Ep 101: Creating Abundance in Your Life

This week I dive into the energy of abundance vs. the energy of scarcity. 

You'll learn:

• the difference between abundance and scarcity and how it shows up in your life
• how to recognize you're in scarcity
• about the law of attraction and how you can make it work for you (it's not all woo!)
• ways you can shift from scarcity into abundance

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=== RESOURCES ===

There's ONE MORE SPOT left in RISE: The Live Retreat Experience! Would you like to join us?

Visit kortneyrivard.com/retreat to learn more and schedule a call with me!

Transcript

0:51

Hello, friends. And welcome back to real at brave and unstoppable for episode number 101. I'm going to talk about my retreat one last time, because guess what? My retreat rise- the live retreat experience is just a week away. I still have one spot available if, if you're listening and you're feeling like getting away for a few days. If you live outside of the Washington DC area and you would have to fly here, you may find that you're cutting out a little close, but especially if you're local, I still have a spot for you. So reach out to me at kortney@kortneyrivard.com and we can talk about it and get you registered. I've been working on the agenda, creating all the content and activities, and it's going to be a great time. It's going to be super transformational as it's designed to be. And it's just a really great way to get away and focus on you for three solid days. It's not very often that we do that. Like takes specified time or set aside, like dedicated time with zero distraction to really focus on, you know, who we are, what we want, what's standing in our way. And, you know, shifting some of that to be able to move forward in life and not stay stuck. Anyway. The retreat is September 8th, ninth, and 10th. Check-in as on the seventh and you would stay overnight on the 10th. So check out on the 11th. And it's in a renovated farmhouse that's amazing. I'm so in love with this place. And it's literally like, not very far from where I live at all. Um, so pretty cool. Anyway, reach out to me if you are leaning in, I would love to have you. Okay. So today, I'm talking about. Well, last week I talked about self concept and belief, right. And part of having a supportive self-concept is being able to think expansively. To be able to really think about what do I need to believe about myself, to have the life that I want? And today I'm going to talk about abundance. The energy of abundance versus the energy of scarcity, because it's really important if you want things in your life, which most of us do, even if you're not exactly sure what that is we're going to talk about that today). But most of us want something. Or really, we want to feel a certain way. And if you are stuck focusing on what you don't have or what you're lacking, you're really not going to be in the best position to bring the things you want into your experience. So. We're going to talk about that today. And I don't know who are my glass, half empty people out there. Or have you ever thought, or have you ever felt like nothing is going your way? Actually. I got a backup, a step here, side note. I was reading a book on communicating and relationships. And there was a really good point in this book. So this is totally a side note, but I think it's important is that we've been taught to say things like, I feel like nothing is going my way, but actually that's not a feeling. That's a thought, so. I'm going to back up a second. Cause the, the thought. I don't feel like anything is going my way, creates a feeling like maybe it's frustration or like resignation or, you know, something like that. So, really important distinction to make. I just caught myself. So I'll ask, have you ever thought nothing goes my way or like good things don't happen to me. I'm just unlucky. Have you ever had any of those thoughts? I know I have. Especially when I got went through my whole divorce. You know, I, of course I had that. I had the discovery of my ex having an affair and then you know, he wasn't really sure where he fell on the straight-gay spectrum. I don't know if that's the proper way of referring to that, referring to that as, but, you get the idea. So he didn't want to just split up right away. So we went to counseling for a long time and, you know, nothing ever seemed to go my way during that. And then I fell into a lot of depression. I felt terrible about myself, about life. You know, I didn't have any money. Cause when we finally, you know, when he finally decided that he wanted to, yes, he is indeed gay and wanted to. You know, divorce. Um, he ended up cutting me off financially and deciding that this is the amount of money that I'm going to give you, which wasn't really enough exactly and so I had struggles with that. So that was another thing. It didn't go my way. I had a couple jobs that didn't pay very well and finally, I got a job that was like, It paid really well. And it was like, oh, here, finally, I'm on my way here. This has good, I'm getting on my feet. And then I lost that job. So that was, that sucked. And then my son was going through a really hard time. I had a couple of relationships that were just terrible and I was so focused on finding a relationship so I had a partner cause I didn't want to be lonely. So in my mind, like nothing works out for me with relationships. And then, you know, there were some other struggles too, but when all this stuff goes wrong, It's really easy to feel like you're cursed or to think you're cursed or think nothing goes my way. And