Attitude + Awareness = ABUNDANCE

“We tend to forget that happiness doesn’t come as a result of getting something we don’t have, but rather of recognizing and appreciating what we do have.”  – Frederick Keonig, German Inventor

Is it really that easy to choose your attitude to decidedly find all that is right in your life? Just as any discipline, I think it’s constant practice and mindful awareness of the choice in perspective. When we are inundated with advertising and images that depicts happiness being relative to having things, looking a certain way or doing particular activities, it is difficult to bust through the illusion. That’s why I stopped getting magazine subscriptions and now I fast-forward through TV/online commercials.

As a child, my brain was trained early to focus on what I didn’t have and I was reminded constantly of what we couldn’t afford.  I even find myself repeating to my children the exact same words I heard from my parents so it’s ingrained pretty deep.

If you look at the image below from Aaron Endre, it does a great job of describing the abundance state of mind versus the scarcity mindset. Break down the word S-C-A-R-C-I-T-Y.  It’s not only a root for the word “scare”, but the word “scar” is also embedded.  Scarcity is coming from a place of fear that has been scarred into cells.  It certainly was for me.

I know it’s possible to change the mindset.  In my late teens and 20’s, it seemed as though whatever I set mind to I could accomplish.  I never heard of law of attraction and I was certainly not on a conscious spiritual path.  My ego was in the driver’s seat, the time in my life when it served me well.  Until I left the banking industry, every job I interviewed for I received an offer.  I had an attitude that it was the employer that was benefitting from my experience and qualifications and they’d be crazy not to hire me.  I had an abundance mindset and witnessed doors opening for me.  It was as though I was hardly putting any effort into accomplishing my goals.  Ahh, youth.  Success begat success. It was a liberating time and a free feeling of infinite possibilities.

Something happened after leaving the long-standing career and I attempted to switch gears into the non-profit sector. I kept getting called back as a finalist, but someone else was getting the offer. I started to doubt myself and questioned my marketability. I could sense the old self-talk coming back from the days of my childhood about what I lacked. With the fruitless job search, I was told I needed certain skills or experience, being pigeon-holed in one industry was a concern, and even that I was over-qualifed or over-confident for positions. I had tied my self-worth to monetary and material  values. My self-esteem was draining because of a void that was opened once I didn’t have the paycheck or title anymore.

The process of finishing this film has often bruised my ego. However, when I remind myself that when I began following my heart, I felt a feeling of abundance that wasn’t money related. The network of friends and many professional contacts I made through the course of my career were still in my life.  I wasn’t pushing a boulder uphill every day for someone else to make all the money.  I could own the ideas that I was creating, and the ideas were coming fast and fierce. Through synchronicity, I was meeting new people in the film industry and connections to incredible talent was accessible.  I was building confidence to go out into the world and proudly say that I am a filmmaker completing a documentary.

Now, as I am taking baby steps in fundraising and asking people to financially support the film, I find that I need to develop the abundant muscle with money. My deep-rooted fear about not having enough or being worthy enough has surfaced. What was it that I was unknowingly doing in my 20’s that I can now consciously and sustainably imprint onto my brain and into my cells? The starting point is that I am practicing the attitude of gratitude, looking at all the positive things that I have in my life. I may be slower to accelerate and manifest what I want, but it feels more genuine and authentic. I am consciously choosing an abundant mindset and aware when I fall back into the scarcity pattern.  I feel the difference in the energy and learning to recognize the triggers that set me back.  With the combination of attitude and awareness, I know abundance in all forms is around the corner. I just know it. This time, I’m not on auto-pilot.  No matter how much I have to work at it, now it’s my intuition, not my ego, that is in the driver’s seat.

Berni