If you aren’t all that clear how gratitude leads to prosperity and abundance, refer to my articles on The Magical Power of Gratitude where I pose the question:

“Sometimes, I still find myself wondering whether such deep and genuine gratitude will be enough to sustain this exquisite lifestyle? Will simply feeling genuinely grateful for all the beauty and abundance that surrounds me now lead to a mindset that thinks differently and acts accordingly?”

I wrote that article in 2007. Two years later the answer became resoundingly clear to me. It’s a long story, more like a novel than just an article—all those pieces coming together to formulate a hypothesis—it’s my version of Buckminster Fuller’s grand experiment. For now I will just share the lesson without all the details:

When I speak of lifestyle what I really am referring to is the essence of that lifestyle or the state of being that accompanies abundance—namely, deep peace, great gratitude, the joyous experience of expressing yourself creatively (creative ecstasy) and giving back in a way that feels deeply fulfilling and satisfying, quite unlike anything else.

While a ton of money is one way to get there, this place that is the essence of freedom and joy, there is always more than one way to get there. And we all know that money alone doesn’t necessarily equate to that state of being. In fact, for many, the stress in pursuing it can lead to so much stress…well, you know…

Instead of stressing, use your precious energy to focus on what you most appreciate in your life. Don’t just give it a quick glance. Stop what you’re doing. Take a deep breath, even a few deep breaths until you feel more settled in, then really notice how beautiful something is. Whatever it is, take time to enjoy it all that you can while you can. In time, you will notice more of this showing up in your life.

Prosperity and abundance come in a variety of forms. The more you appreciate all that you currently have that’s a beautiful reflection of an abundant life, the more those everyday experiences will begin to add up to more than enough, a.k.a. prosperity.

More examples to follow in future articles for those of you who appreciate the evidence!

Happy Thanksgiving!

So often therapist, counselors and spiritual teachers encourage us to love ourselves. Do you love yourself? I’ve always found this question difficult to answer. Ya, sure, I guess…what does that mean exactly? How does it feel? What would my life look like if I did? Etc…

But recently while simply walking out the front door,  I realized, “I really am enjoying who I am.” That’s it! or at least it’s a more concrete way to determine if all the motions you’re going through are worth the effort.

That very day a friend sent a video to me in which a  shaman said, “It is not what you do but who you are becoming that will change the world.” Nice. So, for those of you who intend to use your resources to create “justice for all” or “peace on earth” stay tuned for a future post with more about her work. For now, I leave you with this:

One more day to serve

One more hour to love

One more minute to praise

For this day I am grateful

If I awaken in the morning sun I am grateful.

by: Mary Lou Kownacki, OSB

A little known fact even to those who grow it, is that during its presumed dormant stage Wisteria isn’t all that dormant, rather it is bursting with life force. I discovered this while walking under the arbor one day only to have a seed pod explode within inches of my head!

Turns out, those enormous pods don’t merely crack open as they hit the ground as I had once imagined. No, a flower as gorgeous as Wisteria would do something more extraordinary, don’t you think? Like exploding in mid air, dropping only half the pod and its seeds to the ground, leaving the other half dangling to dry into a little spiral.

The loud crack, like miniature explosions happen about every other minute mid-day and have very little to do with hitting the ground. These pods explode with a vengeance often colliding with one another and occasionally smacking the rod iron posts of the arbor with a loud clank!

Guess what else? I assumed it was the heat that causes them to burst open like that, but in fact it happens all night long too, thus confirming my theory that it’s actually an abundance of life force (just when you least expect it) that causes these fuzzy little gifts from nature to go off.

La, la, la, that’s all very interesting but what in the world does it have to do with abundance? Try counting those pods sometime! But beyond the beauty and the abundance there’s something else here…

Depending upon your state of mind, this whimsical little process can be mildly amusing to downright delightful. Once you realize what’s really going on out there it just has to make you smile!

And as those gurus of Money and the Law of Attraction say:

“Your future is lining up in response to your vibrational output now.” When you feel good now you align yourself with all the resources and creative power of the Universe. In doing so, you allow “all that” access to you!

So, by all means find some way to delight yourself daily. Hang out with some Hummingbirds at dusk, really notice how the light interacts with the leaves or find some Wisteria! Quickly! I don’t know how long this is going to last…

In the 1966 classic movie, “Born Free”, a game warden’s wife  rescues and raises a lion cub named Elsa. As many times as I saw the movie I cried in the end when she returns Elsa to the wild. I vowed someday to have a lion of my own!