I, during this time and you know, I think my ex always said to me too, that I'm a glass half empty person or I'm pessimistic. And it's true for a long time. I was really pessimistic. The thought of nothing ever goes my way had been sticking around for a long time. I had that, you know, I think I had it all through to be honest, high school, college, all, you know, the whole time. And what's funny is that there are plenty of things that went my way. But I was just focused on all the things that didn't. But I always felt like the things that really, I really wanted to bring into my experience. Just never panned out. And what I realized too is it was almost like a safety zone. Comfort zone, because it was easier. There was less chance of getting hurt or failing. You know, status quo, everything. Everything. Effort, emotion, you know, and everything was just kind of status quo because it was easier to just maintain that than risk feeling bad or getting hurt. But at some point when I, well, when I went through my divorce and had such a hard time just regulating emotions, I realized when I was in, I've talked about this before, but I went through. DBT or dialectical behavior therapy. Which was so helpful. Everybody should have those skills. It's the, they teach you skills on communication, handling your emotions. Mindfulness it's so such good stuff. But I realized that I really had to change my mindset about my life, because it didn't feel good to be in that pessimistic, negative mindset that I had. Like, you know, always thinking the thoughts, nothing works out for me. Expecting the worst kind of thing. Now, I do want to be really clear that we don't want to like bypass, right. We don't want to bypass negative emotions. Because it's completely normal to have emotions that feel negative. So I'm not suggesting we bypass these emotions and just shove them down because we do need to process them. And that's okay. But it's, you know, part of that is not getting sucked into a story that's attached to an emotion. I forget the amount of time. I think it's 90 seconds, but an emotion like in your body, it really only lasts about 90 seconds until like the chemical cocktail kind of moves through you. And anything longer than that is just a mind our mind has gotten involved. So we've attached like a story or a thought to the emotion and anything longer than that, we're just attaching to that and running with it. That's why mindfulness and being able to observe your thoughts is so, so important. Anyway. That was a little bit of a digression. But today I'm going to talk about turning this attitude around, like, you know, if you've ever thought you've had a string of bad luck. You know, or things aren't seeming to go your way. You definitely want to keep listening to this episode. I'm going to talk a little bit about abundance versus scarcity. And what kinds of things you need to do in order to shift like the default energy that you have, or the default thinking you have to a place where you feel this more expansive, abundant energy in your body. And it's all a practice. So know that you don't just make the shift and integrate it into your life and in your being in an instant. The shift can happen and be like realized or received pretty quickly, but to be able to sort of, embody it and make it part of who you are, takes a little bit of time. It's like building a new habit. So, first of all, let's just talk about, you know, the energies of abundance versus scarcity. And I'm going to use the good old pie example to illustrate this in a minute. But when you're in the energy of scarcity or lack, cause we also call it. You believe that there aren't enough resources to go around. So it's a super competitive energy. It's the feeling of like, if they take some of the pie, there's not going to be enough for me or as much for me. So it's like the competition for resources. And, you know, competition, like there's healthy competition. And then there's the competition that brings out the worst in people. Right. So keep that in mind. But scarcity is really believing that there are a fixed number of pies with a fixed number of slices. And it's believing that once the pie is gone, you've totally missed out. When the slices are gone, they're gone. That's it. No pie for you. That's a Seinfeld reference. If you didn't get that. So it's really a win, lose mindset. Like if you win, I lose. In contrast, the energy of abundance is really expansive and it's really oriented towards like, I feel it as fluidity and flow. It's like the exchange of energy and it all is just going, coming around, going around, coming around. It's just feels very, it feels good, right? It's trusting in the infinite resources that the universe has to provide. Right. It's seeing the pies and the slices but knowing that you can always make more pie. So in other words, when the pie is gone, you're out of luck isn't true. Because there's always more, you can always make more. My ex-husband always used to say, oh, it's only money. We can make more. And I mean, it's really true at the end of the day. Right. There's. It's really true. But the definition of abundance is a large quantity of something. And the energy of abundance is also tapping into this innate, like natural tendency of nature to just grow, to expand. And become more. Life force is always creating more of everything, you know, there are always more trees. There's always more, you know, sunshine, like it's just, you know, Bountifulness. Lots available on a cosmic level. The universe is always expanding like scientifically, and I guess there are varying views on that because I recently