My intention for 2008 has been to allow myself to receive abundance in all areas of my life. Prior to making this intention, I had been frustrated with my perception of my life that showed an apparent lack of results that were clearly incongruent with the energy I was putting forth to call abundance in. So for this year, my goal has been to focus on changing my perception about what abundance is and how it flows to me.
My work this year has been threefold:
First, I have been working on seeing the abundance that surrounds me on a daily basis. This means, that I have been actively working on raising my awareness of the myriad ways that I attract blessings and gifts into my life every day.
Second, I have been learning to see that absolutely every experience, even the unpleasant or challenging ones, offer me gifts if I choose to see them. I am constantly opening myself up to expanding my definition of abundance thereby allowing more of it in.
Finally, I have been learning to let go of my limited views on what forms this abundance should take so that I may allow the abundance to flow to me in whatever ways it can. I am understanding more and more each day that the more I allow the universe to answer my requests in its own way, the more amazing those gifts of abundance are.
I recently had an experience that I feel illustrates these lessons beautifully. I received my cell phone bill this month and was shocked to find that it was twice what I normally pay. On further review of the charges, I found that my son and I had gone over our monthly minutes and therefore were charged for the overage. This had never happened to us before because in previously months we had had enough rollover minutes to cover any extra charges that we might have incurred. Well, this month we didn't have that luxury. The result was quite a hefty bill. As you might imagine, I was not a happy camper.
Not wanting to have to deal with this again next month, I called my phone company and asked about changing my wireless plan. Obviously, we needed more minutes. The customer service representative sounded robotic as they often do. She was doing her job by the script and taking care of me as she had been trained to do. Although I find this sort of practiced neutrality challenging, I chose to understand that she was merely doing her job and that it had absolutely nothing to do with me. I also chose to take complete responsibility for the fact that my son and I had gotten ourselves into this mess and that it was our responsibility to pay the consequences of that, no matter how unpleasant.
I asked her to explain the bill to me, which she did. I asked her what my options were, and she gave me several things to consider. I gave her a couple of different scenarios and we walked through the possibilities together. Finally, I chose to go to the next plan up which essentially doubles the number of minutes we have. While she was working on changing that in the computer, she had to keep apologizing for the slowness. I assured her that it was fine and that she needn't worry about it. I explained that I knew this was my own fault and that apparently patience was a part of the price that I needed to pay along with the additional cost.
Well, the transaction was finally completed, and she asked me if I needed anything else. I told her no and thanked her for her assistance. She responded by telling me that since I had changed price plans in order to take care of the problem, that she would be crediting my account for $150. I thought I had misheard her. I asked her to repeat herself. She did. She said that because my bill was going to be going up this month anyway due to my rate plan change, that she would give me a break on this month's bill with the overage fees. I didn't know what to say except Thank You! I was stunned. My bill would now be less than I would have paid on a normal month. She continued her explanation by saying how nice it was that I had not faulted her or the company for the extra charges. Most of the people she deals with want to blame the phone company, but I had not done that and she appreciated it.
That's when I realized the true blessing of this interaction. This was not a pleasant situation to deal with. I did not go into this exchange happy to have to pay twice what I normally do for my monthly service. But all experiences contain lessons and gifts, and as it turned out, this one provided me to opportunity to practice what I preach. In this interaction I had made two important choices: one, was to take complete responsibility for my phone bill and two, was to have compassion for this woman who might appear emotionless but who was simply doing her job. I did not complain, play the victim or bargain with her. I did not take my frustrations out on her. I also did not ask her for any special favors or deals. Instead, I accepted my responsibility for the situation and took a proactive stance that I hoped would help me to avoid repeating this mistake in the future. And for that, I was rewarded with a gift of financial abundance that I could have never conjured up in my own limited view of things.
The universe knows that I am looking to bring greater abundance in my life. What I am learning is that the universe truly knows better than I do how to allow abundance to flow to me. My job is to be grateful for each and every experience in my life, even those that are unpleasant or challenging, and then step out of the way to allow universal blessings to flow. I get to learn to expect the unexpected and marvel and the many forms that abundance can take.
I invite you to learn how to receive abundance into your life so that you can consciously create the life that you want. You can find resources for ways to do that at [http://www.inner-alchemy.net]
Lynne Guerné is founder of Inner Alchemy Transformations where she provides telecourses and coaching to help people manifest results in their lives.
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