knowabundance.com

Happy Monday!

Are you under pressure to get things done?

Do you feel stressed about meeting all of your deadlines on time? Are you juggling multiple priorities and afraid you might drop one of the balls?

I was rushing around last week in this sort of mindset, thinking that if I just moved faster I would have more time and get ahead of the tension and stress I was feeling.

Then I almost ran over a snake with my car and this made me stop.

I had pulled off into a residential neighborhood – cutting across town to get around freeway traffic. I was speeding along, thinking about all of the things I needed to get done in the next hour when I turned a corner and there in the middle of the street, coiled up with its head waving in the air was a snake.

Because I was driving impatiently and thinking ahead to what I need to do – my reaction was slow. I barely had time to maneuver my wheels to miss flattening the snake with my tires.

Sure, a 25 inch snake is not something you expect to see miles from any park in a concrete-and-asphalt neighborhood in downtown Oakland. I’m sure I could have made excuses for accidentally killing this random snake in a city street.

But the reality was that I was in rush mode and distracted – not caring much about where I was – just focused on where I was going.

The slow-moving snake was an instant reminder of how our rushing is more often harmful than helpful.

What are we rushing for? A few extra minutes? And what gets run over or killed in the process? Is the cost of our rushing worth the effects on our bodies, minds, health and relationships?

What matters more – our deadlines or being conscious and considerate of life?

Happy Monday!

This is our last post in the five week Time series. So far we have four tools for helping us know abundance in time:

Tool #1: Let the time we have be enough

Tool #2: Ability to shift our perception of time

Tool #3: Value the process as much as the goal

Tool #4: Give up (the illusion of) control

This week we head into the territory of Now, where everything takes place. Our thoughts, feelings, experiences and conversations, our planning for the future and our analysis of the past – our whole lives are lived here – in the Now.  Read more…

Happy Monday!

There is another guaranteed way to discover abundance in time: let go of trying to control what happens.

This is a hard one because our daily lives center around creating order to reach goals and to manage and respond to what is happening with our selves (body, mind, emotions), with each other (same list) and in our environments (natural, social, work, economic.)

Control is a tool that has served us our whole lives:

• Control is how we face the unknown.
• Control gives us a sense of security and assures us that we are in charge of everything that it is possible to be in charge of.
• Control is power to make things happen.
• Control is a way to get people to do what we want.
• Control helps us eliminate undesirable factors and predict and prepare for the future.
• Control enables us to manage what is happening – so that things don’t get out of control.

Control is such a useful behavior, why would we want to let go of it?

Because contrary to our belief – control actually limits our ability to freely live our lives, to creatively respond to what is happening and to relax, to be stress free, to know abundance in time. Read more…

Happy Monday!

Ok, so we’ve established that:

1. What keeps us from knowing abundance in time is our inability to accept what we have – we always want more and,

2.  Time as we know it and live it is a mental construction.

But, while we’re working on being satisfied and playing around with our ability to shift our time perspective – we still have our endless to do lists and routine daily demands.

How do we “manage our time” and respond to what is happening? Read more…

Happy Monday!

What’s on your schedule this week?

Does it matter, with everything that needs to get done, that time as we know it and live it is only a mental construction?

Sure, some say that time doesn’t actually “exist” but the social and economic fabric of our global society (and all of our technology) runs on our collectively built and individually maintained concept of Time.

With our calendars and clocks, our PDAs and watches – our appointments, deadlines and responsibilities – of course time exists. Because we created it, and live our lives by it, time exists for us.

The clock helps regulate each hour of the day so we can plan our lives. Read more…

Happy Monday!

There is never enough time.
If only I had more time.

Do you ever have these thoughts?

I know I do. My scarcity mentality always kicks in when it comes to Time. For some reason, there is never enough.

Especially when there’s so much to do…juggling a million and one priorities, rushing to get things done on time, pressured by endless to-do lists and we need to keep up with everything that is happening and there is always something else that needs to be done and…if only there were more Time.

In our fast-paced, multi-tasking, ultra-busy lives, how do we Know Abundance in Time?

This week’s post is the first in a five part series on Time.

Why spend so much time talking about time? Because our understanding of Time affects our relationship with every aspect of our lives – and in today’s world we live our lives by the clock. Read more…

Happy Monday!

Today is a holiday in the U.S. Are you working? How often do you work on your holidays, your vacations, and your weekends?

Are you always working? Why? What’s so important?

We all know from experience that the to-do list never really ends: one thing is crossed off and another fills the space.

Repeat.

One thing is crossed off and another fills the space. Repeat.

So we live, day by day.

Yet, somehow, even as we replicate this pattern over and over, we believe that we will come to the end of our to-do list and then we’ll rest. Then we will have time for whatever it is we are putting off until we have time for it.

Are we there yet?

We also have the tendency to think that we are the center of the universe. Have you noticed that? How important we think we are to whatever is happening or to whatever we think needs to happen?

We can’t take a break right now because then, whatever we think needs to happen won’t happen, and it needs to happen and we need to make it happen. Suddenly everything relies on our action, on our doing. The world needs us.

So the story in our mind goes.

Our thinking can get a bit delusional at times with the sense of our own importance. Reality checks are necessary.

Take a reality check break today. You already know your list isn’t going anywhere, so Relax. Turn off your computer and go outside into the world. Look around.

See how much is happening without any effort at all on your part.

Pause. Notice something that you have never noticed before. Talk to someone you have never talked to before. Listen to what they have to say.

Watch the sunset and stare up at the night sky. See the billions of stars and galaxies stretching into the unknown. Remember how small you and your thoughts and your to-do lists are in the universe of all that is.

Laugh at the absurdity of your own sense of importance. Repeat.

Welcome to Know Abundance!

A new positive thinking blog for fundraisers – and anyone else looking to supplant scarcity mentality with abundant living.

Delivered fresh every Monday – just when you need a dose of positivity to get your fundraising act in gear.

Know Abundance is living and working from the awareness that there is nothing you need that you don’t already have.

This blog is for you if:

• you worry about how to raise money to support your organization
• you stress about how to get everything done
• you wonder how to manage donor (and your own) fears about economy

Posted every Monday, Know Abundance is:

• fundraising from plenty and gratitude
• positive thinking to help you navigate your work week
• perspective to widen your outlook beyond daily headlines

Know Abundance is a shared journey. I, like you, am learning to live and work in new ways. To shed the thought patterns and beliefs that keep us trapped in a never-ending scramble for time, money, resources, and market share. To embrace the mantra, “Everything I need I already have.”

I know how hard you are working to bring into reality your vision of a better world. Know Abundance is for you. The weekly posts offer tools to see your worry, stress and fears in a different light, to know abundance even in the midst of scarcity.

Coming up in January:

Jan. 12 – Why think positive?

Jan. 19 – Live Your Dreams Today

Jan. 26 – Scarcity as Reality is Relative

I welcome your comments, questions and participation as we learn together.