read Stephen Hawking's I think it's a brief history of time. Yeah. And so there are some varying views on that, but that's all like quantum physics, complicated stuff and Stephen Hawking stuff. So we are totally not going to touch that today. But abundance is an everyone wins mindset. Like win-win like we can all win. Nobody has to lose here. But back to scarcity for one second, it was a mention one more thing about it. Scarcity comes from like that lizard brain, you know, the primal. Primal brain primal fear, and wanting safety and survival. And really interesting when you think about it, it makes so much sense, but did you know that we're two and a half times more likely to not want to lose something than we are to want to gain something. And that's something really, I think, just really helpful to keep tucked away in your brain. Like, just keep it in mind. Scarcity is fear-based and it's based in not wanting to lose. So some examples of scarcity. Money is one that is like, probably the, one of the biggest areas where scarcity lives. You know, it's really focused on the money you don't have or you wish you had, but really you don't have. There isn't enough to go around or you can't spend it or you'll run out of money. You need to hold your money close. Like hoard it. And, and just not thinking in possibility about spending money, like it's the, if I spend it, it will never come back to me. Is it possible that if you spend money, that you can make more? And the answer to that is yes, absolutely. Or with food focusing, like if you're trying to watch what you eat, if you're, you know, you're all you can think about is the food you can't eat. Instead of thinking about all the great healthy foods that are available to you. Or in business. Competition for clients like viewing your work through a I got to keep my cards close to my vest. I'm not going to share anything with anyone. I got to compete for clients that kind of mentality. In reality, there's enough business to go around. And that collaborative attitude is really more of the energy of abundance. Also people in scarcity, tend to control or dictate things. They try to control everything. And when they don't feel in control, that's super problematic. There are a lot of emotions that come up that, you know, then emotional regulation if that those skills aren't intact, People get really reactive if you've ever met anyone like that. And people in scarcity there, or lack, really tend to hoard resources too. So I think it's probably a pretty easy to determine if you're in scarcity, the energy of scarcity, but like here are a few things to watch out for: like, if you're thinking of an absolutes, like black and white catastrophizing, like I never get this or this always happens to me or, you know, I should save the money. Like the never, always, and should. Always ones to watch out for. Or focusing on what you don't have versus what you do have. Feeling disillusioned with like, the competition thing. Like you're always in a win, lose scenario. You might, you know, if things don't go your way, you might think I always lose. When really you. There was a, there was a way for everyone to win and, you know, you may just not be seeing the ways in which you're winning. There's a book called the magic of thinking big by David Schwartz. I have not actually read the book, but I saw this quote from it and I love it. And the quote is the size of your success is limited by the size of your belief. And this is something that I talk about all the time. Cause that's really, um, I talk about belief. A lot, because that is where abundance really lies is your belief that you can have what you really want in life. And what you do get in life, and we're going to get totally into this in a second. Is really dictated by how much you believe you can have it. Like if you don't believe you can have it, well, you're never going to get it. So, I love that quote. It's a great way to sum up kind of the thing we're going to talk about today. Uh, so let's get into the energy of abundance, a little deeper. Because I'm sure that you would like to know, like, you know, how you can do that and how you can bring things that you want into your experience. So I'm going to talk today a lot about Abraham Hicks. Occasionally I talk about them on the show and I always sort of caveat it with there are a lot of people that don't love Abraham Hicks, cause it's kind of crazy. The background of it is a little crew of Abraham-Hicks is a little crazy. You can go Google If you want to know more, I'm not going to get into that today, but, um, regardless of what you think about Abraham Hicks and sort of the story about how they came to be, They do have some amazing information that is, has been super helpful just in my own. Abundance mindset and staying in that energy of abundance. Now I'm not going to lie. Like sometimes I do fall into scarcity. I think it's human nature to sometimes do that. When we're in one energy, it doesn't mean we're always going to be there. We kind of, you know, we go back and forth because we're human. But, the first thing I want to talk about is the law of attraction. And before you like roll your eyes at me, I know some people listening are totally like down with that and get it. And some people are just going to be like, oh my God, this is way too woo for me. So just stick with me. Um, the law of attraction says that basically like attracts like that, which is like unto itself is drawn. So it's kind of similar to like radio. I don't know who do listen to radio anymore. Well, I guess even satellite radio, but you know, to listen to a certain