There is a lot of talk going on in social media these days about living abundantly. And for good reason, when we live abundantly life rewards us with even more abundance! This article is going to teach you how to be abundant.
We have a saying in Spanish “Dime con quién te juntas y te diré quién eres.” which translates into, “Tell me who you hang out with and I will tell you who you are. Abundance likes abundance.
For those of us who grew up being taught that life was a struggle, work was hard and making money was difficult, feeling abundant can be a challenge. I know people who feel (and behave) like they are poor, even though they have more wealth than the vast majority of humanity! This seems to be a common occurrence in the rich west. People have so much yet when they look around and compare their situations to those of others they become unhappy with what they have.
My hope is that by the end of the article you will understand, at least intellectually, the fundamental importance of feeling abundant in order to have a wealthy, healthy and happy life.
So read on if this is something for you.
We’re Programmed To Believe In Scarcity
Scarcity is a belief system. When we believe in scarcity we act as though there were not enough resources in the world for all of us. Our belief structure determines our perception and our perception determines our actions. So if we believe the world is a scarce place we are going to take actions which match and confirm our belief of scarcity.
I grew up in Mexico City. For those readers who have never been to Mexico City, it is a wonderful place, filled with amazing people, places, music and food. It is unlike any other city in the world and I wholeheartedly encourage you to visit it.
And it’s also a city where tremendous wealth and withering scarcity coexist side by side.
The distribution of wealth in Mexico is incredibly unequal. Mexico City is where this gross inequality is most visible; seedy slums stand next to glistening neighborhoods, luxury cars drive past crippled beggars, the rich insulate themselves from the poor behind gated communities with high walls and electrified fences.
Growing up in the city, it’s impossible to not be touched by the profound poverty which is experienced by so many millions. Whenever I saw a poor person begging on the street I felt guilty for what I had. I felt that I didn’t deserve to have so much while so many others had so little.
I Don’t Believe I Was The Only One Who Felt This Way
Human beings have evolved to be exquisitely sensitive to fairness. It has been shown that babies as young as 4 months expect fairness in human interactions. In several documented experiments, when researchers presented babies with scenarios which contradicted their expectations of fairness, the babies would stare longer. This meant the babies were surprised by the outcomes of the interactions., as they were expecting fairness, not unfairness
When you grow up in a country with so much inequality, in which you witness poverty on a daily basis, you develop the belief that life is indeed scarce for many people. Every time you see a dirty, barefoot child selling gum on the street or a legless beggar with his hand outstretched, it marks you.
It convinces you that life is a struggle.
Our unconscious mind is always alert. It’s always taking in the environment at a level beneath our conscious perception. This is especially true when other human beings are involved.
What Happens To Other Human Beings Is Highly Relevant To Our Unconscious Minds
In our hunter-gatherer past, if another human being found a lush berry bush or a coiled serpent in the grass, it didn’t take long for the rest of the group to become aware of the other person’s situation and apply it to themselves. The unconscious mind would think “If that could happen to that person then it could happen to me.” the person’s belief structure would change.
The unconscious mind would begin to expect to find another berry bush or another coiled serpent in the grass. This unconscious conditioning is an effective system, it allowed/allows us to learn from others without expending much effort.
So, while I grew up in abundance thanks to my parents, outside of my life circumstances I was aware many human beings inhabited poignant scarcity.
And if it could happen to them, it could happen to me, according to my unconscious mind.
This means that for a long time, my motivations to act, the driving force behind my choices, wasn’t the belief that life is a wonderful adventure of abundant discovery. The driving force was that if I didn’t buckle down and work hard and succeed professionally, I would end up like those poor souls, barefoot and destitute on the street. I was living in fear.
So for a while I made choices out of fear. But choices which come from fear are never creative. They are protective. Fearful choices limit us, they protect us from losing while simultaneously preventing us from winning and growing.
When I Write About Living In Abundance I Also Mean Living In Love
Like I wrote before, the unconscious mind is always alert and watching. It observes each and every choice we make. Are we making choices out of love and abundance? Or out of fear and scarcity?
Well, each choice we make changes the belief we have about ourselves a teensy tiny bit. Every choice inches us towards the ideal embodied by each of our choices.
In the amazing book “Psycho-Cybernetics” by Maxwell Maltz, he writes that our unconscious mind has an image of ourselves. All of our choices are aligned with that image we have of ourselves. This self-image dictates where we go, what we do, whom we meet, whom we like and whom likes us.
Our self-image sets the course of our lives. And each of our choices sets our self-image.
The self-image doesn’t care at all about what is real in the world. It cares only about the inputs we give it, the choices we make. If our self-image is of us being happy, healthy and wealthy then our choices (which are mostly unconscious) will send us in that direction. It doesn’t matter what the outer world actually is, what matters is our perception and our perception is shaped by our beliefs (self-image).