Six weeks ago my little sis who knows about my affinity for big cats took me to a wild cat park in Cave Junction, Oregon where I got within  a few feet of a lion standing full height in front of me. What awesome power!  I’d always envisioned my Self portrait with me embracing a  big lion’s mane someday, and I still may, but for the time being I got my wish in a little form.

Just days before my birthday while traveling up the Oregon coast some fellow travelors told me about the port town of Bandon. Enticing enough, ports, sailboats, ocean air, clam chowder…they then told me about the zoo near Bandon where you can actually get up close and personal with the baby cats! I immediately abandoned the frigid August winds kicking up the sand at Gold Beach and headed to the West Coast Game Park! America’s Largest Wild Animal Petting Adventure! So, some dreams take a little longer, but more and more I feel like anything is possible!

When the analytical, logical left-brain runs out of possible solutions, its time to seek answers elsewhere. The right hemisphere of our brains acts much like a GPS—it’s our own inner guidance system.

This is where insights and “aha moments” come from—those never before thought of ideas that take so much faith and trust to follow through on yet ultimately lead just where you really want to be going. Give your inner guidance a powerful intention, make time to listen and you will be guided.
With so many people not experiencing the financial freedom they did only a short time ago, and financial freedom feeling more elusive than ever to others, it seems that it’s time to look for solutions with a different mindset than the one that created the problems in the first place.
In “Be Free Where You Are,” spiritual teacher, Thich Nhat Hanh speaks to the inmates of the Maryland Correctional Institution about mindfulness and how practicing compassion and being fully present can cultivate freedom no matter where you are.
Financial stress can be so overwhelming it can feel like a prison with no way out. Within this book there is very empowering exercise that can help calm anxiety and therefore help you reach that state of being where you can think more clearly about new possibilities. It’s a breathing exercise called Wonderful Moment:

Breathing in, I know I am breathing in.
Breathing out, I know I am breathing out.
Breathing in, I notice that my in-breath has become deeper.
Breathing out, I notice that my out-breath has become slower.
Breathing in, I calm myself.
Breathing out, I feel at ease.
Breathing in, I smile.
Breathing out, I release.
Breathing in, I dwell in the present moment
Breathing out, I feel it is a wonderful moment.

This is an excellent practice to do when under the most extreme kinds of stress. I personally found it helpful to learn it in parts…first the in/out. Simply focusing on the word in when I inhaled and out when I exhaled. When my thoughts begin to limit my breathing I remember the in/out exercise. As I feel a little better and notice I am breathing deeper, I add on deeper and slower. When I am able to maintain my focus on those four words I add on, I calm myself (this is really empowering) and I feel at ease.
In time you get to the present, wonderful moment, no matter where you are; No matter what your financial picture may look like, feeling safe, at ease and more empowered in this moment you are creating the possibility of being more empowered in every way in the future.

We will never be able to do enough using our Industrial Age mentality.            We have to learn to work smarter not harder.  Now more than ever, the world needs each of us to make that unique, special contribution we were born to make and we won’t be able to if all of our energy is going towards making ends meet!

As challenged as we are now on many levels, we are living during a time when transformation has so much potential to happen quickly and easily.

For the past 100 years we’ve known that in order to succeed we had to think in a certain way. We had to expand our belief system and alter our thought processes so that our thoughts aligned with a reality different than the one we were currently experiencing.

Information alone isn’t enough to create lasting changes. Neuroscience is helping us understand why change has been so difficult even with the best intentions. Resistance to change is not only psychological but biological.

There are three major components that make change possible and sustainable. The first is working with a mentor or coach or even having a friend who has made their way through a similarly challenging situation.

Someone like this can help you shift your perspectives and turn an adversity into an opportunity. Someone who is able to help you reframe your view of the world can teach you to ask yourself empowering questions, as opposed to self-defeating questions, like what’s wrong with me? Everyone else seems to be capable of just doing it!

Reframing and establishing a relationship with a mentor or a new community will inspire hope. Sustaining hope and belief, the belief that you can do this requires another component that is critical to change and that component is repetition.

In ancient times healers used the power of repetition while chanting. During the last century those in power have used the media to “chant” their agenda. The latest research is proving that repetition may be how new pathways are formed in the brain. Insight combined with repetition stabilizes the mental maps that determine how we perceive the world.

