Normally, on a Saturday afternoon, I would be doing some work or otherwise trying to "accomplish" something, but this day was different. I got up in the morning and took my compost to the farmer's market. From there I went on a two-mile hike through the wooded area of Inwood Hill Park. When I returned home, I did a little bit of writing, a lengthy meditation, and jammed out to some feel-good music while I was getting ready. Rather than steal away a few hours for myself, I opted to allot myself most of the day... I really needed that...
My partner and I met our friend downtown at a trendy little bar for cocktails and appetizers, which we followed up with dinner at a cozy little Persian restaurant. The truth is that we dropped a fair amount of money that night. Nothing outlandish, but we certainly weren't watching it. That was a moment of recognition for both of us. We realized that we're doing so well and that our habits are so solid that neither of us was even thinking about the money. Sometimes, it's nice to have those moments...
Not so long ago, I wrote a piece about planning for the reopening (of everything, really) by addressing your budget so that you don't suddenly find that you've gone backward out of excitement that the world is open again. While the experience this weekend was absolutely aligned with that idea (because we have been planning for more social activities), it also highlighted another very important lesson on abundance: being a conduit.
According to Oxford, a conduit is "a channel for conveying water or other fluid." If you really think about it, don't you want to be a conduit for abundance? We oftentimes believe that we want abundance to flow to us, but perhaps we might reframe that; what we really need is for abundance to flow through us. To illustrate the concept, let's consider a pipe with water flowing through it. As long as the water is permitted to exit the tube at the far end, there will continue to be room for more water to flow into the tube. Now, should you do something to stop it up at the far end, eventually no more water can enter the tube; the tube becomes full, cannot take any more, and the water begins to spew out everywhere but the intended place. Our money works much the same way. We must loosen the tightness of the grip we have on our money in order to make space for more to flow in. Now, can we be incredibly deliberate at the pace of which we allow money to flow outward? Certainly. However, if you don't allow money to flow on from you, you will create a backup that disrupts the flow of money including that which was intended to be entering your experience.
So, how can we be deliberate conduits of abundance? Each end every time we vote with our dollar to spend at a store we appreciate, or pay down a little more debt, or visit the restaurant you haven't been to in ages, you turn on the flow of abundance in their direction. In turn, you make more space for that very same abundance to flow to you. Attracting abundance into our experience isn't about white-knuckling our finances, it's about allowing the deliberate flow of money through our experience. As it flows in, we have the precious opportunity to utilize it to meet our wants and needs while simultaneously allowing it to move on. In this way, we open ourselves to receive more.
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