Photos
Dr. Kalinda Rose Stevenson
Tuning Into Abundance
Welcome back!
When are you going to feel abundantly alive? Will it be when you are debt free? Or when you reach a certain annual income? $50,000? $100,000? $250,000? $100,000,000? When your investment account reaches $5,000,000?
The most critical word in “abundantly alive now!” is “now.” Right now. Not next week, not next year, not when your debts are paid. Not when you reach some predetermined income level. Not when your portfolio reaches some set number. The time to feel abundantly alive is right now.
Are you asking, “How can I feel abundantly alive while I’m up to my eyebrows in debt?” “How can I feel abundantly alive while I am still living from paycheck to paycheck?” “How can I feel abundantly alive before my IRA reaches a million bucks?”
If Not Now, When?
1. It’s Not Your Money, It’s Your Mind
If you cannot feel abundantly alive right now, no amount of money will ever be enough. This is why gazillionaires can live miserable lives. Being poor is not the answer either.
The fact is, abundance is not equivalent to the balance in your bank account. Abundance is first of all a state of mind.
If you tell yourself, “I will feel abundantly alive when my debts are paid off, I earn $200,000 a year, and have a million dollars in my IRA,” I ask, “Will you? If you can’t feel abundantly alive right now, what makes you think you will feel that way at some time in the future?”
The truth is that feeling abundantly alive now not about your money but about your mind.
2. The Moment is Now
The reality is that the only time any of us has is now. This is the moment of decision.
If you are going to live in abundance, if you are going to feel radiantly alive, the time is right now. I know that this statement flies in the face of just about everything all of us have ever been taught about money.
3. Work Now, Play Later
We all know the story about the grasshopper and the ant. The ant works all summer, putting away food for the winter to come. The grasshopper plays all summer and has nothing put aside for winter.
The story is told as a parable about planning and saving and putting away for a rainy day.
The negative reality of the parable is that it describes the way we are taught to live our lives, focusing on the future rather than the present.
The ant works all summer, having no fun, and the grasshopper plays all summer, with no thought of the future. If those are the only two options, why not choose the way of the grasshopper? At least, the grasshopper has more fun along the way.
When my husband was a child, his mother told him again and again, “You can’t play until you get your work done.” The temporary restriction of childhood easily becomes the lifestyle of adulthood. Childhood chores tend to be limited. For adults, the work never ends and so playtime never comes. “Work now, play later,” becomes a way of life.
4. Living in the Moment
Planning for the future is a wise thing. Putting life on hold until later is not.
Money worries can keep people so focused on the future that they don’t live their lives in the present moment.
In this era when debt levels are at record highs and saving levels are at record lows, many of us have become a strange ant-grasshopper hybrid. We work constantly, without saving, and spend recklessly without having fun.
Are these our only choices? Ants, who work and save without enjoying the moment? Grasshoppers, who play without saving? Or ant-grasshoppers, who work without saving and spend without having fun?
5. This Is The Moment To Choose
The better way is to feel abundantly alive now. This is the state of mind that allows us to live in the present without being foolish about the future. To be alive is to be fully present and fully conscious right now.
Now is the only moment you have. Yesterday is gone and tomorrow has not come. It is always that way. Tomorrow never comes. And yesterday is always past. All you have is right now. This is the moment you can choose to feel abundantly alive now.
This article originally published in Abundantly Alive Now! Newsletter on September 21, 2004.
http://www.abundantlyalivenow.com/archive/AANN-2004-09-21.htm
To Sign Up For This Newsletter
Click here: http://www.abundantlyalivenow.com
Discover how to take the consumer money mindset lid off your real estate investing.
Click here: http://www.nomoneylimits.com
Popularity: unranked [?]
No tags for this post.
Related posts
Comments
Syndicate
Subscribe to this site's RSS feed.