I am an avid reader of self-development books, of spiritual books, of positive thinking-hug a tree-be a unicorn type books. I love them. But a little revelation that has occurred to me numerous times over the years, which I tend to forget about and then rediscover, (and in fact, even mention in my book – The Elphite) is that for some reason, in general conversation, we mainly only talk about the things we lack, or complain about the bad things we have.

We learn that in order to manifest what we wish to have, experience or be, we need to affirm in a positive way that we have whatever it is we are lacking. And so we keep writing down, or affirming out loud – I am abundant! I am my perfect weight! I have a beautiful home! I am madly in love with my soulmate!

Yet often, these things don’t come to pass. Or they do, but long after we have stopped affirming them, and when we have forgotten our requests.

So why is this? When struggling with finances, I found that I talked about money a lot, in conversations with friends etc, and even though I was being positive about money quite often, it was a front, because I was still struggling. I did ‘abundance’ courses, read books, sought out new affirmations etc, but somewhere along the line something occurred to me – all of my focus on money was coming from a place of lack. And that genuinely wealthy and abundant people rarely speak of money – they are focused on their passions, on what they love in life. And if they do speak of money, they are not coming from a place of lack, but from a genuine place of abundance.

So how do you get to that space of genuine abundance when you’re lacking what you need or desire?

I’m finding that only talking about the areas of my life where I genuinely feel abundant is a good place to begin. Because then I am not speaking and feeling from a place of lack. And to relax, go with the flow.

I try to avoid small talk too. I feel that small talk keeps us small, because it make us connect to others through our complaining, griping and moaning. We share our stories of illnesses, woes and grief, because we know that others will relate to what we say.

It seems we don’t want to appear to be too happy, only speaking of what we love, in fear of looking to be better than/superior to/looking down on anyone else. (I’m talking from a British perspective here, things may be quite different in other parts of the world, I hope they are!)

But I feel that it’s only when we move beyond small talk that we can all grow and evolve and expand our thinking. Often, I will quite quickly get into a conversation about other worlds, angels, the afterlife and parallel universes, with complete strangers I’ve met minutes before, because it’s almost like we sense we can talk of these things, and neither will get ‘weirded out’. When I sense it’s not possible to bring up such subjects, I find myself lapsing into silence, in the hopes of not finding things to complain about in order to connect. But I do find it difficult!

Do you have any tried and tested ways to operate from that place of abundance? I would love to hear them if you have!