On the other hand, if our self-image is a negative one then our choices will lead to us embody that image.
It doesn’t matter whether our self-image is positive or negative nor whether it reflects reality or not, we will always make choices which align with it.
So Make Abundant Choices!
You might be thinking “If a person’s choices are always in line with their self-image, then how can anyone ever change anything? It’s a Catch-22!”
This is where our imagination comes into play. When we imagine ourselves in a state of abundance, with all of the emotions and feelings concurrent to that state, then we communicate with our unconscious mind and change our self-image.
Then you could ask “What if someone has never felt abundant? How could that person imagine themselves in an abundant state? According to Maxwell Maltz, this is where previous experience comes into play. If we can recall just one time when we felt abundant we can tap that experience and use it as the base for our imaginative creation.
Have you ever received a gift which mad you feel special? Or shared a relationship which made you feel accepted and nurtured? Or won a victory in a competition. We all have some time when we’ve felt abundant! We can tap into that time and project ourselves into the future in our mind.
For example, if you want to run a successful business, imagine yourself running it in great detail and invoke the feelings of a past success while you’re doing so. This communicates to your unconscious mind directly and alters your self-image towards the one of a successful business owner.
Choosing To Exist In Abundance Starts With Each Of Us
None of us have control over the circumstances we experienced as children. But we all have control over what we do with our imagination! It’s up to each of us to wield the awesome power of our mind to change ourselves from within. Once we do that, the change which we want to experience on the outside happens in a wise and holistic way which cannot be matched by our thinking, conscious mind.
My Experience Now
Like I wrote previously in the article. While I did grow up in abundance (and am profoundly grateful for it), I also received conflicting messages from my environment regarding the availability of resources in the world. I became convinced that while it was possible to live in abundance, it was necessary to work very hard and struggle and compete in order to do so. And that failure meant certain poverty, living on the street with nothing to eat and no place to call home. A big part of me really believed that! Can you imagine how much anxiety came from that fear? A ton.
I no longer believe in that scarcity. And now life has become much simpler, effortless, relaxed, healthy and abundant. This doesn’t mean I don’t have challenges and problems, I do, but I’m relaxed and confident when I face them.
I Will Explain What This Is Like In Words
Where before I felt like I had to push myself to work, now I wake up every morning and am excited to work.
Where before I felt that romantic relationships came after my professional career, now I put my relationships (not just romantic) before my career. And I am much happier and my relationships are much healthier.
Where before I lived anxious about what I should accomplish with my life, whether or not I would be successful, make a splash in the my professional field or impress my peers with my work. Now I don’t care nearly as much about those things and focus instead on creating helpful content. In other words, I live in the now. Meditation was crucial for this, read about that here.
Where before I had trouble falling asleep, now I put my head on the pillow and a few minutes later I am asleep. I have had trouble getting to sleep since I was a teenager. I would lay in bed awake for hours and hours, thinking and rolling around. This ease of falling asleep has never happened before in my adult life and I take it as a sign that I am finally relaxed because I believe I am in abundance.
When We Fully Believe That We Are In Abundance, We Feel It
It’s a relaxed self-assuredness that everything is going to work out in our favor. That no matter what happens we have the tools to navigate the challenges of life and emerge wiser, stronger and kinder. That even if we fall, there will be people we love on the way down and on the back way up.
In other words, it’s a feeling that life has your back. It isn’t something you think about (although the feeling influences your thoughts). It’s a way of being that changes the way you perceive everything.
You inhabit a different reality, one of abundance.
How You Can Exist In Abundance
It takes time, I won’t lie. We have to guide our self-image into abundance, it doesn’t happen overnight. It has taken me about three and a half years to get to this point. It was three and a half years of educating myself and putting into practice what I learned. That is where the content for this website comes from, my discovery and self-experimentation.
BUT, I do believe there are simple and effective ways to start existing in abundance immediately. I don’t believe it has to take people as long as it has taken me. Everyone is on their own journey. It will still take time and consistency, but I believe I have found a powerful tool which makes existing in abundance a breeze. As long as we dedicate ourselves to using it!
Read this article “Does Hypnosis Therapy Work? It Did For Me!” so that you can learn about the tool I used (and continue to use!) to put myself in a state of abundance. It is super effective and I recommend it wholeheartedly!
Life is what we make of it. When we take the time to change our unconscious beliefs our entire life changes in front of us, because our perception determines our reality. Do you see how that works? I invite you to read my other articles so you can learn more about this!
Let me know what you think in the comments.
(If you want to go directly to my review of the program I use, click here).
To our wealth and success.