 Science, psychology and spirituality all agree: Expectation creates reality.

So what if you could alter your expectations? What if you could use the most cutting-edge technology to overcome your limitations? Wouldn’t it be nice if such technology was available in a user-friendly, highly affordable format?

After writing “Don’t Stress~Manifest, I realized I needed to provide people with a system so they actually could stress less and thereby focus their energy on creating the life style they would prefer. A year ago when I began this research the tools I’ve incorporated into my 21 day Mentor with Me program weren’t even in existence! I wasn’t sure how I could teach people to do something I had done quite naturally most of my life. Yet, you can’t   consciously create without some form of this.

I am so excited about the possibilities of what is now available when we start to connect the dots and make the most of our inner and outer resources. If you are experiencing the challenges of change, my 21-day Mentor with Me program is the most efficient way to make a course correction. There’s truly nothing else out there that combines all of the elements critical to sustaining change in such an empowering format….and just for the record, while creating this program I had every intention of making it fun and easy!

For more information call me at 1-888-769-9693

—to designing and creating/manifesting a life truly worth living, I share this video with you. As you know, I love to gather the pieces of the puzzle that helps make sense of it all…like why isn’t everyone creative? It’s so much fun to be and to feel creative! Yet, there is evidence that there is a world wide loss of creativity.

In this video, Elizabeth Gilbert, author of “Eat, Pray, Love” does a little investigative research and shares why and also encourages us to be that full expression of Self that I believe is what living abundantly is really all about.

http://www.ted.com/talks/view/id/453

There is a concept from quantum physics called “tangled hierarchy”—it means if you try to resolve certain riddles from a logical or analytical perspective, it results in an endless loop that gets you nowhere.

There’s no better training ground for this than relationships and here is what I’ve determined:

There are all kinds of assumptions and conclusions
that are easy to jump to when we lead with our heads…
but when we lead with our hearts, let go of figuring it all out
and simply allow love, life unfolds into the most glorious
experience and offers us the space to enjoy a state of being
that is a totally expansive expression of all that we are.
The freedom to experience this level of connection is
the underlying craving to every longing and desire in life.

(this is only after a lot of trying to figure it all out! so if you want to save yourself a lot of energy post this where you can read it regularly and choose to enJoy life now!)

While studying concepts of the holographic universe these days, something stood out to me: If you make a change in any part of the hologram that change will be reflected in every part of the system.

WOW! If our reality is a projection of our own consciousness then doesn’t it make a whole lot of sense to follow natures example and use this time of year for tucking in? For RRR Mode (Chapter 4 of Don’t Stress Manifest) Relax, Receive, Replenish?

Personally I am doing all I can to clear the channels, rest, and increase my sense of authentic vitality. I know that the way I go about this month will ripple out into the rest of the year. While it’s tempting to get planning and make those resolutions it’s truly the time for recuperating. Most resolutions have to do with self-love so why not do what is most loving of all and take this time to nurture your body, mind and spirit.

How does this apply to creating abundance? Because in so doing you are expanding your capacity to receive more abundance. After the three R’s you will feel a renewed sense of vitality and with it inspiration. These insights from your internal guidance system will be filled with the necessary passion and purpose to give you the courage to take action and follow through on the new course you are setting.

When you take time to give love to yourself you will see it reflected in “every part of the system.”

May we all find more reasons to feel hopeful this year! There is an increasing amount of research that confirms. “What you expect you get!” From the Placebo Effect to the Observers Effect it’s almost difficult to find proof to the contrary. Expectations create reality. So how does one go about altering their expectations?

Do affirmations really have the power to over-ride long held beliefs? Yes & No. This is where the Law of Attraction gets a little complicated. The good news is, thanks to 21st century technology we all have a competitive advantage only the weathiest or most successful had a few decades ago.

The more I learn about this, the more hopeful I become for a quick course correction towards abundance and prosperity.

Subscribers to Pathway2Abundance will be the first to know when my next book is released this spring. It’s the do-it-yourself manual for creating beauty & abundance in your life with far less effort than ever before by making the most of your inner resources and employing the outer resources recommended.

In this book, I reveal the Power Tools I’ve used to sustain my abundance. I can hardly wait to share them with you! Please stay tuned and stay hopeful! Read what inspires and delights you because hope leads to gratitude and when we feel deeply grateful, we are in the space to manifest!