Cloud Cuckoo Land: Abundance.

Abundance.

You know to break with convention, that I don't follow anyway, lol..... I shall begin this with a little story. It is quite personal, so bear with me.

When I was just a kid, I believed that my parents didn't notice me at all. I craved their attention, but felt bereft of any real and personal interest in me as a child and a member of the family. I knew there was something wrong in all of this, my feelings, my emotions and intuition said that I should expect more. I tried various tactics in the end to get the attentions of my siblings and parents, even if the outcome was the wrong kind of attention. I got smacked a lot more than all of them put together. (Woo, bad word smacked) In my reasoning at that time, I felt unloved, uncared for, unheard and subsequently determined that to mean that I was worthless and useless. You can imagine I expect, what this feeling ended up creating in me as a person. It carried with me all my life through adolescence and puberty and finally all of my adult relationships, until one day I finally realised where the real problem lay.

Enoughness.....

(A word I borrow from Mandy Peterson)

I eventually realised that the problem actually resided within me, and was not created by others, even if they had played a part in its construction. I felt as though I was not 'good enough' to be loved, therefore 'unworthy' of the love of my parent and family. My whole life was formed around a misconception about what was enough. About me as a person being enough to be loved and respected.

Boy this was some weird and traumatic experience, and getting to be free from it has almost been the death of me. Almost literally. In fact, in one sense it has meant a spiritual death, to be born again in spirit where I am free to be the person I truly am. Now, I'm not talking Billy Graham evangelism here, but a transformation through emotional fire to cleanse my soul of the guilt I had built up in childhood.

Firstly let me say categorically, that I do not hold my parents nor my siblings as being to blame for this. Nor am I going to spend any more time trying to analyse it. They were responsible for me too, yet they themselves were young and inexperienced in noticing what or how I was developing as a child and what my individual needs were, or how they could have rectified any misconceptions on my behalf. Hindsight is a wonderful thing, and yet it can be fraught with many negatives, so I am now able to have a mixture of the two ends from the spectrum of experience to have helped me be who I am today. I now see that they did in fact love and care for me, and I recognise all the things that prove this, even though it has taken many years to fathom it for myself.

Lets now have a look and see what abundance is in its many descriptions, so that we can evaluate why we as people may need to rethink or readjust our view.

Abundance:

abundance (əˈbʌndəns )

Definitions

noun

a copious supply; great amount
fullness or benevolence ⇒ from the abundance of my heart
degree of plentifulness
(chemistry) the extent to which an element or ion occurs in the earth's crust or some other specified environment: often expressed in parts per million or as a percentage
(physics) the ratio of the number of atoms of a specific isotope in a mixture of isotopes of an element to the total number of atoms present: often expressed as a percentage ⇒ the abundance of neon-22 in natural neon is 8.82 per cent
Also called: abondance. a call in solo whist undertaking to make nine tricks
affluence

Word Origin

C14: via Old French from Latin abundantia, from abundāre to abound

Synonyms

View thesaurus entry

= plenty, heap, bounty, exuberance, profusion, plethora, affluence, fullness, opulence, plenitude, fruitfulness, copiousness, ampleness, cornucopia, plenteousness, plentifulness,

= wealth, money, funds, capital, cash, riches, resources, assets, fortune, possessions, prosperity, big money, wad, affluence, big bucks, opulence, top dollar, megabucks, tidy sum, lucre, wonga, pretty penny, pelf, top whack

Images of abundance and its counterpart.

I feel sure that many of us are now a little confused as to why we feel there is a difference in how we have viewed this topic so far, if in fact this is the case for you. I venture to say though, that if we look at our actions more closely we will possibly see gross imbalances as to what we say we believe and what we show we believe.

Many people strive for 'happiness' and 'success'. YET, when they follow the paths that they do to achieve this goal, most often pursuing money, they find neither. The old adage is; money cannot buy happiness. How many of us show that we believe this by our following the paths we take? In the modern world it is almost profane to suggest that money does not BUY happiness, so much is done to prove this by the sellers of magazines, products, gadgets and the producers of glamorous films and T.V. shows.

Does what you do, show a clearer image of your beliefs than what you say?

It really does seem profane to say material things are not necessities to most of us. Despite the real facts that we have lived on this planet without these things for millennia. Yes no one will deny they bring us some ease of life, some comfort and that they can serve us in our pursuit of enjoyment, but they have only been in our possession for a very short period of time. The internet for example has only been available for about 20 years. Mobile phones a little longer. Fridges and washing machines and televisions and cars for a few years longer, going back only into the end of the nineteenth century. Houses that people own (except for landowners and aristocracy) is a new thing, going back only as far as the middle of the twentieth century. Inside toilets and bathrooms are a relatively new convention in terms of history, as too fresh running water and modern medicines. Yet we take all of this for granted and even expect it as a basic living requirement. Its as if we have no clear guideline as to what is enough, to be able to live and be happy. I'm certainly not about to dictate to anyone what is enough, for them or even myself for that matter. Things change and we would be wise to readjust our thinking at these junctures if we want to be able to continue living with a modicum of happiness. You see, we have been living under a misconception, much like myself in child hood, that we are victims to it all. We are certainly not victims here, what we do in the larger part with regards money and luxury and seeking success is premeditated. It may be true that commerce and advertisers manipulate us and our unconscious psyche to get us to follow their edicts and demands without our being aware of it, but we choose our paths and have to be responsible for the outcomes of them. The world tells us we need more and so we buy more. Do we realise that we cannot carry on like this without a negative result? I urge each and every person reading this to watch the video I link here (picture below) to see if the thirst for more abundance has not in fact been causing the devastation of the very planet we need to survive.

An Inconvenient Truth.

Al Gore.

Yet I still say, abundance is within, not without. Could we not all try to realise the truth of this statement and do our utmost to rectify our actions to come in line with real and sustainable options for continued living here on mother earth? Please evaluate exactly what it is that is important to you and avoid the surplus. Do we really need all this stuff, this surplus and wanton luxury at the cost of our environment and future? I am convinced that most of us see abundance as a goal to be sought out as if our lives depended upon it. The quarry for more and more as proof of our success. It is a contagion that is gripping the world and its' thinking and creating a monster that cannot easily be stopped. It is decimating our home, and still it leaves us thirsting for more. We need to quell this desire for more, let go of the inadequate feelings of 'enoughness', and discover the truth of our lack. It is more simple than we realise, and as such often discarded as inconsequential. But it is far from that.

I feel a better way to view abundance is in what we actually have, that we rarely see. It is in the family, the unity and the cooperation of everyone working together. Not in individual, somewhat selfish pursuits. Teamwork is a great analogy.

T... together

E... each

A... achieves

M... more

There is a wonderful book that I am blessed to have been sent a copy of by a new friend, that details and highlights many of the advantages of reviewing our way of looking at things, especially those that relate to our personal thinking and reasoning as also those of a wider collective nature.

i am the Lotus, not the muddy pond.

(peacethrough non-conformity)

It is one of the best books I have thus-far read in my entire life. Because it is helping me realise my true nature and what I need to do to materialise real abundance. Of course life is not just about reading books for knowledge, life experiences teach us far more. But with the reflective tones of Mandy Peterson's book, I feel sure you will engage far more fluidly with understanding your/our true nature and what that will mean to your/our decision making with regards particularly; abundance.

Don't hesitate please get a copy of this book and follow your journey to where abundance is what it really is. Exactly what you have within, not without.