radio station, you have to have the dial or whatever you want to call it these days tuned into a certain frequency. So, and there's a receiver that can receive that frequency. But if you're not, if you're looking to, to tune into this particular radio station and you're not on the same frequency as the airwaves that are being delivered, you're not going to hear that radio station. So it's like that. Um, You have to be kind of, you know, in tune with what you want. And so I do want to touch on kind of the, you know, woo side of law of attraction versus the more practical side of it. And I think like when the Secret came out, People kind of I don't want to say misunderstood, but there are a lot of people that were like, oh yeah, whatever. I just have to think that I want something and it's going to come to me. Well, it's not really exactly that. It's more, you know, you align your thinking and your feelings with what you want and you are able to bring it into your experience. It's not like you just sit there and it drops into your lap. But it also operates on the idea that there is nothing really, that you can't do be, or have. We all create a reality. No one else can create your reality for you. No one else is responsible for it. There might be things that don't seem like you're responsible for them that come into your experience. But in reality, there's always some little bit of, of it that we bring in. And the tricky part about this is like when we're little. And we don't have the capacity to really discern what we believe or not. We start, we start to accept how other people in our life told us that our life. Quote unquote, should unfold. Like how, how we should be. The boxes that we should check. And it's like that prescribed life. And so you really need to retrain your brain that you get to decide what you want in your life experience and that you are capable of bringing it into your experience. It doesn't mean it's always going to be easy. Like I said, it's not like it just falls in your lap, but you are capable of aligning, you know, your frequency, your thoughts, your feelings, with what you want. Think about it from this perspective, like when you have a really negative mindset overall, things that's, when things don't seem to go your way. Right? More negative situations tend to come into your experience. Right. I, I know it's true for me. And it's the same thing with a positive experience. Like when you are a positive mindset, positive thinking and feeling, when you get into that energy of flow and expansion, like you bring more of that into your experience. So it's just, that's just something to keep in mind, like awareness-wise too, is, you know, pay attention to where I like to start with feelings. How are you feeling? And then what thinking is creating that feeling and how could that be impacting what you're bringing into your life or not? So one thing that I get a lot is knowing what you want. People, knowing, what they want is really tricky for some people, for a lot of people. When they get to a certain point in their life it's like, ah, who am I even anymore? So how do I know what I want? And so it's kind of it seems overwhelming to F to figure that out, but I will tell you that the only reason anyone ever wants anything is because they want to feel a certain feeling. And really it's they want to feel good, whatever good is to them. You know, maybe it's peaceful content. Joy. Happy. Exuberance. I don't know. Like, you know, there's a lot of feelings. Free is another one. Freedom comes up a lot. So it's always the desire to feel good. So if you can start there, how do I want to feel? And the feelings you have, you want to have might be different in different situations, right? But you can just really start to become aware of that. Like what, what do, what feels good to you? What feelings feel good in your body? That's another thing is to connect the feeling with like how it actually feels in your body. How does sad feel in your body? How does joy feel in your body? So you really get in touch with those emotions. And, you know, when you're in a, when you are in a place where you don't feel good, What do you do? Well remember how I talked about. Your thoughts, creating your feelings, which drive your actions and your actions create your result. So, if you don't feel good, what you need to do is reach for the next, best feeling thought. If that makes sense. It's the thinking that brings the feeling that you desire that you want to feel. The caveat is the next best feeling thought that it's, that you have access to. All right. We don't always have access like, in Abraham Hicks' book ask and it just given... well, then there's probably another writings too, but there's an emotional like scale and it's like, you know, starting with number one, the highest is like joy. And I forget what the bottom one is, but. The idea that they're all like, you know, it's ranked from like one to 22 or something. And the idea is that you look at what emotion you're feeling, and then you can see like what, which emotion is like the next higher vibration feeling. I'm not going to get too much into like vibration today, but you know, what's the next level up kind of. And you might be able to jump like two levels or three levels, but you know, you're not going to go from feeling depression to immediately joy. So it's always just sort of that little bit of a tweak. Like what's the next best feeling thought that I can actually like think, and it will feel, I believe it. I can, I can work with that. But also about feelings. I do want to say to knowing the feeling that you want can