Abundance

As you visualize the kind of existence you long for, you are intending it to happen.

As you are generous with your thoughts, gestures and all you can offer, you are sowing the seeds to experience different kinds of abundance in your life.  What does this mean exactly?

As you love unconditionally, you send your intention to receive unconditional love.

As you focus on creating wealth for others, wealth is arising for you in unforeseen ways.

As you clarify value beyond the measurable, your life feels it has immeasurable value. 

Whether or not you realize it, your thoughts and choices shape your evolving existence.

Leonardo da Vinci was able to make novel connections among dissimilar things. This clarified his notion of success. He invented and evolved as he learned. He challenged himself and grew.  What he offered the world was proportional to how much he loved and appreciated his own resourcefulness.  His legacy has immeasurable value.

When Einstein worked through a problem, he always found it necessary to rethink his subject in as many different ways as possible. He visualized solutions, and believed that words and numbers were less important than possibilities. The universe sent him back a wealth of new information. That wealth created wealth for others in different forms.

We can all learn to interpret the value of quality and quantity to our advantage.  We can discern the difference in our relationships, in reasons for giving and sacrificing.  Ask yourself what you truly wish for.  Ask the Universe for opportunities.  Ask and it is already given. You have more influence than you think!

“Life in abundance comes only through great love.” -Elbert Hubbard

Are you being tested?

Do you ever get the impression that something is testing you?

You know, maybe it's been one of those days.

You didn't intend to invite so many challenges...

Yet, you felt rushed, skipped breakfast and then, forgot that important document. 

To top it off, while driving to work, you were pulled over and booked for speeding.

Then, just as you got going again, the car had perfect timing to run out of gas. 

What about the mobile battery dying and no traffic in sight.

Sound like your lucky day?  What did you get out of it all?

You're supposed to be learning that each event prepares you for coming events.

You're supposed to learn to stretch your limits, endurance, patience.

Your supposed to believe in your potential to learn from what happens and do better next time.

Imagine you arrived at your office late at night before  a deadline to discover someone had changed all the locks and neglected to tell you. Would that also be a test? Of course! Run with it!

It would simply a new opportunity to calmly adapt to your circumstances and move forward.

You may not understand completely how, but you've earned each of your trials and your faith will help you get something meaningful out of them. 

You lack nothing.  You have the tools and the ability. Each test makes you stronger.

What health risks do you take?

Risks come in different forms.  You can break them down into categories related to where you perceive possible dangers. For example, consider mental, emotional, hypothetical and physical.

In August 2006,  Yusuf, a global heart specialist at McMaster University in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, reported 9 risk factors account for 90% of heart disease in every population on Earth.  This physician perceives most of the associated risks to be or relate to physical ones;

Abdominal obesity 
Alcohol
Bad cholesterol/good cholesterol
Diabetes
Eating fruits and vegetables
Exercise
High blood pressure
Psychosocial stress
Smoking
 
More general health risks
Under-nutrition continues to be a contributing factor in more than half of all child deaths in developing countries.  This issue has been linked to lack of awareness and adequate education.
In contrast, obesity is becoming a global problem - estimated to affect more than one billion adults world-wide.  (~500,000 people in North America and Western Europe die from obesity-related diseases each year).

Dr Christopher Murray, who has been responsible for World Health Organisation(WHO) reports, has said: "Globally, we need to achieve a much better balance between preventing disease and merely treating its consequences.

"This can only come about with concerted action to identify and reduce major risks to health."

Meaningful lessons

Throughout our lives, we learn things that help us along. We receive advice from friends and strangers about how we could better ourselves. Do we listen? Do we hear and choose to grow? Our thoughts and feelings resonate sigals that draw people toward us. Some emit positive thoughts and others negative energy.  We may learn from everyone if only we're open to that.  Your thoughts are seeds of opportunities.  Your desire to learn can invite unexpected growth. 

Reflect on the kinds of experiences you invite into your life.  As you focus on what you desire, on how you would like to help others, you are in the process of summoning power from inside you.  Believe that you can influence the laws of nature, influence the opportunities that present themselves, influence a positive reaction and a hopeful mindset that will change your life. 

What you think about highly influences the choices you make and people who enter your life.  Whether or not you believed in miracles before, you're now more aware that they're possible.  Meaningful lessons come in different forms. 

A car whizzes past you and nearly runs you over.  But, because you take a risk, you cross the race finish first and change your life forever.  Stuck in traffic, a young man misses a plane and what he thinks was an ideal job interview.  Yet, he was spared from the death toll of a nasty crash.  A lightning bolt hits a tree. It falls next to your neighbour's house.  She decides to move and avoids the damage of an unpredicted earthquake.  You instinctively change your travel route and meet the love of your life in passing on a bus. Lucky breaks? Or did you invite reasons to be given a new chance at happiness?   Just because you're unable to explain things doesn't mean you have reason to disregard or underestimate their importance.  You invite joy and pain. You determine how emotions will affect your evolution. You tap into your connections with what you don't understand.

Describe a meaningful experience you have had which enabled you to learn about yourself.

No turning back?

Life is full of opportunities to learn. Some experiences are are perceived riskier than others. 

Sir Edmund Hillary became the first man to summit Mount Everest (with Tibetan sherpa Tenzin Norgay).  However, not everyone would wish to accompany such a perilous expedition to climb a dangerous mountain.  If you did join the team, and decided turn back, could you bring yourself to give up th mission and do that? Would you take the risks involved in retracing your steps in uncertain weather?

Consider anyone who decides to backpack though a foreign country, or more challenging still, to backback through many unfamiliar countries.  To take the risk of stepping outside what you know can be a scary thing for many people. You would need to find maps, navigate through places you've never been, do things as simple as find food, a toilet, a safe place to sleep, when you don't necesarily speak the local language, dress like the local people, or share their perspective on life or the world. This would require courage and the willingness to learn new things.

Before you travel anywhere, you would likely evaluate risks. Should you stay where you are or should you go discover someplace new? If you do decide to take risks to step outside your comfort zone, you would likely consider things like potential threats to your health and safety.  Could you even qualify for health insurance? Would you wish to have any? Could you afford the trip? Do you have responsibilities that you could afford and you would be willing to leave behind?  Some of us would choose not to turn our backs on mortgages, family and other priorities.

What kinds of incentives would motivate you to re-think the life you know and consider it something you could leave, at least for a time? Some people would abandon theri lives at a moment's notice with few belongings.  Other people require extensive planning in advance and would take much luggage.  The nature of the travel destination and purpose of your trip would influence what you think you would need.

Then again, it's possible that visiting foreign places may not even appeal to you. You may find it risky to live where you do everyday.  The idea of getting into a car and driving somewhere involves a certain risk. 

Risk is relative to what we know, to what we don't know, and to what we have the inclination to learn.