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The Theory I’m Testing:

Each of us creates or manifests our own abundance in life.

I’m really not a money/profit-obsessed idiot like my first post in this series, The Abundance Experiment would lead you to believe. I reread it as I was putting it into a more blog-friendly format for WordPress. All I can say is Wow.

This is the second installment in this series.

The Abundance Experiment started out great but went down in flames

Magda Fou / Unsplash

Abundance to me isn’t necessarily monetary, though having enough money to do what I want is nice. Abundance to me means that I have enough resources to do the things that have meaning in my life.

The reread made me feel really squidgy and also like I need to sort my priorities out.

Money, success, recognition and all that comes with it? I’m not sure I could handle that triad. I’m an introvert, what the hell am I thinking? Still having a scarcity mindset, did you all see that?

What I really want is to provide a comfortable retirement for myself and my husband. Maybe entertain a few people along the way. Learn lots of new stuff. meet my favorite authors and squee like a fangirl.

Contemplating My Navel

I spent some time this week thinking. The part-time job is pretty mindless so I could put ‘me’ on autopilot while I let my conscious and subconscious duke it out.

I have a wonderful, loving, supportive husband; a comforting and warm home to live in, enough food to eat and wonderful friends. My life is already abundant in all the ways that count. Why in the hell do I whine? First world problem.

My takeaway from the mental exercise is that my habits have become flabby. Maybe they never were buff in the first place. I don’t know, but a workout plan is indicated. Maybe add exercise for other parts of me that are flabby, but that’s a distant bridge.

A practice that I long held, but slipped away from, was to go over what I’m grateful for and appreciate in my life. I used to do this every morning before my feet hit the floor. I stopped probably because it slipped my mind and wasn’t as much of an ingrained habit as I thought it was. Or I just like to snuggle under the covers and hit snooze because I’m inherently lazy and not a morning person.

I also stopped meditating. Daily meditation, even for five minutes, gives your brain room to breathe. My brain is not getting any time to relax, it’s like a monkey, swinging through the neuron vines, chattering and throwing poop.

So gratitude in the morning, meditation in the evening. Check. Kept it up all week. One week does not make a lifelong habit. But it is a start to the journey.

Honing My Craft

To become better at writing, one needs to write. Yup, duh.

I’m going to try to spit out something short on Medium every day (aka when the mood hits me or when I remember). Another flabby habit I’ve acquired is not following through on Medium. Medium is a great place to write. It has a free program. If you go with the paid program, you’re eligible to earn money on your writing via how many “claps” you get from your readers. I’m also publishing the Abundance Experiment there. Please visit my page here: https://medium.com/@patricialemieux. The version on Medium is slightly different from the one you’re finding on my blog. It’s rougher by far because I spend less time editing and making it pretty. The version you’re reading here has been reformatted and actually edited.

I signed up for and started Jeff Goins Tribe Writers eCourse. Jeff has a wonderful, supportive community built to go with the course. I’m finding like-minded souls who also need some prodding to get started as well as established authors who are advising and cheerleading the newbies among us. I’m not an affiliate so I’m not making money from this recommendation. The course is stellar so far.

An Abundant Hot Mess

In this first week, abundance meant an abundance of challenges including memory loss apparently. I’m publishing this post a week late so it will be followed up with the Week 2 post in a couple of days. Oops.

Gratitude, appreciation, and meditation aside, I am NOT a Pollyanna. I have a hard time buying some of the new age thinking. There’s a little part of my mind that’s saying “this shit does not work” despite some of my beliefs to the contrary. So … how deep is that belief then? I know everything is not sparkles and unicorns. The world has a ton of dark, nasty things in it. It always has and it always will. But I do believe that any lightness and happy that we can bring to the world will dispell some of that dark.

I was in such a concretely shitty mood this week at work, that I told the guys to leave me alone and that if I gave them the old stink-eye … to run. Chocolate helped. They know enough to toss me some and leave me alone for an hour.

Of course, the insurance, cat vet bill, credit card bill (with Tribe Writers on it) hit this week and my art class is this weekend and I haven’t paid for it. So there you have it.

Death spiral week! Started great but seems to be going down in flames. Downward spirals are just opportunities to rise above them and exceed! See you next week!

Namaste,