The Abundance Cycle

Join me on the podcast this week to discover how to bring more abundance into your life using the Abundance Cycle. I’m also talking about scarcity, what it is and where it comes from.

Tune in to learn how you can create more abundance in any situation (and I mean any), by implementing this 4-part cycle. This will change everything for you. I’m sharing where this scarcity comes from, how you can create more abundance in any situation (and I mean any), what this work requires of you, and how it will change everything for you.

FEATURED ON THE SHOW

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• Doctrine and Covenants 104:17
• Doctrine and Covenants 78:19

 

 

TRANSCRIPT:

I’m Rachael Collins at the Joyful You Podcast; this is episode 66: The Abundance Cycle

Welcome to The Joyful You Podcast.  On this show I talk all about living a joyful life on purpose so you can be live well, feel well, and become your strongest, healthiest, happiest, most amazing self. Let’s do this.

If you live in the US, Happy Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving is actually my favorite Holiday. There’s just something about counting my blessings that helps move me out of scarcity thinking and into abundance. Which is exactly what I want to talk about today.

Before we can talk about the Abundance Cycle, we first have to talk about it’s opposite, the Scarcity Cycle. What is scarcity? Scarcity is a feeling of lack. It’s a feeling of not being enough or having enough.

Let’s talk about the cycle that keeps us stuck in this place.

The scarcity cycle, oddly enough begins with things going well for us. We’re prospering and being blessed. This is when things start to get off and pride creeps in. Not the feeling humble satisfaction kind of pride, but the kind of pride that happens when we start comparing ourselves to others. We’re either on the top looking down on everyone else thinking we’re super great and they’re not, or we’re on the bottom looking up thinking everyone else is super great and we’re not. This creates a major scarcity mindset.

Those kinds of cocky arrogant people are swimming in just as much scarcity as those who think lowly of themselves. We’re either seeing others in lack or ourselves in lack. Either way, the “Not Enoughness” dragon is rearing its ugly head.

When we keep this story of scarcity, we enter into the next part of the cycle which is suffering and destruction. We’re so busy comparing and despairing that we open up our figurative umbrellas and block life blessings from raining upon us.

When I was little my dad used to tell me a story about a dog and his bone. Maybe it’s an Aesop’s Fable I’m not sure, but the story goes like this:

There is a dog who is so happy because the butcher has just given him a bone. As he is hurrying home with his bone, he crosses over a narrow bridge. On his way across the bridge, the dog looks down and sees another dog carrying an even larger bone. The dog wants this bone so he drops the bone he has and launches to attack the other dog, only to find himself in the water. The dog has to swim for dear life but he manages to reach the shore but now he has no bone. The dog he saw was only his reflection in the water.

And like this dog, when we’re in this part of the cycle, we feel terrible! Everyone is either annoying you because they lack and just can’t do things the way you think they should, or you’re stuck in a pity-party because you lack. We’re either snubbing or jealous, and actions from these emotions never look very Christ-like.

We will stay in this phase of the cycle until we choose to change our story. I have a client I coached for 6 months. Week after week, she wanted to keep her story of not being good enough and maybe once she accomplished XYZ then she’d finally be good enough. My client would sign up for course after course thinking she’d finally find the secret to her worth, and feeling better, and changing her life, but external accomplishments were not the problem. IN fact, she had so many we could have written a notebook full of them. It was the story she had about herself.

I get it! I had a really good reliable story myself. It was like my wubby. I loved my story and my story loved me. I was very comfortable in my story. So, I know exactly how it feels. And let me tell you, when I feel this way, I’m mean. I’m either mean to myself or I’m mean to others. It’s very destructive to relationships. But if we are willing to let go of our story and change, we progress to the next stage which is Repentance.

My favorite definition for repentance comes from the Greek word Metanoeo.

The prefix meta means change. The suffix noeo is related to Greek words meaning mind, knowledge, spirit and breath. Changing our story requires a change in our mind, our knowledge about true identity and God’s love, like we talked about on last week’s episode, a change to our spirit, how we feel, and even our breath.

Let’s talk about breath for a minute. Why is breath included in this? Whenever we’re stuck in pride, our body interprets that we’re in danger and it signals the stress response. The scientific name for this is the sympathetic nervous system response also known as flight and fight response. When we’re in this, all sorts of things are happening inside the body. We weren’t meant to stay in this response for long, but when we’re stuck in pride, we’re also putting the body through a lot of stress. In order to calm this response down, we need to let the body know we’re okay and that it can signal the parasympathetic nervous system to take over, which is the opposite of the sympathetic nervous system. And one of the quickest ways to do this is through the breath. All you need to do is take a few slow long deep breaths in through the nose and out through the nose. Inhale light and love and exhale tension, stress, pride and concern. Through the breath we’re able to change or repent. Pretty cool, huh?

