This morning, I had poured my daughter some apple cider we had just bought the day before at an apple farm. Her little brother grabbed at her cup to try some and I heard her balk, “heeeeyyy!” I reacted with, “Don’t worry, we have lots more!” With that she handed over her juice and let him drink the whole thing. I witnessed in real time, the shift in her perception of abundance that directly impacted her level of kindness. I’m sure you’ve heard the phrase, “abundance mindset.” It’s one of those new age-y terms I cringe at a bit, but there is something to this concept of abundance being something that is not what one has, but how one perceives. And that it could be the key to getting people to “share their juice” with the rest of humanity.
What abundance is not
The definition of abundance in the dictionary is simply “a large quantity of something.” In the more is more culture we live in, abundance is usually thought of as having accumulated a lot of stuff. However, the accumulation of things can make one feel less secure. The more stuff we have, the more we fear its loss. This results in fearful, hoarding behavior.
Everything we own pulls on a percentage of our attention. When we are drowning in our things, it’s like Kryptonite to our energy because so much is pulling at us.
