A long time ago I developed the habit of hoarding my dollar bills for later in the month when I was broke. Sensible folk might have thought to hoard a larger denomination but that never occurred to me, not only because I tended to only have singles to secret away, but also because I kind of liked the feel of a kind of large 'wad' of ones - the thickness available from hoarded singles made me feel rich.
So last week I was sorting through my wallet and my stash was big enough (there were maybe 16 ones in this stash) that my old sensation of 'wealth' was activated and to be honest I was a little surprised by the weight of the treasure because life has been so crazy busy I hadn't been paying much attention to my collecting habit. Smoothing the bills and placing them in the back pocket of my wallet felt very satisfying as I fulfilled my old habit of creating secret security.
'Tis the season' as they say, and as I walked across the parking lot to the grocery store a few evenings ago I heard the jingling of the Salvation Army bell. When I hear that particular jingling I am reminded we are in the Season of giving. As much as I enjoy giving, to be completely honest, much of my life I have had a meager sense of wealth and so was always torn between a desire to share and fear of what I would have left over if I spontaneously gave. Besides, this is indeed the season of giving and so money had been kind of flying out of my checking account! Yet, jingling bells are indeed a call spontaneous giving and so giving my sensation of 'flying' money, I wasn't sure I was in the mood to be spontaneou. Also, this was on my way home from work and my feet were killing me and my brain was used up - just short of dead.
Sometimes 'brain-dead' can be a good thing because during those times, the synapsis of my mental circuitry move so slowly I'm able to 'hear' more than my ego and its fears. What I heard as my tired body 'limped' across the parking lot was 'this is why I gave you your stash. Now you'll be able to give every time you hear the jingling.'
"This is why I gave you and now you'll be able to." What my tired brain heard in the dusky light, was that I had been generously provided for so I would be able to share: I could enjoy living out of the best impulses of myself without fear. The generous Spirit of Life not only provided a means for having the essential needs of my life: shelter and food taken care of, but also the ability to enjoy the experience of spontaneous giving.
I need to be completely honest and confess that I have been working with the concepts of an Abundant Universe for about two years now. As I deliberately studied and meditated, wrote and 'worked' with the concepts of the natural abundance of Life, I discovered that whereas abundance is a simple truth, the reality of living from this truth is complicated by our personal experiences and attitudes toward very real aspects of living: money, our personal sense of worth, our personal security and safety needs.
Slowly, as I worked with new ideas, I learned from study and deliberate reflection that my ability to live from what I was choosing to believe was dependent upon my willingness to examine and surrender old ideas, and my ability to surrender my old ideas was dependent upon a willingness to change my thinking. Changing my thought patterns about abundance didn't begin with expecting abundance to be like an adult version of Santa Claus - it began with a willingness to change ideas concerning my sense of worthiness; my willingness to see the everyday blessings of living; my willingness to learn how to receive instead of always being the 'caretaker' and most importantly, my willingness to change my expectancy of living.
Life manifests our expectations. That's really a quite simple statement and yet the complicated part is discovering what our true expectations of life are. My experience of the past two years has been a gradual 'peeling away' of old expectations in order to be open to a new way of thinking. 'Peeling away' is a process to becoming vulnerable. Although vulnerability is necessary to receiving, to be completely honest, in the beginning vulnerability feels perfectly dreadful: raw and scary. And we humans by nature, enjoy feeling safe and secure and really dislike raw and scary: raw and scary feel wrong.
Moving through the process of learning a new way of thinking meant living with the discomfort of feeling as though what I was doing was "wrong". Again, 'raw and scary' feels just plain wrong. It is this sense of 'wrongness' while learning that causes so many of us to give up before we are able to experience the blessings of vulnerability.
But like I said earlier, 'tis the season', and we have the ultimate story of vulnerabilty. Mary and Joseph, Elizabeth and the shepherds and kings were each able to live their story of Life by being vulnerable: open and receiving, and therefore, trusting of the glorious generosity of the Spirit of Life.
I believe that it is by relationship we discover the generosity and natural abundance of Life. The word relationship expresses connection and connection indicates both being 'linked' and the 'meeting point' and so, near as I'm able to tell from my own experience, my ability to experience the generosity; the natural abundance of life is completely dependent upon what I choose to 'link' myself to. Do I link to my ego and it's fear? Do I link to old shame and unworthiness? Do I link to blessing? Am I willing to 'hear' a voice telling me "this is why I gave you and now you'll be able to." What exactly within my day am I choosing to be linked to?
I like to make life as simple as possible and so I 'link' myself each morning on the patio. It is as the darkness fades and the light slowly creeps into the day that I choose my 'meeting point' of life. Honestly, it's been a long journey in order to change my beliefs about the natural abundance but I also discovered that as long as I showed up, Life is very kind as it holds my hand and leads me little step by little step forward showing me the little blessings of each day. Slowly and deliberately I am learning to make this experience my 'secret stash of security.'
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