Once we repent, we close our umbrella and we’re open to receiving again.

So that’s the scarcity cycle –

Prosperity, pride, suffering, and repentance and then the cycle starts over again.

Now the opposite of the Scarcity Cycle is of course the Abundance Cycle. The Abundance Cycle also has four parts that if you repeat them over and over again, it will create Abundance.

Abundance is a very large quantity of something. It is a feeling of being enough and having enough. The Lord has said, “For the earth is full, and there is enough and to spare . . .” This is abundance. A belief that there is plenty to go around. When you or someone else receives it takes nothing away from anyone else or you because there is always plenty to go around.

The Abundance Cycle looks like this:

Be Open

Be Receiving

Be Grateful

Be Giving

Can you see how this cycle is opposite from the scarcity cycle? When we are in stuck in a scarcity mindset, we are not open, we are not receiving, our umbrella is open blocking all the blessings. When we are stuck in scarcity, we are definitely not grateful, we’re usually resentful, which is the opposite. And we’re also not very generous and giving.

Let’s break this cycle down and explore the 4 parts in detail.

The first part is BE OPEN.

Why do we need to be open? Think back to the umbrella analogy. When we’re have our figurative umbrella open, we’re closing ourselves off to anything God or the Universe has to offer us.

Part of being open means letting go of our stories, even parts of our stories. Several years ago, I had a story that we were poor and that we just weren’t lucky in the money department. As I began changing this story, little by little, I opened myself up and blessings started to flow.

I know some of you are going to want to know how I did this so let me tell you.

I started carrying around a dollar in my wallet and every time I would open up my wallet, I’d tell myself I have money.  Also, anytime I would make a purchase I’d say to myself, “There’s plenty more where that came from.” I also stopped telling myself we can’t afford to buy that. Instead, I would say, we can afford that, we’re just choosing not to right now.

All these mindset shifts, slowly started opening me up to abundance.

This goes for all areas in your life you want to be more abundant in. It doesn’t just have to be financial.

Another part of being open is being open to all feelings and experiences life throws our way. When we can do this, our life will dramatically change.

I’ve also noticed that there can be varying degrees of openness depending on our ability to receive. This is okay. It only takes a little bit of openness to start the cycle. As you practice and work at it, you will open up more and more and more.

The second part of the Abundance Cycle is BE RECEIVING

Opening creates a space to receive.

How receiving are you? When someone offers you something, do you receive it openly or do you reject it and say no thanks?

This is a hard area for me. I want to be the giver. But in order to give, someone must receive and sometimes that person needs to be me so, I’ve been working on this. When someone gives me a compliment instead of reflecting it or fighting it, I say thank you. The other day I practiced receiving when my friend offered to pay for my pedicure. I wanted so badly to pay her back or fight her, but I decided to practice receiving and simply say thank you.

The level of abundance in our life is a direct reflection of our capacity to receive.

The third part of the Abundance Cycle is BE GRATEFUL

In the Doctrine and Covenants section 78 verse 19 were told

“And he who receiveth all things with thankfulness shall be made glorious; and the things of this earth shall be added unto him, even an hundred fold, yea more.”

Did you catch that last part? Isn’t this the perfect description of abundance? A hundred fold yea more.

Gratitude is an attitude. If we receive but feel guilty the entire time, we not really receiving the gift.  But if we truly receive it, and we feel so much love and appreciation for it, we can’t help but want to give in return, which leads us to the next part of the cycle.

BE GIVING

This is what keeps the cycle going.

It’s like the famous Church song: “Because I have been given much I too must give.” When we receive, we’re grateful and we want to give to others.

When we give to others, we create more space within ourselves to be open and receive more and we’re so grateful we want to give in return and the cycle keeps repeating. Everyone comes out a winner. There is room for all YEA MORE.

God freely giving away and raining down blessings upon us. When we’re Open, Receiving, Grateful and Giving we’re able to live in a space of abundance. Doing so doesn’t create less for anyone else. It is available to all. We all can open and receive and we all can gratefully give. That is how the cycle works. It is available to all. All we have to do is choose it.

May you live in abundance and choose joy because happiness isn’t enough.