Creative Every Day

Abundance – Wellness Wednesday

December 19th, 2007

I'm overwhelmed with abundance at the moment! I think in the past I got used to having low expectations in regards to every one and every thing. It was a way of protecting myself against getting hurt. This is one of those habits that goes way back and becomes a part of your identity even when it no longer serves you. As I mentioned earlier in my post about defining beliefs, I'm trying to let go of those old rules that I've made up. In a special twist, I was randomly assigned the essay "Bust Your Toast Rules" for Patti's 37 Days art card challenge, which takes a very amusing look at this very thing.

One of my old rules has been: expect little to nothing and then you're never disappointed. But you see, when you expect little to nothing, that's often what you get! And then what happens when I start getting all I ever wanted, but never dared to expect? I shrink away from it. I'm one of those people who gets embarrassed by praise, is shy opening gifts, gets uneasy around abundance. It's funny noticing this about myself. I want to shake it off like an old sweater and put on something sparkly instead. I'm not talking about money necessarily when I talk about abundance either. It can be in all forms, small and large.

Yesterday, I received a beautiful lotus vase to hold my pens as a gift in a fun swap with Karen at Zazazu. I totally love it! I also received on the same day my first copy of Body & Soul which I won in a drawing on Karen's blog!! Thank you, Karen! I gobbled it up last night on the couch! I also got some beautiful holiday cards from friends and family, an item for a surprise gift for the hubster and the latest issue of Art and Life. And today, today I'm goin shoppin for a new car. Eek! Oh my, power windows and locks, something I've been longing for after years of owning a very, very basic car! Wee!

Ok, so I wrote all the above yesterday, but when I went to take a picture of the vase, my camera had run out of batteries, so I put it in the charger and ran off to do errands and didn't get back to it til this morning. But I think, it's good timing for a Wellness Wednesday post with Christmas just around the corner and lots of gift giving and receiving on the horizon. Perhaps if you too have trouble receiving, you can take some time to prepare yourself and be ready to be open to abundance in all its forms. Right now abundance for me is being up early in a quiet apartment, freshly showered in a stunningly blue shirt, jeans, and socks my grandma gave me with a big orange cat snoring behind me, looking out my window at the bare criss-cross of branches, seeing the silhouettes of geese flying in formation, and feeling warm and cozy when it's so wintry outside.

Ah, and the art above is my art journal which I pull out on occasion and I hope to be using much more in the coming year for Creative Every Day 2008! I have the journal turned vertically here because I drew a large jellyfish across the two pages. The hubster thought it looked like something rather phallic in it's early stages which made me laugh, but hopefully it looks less like a body part and more like a jellyfish now. And if not, oh well!

Hope your day is deliciously abundant.