We have trained ourselves to live at a certain level of abundance and not to rise too much higher, or at least do it really, really, slowly, and in the timing and manner of our choice.

This means that although infinite Love is providing ever-expanding abundance for every one of us in every moment, because this is one of Its Principles, we have to find a way to stop it from coming to us.

Well, actually, we have to find a way to not see it so that it doesn't upset our personal paradigm, or story we have written for ourselves, or even worse, allowed someone else to write for us.

Perhaps you are thinking, "Not me, I don't do that, I am open to all provision".

We could honestly say we don't do this if every relationship in our life is filled with love and respect, and I mean every relationship in our life.

If the well from which we pay for life's needs is always full and in fact overflowing.

If our health is excellent with no signs of age or disease in any part of ourselves, and if we are fully living the essence of ourselves in every moment of our lives.

Ok, given that we are all stopping the flow of abundance in our lives in many ways, we can get down to the business of dissolving this habit of stopping the flow.

The first problem, and really the only problem, is we think we are human living in a material universe. If we accept this in any form then our human self is in the constant process of stopping the flow because it does not know how to handle too much abundance at a time.

Let me give you an example. If you run a business (actually we all are in the business of life, so this works for everyone) and you begin to feel that you have enough customers, or clients, and you say to yourself that you really can't handle anymore, that is stopping the flow. Not only will you not receive more customers, but also you will begin to lose the ones you have.

Or, your business is "making you crazy" in some way and you say to yourself, "I have got to get out of this business." Whoops, not a good idea, because being out of business is exactly what you will be.

Or, perhaps you decide to not reach out any longer, or not embrace and learn new ideas to improve what you have; all of this is stopping the flow of abundance to you.

Why is this? Because "what we perceive to be reality magnifies" or said another way, you are programming your personal computer within this "game called earth" to not show you anything that you don't want to see.

This idea applies to every aspect of life, not just to business and money, but also to relationships, love, and health - yes everything.

How can we stop this habit? We first have to begin with the correct premise. We are not human. Never have been, never will be. It's a little story we tell to ourselves to make the world make more sense to us, but that doesn't make it true.

We are the ideas of God. We are the expression of Love, we are abundance Itself. We are the action of Mind. We live in a spiritual universe. There is only one, and it is spiritual.

What if we find ourselves in a job, business, relationships, or any situation that we don't like?

Because we know that everything is in Reality Spiritual, and is in Truth the presence of God, and we know that God is the Principle of omnipresent good we can begin to shift ourselves from these situations, not by saying "that's enough", but by seeing through each one to see the qualities of God.

This means actively finding and rejoicing in every bit of good that is shining through the illusion of "bad," and actively stopping the habit of looking only at what is not working or we don't like. As we do this, the situation will resolve to match our understanding of the Truth of only One, and it is Spiritual, and it is good.

Of course, this barely makes sense to us within our human paradigm. However, accepting it and acting as if it is true will first show us where we have put up dams and barriers in our life, and then begin to dissolve them both by conscious choice and as a by-product of stating the Truth.

Would Love ever give itself more then it could handle? Would it ever put Itself in a business that wasn't joyful and abundant? Doesn't infinite Principle have enough wisdom to give Itself (us) everything in perfect proportion and practical means to take care of what it is providing?

Gratitude will break the habit of saying, "I have enough", or "I don't like this", or "I can't handle that". Gratitude will focus our attention on what is working, and builds up our confidence in the fact that the Divine is handling our lives, really Its life, quite well.

Gratitude for what we have, whether it appears to be a little or a lot, will bring out into the open our human personal stories and rewrite them based on our current highest understanding of God's provision.

Instead of saying "stop, that's enough" to abundance, we will stand with arms open wide in acceptance of the ever-flowing gentle rain of infinite provision, knowing that there is always a place for it and it is always beautiful in its presentation and practical in its application.

You have permission to reprint The Shift® Ezine as long as it is copied in full without changes and includes the following footer: *Article by Beca Lewis, author of Living in Grace: The Shift to Spiritual Perception. Visit http://www.theshift.com/ez.html for more ideas to help Shift perception. Reprint permission granted with this footer included.

Four teenagers went to see a staging of the play called “Our Town” as guests of the show Sunday Morning. The question the show wanted answered was, “would this play resonant with the ‘twitter and instant gratification’ generation”.

After the play the two boys and two girls were interviewed and the question, based on the play, was asked, “Is there enough in just (a blue sky), a sunny day, in just an ordinary day, to fill the need for stimulation?” The answer from one of the boys was a marvel of simplicity and truth. “The question is not – is there enough - but are you looking up?”

With an increasingly instant world comes the risk of not appreciating and enjoying the overflowing gifts of each moment. The sun streaming in our windows, the voice of a loved one, the tips of daffodils emerging through the earth, and the flight of a bird are all enough just in themselves, if we are paying attention.

There are not enough words to describe the richness and overflow of wealth in each moment, no matter where we live, or who we are - it is there if we but “look up”.

