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Abundance is quite the buzzword, isn’t it? You hear this word a lot in the self help space, especially when it comes to things like the law of attraction. Get out of lack, get into abundance! Sounds wonderful, but why can it be so hard sometimes to take the abundant view?

 

Your brain was built for lack

Your brain wasn’t built to make you feel whole and complete and good all the time. Your brain naturally wants to show you the lack. Now that’s not to say that it can’t notice abundance, it most certainly can. But only seeing life through the abundance lens doesn’t align with one basic instinct we’re all born with: there could be something wrong.

Living things are vulnerable. Vulnerable to death. Your brain ain’t no dummy, it knows this. And one of its primary jobs is to keep you, delicate human, from dying. This requires all the emotions associated with an attitude of “lack”: fear, concern, worry, dread. There’s more, but you get it. These emotions prompt you to keep your guard up.

When you feel the opposite of those emotions, like unconcerned, relaxed, content, you feel safe for the moment. You can let your guard down. You can be vulnerable (even if you don’t realize that’s what you’re being). Your nervous system can relax for a little while. But sooner or later, the instinct to start paying attention to how you could be unsafe will kick in. This is a normal, highly functioning part of the thinking brain.

 

More, more, more

The basic premise behind lack is this thought your brain likes to think: “more of this will help me survive better.”

• More health will help me survive better.
• More money will help me survive better.
• More connection in my relationships will help me survive better.
• More clothes will help me survive better.
• More food will help me survive better.
• More scrolling on social media will help me survive better, because I won’t miss anything.

Are you picking up on a common theme here? More, more, more. Which isn’t that what abundance is? No.

Having the words “I need more…” in your mind cues it to pay attention to the lack. If you need more, you automatically think you are lacking in it. What you currently have isn’t enough, so you’re always chasing more.

When you’re in an abundance mindset, you are consciously aware that what you have in the present moment is enough. You recognize the abundance of what is. Sometimes this requires looking outside of what you currently possess. You may not currently possess great health, but there is an abundance of health on this planet. You many not currently posses a lot of money, but there is a TON of money in the world.

 

Taking the abundant view

Taking the abundant view means recognizing that you do have abundance in your life and it surrounds you at all times, and you can express joy in the fact of this. And if you can reconcile this in your brain, and allow your current reality to just be what it is, rather than fighting it with complaints about how you need more and more and more, something kind of magical will happen.

Rather than “more” being an uphill battle or mighty struggle, more will just flow into your life, because you’ll no longer be blocking it with your beliefs in lack.

Does this sound unrealistic? Abundance is realistic. It’s everywhere. From the abundance of atoms, to the abundance of cells in your body, to the abundance of humans on this planet, to the abundance of stars in space… abundance is EVERYWHERE.

Part of your human brain will always want to prompt you to pay attention to what you lack. But another part of your human brain has the amazing ability and capacity to recognize abundance, and harness the power of this mindset to make it always present in your life.

Exercise: Take 60 seconds to think about what is abundant. The hairs on your head, the videos on YouTube, the cash in the stock market, the grains of sand on every beach on earth. It’s everywhere. Start to train your brain to notice it.

Want a complimentary coaching session on taking the abundant view? Schedule it here.

Photo by Madalena Veloso on Unsplash