My Tried and Tested Approaches to Abundance!
Let yourself off the hook: we are here on planet Earth to expand joyously, and money is one of the ways we rightfully and deservedly gain access to new experiences and uplifting possessions. But in a world where many of us have been raised to believe that “money is the root of all evil”, our relationship with finances is complex at best. Well, I say it’s time to rekindle that innate worthiness of well-being by reminding ourselves of a few simple approaches (or re-approaches) to abundance.
Try one, some or all of my tips below; practice wholeheartedly and watch your bank balance change for the better!
1: Tune into joy
The real reason we think we want more spending power is to capture the essence of joy. Money in and of itself means absolutely nothing; it’s the feeling associated with the stuff we can do with it that we really want. It’s the goose bumps we get from imagining travel to far flung places, the exhilaration of driving an open top car or the freedom of walking into Jimmy Choo’s flagship store and being able to take our pick of heels. It’s also the excitement that is setting up our own yoga studio, or animal rescue centre; the thrill of turning our unconventional wind-up toy collection hobby into a full-time business. It’s the idea of giving up “normal” and taking to the road in a refurbished Romany caravan, it’s finally getting our hands on a narrow barge and spending a year discovering canals filled with nature and pubs, it’s funding our return to ballet, it’s giving up work for three years to get that degree in Archaeology. It’s anything and it’s everything.
But it is always the feeling of money we are after as opposed to totting it up abacus-style in our “counting house” a la King from “Sing a Song of Sixpence“.
In other words, money is a vibration. If we are seeking more of it, we’ve got to act like we are surrounded by it now.
2: Appreciation for what we already have
This is paramount. If we only have a purse full of “lowly” coppers, we can bless those coins and that very act alone will resonate with the universe, flowing more abundance our way. Because The Universe/God/Source/Fill in the Blanks only brings us more of who we are being right now – which flows neatly into point 3. But first let me embellish:
The mechanism of our “reality” acts like a magnet. Like thoughts attract like thoughts – and vice versa. If we are ungratefully running down our “old banger of a car”, moaning about the bills, criticizing “The Haves” in their posh town houses, or tearing our hair out over the cost of our weekly shopping, we are essentially sending out a very strong signal of lack. Since the universe cannot tell the difference between yes and no; like and dislike, anything we shine a spotlight on, it assumes we want more of!
Naturally, it would make sense then if we get as psyched up with positivity as we can over the things we currently DO have. It may take some deliberate focus at first, but pretty soon when we notice the correlation between high energy thoughts and the apparent “coincidence” of good stuff happening in our day, we come to realise that we are 100% creating our reality with our vibration. When that’s a vibe of appreciation (for the car that safely gets us from A to B, for the fact that we have a roof over our heads at all when millions on the planet don’t, for the amazing array of food and drink that does make it onto our dining table, and for the bills which provided us with electricity, water and gas – can we imagine modern life without that oft overlooked trio?) not only do we feel a whole lot better, but we pave the way for more to flow in.
3: Act as if
Buy a higher priced bottle of wine than usual in the supermarket, start drinking the “classier” coffee, take yourself off for the pedicure, treat yourself to the cashmere socks. Use whatever little “tools” you can to help to alter your mindset and approach to money. If you are somebody who would opt for the cheapest bottle of red without fail, train yourself to renegotiate your “worth”. When we buy our weekly bottle of plonk (or our weekly anything) based on “what we can afford”, we send out a message loud and clear into the ether which states “this is my limit, this is the sum of my worth”.
It may sound simplistic, but getting back to basics really helps to change our thoughts and habits.
When we act as if we can afford the things we want, the universe doesn’t know we are “faking it until we make it”. And incidentally, we can use this technique with not just wealth but health, relationships, you name it… The universe is reacting to the point of attraction we are offering up. So if we are offering up a point of attraction of feeling abundant and we can consistently keep that feeling up for a little while, we will “magically” attract myriad abundant experiences – all of which will exceed our expectations.
4: Abandon negative money language
As above, it really is time to throw away our “I can’t afford it”s… and all other pessimistic words and phrases we may be subconsciously using (out loud as well as silently in our heads) when it comes to money. Remember, the universe is a genie in a bottle (granting us endless wishes, not just three), but when we harp on about things being expensive and out of our financial reach, it will – ever the loyal servant – bring us more debt, speeding fines and bills. Not as punishment! Simply because that’s the stuff it believes we want. That’s what we “told it”, not just via our words, but the way we felt when we said them.
It’s time to order a starters of Prosperity, a mains of Well-being and a dessert of Gold Nugget instead; it’s time to change our money lingo. To start with this will feel weird, like we’re kidding ourselves, like we’re living the biggest lie. But give it a few weeks and we start to see real life proof of our new found stance, physical evidence that we’re truly starting to change a long held limiting belief.
