The background music while I write today's blog is The Holiday's soundtrack. Why? Because it's been a gray week and the playlist reminds me of what it was like to re-watch this movie with my best friends for the upteenth time. It makes me think of what it's like to hang out with people who love you through the good, the bad, the ugly, and all the in-betweens. More than anything, it helps me connect to the abundance of friendship when Life feels a little noisy and a bit gray.
Finding abundance in every day moments is what we'll chat about this week. Once we start noticing what we consider abundance, we start to notice what we value. From that place, we can start to align our time, dedication, and effort to honour those things. We can then live into the lives and the leadership we want to embody. For the purposes of this article, I refer to financial abundance, as well as mental, emotional, spiritual or purpose, and physical abundance.
How does this relate to values and facing personal/professional curveballs, though? I have a theory that the more you anchor in your purpose and your values, the more abundance you discover and create. This then helps you navigate the wonderful and the dreadful aspects of every day personal/professional life. This noticing or 'abundance tracking' helps you anchor yourself in what truly matters in the face of chronic overwhelm, change, challenge, and opportunity. This practice of noticing can help you notice the resources, places, relationships, experiences, and practices that help you show up in integrity with your values, create the conditions for living that you want, and be the type of leader you wish to be.
Now, how is 'abundance tracking' different from toxic positivity or denial, which are often unhelpful ways of bypassing your nervous system's responses and cues? Jane Ysadora first introduced me to this practice by inviting me to notice reality as it is, as well as the abundance that often exists within it. She invited me to keep a journal of financial abundance. The idea was to notice what abundance already exists in your life as you work towards nurturing, building, and sharing it. The act of naming it or writing it helped you solidify the noticing.
The exercise became more accessible to me when I expanded it to include mental, emotional, purpose, and physical abundance. For example, financial abundance might be when a contract comes through, when someone buys you coffee, when the thing you wanted goes on sale, when you get your paycheck, or when you invest in something. That was a very helpful way of noticing financial abundance in different contexts and how it can show up. It also helped me to start noticing what I actually valued, how I wanted to use money as a tool, and for what.
How does this all connect to values, then? When you start keeping track of abundance, that gives further clues as to what you genuinely value about and the types of behaviours you need to embody to show up in integrity with these values. For example, having clients dedicated to embodying their purpose, passion, and potential represents purpose abundance to me. Being able to create a space to help you find ways to do just that is a treasure. Another example is hanging out with old friends to watch The Holiday with a deep ease of connection as a form of emotional abundace.
Personally, this practice has helped me contextualize hard things within the broader picture of what's also happening during any given situation. It's not about drowning curveballs in toxic positivity and it is about making space for curveballs to be more than a disorienting experience. Simple practices such as noticing 3 little, tiny joys in an every day moment can help your nervous system anchor in more than the stress of a particularly unexpected curveball. I invite you to try it out for a few days and be open to what you might be surprised to notice.
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