really help if you get stuck with that question of what do I want my life to look like? What do I most desire? You can say, like what feeling do I most desire in this situation that can really help you, like figure out what you want in life. Because like I said, a lot of people do have a hard time with that question. Um, another thing about feelings is the better you feel, the more aligned you are, the more you're allowing your connection to what you want. Feeling bad is resistance to that connection and resisting that hinders our ability to get what we want. So like, here's an example, like if you're going after a promotion and if you go into like an interview, With, you know, the higher up bosses. And you're feeling really bad about yourself and your qualifications, or you're really nervous, you're kind of, you kind of have that, Outlook of, you know, what you're missing. But yeah, if you're, so yeah, if you're feeling negative about yourself or your circumstances, like, how do you think the interview is going to go, how are you going to carry yourself when you go into it? You know, chances are, even if you're able to kind of mask some of that stuff, it's always just it's really an energetic thing. I keep talking about that today, but you know, it's, if you go into an interview feeling bad about yourself and pessimistic about getting it, you, might get it, but the chances of you getting that job, or, you know, you're not aligned with it. So, Going back to reaching for the next best feeling thought. I do want to talk about this a little bit more too. Um, people we have upwards of 60,000 thoughts a day. And obviously most of these thoughts are on autopilot. And we think them because they've become part of those deeply worn neural pathways in our brain. They're like a default thought, default thinking that's based on decades of experiences and stories and patterns and beliefs. Before the age of seven, I think I mentioned that earlier that we're not able to discern like what we believe is true and what we're not. So we rely on the people in our lives to teach us that. So it's kind of like, we're just recording data and creating like a, a program we're like programming our brain. in those first years of life, And, you know, by the time we're seven, you know, seven is even really young to start to know what is true for you to really think about that. So, you know, we're just recording the data. We're going by, you know, what our family beliefs are, what our family systems say. And, you know, even teachers and coaches and religion culture, all of the things right. And so that computer program is just running, running, running, running. And unless we stop to look at it and go, oh, hey, that's not the program that I want to run, it's just going to keep running. So we have to get really intentional about our thoughts, because our, like I said before, our thoughts create our feelings. And our feelings drive our actions and actions create the result you're going to get. It makes sense. Right? There are hundreds of thoughts that you could think about. A particular circumstance. And you actually get to decide whether or not you're going to buy in to the scarcity based beliefs, which create the scarcity based thoughts. Or if you're going to, you know, go out on a limb and trust in expansion and reach for a better serving a thought that serves you better. Your attention to thought invites something into your experience because of this think, feel do, results connection. And it's, I also want to be clear. This is not about controlling your thoughts. It's about guiding them. It's kind of like reverse engineering. Looking for how you want to feel and then guiding your thoughts to get there. And that might be super gradual. In the book I've been referencing, Ask and it is Given, Abraham Hicks uses. An example of, if you were going to hop in a car and take a road trip from Phoenix to San Diego, that's the example they use. If you face San Diego and you continue to just move in that direction. You'll eventually reach it. But what happens if you lose your sense of direction? You might feel lost and then head back to Phoenix, but then maybe part of the way you, part of the way back to Phoenix, you realize, oh, well I just need to take that road. So you, you know, bounce back the other direction, starting back on your way to San Diego, but then you get lost again. And so it's like this. Uh, constant bouncing back and forth. Um, and you people do that in their life experience too, where it's like, they kind of lose direction and then they go back to what they know, and then they start to go, um, towards what they want, but then they get scared and they go back to what they know, you know, back to the comfort zone. But you know, because you know, you're an adult right? So if you use the example of Phoenix to San Diego, You know, you know, you kind of have knowledge of direction. Like you can, there are road signs, you can use your GPS these days. Like it's easy, right? It's not very logical that you'd remain lost. So, if it were your desire to make the trip, you would really find a way, right? So the trip that we're talking about. From Phoenix to San Diego is really representative of the trip between where you are and where you want to be. And it's really as easily attained as that trip. Once you understand how to discern where you are along the way. Using that constant, emotional guidance system is what Abraham Hicks calls it. You know, being aware of how you're feeling. Looking for what is my desired emotion and then guiding your thoughts to get there. So, this is a good segue into talking about