Mindful Awareness

As human beings, we all have a desire to love and be loved. This is basic to being human and is our deepest emotional need. In order to love others, and to fully accept the love of others, we must first love ourselves. This isn’t the same as being arrogant or self-righteous, which is our ego talking, but instead is about understanding who we really are beneath all the labels and beliefs, feeling our connection to everything around us, and experiencing ourselves as Love itself.

Receptivity — or open-mindedness — requires more cognitive effort than dogmatism. Receptivity asks you to welcome uncertainty and information you may not align with, which isn’t always easy.

When we think of abundance, we often associate it with money, but the energy of abundance goes far beyond being comfortable financially. Abundance is the energy of having enough, feeling supported, taken care of, and having complete freedom to enjoy life the way we want to.

Diet culture has many definitions and nuances. In sum, it’s a set of beliefs that glorifies a so-called “perfect” body size and vilifies people who don’t reflect it.

Life is constantly in motion. Quite literally we are moving at roughly 1,000 mph as we spin through the universe. When we zoom in even closer we see that our individual lives are always in flux, moving from task to task, thought to thought, emotion to emotion. The range of what we experience each day is expansive. Upon zooming in further we see, on an even subtler level, that even our cells are in constant transformation. Broadly speaking, our cells reproduce entirely every 7 to 10 years.

Complete presence can feel like a difficult place to access, but being in a state of flow can happen in different forms, and people tap into it in various ways. Flow state occurs when you’re so engulfed in the present and the task before you that you cease to be distracted by anything else and lose sense of the past and future. It is the ultimate state of peace, presence, and no-mind. Some people can access this place by sitting in meditation, but for many, flow state occurs while they are either doing something creatively fulfilling or an activity that engages and challenges them enough to require their ultimate presence.

Gratitude is a universal presence. Whether you make a point to spend time with it each day or it bubbles up spontaneously in a moment of contentment or wonder, you probably already know many of the gifts it brings. Gratitude makes us aware of the preciousness of our lives, puts us in touch with the love we have for those we share it with, and reminds us that we are already whole.

At the start of each year, my children and I sit down to choose our Word. This word becomes the focal point for our intentions throughout the year. Whether we’re starting a new project, working on relationships, setting goals, or choosing our community collaborations, we take our Word into consideration as we live, work and play.

Abundance is a baffling issue for most people because they approach it from a place of scarcity and lack. Changing your perspective is the first step is achieving genuine abundance. How much financial success you now enjoy, even if it is considerable, doesn’t necessarily improve an inner feeling that underlies a sense of lack: This is the feeling of “I am not enough.” As long as this is your baseline belief, abundance will be elusive.