Dear Girlfriends,

I've never been one for New Year's Resolutions. I work hard to set myself up for success and over the years, I've come to realize that making a vow to make a significant change to one's life (or diet) is best not done with a glass of champagne in one hand and a cracker dipped in cheese ball in the other. But this year was different.

I was in India when the stock market took its first shocking plunge. Between Mumbai and Chennai and Trivandrum, I'd check the market via my iPhone every other day just to see how far the roller coaster called the NYSE had dipped. But walking among some of the poorest in the world, I found myself alarmingly disinterested in the Dow. Clearly, India was a good place to be to keep such things as my retirement in perspective.

After I returned home, as the stock market continued to tank, I watched as a portion of our savings was sucked down the drain with it. Having built our nest egg the hard way - one little robin's egg at a time over the past 20 years - I was shocked, along with the rest of the world, by just how quickly it evaporated. But between my return from India at the end of October and the close of the Christmas season, I came to realize something very important about the old state in which I operated as it relates to material possessions, wealth, work, time, favors - and, yes, even forgiveness.  Choosing to operate in a state of deficiency robs one's peace.

Although I'm a Positive Polly, I struggle like many people with the fear that I'm going to run out of, well . . everything. (You should see how I stockpile canned chicken broth. Embarrassing.) But I think I might have been especially concerned about running out of money. Choosing to operate in a state of abundance, I shifted my thinking to what I have today, no longer focusing on what I might not have tomorrow. Realizing that I have everything and more of what I need today, I have complete peace.

Every day, I race with the 24-hour clock and most days, Father Time kicks my butt. But by living in a state of abundance, I breathe a little easier - knowing I have just the amount of time I'm supposed to have on this earth until God calls me home. However, last week I fell off the abundance wagon as I prepared for this week's move from our apartment to the condo. Hopefully, I will not be standing at the Pearly Gate before the movers arrive tomorrow morning, or my angst with time will all be for naught. But isn't that the whole downside to deficient thinking? It never pays off.

I'm pretty good about being available to my friends when they need a comforting shoulder to lean on, but I have to admit, I often fall into a state of deficiency when they fail to reciprocate. This is when I have to stop and slap myself silly to re-engage in abundant thinking. I've found over the past six months of consciously choosing to operate in a state of abundance that it is impossible, impossible, not to forgive.

Living in a state of abundance, I think I might be a better me. I know that this new state of mind has made me a more generous person. And I know it's also helped me to maintain a much more sane schedule. But mostly, I think living in a state of abundance has brought me peace: with myself; with circumstances outside my control; and with those who seem to be in my life for no other reason than to aggravate the fool out of me.

What state are you operating in today? Choose abundance. The more you think it, the more you live it. The more you live it, the greater your peace.  

Giving stuff away,

Ellen

Posted by Ellen on June 11, 2009 6:31 PM  |  Category: A State of Mind