what you want versus what you don't want. And it's a very big difference when it comes to aligning yourself with what you want or what, you know, what you want to bring into your experience. So if there's something that you don't want, your belief has to change. Your beliefs, your thinking has to change. And by the same token, if there are things that are not in your experience that you want to bring in. Your belief also must change. So, if you continue to focus, as you have been to think, as you have been, and to believe the things you've believed. Then nothing in your experience will ever change. It just won't. Remember your thinking drives your feeling, drives your actions. So nothing will change if you're thinking and feeling don't change. Cause your actions won't change. So, if you want to change to different things, you have to think different thoughts. So it means that you have to find unfamiliar ways to approach subjects that are familiar to you, you know, you have to enter, you have to be open to just trying new ways of thinking. And it's hard because we're just, we'd like to cling to our familiar ways it's comfortable and to our brain comfortable equals are familiar, equals safe, comfortable, equals safe. And we claim to those things a lot of the time. A lot of the time, we just, we cling to them cause they're safe, but we don't even really think about questioning them. That like our thinking, our limiting beliefs, the stories we have about ourselves in the world, we don't really think. To question them. So. I see this a lot with money too. Like when people are thinking about working with me. And money is a concern for them. And it, the default thought is I can't afford it. But it's interesting, because I always stay curious about it because my goal in a consult call with somebody at clarity call Is to help them make a decision. And I'm always coming from a very neutral place. I don't want to convince anyone to work with me. I want the, what I, you know, what we talk about on the call, to open their eyes to some things, and I want them to be able to decide what's best for them, but from a place of having all the information and a lot of times, well, all the time when people have this default response of, I can't afford it, usually they haven't really thought about it. They haven't really thought about it. That, you know, maybe there is a way that they can afford it or, you know, maybe they had savings they didn't think about, or they have, you know, a bonus or something. I dunno. You know, it was all these things that they just haven't really stopped to question that. Or, you know, they might have a belief that I don't invest money like that on myself. That's selfish. So, you know, that's a familiar comfort zone thought. So we look into that and we say, well, is that really true? Who would you be if you didn't have that? But that's a Byron Katie thing, by the way, hat tip to Byron Katie, you know, who would you get to be if you changed your thinking? There is such a good question. Another way to think about this too, and Abraham Hicks uses this example in the book I'm talking about. Is, when, you know, if you think about where you are now, you're over here. And then where you want to be is over there. And you're not happy over here and you'd rather be over there. You ask yourself, well, why do you want to be over there? So. Why do you want to be over there? It's probably a feeling at the end of the day. Right? But, you know, to talk about what's over here. Keeps you focused on where you're at. And in order to get over there, you really got to focus on what you need to get over there. Right? So, you know, talk about what is believed to be over there and try to find the feeling place, like how does it feel to be over there? What does that future self look like? How do they, you know, what's their way of being, how do, how do they do things? How do they think? You have to try to find that feeling place of what that future self is over there. Like what. What, what kind of advice would your future self have to you about how to feel, how to think in order to get where he or she is now? But as long as you talk about and feel. What's over here where you are now. It's really not possible to get over there. You know, an example is, I've been through, this is, I just don't want to feel crappy anymore. I don't want to feel depressed. I don't want to feel sad. You know, back in the day where I was really struggling a I was so focused on how I didn't want to feel. And then it was, I don't even remember what the shift was, but when I started to think about how I did wanna feel, it changed everything. You know, I run into feel content. And then I started thinking I was focusing my thoughts on contentment and it really changed everything for me. I also want to touch on desire. Like what that really means. You know, desire is really wanting something from a place of like expansion, like anticipating it, expecting it. Life is flowing through you. It's just a really open, spacious place to be. So I get a feeling of excitement when I think about desire. But then there's this other side of things where, you know, you're really focused on something that you want, but you're also equally aware that it's not in your possession. Like you are equally in lack. So you see something you want, but you are also very focused on not having it. And in, in pure desire like desiring something. There's no feeling of lack. It's like, like I said, it's open, it's expansive. It's knowing that you can bring it into your experience and kind of trusting that. Okay. So you've learned a lot about. Being