(Speaking of abundance in the moment ..Our Ohio family has an annual PJ Movie Day. This is a short clip of the pillow fight that of course had to happen on a PJ Day!)

It’s too easy to be caught up in what is not working, and forget what is just right. It’s too easy to focus on other people’s lives and either admire them or hate them for what they have in life. It’s too easy, and it is dangerous because it blinds us to the richness and abundance found in each moment of life and leaves us in the illusion of “not enough” which is the breeding ground for all forms of fear and greed.

What we call a material world is the objectification of our current highest awareness of each idea, person, or object of its actual spiritual and eternal identity as the effect and idea of the divine infinite Mind.

We are not creating anything with our thinking and our beliefs. We are hiding what is present now as a spiritual fact from our own view, and therefore the ability to experience it in our lives. When we agree with the worldview of lack, and debt, and obligation to matter we are both blinding and binding ourselves.

It may appear to be easy to take off those blinders because they are not who we are, but when the habit, training, and worldview is to wear them at all times, it takes obsessive vigilance to keep them off.

The universe is expanding, not contracting. What we perceive as reality is a tiny speck in what is, in Big R Reality, infinite and always present. Far out of reach of the five senses is the “invisible” universe, the spiritual universe that is here and now. This infinite consciousness is in the mode of constant provision.

We experience this infinite abundance in greater degrees as we shift our perception away from what appears as a limited and problematic materiality, and into the awareness and gratitude for the presence of the abundance in every moment of our lives.

We can refuse to discuss, chew over, be swayed by, and driven by the illusion of lack. We can give up the habit of staring at what isn’t working, and reacting to the problems of the world as if they were real. We can give up demanding that the material world owes us something, and we will give up the habit of debt to get it.

We can stand still and listen in the pause to the still small voice of Truth, which throughout human history has been the voice of the infinite singing of Its presence. When we listen, it has the power to dissolve the lie of lack. Stand still in that awareness and feel the gratitude for your abundant life that exists now. Stand there in that Truth, and be the inspiration for others to stand with you.

Together we can look up; together we can be aware of each abundant moment, and that surely is more than enough.

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You have permission to reprint The Shift® Ezine as long as it is copied in full without changes and includes the following footer: *Article by Beca Lewis, author of Living in Grace: The Shift to Spiritual Perception. Visit http://www.theshift.com/ez.html for more ideas to help Shift perception. Reprint permission granted with this footer included.

I stepped into the lovely fall day and was surrounded by leaves. Leaves on the trees, leaves falling like rain, leaves covering every surface on the ground. It was a stunningly beautiful sight!

For the next few hours I blew leaves into piles, raked leaves into more piles, and carted leaves to the edge of our lawn to add to the millions of leaves already blanketing the “forest” part of our property.

As I moved hundreds and hundreds of leaves to their resting place and marveled at the abundance of leaves a “what if” question formed in my thought. What if we believed that leaves were currency? What if we traded leaves for our food and leaves paid our rent and our mortgages?

On that same day I had another task to accomplish. It was the day to pay bills, and balance checkbooks, and it struck me how differently those two tasks felt.

Although it was many days of taking care of leaves, hours and hours of moving them as more fell every day, and sometimes feeling as if it would never end, there was a glorious awareness of the beauty and intelligence of the divine in action.

Paying bills can feel exactly the opposite because for every bill paid it often feels as if the pile of money diminishes rather than growing without effort like the leaves falling to the ground.

What if we had the same feeling about money as we did about leaves?

On a spring day many years ago I felt paralyzed by fear that I didn’t have enough money to take care of our families current needs. Looking at the human picture that lack appeared to be true.

Seeking solace, and an answer to my perceived problem, I walked outside and stood in a friend’s backyard. It had a ring of trees around it. I glanced up at them and admired their beauty and the contentment they stand within, and as I did so I noticed the abundance of leaves they were wearing.

“This is what is True,” I heard within. “This abundance, the display of so many leaves that they cannot be counted. Look around at the overflowing variety of abundance and know that this is a symbol of the overflowing abundance that is divine Love, always giving to everyone, including you.”

I returned to the day with that message ringing within me. I don’t remember what happened after that because it was a non-event. Our needs were met that day and the next because of that simple momentary awareness that abundance is the law, which meant that the appearance of lack was a lie.

On a recent walk along the route I often take I was astonished to notice a blue house I hadn’t seen before. It took a few minutes before I realized that I had taken a different turn and was now approaching the street from the opposite direction from my usual walk.

The house was always there, but I didn’t see it going the direction I walked before. By going the opposite direction it was clearly visible.

This is why shifting or repenting and taking an opposite or different perception than held before reveals what is always present.

Seeing the abundance of leaves on the trees in my friend’s yard shifted my perception to the law of abundance and in turn that shifted what was visible to me.

Returning to the recent beautiful fall day I was reminded tenfold of this law of abundance. No matter how many leaves we blew and raked they continued to fall. Each leaf beautiful by itself, but glorious as it joined the millions of other leaves to create patterns of color on the ground.

