladys.gonzalez@ocipeace.org