in abundance and that expansive energy of bringing more into your life. So. Some things that you can do. Like, we've talked a lot about like what you need to do. You know, the thinking, reaching for. The next best feeling thought. And focusing on the things that you want, you know, over there, rather than focusing on what you're lacking. But some practical things you can do to start being that way. The first thing is really just awareness of your feelings. Really always. Being aware of them and really getting in touch with them. You know, how do, how do the feelings, how do the emotions actually feel in your body? How does sadness feel in your body? How does joy feel in your body? It's really important to connect with that. Because once you know how you can embody a feeling. It's so much easier to. Be in that. To access it, if that makes sense. And I would also say that when you're setting goals or thinking about what you want in life, like based that on how you want to feel. You know, if you want joy. What things would bring you joy? What kind of life would bring you joy? What way of being would bring you joy? I mentioned awareness you know, awareness, like I always say is half the battle with anything. So, you know, a meditation, observing your thoughts and seeing like, when you start to observe your thoughts, you see things come up. And I will say observe your thoughts without attaching to them. So it's almost like you're watching them from 20,000 feet, just watching all this thinking going right. But observing them, like, what are you noticing or think or thoughts that are limiting you from being expansive and looking at what's over there? You know, identify them. Question them. Do I want to hang on to this? And maybe reframe them. You know, to create a different perspective. On your, your thought barriers. For example, if you say, I can't apply for that job because I'm not smart enough. You know, Is that true? This is Byron Katie stuff, by the way, is that true? That I'm not smart enough. And, can you prove it? And is there a reason that I should hang on to the thought I'm not smart enough? Yeah, probably not. And then, the fourth question and Byron Katie's, The Work, is who would I get to be? Who would I be if I didn't have that thought? I'm not smart enough if you didn't have that thought, you know, you'd probably, he'd probably apply and not even think twice about it. Right. And he'd probably walk into the interview. Feeling really confident. You know, so reframing them, creating a new perspective by questioning them. And also keep in mind, you're reaching for the next best feeling thought that is accessible to you. Right. If you go too far ahead, it's not going to be accessible and you're gonna get frustrated and give up. And that's something that I think is hard to do on your own a little bit. I know for me, working with my coach has been helpful about just taking a baby step. Cause I tend to want to bite off more than I can chew. And then I get frustrated. And when you're dealing with like thinking and emotions, that is super frustrating if you do that, if you bite off too much. We want to set you up for success in that way. You also can think about, when you notice your scarcity thoughts, like thinking about. What's true and what's not. For example, if it's a money scarcity thought. And your thought is I don't have enough money, or maybe it's, it would be irresponsible to spend the money even, you know, what's true about that. Well, if you're basing that on, you know, your childhood beliefs and you know, your family beliefs, that might be true. But also what's untrue about it. Well, it's not really truth that it's irresponsible to spend the money. The. You know, it, there are plenty of people who don't think it's irresponsible. So that could also be seen as untrue because it's all subjective. Right. And also a really good question to ask yourself is what are you missing out on by focusing on scarcity? What would be possible if you were to focus more abundantly? You know, who would you get to be? What would you get to have? What would you get to do? What would your life be like if you were not focused on scarcity? That's a fun exercise. And then again, awareness, right? Awareness of what it would be like to be in abundance. What would it look like if you had everything you could possibly ever need? That's a, that's a hard question for people, but like what would that, what would that be like? How would it feel. What, what would be in your life? Like, that's a great question to ask yourself, and that is one that will kind of evolve probably, but it's a great question. And then also gratitude. Gratitude is a funny one because it's gotten to be such a buzzword and a lot of people are like, oh God, it's so cheesy and cliche. And it depends on how you think about it. I think some people come at gratitude from the lens of it's it's bypassing the things that are feeling hard in your life, but that's not what gratitude is meant for. It's really to, it helps you get into a more abundant frame of mind because let's face it. Our brain always wants to look at what's wrong first. So a gratitude practice just helps you focus on what is good as well. So you can see all of it, right? It's perfectly fine to honor what is hard and sticky and doesn't feel good in your life. You have to do that, but you don't have to stay stuck in it. You can let those emotions move through you and then choose to be in a higher level of energy. And gratitude will help you do that because you're, you're practicing focusing on the things that are good too. Whereas otherwise your brain would