What does abundance mean to you? Since it means something different to everyone, I want to challenge each of you with a task. Spend some time when you have a moment to come up with your own working definition of it. Why? Because if you don’t have a clear definition of abundance, or anything you want or desire, then you can’t achieve it.

After speaking to thousands of people over the years regarding their beliefs about abundance, the most common misconception I encounter is that most people have been conditioned into the idea that when you are in possession of something you are abundant. By this definition, if you don’t have that thing then you are in lack. This is actually backwards thinking.

As we know by now, our reality is based on our beliefs and perceptions — all of which come from our past experiences. If you see the world as hostile, competitive, limiting, or in lack, it’s probably the result of a past experience; therefore, that’s how the world is going to occur to you. If you removed human beliefs and perceptions from the equation, however, you might see that the world is actually a very abundant, friendly, fruitful, providing place. By perceiving the world through this lens, it means you already have abundance in you as a state of being.

The doorway to abundance is mindfulness

If we are serious about entering the river of change and sincere about creating a new future, then we need to become aware of our limiting thoughts, because by the time we are in our midlife, 95% of our thoughts are unconscious.

A good way to begin to tackle this problem is to write down every thought that separates you from your future. You need to know these thoughts inside and out so that when they appear, you don’t let them slip past your conscious mind. By becoming conscious of these unconscious thoughts, when they appear you’ll be able to recognize them, control them, and not let them go by unchecked.

The more you develop daily mindfulness, the more you will be able to stop yourself from slipping back into those self-limiting, stress-based emotions of lack, unworthiness, frustration, resentment, fear, and anxiety. By keeping your energy up and not lowering it to the more mundane feelings that are connected to past experiences, the more you are moving your energy from the familiar, predictable past into a new, unpredictable future that’s full of possibilities and surprises.

It takes practice to become aware of the unconscious programs connected to the old personality, but paying attention is a skill that anyone can improve. It’s all about learning to be in the present, because when you are in the present moment, the familiar past and the predictable future no longer exist. When you truly live in the present moment, you understand that you don’t create abundance, you generate it. But because most people are unconscious of our thoughts, behaviors, and emotions, the majority of the time they are generating lack, separation, victimization, fear, loneliness, judgement, and so on.

Affluence and Influence

We are fortunate to live in the Information Age because technology gives us easy access to almost anything we want to learn about. I always encourage students to study abundant people, whether they are contemporary or historic figures. What we find when we study abundant people is that they weren’t always abundant. They learned from their experiences and therefore had to course correct throughout their life. Their mistakes, missteps, and mishaps - in other words, their life - was their initiation. They had to learn certain things before they could step into the state of abundance. Once they were abundant, then they began to develop affluence.

Affluence means you’ve created enough influence with yourself and in your life that you are worthy to receive the feedback from your efforts. If you have enough influence on yourself and your life, then affluence always comes, and it comes in the form of feedback. Affluence actually means to flow to you.

The duality and polarity of creation

Most people naturally create based on duality and/or polarity. Polarity and duality mean ‘I don’t have what I want, and because I don’t have what I want, I want to get what I don’t have.’ This is the state from which most people try to get what they want - from the state of lack. There is nothing wrong with this process; it’s how we evolve who we are. However, it will always take time for us to reach our goals and realize our dreams by this mode of creation.

The reason is this - when we create from lack we are using our senses to define reality. We are matter creating matter, limited by the laws of time and space, therefore it takes time to get what we want. In this way, we are enslaved to the laws of this 3-dimensional reality.

But if you are creating from a state of abundance, wholeness, or worthiness, you’re no longer looking for anything. You are creating from the place that you already have it. That’s the moment that you’re out of the way and you begin to draw experiences, opportunities, and new events to you.

In our work we call this 5th dimensional creation, or 5th dimensional reality, because you become the vortex to your destiny. From this level of creation, you are collapsing time and space, causing that goal or outcome you’ve been focusing energy on to come to you…that’s affluence. This level of affluence means you’re in a vibrational match with a new destiny, and the universe begins to show you signs that your future is coming. That’s when it gets exciting.

By changing your perception from lack (thinking you are separate from what you want) to thinking that everything is already here, and all you have to do is step into it and trust, you should start to see things shift in your life. So the next time you are waiting in line at the supermarket, stuck in traffic, or sitting with your morning coffee, why not tune into abundance and generate a whole new set of experiences in your future. It’s so much better than the alternative.