Rejoicing in the good fortune of others is a practice that can help us when we feel emotionally shut down and unable to connect with others. Rejoicing generates good will. Pema Chödrön

Masterful Manifesters appreciate the successful creations of others, whereas some people who struggle tend to be sarcastic, and put down or demean other people’s accomplishments. They also tend to be fans of trashy talk shows, gossip, and buyers of sensationalist headlines at checkout stands. But resenting another’s success will only keep your good from showing up for you. If you find negativity creeping into your mind, immediately defuse and deactivate it. Resentment is a powerful way to keep your abundance at arm’s length. Why would good want to show up to an unappreciative, unwelcoming place? Let yourself cheer the accomplishments you see happening in the world.

Appreciation is a prayer of acknowledgment and has nothing to do with getting Life to do something for you. It’s an awareness of the abundant Universe you live in. Someone else’s good doesn’t diminish yours—it’s not like a pie where less is available when one slice is gone. It’s more like lighting a candle with an existing flame and having greater light without depleting the originating source. Recognition of good expressing has nothing to do with influencing God to do something. Gratitude for life blessing others brings you into alignment with being a channel and recipient of graceful abundance.

Spiritual Contemplation: Notice when a tinge of resentment creeps into your awareness in judging someone else’s success. Immediately observe yourself with that feeling and consciously neutralize it by acknowledging to yourself for them, “Nice job, way to go, thank you for doing that in my presence.”

Affirmation: I am happy when I see other people’s good fortune!

The greatest good you can do for another is not just share your riches, but to reveal to him his own. Benjamin Disraeli

Everyone equally deserves as his or her birthright all the abundance that you deserve. Realize that the rich, meaningful life that you want to create for yourself is what each person seeks to experience. One of the quickest ways to open channels for your own good is to celebrate the good that someone else is enjoying. This generosity of Spirit is a powerful demonstration of your ONENESS!

Every time we look at what someone else has and feel envious or left out, we are focusing on what we don’t have. This is the very lens, or filter, that colors the way we see and interact with others. Seeing and revealing another’s Good to them or simply celebrating their Good is a joyful way of expressing our oneness. Lifting up another is a powerful way to affirm Good for everyone.

Spiritual Contemplation: When or with whom do you have the most trouble sharing in their joy and success? What is the root of this in you?

Affirmation: I joyously celebrate others success! I joyously share in another’s good!

There wells up from within us a trust, a consciousness that we are surrounded by an infinite Goodness . . . First at home, in the silence of our own thought, let us heal ourselves of fear, of doubt, of uncertainty. Let our lives be peaceful; let our lives be whole. Then shall that Peace which is God abiding within us radiate from us. Ernest Holmes

Remember the old comic strip with the little guy who was always followed by a rain cloud? This sort of summed up how he walked through life. We might call this our mental atmosphere and the energetic that we radiate into the world around us. We can tell, can’t we, whether we are with someone who transmits negativity or someone who radiates a positive, joyous atmosphere.

Our thoughts, feelings, attitudes, and beliefs become the mold through which Love and Life take the form of our life and everything in it. It often takes a crisis to shake things up in our lives. This is an opportunity for us to reevaluate what we send out into the world. When we’re confronted with something that isn’t working in our life and we look inside, we want to pay attention to when we have broadcast lack instead of Life, or criticism instead of Love. We want to notice how much negative energy we give out in the situation, or just in general.

Spiritual Contemplation: Is there an area where you automatically transmit negativity from an old pattern? Examine the values and directives you are living by. Is it still how you want to be?

Affirmation: I radiate peace in stressful situations and love whenever it is needed. I radiate a positive attitude and a joyful mental state wherever I go!

You live in a realm of Infinite opportunities that are forever seeking to express through you. Ernest Holmes

Too often people think abundance is about what you can get and save, when in truth you didn’t come to the earth plane to get and store, but to share what’s inside of you. You came with a gift to give that is uniquely yours. You feel best when you are in that flow of sharing your talents and distinctive expression. There is an “I” behind your mind. This I-that-is-you thinks through and reasons with the mind and is greater than the mind that tries to accumulate. This I-that-is-you has come here to bring forth from within its contribution to the emerging whole.