probably just revert to what is not good. If that makes sense. So before I end this, I want to say something about selfishness and wanting things and aligning with, you know, your desires. And Abraham Hicks talks about this in their book. And I love how they talk about it because you know, the selfishness aspect of things is this kind of a scarcity way of thinking about this. But they also make a point, a really good point. If you aren't selfish enough to deliberately align yourself with what you want in life, like the source energy that flows through you. You're not going to have anything to give anyway. Right. I mean, it makes a lot of sense. And the question that comes up a lot is like, if I selfishly achieve everything I want, wouldn't I be taking it from other people. Well, this is again, it's like, that's the scarcity way of thinking. It's based on the misconception that there is a limit on the abundance that's available. Limited resources. You know, if there is too much of the pie taken, there won't be enough left. If you win, I lose. But remember the reality is the pie can always expand. We can always make more pie. And one of the examples that Abraham Hicks gives in their book is so good. It's related to health. So like, if you it's like saying, I feel guilty about this great health, the abundance of health I've had. So I guess I'll decide to be sick for the next couple of years to allow somebody who's been sick to give them the opportunity to use my part of the wellness. Right. But you know, when you're, well, you're not depriving someone else of wellness. There's plenty of wellness to go around. It just because they're sick doesn't mean that you can't be well, right? I mean, it's too bad, they're sick, but you know, you don't have to be sick so they can be well. It doesn't work that way. I kind of love that example because it really does kind of like hit home, like, oh yeah. So that, and then the, the other one of, if you don't like purposely align with what you want and what can flow to you, You don't have anything to give. So it's all this, like, everything is an exchange of energy and it's all just flowing. So if you think about it that way, It's like, if you've ever heard, you give to get, like the more generous you are, it will come back to it's sort of that idea. And that everything is, if you, if you let it flow, like using money, as an example of money is meant to flow. It's energetic. It's a, you know, it's a contract of you have something that's a value to me, so I'm going to give you this in exchange for that. And it's just this constant flowing of that value, right. So, if you think about abundance in that way of, you know, you really have to sort of spend abundance to have abundance. So there you go. To recap. So much, there's so much in this episode. I hope I didn't overwhelm you. I tend to like to pack a lot of information. And so hopefully it's not overwhelming, but I think if I had to remember a couple of points from this episode, it would be the like paying attention to how you want to feel, or how you are feeling. That awareness. You know, and then when you do think about the feelings you want to have, what feels good for you, really get in touch with how those, you know, emotions, feelings like physically feel in your body. And then look at, you know, kind of reverse engineer, what thinking do I need to get here? And if the thinking that you need to get to the place of how you want to feel is too much of a stretch, you just look at, you know, what's the next best feeling thought I can have right now. So it's really the, if you're going to re remember anything from this episode, it would be that. Like just be aware of you know, your thoughts and your feelings, your thoughts in particular, they're bringing what is in your experience? That's, that's, what's attracting what's in your experience. So you have to shift your thinking in order to get something different. And then the other thing that I would remember is when you want to bring something into your experience, you can't focus on what you don't have. You have to focus on that being available to you and expecting that you're going to have it someday. You can't sit here and focus on what's wrong in your life or what you, you know, you don't have right now. What's wrong with you. You have to really like shift that because it's like quicksand, the more you stay in that, the deeper you're going to dig yourself. So it's really important to start to look at that and see, you know, it starts with the awareness. Am I, somebody who tends to get in the quicksand of what's wrong with me and what do I lack? And if you are one of those people, That's your work is shifting that quicksand thinking to something more abundant. You know, how can you reframe all of what you don't have and what's wrong to what you do want to instead, the good news is when you know what you don't want, it's pretty easy to figure out what you do want. So keep that in mind. Those are the two things I would remember out of everything I covered in this episode. Again rise. The live retreat experience is next week. I have one spot left. If you're interested in it at all, if you want to learn more, just reach out to me, reaching out to me does not mean you're committed. It's just a, hey, let's chat and see if it's something that you want to do. So reach out to me at kortney@kortneyrivard.com. I would love to see a real brave and unstoppable listener at the retreat. Okay friends. That is it for today. I hope this episode was helpful for you. And as always, if you have any questions, feel free to reach out. I will see you next week.