The Secret To An Abundant Life
I love the spirit of birthdays and Christmas and Thanksgiving and other “feast days.”
The celebration of life that is at the core of it all. The thanksgiving for this precious life we get to live and experience.
Plus the fun and abundance of it all. The “TOO MUCHNESS” of it all.
At Christmas I always bake TOO MUCH cake because I don’t know how to do things in moderation. (I use Nigella Lawson’s Black Cake recipe and soak the fruit in way TOO MUCH booze for WAY TOO LONG – over three months!)
I go overboard with gifts. Last year I made Nic a TOO MUCH twelve gift treasure hunt for his birthday – that game went on all day! – because I love large gestures and loving TOO MUCH.
I used TOO MUCH gift wrapping.
Our three metre tall Christmas tree is WAY TOO MUCH – and it’s fabulous.
Dressing the dining table for a party, dressing the gammon for Christmas, dressing myself for a night out, hiding TOO MANY chocolates for Easter, TOO MANY candles for Diwali – all WAY TOO MUCH!
I love all these things because they allow me to confront TOO MUCH. As I consciously play with TOO MUCH I get to feel and connect with my own ENOUGH and pacify my ever lurking NOT-ENUFF monsters.
Which is what I wanted to share with you today…
The Power of Giving -
The Secret to an Abundant Life
On a retreat in Ecuador I had the privilege of witnessing a moving example of unconditional giving – and perhaps even more powerful, the act of unconditional receiving.
This was an exchange between two shamen, the one giving the other a treasured possession and the other receiving it with joy.
The details of what was given and how it all went down matter less than the energy of the giving and the receiving and who they each were in the exchange.
Watching this reminded me of how confused we often get about the act of giving and receiving and the role both play in living abundantly and yes – achieving financial freedom.
Giving is one of the most
powerful principles of all time.
I’m sure you’ve heard about it. It’s not new.
Do you give easily?
- Do you give in a clean and clear way?
- Do you give without strings, expectations or judgements attached?
- Do you give with no expectation of some sort of trade?
- Do you give from the place of knowing you are already enough and that you do not need to give anything in order to be worthy of life and love?
- Do you give knowing what you give does not define you?
- Do you give from a place of freedom?
Does giving feel hard?
I’d love to tell you how consciously giving a percentage of what I earn to the causes I feel strongly about came so easily to me. How it felt wonderful and natural and how every time I did it the sky lit up with sparkling gold dust, unicorns romped past and angels sang!
naaaa!
As I studied the principles of wealth creation, over and over I read and heard about the importance of giving as a conscious strategy to creating wealth.
I’d nod sagely and intellectually agree with the principle as something I would definitely implement one day when… I finally had TOO MUCH.
❝ When I have more; when I’m earning more; when
I’ve saved more, when I’ve invested more; when I reach
my Financial Freedom goal… then I’ll bring this great
abundance strategy of giving into my life. ❞
It wasn’t just giving of my money where I’d use this refrain.
I had the same theme running through the management of all my vital life resources. Giving of my time, giving of my energy, giving of my love, giving of my money… one day, when I had TOO MUCH.
My fearful “not-enuff monster” was running the show. I didn’t believe there was enough… so I could never give freely and feel safe.
I kept waiting for the “enough-ness” to kick in.
I kept waiting to have TOO MUCH.
But like a donkey with a carrot dangling on a stick in front of my nose, I could never reach the “enough-ness.”
We cannot reach something
that is already in us.
This is the paradox of giving.
❝ To get back to the extraordinary peace
of our enough-ness we have to give
when we don’t feel there is enough. ❞
In the act of giving we calm our “not-enuff monsters” and see the truth.
Through giving, we tell that small scared part of ourselves that we are safe, that the world is abundant, that we don’t have to prove anything or do anything to be enough.
Giving of our time, energy and money is one of the most powerful gifts we can give to ourselves because it tells us we are already enough.
In the powerful words of Charles Dickens…
❝ No one is useless in this world who
lightens the burdens of another. ❞
I get this now… but as I said, it didn’t come easily!
The marketer Dan Kennedy said…
❝ The window you receive through is made
bigger by the window you give through. ❞
So how do we make that window bigger?
We start with creating a giving and “feeling enough” habit.
Like all the other wealth habits I teach, we have to practise it over and over before we get it firmly in our system – and then we need to do it some more. If you think you will suddenly find the habit of giving a percentage of what you make easier when you have loads, think again.
We start now because… we can only ever start where we are.
We become aware of the common giving saboteurs such as...
❝ I can’t afford to give money, so I give
Time and my services away for free. ❞
That’s a type of giving – and giving of yourself and your time is awesome – but, if you are wanting to increase your wealth it’s money you need to give.
❝ I’d give if I knew where to give. ❞
There is absolutely no shortage of opportunities to give. Give wherever you receive emotional or spiritual nourishment or where you get inspiration or to a cause you believe in. You know who inspired you today. You can be on the alert for who inspires you tomorrow. Just give.
❝ I feel uneasy giving money. I
don’t know what they’ll do with it. ❞
Giving isn’t about needing to control what happens to the gift. The shamen wasn’t giving the gift with a whole bunch of instructions about what the other needed to do with it.
Bob Proctor once said, when being asked about the money he gave away…
❝ They can burn the money for all I care ❞
Remember, once you give it, it’s no longer yours. Let go. Trust.
When I first started giving money, I felt uncomfortable.
I was leaving my comfort zone and pushing all my security boundaries. I was stretching and pushing my “not-enuff” monsters to their limits.. until they finally snapped and dissolved.
At that point, I started to receive money in a significantly bigger way.
Some might argue that I can give because I’m now wealthy, but that would be overlooking the fact that…
- I got wealthy by giving.
- I got wealthy by giving my all.
- I got wealthy by giving massive value in everything I do.
- I got wealthy by giving my money the attention it requires and giving it the nurturing environment it needs to expand and grow.
- I got wealthy by giving and trusting that there is enough, that more will always flow in and that there is always enough to give.
- I got wealthy by playing with the TOO MUCH that is already abundantly in my life, so I can feel my glorious enough-ness.
But there’s a catch…
YOU CAN’T RECEIVE THE GIFT OF GIVING
IF YOU DON’T KNOW HOW TO
RECEIVE THE GIFT OF RECEIVING!
You are only free to give when you are free to receive.
That was the second and even more powerful lesson I received from the shaman that day.
The receiver took the gift completely with no cords and strings attached.
He received the gift while staying in his full power.
He received the gift with an open, innocent and firm heart.
He received with no story of obligation or reciprocity required.
He received the gift knowing he was free to take it or leave it.
He knew he was already enough.
Because he knew he was already enough and would always be enough, he could receive even more.
You are already enough.
There is nothing you need to give or receive to be enough.
Remember this.
Feel the freedom you have always had to give and receive with an open, innocent and firm heart.
With huge juicy TOO MUCH love
Ann
P.S. I ran a workshop called “What the bleep do you really want” – the masterclass session is available online. Join me to create your own designed juicy wealthy life, filled with TOO MUCH and just enough.