So what if we declared leaves as currency? It’s not as far-fetched as it may sound. Tulip bulbs, salt, and tobacco are just few of the items that were traded as money at one time or another. What made them currency was the lack of them. As soon as they became abundant we no longer saw them as valuable. In the human condition and the worldview, lack is the game we play.

Let’s not play anymore. Let’s live in the Truth of abundance and stop agreeing with those who continue to produce fear, either through ignorance or intention.

Perhaps some people would have more trees then others, but knowing that trees continue to produce leaves and they are happy to share them with us at the right time, and knowing that trees only need to be planted and cared for with no special skills required, wouldn’t we be happy to give our leaves to those without trees, and assist them in planting their own?

Let’s see money in this new light. Let’s walk a different direction to view what we call supply.

Leaves give us the perfect symbol of beautiful abundance. Keeping the idea of the abundance of leaves as the symbol of supply, and trusting in the power of shifting perception to the Truth of what is, and giving up what isn’t (lack), we will see what has always been present available at all times to meet any human need.

Step outside and see for yourself, abundance is the law, all that is required of us is the awareness and discipline to stop believing in and promoting the lie of lack.

Rev 22:2
In the midst of the street of it, and on either side of the river, was there the tree of life, which bare twelve manner of fruits, and yielded her fruit every month: and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.

You have permission to reprint The Shift Ezine as long as it is copied in full without changes and includes the following footer:

*Article by Beca Lewis, author of Living in Grace: The Shift to Spiritual Perception. Visit http://www.theshift.com/ez.html for more ideas to help Shift perception. Reprint permission granted with this footer included.

Yesterday we saw a squirrel running by our door. He was intent upon burying the nut that he had just found.  We can tell that winter is coming because instead of just using the "squirrel highway" in the trees, the squirrels are on the ground looking for and burying nuts.

The squirrels are doing what they always do, gathering and planting. Someone must have forgotten to tell them about the current financial crisis. 

What if no one told us about it?  What if we never heard the scary projections of those whose fear, turned into greed, bred the results of what they are now experiencing.

Writer H.L. Mencken said at least a half a century ago, "The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed - and hence clamorous to be led to safety -- by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary."

That was then, and this is now and it is the same intention. If we agree with these imaginary hobgoblins it is because we have forgotten that illusion begins within. When we accept illusion as realty it becomes our perceived reality. 

And we all know that perception is reality. It is up to us to decide if we want to live in Truth known as big r Reality or with what is being sold to us as an alarming perception.  

Isn't starting internally with a perception shift the same thing as what Mark Twain meant when he said, "You cannot depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus." 

Our imagination needs to be focused on what is true if we are to dissolve within our own lives any affect produced by fear. This fear is often imposed and projected on purpose by others with the intention of being able to continue with their lies and deception.

We must be determined to practice shifting our perceptions to the graceful cycle of abundance of Reality. This shift will free us. It will even free those who appear to be intentionally doing wrong within the illusion of a dualist worldview.

Observe the squirrels. They continue as they always have of finding and burying supplies, playing with each other, and protecting the inhabitants of their neighborhood with their alerts.  We might think of squirrels as savers and hoarders, but they are neither.

Although they prepare what they might need by gathering and saving for the winter, once new food arrives in the spring they let what they gathered in the past alone. This means that the seeds and nuts that they have hidden can sprout and produce more of what they will need to gather in the future while providing for the neighborhood of animals, insects, plants and people in the mean time.

It's a glorious graceful cycle of abundance.

In fact the whole of nature continues along as always in that cycle of abundance. It does not react to false and imposed imaginations.  Feel this for yourself. Sit awhile and listen to the birds, feel the wind, smell a leaf and let the grace it represents seep into your being.

Imagine the cooperation, support, connection, love and respect within the many functions of what appears as a body and see how it becomes a fuller sense of body. Your awareness of body expands to include your home, neighborhood, and community.  

Continue to imagine the grace that gently and intelligently guides each thought and action of what appears to be an individual, but is really a thread in the fabric of the intelligent representation of Life.

The wood in our fireplace gives off heat because that is what it does.  It is not judging who is in the room, or whether we deserve it or not.  It radiates.  

It is the continuation of the tree that also brought shade, food, and shelter. A tree that breathed in and out to provide clean air for us. A tree that drew nourishment from the ground and then returned its leaves to the ground to nurture it.  

As it burns in our fireplace it is releasing the sunshine that it had stored within to make food for itself. A perfect cycle of graceful continuing abundance.

At no time in its life did it judge who sat under it, or worry if it was noticed or appreciated.  As a tree it continues to demonstrate grace no matter what its outward appearance may be.

Let's imagine that grace and live it ourselves. Let's make it our perception, because we know it to be true. We know that all that is present is God, Good. So if we look at and accept a financial crisis, where is God?  

See beyond the appearance, the lie and the illusion and feel only the power of grace because this will free us all from the tyranny of fear which lives as greed. Let's perceive as Divine Intelligent Love perceives; let's know and live and respond only to the continuous cycle of abundant grace.