Abundance in love

By Chris Trout | June 8, 2008

I promised in my last blog entry that I would begin to share my personal journey with you regarding the ideas of manifesting abundance. So here goes. It's hard! (Yea, go ahead; hear me saying that in a whiny, tired voice and you'd be pretty right on.) It is damn hard - at least in the beginning. 

Quieting the chatter? It was hard!  Knowing what I wanted (you know, so I could be clear and focused in my meditations or "asks" or affirmations)? It was really hard!  Knowing what the hell "abundant" means, when I thought I had never experienced it. That was really, really hard!

The only thing I had going for me was persistence and determination; that and these tiny, fleeting little glimpses of what could be.  I remember that one of the first places I tried to practice what I preached was with my wife of 20 years. It was at the stage where she was driving me crazy (too messy, not communicative enough, too stubborn, not affectionate enough, to much, too little of so many things). I did two things. First, I asked myself, "If I knew she would never change, what would I do?" The answer? Nothing. There is something very deep that binds us. I am committed to her and very much in love with her, and if none of these attributes that were making me crazy ever changed, I would still want to share my life with her. (So why was I wasting so much energy complaining about it all?) That was the first eye opener.

The second thing I did was write down everything I loved and valued about her and our life together. (Here's an important part: It was real stuff. I didn't pad the list or make stuff up. It was stuff I really valued.) I looked at that list every day or two for a few weeks. That's it. I didn't try to DO anything very differently. I just reviewed the list and when I saw her and talked to her, I know I had that list in my consciousness. 

And you know what happened? She started doing a whole bunch of stuff I had been wanting her to do for years. You know what else? She stopped doing a whole bunch of stuff that had been driving me buggy! At least I think she did. (It gets a little hard to tell what is perception and what is "reality.") All I know is that I had stopped focusing on what was wrong, reminded myself of what was right - and pretty soon what I had thought was wrong wasn't wrong any more and there was a lot more of the right. In other words, I experienced the abundance inside, then saw it manifest on the outside. Very cool.

I forget sometimes now and have to do the process over again. But it takes a lot less time between catching myself and making the shift. First it took a few weeks, then days, then hours, then minutes. Now, if I get out of my own way and stop, refocus, come out of the muddle of old hurts and self-talk and refocus on the present moment. Voila. It happens all over again. What I like about it most, being the skeptic that I am, is that it feels so real and authentic. No Pollyanna thinking. Just a solid, authentic shift that doesn't pretend anything. It knows.

Has this happened to you?