Last Friday I gathered with some colleagues for an afternoon personal planning retreat.
As everyone was arriving, my friend Susan walked in the door and handed me a bag of my favorite treat—dried tart cherries from Whole Foods (I had asked her earlier in the day to pick some up for the group if she went to the store). Without thinking, I put up my hand, shoeing the cherries away, "I actually already bought some earlier today. You can keep them, I don't need them."
A few minutes later after we each shared our intentions for our retreats, I thought, "What did I just do?!" My dear friend had gone to the trouble to pick these up and was offering them to me as a gift. What was I thinking turning them away?!
It got my wheels turning. How many times has abundance come knocking at my door but I turned her away because … I didn't recognize her clothing … she came at an inconvenient time … or I was too tired to get up and answer the door.
Yeah, this was just dried fruit, but I began to wonder, how often do all of us ask for something we desire and actually put energy into thinking what it would be like to have it--only to turn it away because it didn't arrive in the way or at the time we had expected?
The other day I introduced Neal, a long-time friend, to a wonderful woman I had met recently at a workshop. I thought they'd really hit it off and had a lot in common--one of those shared traits being they're both single and very interested in meeting their life partner. But Neal replied to my email introduction, "Thanks Renee, but this isn't really how I usually meet friends. I like to connect with people on my own. Appreciate this--but I'll pass."
This month I've been reflecting a lot on this idea of abundance and the different ways we experience this. I had an ah-ha the other day that rather than being irritated about how much work I have coming at me right now, I could be grateful for the abundance of opportunities knocking on my door! (I know from personal experience that the more I am grateful for what I have and am experiencing--the more the good grows!)
The next day after our planning retreat, I made some cherry-pecan muffins--we called them Abundance Muffins--from the dried cherries I had insisted on Susan leaving after I came to my senses and thanked her! That morning as I stirred the batter with love, pouring in vanilla and adding cinnamon, I made a quiet promise to myself to be more aware of all the ways abundance may be coming into my life that I'm missing or refusing to see.
Later that morning my family went to a soccer game, took a walk in our neighborhood, saw an art show and visited with friends. But if you paid close attention, you would have seen small plastic bags of something yummy-looking being shared with everyone we met. Yep, you guessed it—Abundance Muffins for all! Didn’t get any? No worries, you can make some of your own to share with your friends and neighbors.
Here's hoping we all start taking closer notice of the many ways abundance and love are showing up at our doorsteps each and every day.
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