Abundance means being a conduit from the Infinite into form. You live, move, and have your being in the Infinite Reservoir of good. Unlimited possibilities are forever seeking to express through you. Your concern for supply dissolves when you live in a generous giving mode because you see the unending resource. Life presents you with an unshakable sense of peace and security because you‘re not seeking to be sourced from this world. Rather you are here to give to this world from the Inexhaustible Abundant I Am of your being.

Spiritual Contemplation: Remember how good it feels to share yourself.

Affirmation: I live in the abundant joy of giving!

Try this experiment, right now, while you read this. First take a deep breath and notice how much air you inhaled. Now breathe normally for a moment. Next, push out all the air in your lungs, as much as you can. Then take in a deep breath and notice how much more air you inhaled this time. But you can’t take in any more air until you actually exhale again.

The attitude of getting is the law of life in a congested state or a repressed action. As long as getting dominates our mind, that mind is in a paralyzed condition being limited in its action in accordance with the fundamental law of creation. Bob Proctor 

Generating abundance is a lot like that. If we continue to pour into a full glass it simply spills over, which shows that something needs to be given out before more can be taken in. In spirituality this is called the Law of Circulation. Giving and receiving are actually two sides of the same process. One is defined by the other: to receive more, you have to give more; to be able to give more, you have to receive more.

Spiritual Contemplation: In terms of your abundance, which do you try to do more—inhale or exhale? How could you even things out so you feel the rhythm of the Law of Circulation?

Affirmation: I joyously receive. I joyously give. I joyously use the Law of Circulation for greater abundance for everyone!

Life is a banquet and most poor fools are starving to death. Mame in Auntie Mame by Patrick Dennis

After a mom calls her child to come to the dinner table for the umpteenth time, she finally resorts to the age-old ultimatum: “What are you awaiting for, an engraved invitation?” No answer is needed here—just swift and appropriate action if the kid doesn’t want fury to rain! An incredible banquet of delectable delights is likewise awaiting you. What’s up with needing a formal invitation to partake of what has already been offered? Do you need all hell to break loose before you realize how precious life is?

God’s voice is eternally calling you to the banquet of abundance. Nothing created by the Divine was ever intended for your distress. You don’t care about the call to the banquet if you’re full on fast food and fixated on the kids’ table set boldly with judgment and the appearance of lack. You are being called to use your discernment. Feast or famine has always been your choice. Get up from where you are and realize you can’t appreciate the greater gourmet offerings while entertaining childish tastes.

Spiritual Contemplation: Where are you waiting for a clearer invitation before joining the greater options in life?

Affirmation: I say yes to the banquet of Life!

You are the only real obstacle in your path to a fulfilling life. Les Brown

Spiritual living is based on your ability to experience the divine presence—not on your knowledge about it. You might be able to recite what John said about God being love, or what Moses taught about law, or even what the New Thought philosophy says about God being principle. You can quote these perspectives until you are blue in the face, but there’s a big difference between talking about God and experiencing God. All that God is, you are! You have got to let that out. To demonstrate abundance, you must allow it to move through you into the world.

Some people look to get their good from the outside, but don’t limit yourself by trying to do the same. That’s just an exercise in futility. Spirit is all the abundance you will ever need, and it’s already within. Open up and allow your gifts to come out from your buried brilliance within. You are not here in this world to get—you are here to contribute. When you realize the infinite abundance of your nature, you will move out of your limited perception of humanhood and into the awareness of your true spiritual identity. Your concerns will no longer be “Where is my good coming from” but rather “Where can I share my good next.”

Spiritual Contemplation: Do you feel that your abundant good lies outside you and is dependent on someone else opening the door for it to flow? How can you refocus your perception to recognize the divine qualities of your own being?

Affirmation: I let pour forth from me my gifts for the world!

People do not decide to become extraordinary. They decide to accomplish extraordinary things. Edmund Hillary

Transcending the ordinary comes from a deeply held desire to move from limitation into a more abundant and free state of expression. Exhaustion from the mundane and a sense of hopelessness have the potential to create even more negative experiences in your life. Because there’s something stirring in your soul that hasn’t been satisfied, a temporary fix won’t last. This emptiness is a deep suffering that is waiting for a Divine touch. It can’t be fixed by thinking your way out. Now is when the brush of grace is most needed to propel you to the next rung on the spiral of your journey.