The money may not begin to grow on trees, true (who can forget the opposite adage that many of us were brought up on?), but its flow will become easier, more effortless, more “coincidental”. This might begin with our usually penny-pinching friend footing the cocktail bill, the discovery of a random bank note on the floor, or the higher than usual Christmas bonus from our workplace. But as we exercise our muscles of belief, the universe will shower us with surprises we couldn’t have even imagined.
5: See money as energy
Really, that’s all it is. We cannot take it with us when we die and we couldn’t walk into our nearest bank and see it piled up floor to ceiling. And so money, quite simply is a trading of energy. When infused with good feelings, it expands doing massive amounts of good. When weighed down with bad feelings such as lack and fear, it retracts, bringing about the opposite.
There are so many little tricks we can bring into our lives when it comes to viewing our finances from a different perspective. We can decide to only sign cheques or go online to pay the bills with a backdrop of uplifting music pumping out in our apartment, or we can recall all the many instances when that amazing commodity that is electricity has made our life easier (prior to parting with what usually feels like too huge a chunk of our precious salary!)
Likewise, we can become more conscious of what we are spending our money on, choosing quality and fair trade over cheapness. When we have a more ethical approach to the things we buy in exchange for our bank notes (as opposed to purchasing the lowest costing items), we can truly sense how our money really is pure energy, quite literally changing lives and creating more opportunities. This not only helps those receiving its benefits far and wide around the world, but us as well: what we give out we get back.
6: Play money games
One of my favourite games to play with money comes from the teachings of Abraham Hicks. You pop a $100 bill (or equivalent in your currency) in your wallet and you go about your day spending it many times over in your head. Yes, it may sound slightly crazy, but I promise you it is really fun! What this starts to do is re-create your beliefs surrounding wealth – even on a neurological basis. I kid you not…
Can you imagine doing this in a shopping mall? I mean really getting into character!
As explained earlier, the universe is only and always responding to the feelings we are emitting in any given moment. We could virtual spend that $100 note over and over and over in day, making for quite a shopping trip. It’s a great way to tune into a new money vibe and the exhilaration feels real (you could do something similar online too).
The more we start to have fun with our money and enjoy it, the more we lighten up and the more we open up our channels to receive more abundance.
7: Re-capture past feelings of wealth
This is a fabulous tool to pull out the box if we have lost money, or find ourselves in a situation where we are less “affluent” than we have previously been. Instead of focusing on the lack, when we use every opportunity to recall the things we have done with money, the places we have visited, the luxury we have sampled, the possessions we have owned, we remind ourselves of what is possible. We also tap into the vibration associated with that kind of well-being and abundance once more… and since the universe is listening always, if we can just keep this up and tip the balance of our thoughts from mostly pessimism to more optimism, our financial picture has to change. It’s the Law of Attraction’s promise.
8: Stop comparing yourself to Taylor Swift and Brad Pitt
We’re all guilty of looking up at others who have more – be they celebs in a magazine or “real life” people we know. We are all subconsciously pitting ourselves against them to some degree when it comes to the rank and file of our own material goods.
But we have to cut it out!
That kind of approach gets us nowhere fast. If we really must compare, then let’s look at what we do have and bless our circumstances, realising we are, most of us, actually in the top echelons of humanity if we have a solid home to live in, an ample supply of food, clothes on our back, an education for our children, at least one person out to work per household and a car.
We all dream of winning the lottery, yes, but once that happens, the money will only stick around if we feel that we deserve it.
Because what the subject of money really boils down to is knowing our worth. That is, I promise, THE only thing which holds us apart from our own fortune. It is also the key difference between us and Kate Middleton/Victoria Beckham/Bill Gates/Richard Branson.
Once we figure out how to align with our innate worthiness, once we realise we are all one, not one of us on this planet more worthy than another, each of us uniquely important, then the money (abundance, well-being and all the rest of it) will trickle in… and even rain down on us. But we’ve got to let it in. We’ve got to do the spiritual work it takes to feel good. We’ve got to pivot away from the resistance and get into the mode of allowance.
9: Out with the old, in with the new
Get de-cluttering!
If changing our mindset feels like too big an ask, tip number nine might be the easiest place to start…
All it entails is opening up our wardrobes and closets and (being totally honest with ourselves) making piles of clothes we no longer wear, then taking them to the charity shop… before we have chance to try to talk ourselves around to keeping those ten dresses, five tops and six pairs of shoes we haven’t worn in a decade.
It couldn’t be simpler. And we can work our way around the whole house like this. Not only are we helping out others in the process, but on a purely selfish level, we are cleansing our minds, bodies and spirits… and engaging in the flow of energy that is “out with the old, in with the new”. If you don’t believe me, just watch how new “goodies” – in all shapes and sizes – begin to appear in your life.
Whatever you do, start to have fun with money. Embrace it, love it and enjoy it. And if you have some magical manifesting tales after trying out some of these tips, please share. We love to hear your success stories!
