“So divinely is the world organized that every one of us, in our place and time, is in balance with everything else.”—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Did you miss me the past two weeks? I admit it: I was simply playing hooky. My Summer of Time Prosperity really took over! First, my husband whisked me away to the California Coast “Wine Country” (which you may have seen in the delightful movie “Sideways” a few years back), for a long weekend as a belated birthday celebration.
Then I came back with every intention of writing a new blog last week, but there were just TOO much opportunities for fun pulling me outside, including a backyard party we put on so our friends could savour our Million Dollar View from the back patio – stretching about 100 miles to the Palos Verdes Pennisula in another county.
To me, summertime is a season of myriad delights to be sipped and savored — and not a day of it can ever be replaced. It wasn’t always thus. Last summer I “woke up” to the fact that the previous summer had gone by in a blur of tele-seminars, projects and paperwork, while I missed the opportunity to savor the many big and little moments of relaxation, rejuvenation and FUN that are available only during my favorite time of year.
Continuing my practice of taking ample time each week to do all the things I love to do in this favorite season of mine, I am spotlighting a number of “guest hosts” for the blog throughout the summer, which is a Win-Win for both of us. It gives YOU the opportunity to learn tips and tools for creating a life of abundance from some of my favorite Master Manifesters, and it provides ME the opportunity to enjoy my favorite time of year without guilt!
This week’s guest columnist plays right into my summertime theme of fully appreciating and savoring what we love, yet realizing we can’t hoard it. We can experience true abundance and prosperity by enjoying what we have right NOW to the fullest, and then trusting that when its season is finished, something equally delightful will be provided to us by the endlessly creative and abundant Source of everything around us.
I found Paula Langguth Ryan’s wonderful little article in a magazine-style publication by Unity called Abundance is Yours! What follows is an excerpt from her piece:
“Embracing God’s Abundance, The Raspberry Mystery”
by Paula Langguth Ryan
“When I was a young girl, I used to spend my summers ‘grandma-sitting’ my great-grandmother on her farm in northern Indiana. One of my favorite activities every morning was harvesting the raspberries from the raspberry canes. Each morning I’d go out with my basket, and come back into the farmhouse kitchen with two pints of raspberries. One pint, we’d clean and put in the freezer; the other pint, I’d sprinkle with sugar and eat for breakfast. I was always amazed that every morning there were always two pints of raspberries waiting to be picked.
One summer it dawned on me that since there were two pints of raspberries to pick every day, I could save a lot of time and energy if I picked the raspberries once a week. That way, I could harvest all fourteen pints of raspberries at one time. So I let a week go by, then I went to the raspberry patch and started harvesting my raspberries with great joy. But when I finished, all I had were two pints of raspberries. I couldn’t understand what had happened. There should have been seven times as many raspberries, but there weren’t!
It wasn’t until many years later that I truly understood what had happened that summer. As long as I was embracing my abundant supply of raspberries every day, my abundance continued. It was only when I stopped embracing my abundance that the flow of abundance decreased. Because I didn’t show up to harvest my raspberries on a daily basis, the abundant flow of raspberries passed me by. Some raspberries ripened an fell to the ground or were eaten by birds. Other raspberries simply didn’t develop because there was still an abundant supply on the canes that hadn’t been harvested.
This was one of the first of the universal laws of prosperity that I have grasped: Until you learn to be happy with what you have, you won’t be happy with more.
Until we learn to notice and cheerfully embrace the abundance that surrounds us right now, we won’t be open and receptive to additional abundance. So how do we learn to embrace the abundance that we do have?”
Later in her article, Paula gives this great suggestion to help you appreciate all the abundance that is present in your life right NOW, as a first step for increasing it:
“Becoming Aware of Life’s Everyday Gifts
The first step toward receiving abundance, then, is to simply acknowledge our abundance in whatever form it takes.
We each have so much abundance in our lives, but most of us can’t see it because it’s not taking a form we recognize. We have our sights set on abundance being a specific thing, like a raise or a bigger house or a gold card. We don’t see the true abundance.
A friend recently shared with me a technique she uses as a reminder of the abundance in her life. She has a little notebook in which she keeps track of not only her income and expenses every day, but also “gifts” she receives every day.
For example, if someone buys her lunch, she records that as a gift. If she finds a dime on the sidewalk, she records that as a gift. If someone offers to carpool with her and she doesn’t have to drive every day, she records that as a gift. If she’s out shopping and the item she intended to buy is on sale, she records that as a gift. Whenever she receives a hug, she records that as a gift. And she’s careful to record a monetary value for each gift so she can clearly see her abundance.
My spouse and I decided to try out this gift-recording technique. The very first day, our results were astonishing. First, we went to the pharmacy and got free lollipops – value: 25 cents. Then we went to lunch and offered some words of encouragement to a restaurant owner, and we got a free lunch worth $15 and two free loaves of bread worth another $7. Then we went back to the pharmacy and got what would have been an expensive prescription filled with generic medicine, which we had thought would not be available – a gift of $70. Then we went grocery shopping and two of the items we were buying had “buy-one, get-one-free” sales, so we got $6 worth of free groceries.
What abundant gifts have you received in your life today or during the past week? Start keeping a gift record just for a few days, and see the abundance in your life that is being overlooked.”
Amen to that! You know I am a big proponent of keeping a daily Gratitude Journal, where you write down 5 or 10 things you are grateful for in your life RIGHT NOW – that are already a part of your joy and fulfillment and abundant living.
Well, I am going to add to that practice. I will take Paula Langguth Ryan’s suggestion and immediately begin carrying a little notebook everywhere I go, in which I will record all the many big and little gifts the Universe bestows on me all day every day. That will give me even MORE things to be grateful for, because as you know, GRATITUDE is the strongest positive emotion you can have. Gratitude brings you more things to be GRATEFUL for – that’s the Law of Attraction (“energy attracts like energy”) in ACTION!
I hope you will do the same. Be sure to write me and tell me what surprise gifts you find already available in your life right NOW, just as it is.
And, if by some chance, the blog doesn’t show up again next week, you will know that it’s the start of my husband’s birthday celebration. Although his birthday is August 16, Rick doesn’t just celebrate a birth “day”; he celebrates a birth WEEK! We have some very fun things planned to do for my Leo in his great summer birthday season: a trip to the county fair, enjoying some great new movies, making our monthly excursion together to Disneyland, savoring a New Orleans-style Sunday brunch at Ralph Brennan’s Jazz Kitchen in Downtown Disney with our friends on his birthday eve.
I hope you, too, have a delightful summer week ahead, as the Dog Days of summer dwindle down to a precious few, and Labor Day begins to rear its autumn head… And, yes, do be sure to savor every last “raspberry” in your world!
_______________________________________________________________________
You Can Make Your Big, Juicy Dreams REAL!
Don’t let your dreams die on the vine like unpicked raspberries!
If you have a Big, JUICY Goal you want to manifest in SIX MONTHS OR LESS , join us for powerful, inspirational SUPPORT and FUN for a 90-minute LIVE tele-class each month beginning Thursday, August 19. The Jumpstart Mastermind course is forming now. I hope you will join our group of positive-thinking, prosperity-minded Big Juicy DREAMERS who are dedicated to just ONE thing: Supporting YOU in making YOUR biggest dreams come true! Watch for a special email in the next few days — or don’t wait – contact me NOW for all the details: caroll@practicalprosperitycoach.com.