The missing pieces, like your talents and gifts, have always been there despite the fact that you can’t see them in your present state. They haven’t been withheld—they’re just awaiting your discovery. Only by going deeper than the ordinary, mundane, la-di-da daily grind can you unearth them. But you can’t go deep if you’ve turned yourself off so as not to feel the pain of a seemingly meaningless life. Fear will thrive when the light goes out within, and you’ll never survive the darkness if you believe that what you fear has more power than what is within you. Whatever it takes, be it crisis or creation, what turns on the light within will awaken and realign you with your higher purpose and passion. Dispelling the doubt in your life will transform the ordinary into the extraordinary.

Spiritual Contemplation: What creative project breathed life through you and made that time in your life extraordinary? What heartbreaking event bumped you into a deeper realization of the preciousness of life? Sit in those passionate energies for a while. Remember what they felt like moving through you and know that vibrational match is still waiting for you.

Affirmation: My life moves from ordinary to extraordinary!

I generally find that comparison is the fast track to unhappiness. No one ever compares themselves to someone else and comes out even. Jack Canfield 

It’s amazing to me how many of us think that everyone but us has his or her life together. We point to saints, celebrities, spiritual leaders, and successful people and envy them. We look to TV characters and movie sets and think they show us how most people live. Then we look around our own house and feel inadequate.

On the other side of the coin, if we look at the truly amazing lives we live—with opportunities and indoor plumbing, a floor and a roof, car and cell phone, and all the things of a First World lifestyle, we have more than most of the people on the planet today.

So the reality is that you can always find someone better off, and worse off, than you. Comparing just doesn’t help you find your place and experience your abundance. Express your life! Be happy with who you are! Be proud of your own growth and learning. Be aware of the good in your life and what you have available to share with others. That is enough to move you into joy!

Spiritual Contemplation: Who are you always comparing yourself to in a way that focuses on your lack or sense of inadequacy? Is there another way you could look at this?

Affirmation: I am grateful for my life and all the good in it. I share it joyfully with others.

When I first began exploring a spiritual path, everyone I knew wanted to manifest a Mercedes sports car. I knew a couple of people who actually did so. But I couldn’t really understand what the big deal was. If I had that much money I wouldn’t spend it on a car—I’d spend it on a cabin in the woods. I wondered if this meant I had some kind of limited idea about what I deserved or could have. Gradually I discovered that I just had different aspirations and things that I wanted to do and experience. Not too much later I purchased, and lived in, my cabin in the woods.

What do abundance, success, and prosperity mean to you—money, fulfillment, happiness? Living a healthy, joyous, meaningful life? Family, Love, Beauty? Everyone’s idea or definition of Abundance ought to be their own. Don’t be swayed by others’ ideas of what you should have or do. Follow your own guidance to greater abundance!

Spiritual Contemplation: Spend some time writing about what an abundant life means and looks like to you.

Affirmation: I know Spirit supports my joyous, happy, fulfilled, and abundant life in whatever way I choose to experience and express it!

We live in a world of constant juxtaposition between joy that’s possible and pain that’s all too common. We hope for love and success and abundance, but we never quite forget that there is always lurking the possibility of disaster. Marianne Williamson

Some people head off to Las Vegas or Atlantic City to have some fun and hope that they don’t lose their shirts at the craps table. Now isn’t that an interesting consciousness around money—just hoping to either not lose too much or minimally break even? Masterful Manifesters approach creation with the intention of creating abundance. Strugglers hope to have enough to pay the bills. The next step up from this is to be comfortable, but there’s a world of difference between being comfortable and being wealthy.

You must be clear about what you want to create in your life and stop sending mixed messages to the Universe. People don’t get what they want because they aren’t clear about what they want. They often think themselves in and out of possibilities, and their lack of clarity bewilders the Universe as a result. Those grappling through life make their choices based on fear of what could go wrong rather than what they want to go right. They stall by saying they’re still preparing as they watch potential move past them day after day. Alternatively, Masterful Manifesters move forward confident in their creative abilities to make what they touch turn to gold and engage the necessary support. Masterful Manifesters take whatever action is needed to put the opportunity into play.

Spiritual Contemplation: What limiting conversations in your head keep you from being a Masterful Manifester? Are you stalling because of your ambiguity? In order to leave that fear behind, what opening must you step through to make your dreams come true?

Affirmation: I am a Masterful Manifester!