Last week I went foraging for blackberries in the various trails and forests near my home. It’s been a very wet summer in Ireland and while this hasn’t been all that much fun for those of us who love sunny days, it has been wonderful for the brambles and hedgerows.
Foragers from across the UK and Ireland have been reporting that blackberry crops are enormous this year, and I’ve been noticing them everywhere. So I set off with my basket, in hope of collecting enough berries to make a few pots of jam.
As I rambled through the grassy paths, stopping every so often to collect from each bush, I started to realise that foraging offers us an amazing lesson in how the principle of abundance actually works. I’m not just talking about the tangible outcome of a day spent foraging - a basket full of food collected without exchanging a penny - I’m talking about the actual process of foraging.
I began to reflect on how this process could easily be applied to all the other areas of my life that I’m hoping to grow and develop. And that when I return to the simplicity of abundance it feels so much easier and natural than the complex strategies my mind comes up with.
These are my five takeaways about how to bring the principle of abundance into your life.
Decide what you want
This is such a simple first step but it’s one that we often forget about.
There are plenty of days when I go for a walk and take a look at all of the plants around me:
“Oh maybe I could collect some nettles”
“I wonder what I could do with those dandelions”
“Is it rosehip season yet? Maybe I should pick some roseships…”
By the end of the walk I’ve collected nothing at all.
We live in a limitless universe, which offers us a vast array of experiences and opportunities. But the first step of inviting more of something into your life is in choosing it. I would never have collected 1kg of blackberries if I hadn’t boldly declared “I’m going to collect blackberries this week” and then gone out and done the thing.
Before I started learning how to drop into my body I used to feel entirely overwhelmed by all of the options available to me and I couldn’t choose what I really wanted.
One way to get out of decision paralysis is to stop focusing on what you want in the external world and start focusing on what feeling or experience you want to have in your body.
Do you desire more feelings of love?
Perhaps more confidence?
More feelings of safety and security?
What about more creativity or wildness?
Make a choice - knowing that you can always make more choices in future - and declare it to yourself and the world.
Train your focus.
Once I decided that I wanted to pick blackberries I directed my attention towards looking for them on my walks. Trails that I previously would have walked along without looking left or right were now filled with signs of the little dark buds and the longer I spent picking, the more attuned I became to the clues of where they were. I started to learn how to recognise the bushes even before I spotted the berries and what kinds of plants they tended to grow alongside.
Now you may think “well duh Sarah, that’s how you’re going to find them…”
But let me ask you this question; have you trained your attention towards the thing that you desire or towards the lack of it?
When you decide that you desire more love in your life, do you focus on the friendships, family and acquaintances who offer you so much love already, or do you fixate on your lack of a partner or your lonely moments? When you desire more confidence do you send your energy towards the places in your life that you already feel confident or do you start to dwell on all the ways that you feel insecure or lacking in confidence?
Most of us have trained our focus towards the lack of the thing we desire. So it’s unsurprising that this lack then starts showing up everywhere. Before we know it we have an abundance of lack.
If you want more of something you have to train your focus towards it. This is how you teach yourself to recognise it and give yourself even more opportunities to find it in future.
What you desire is already here.
This is the one that I have to remind myself of all the time.
When I’m picking blackberries it’s pretty obvious that I’m not creating blackberries out of thin air. If I set off with my foraging basket planning to do that I’d give up almost immediately, because that’s beyond the scope of my capabilities. Luckily I don’t need to do that at all - I just need to let myself be drawn to where the blackberries already are, by learning to recognise them little by little.
One of the biggest lessons that embodiment taught me is that everything I desire already exists within me, however faintly.
The love that I desire is already present in my heart - I feel a flash of it when I imagine my future family. The security that I sometimes stumble over myself to find in things outside of myself is already within me, in the moments that I let myself slow down, breathe and watch the clouds. The joy that I crave isn’t actually on the other side of a certain number in my bank account, it’s shimmering inside me, and when I train my focus I can feel a little more of it everyday.
Everything that you desire is already here - because where else could it be?
Doesn’t it feel like a relief to know that you don’t have to create anything from scratch? All you have to do is notice where what you want already exists and then let yourself be guided to more, and more, and more of it.
Let yourself receive
Surprisingly, this can sometimes be the hardest part.
I noticed the blackberries on the bushes for weeks before I actually got myself organised enough to go and pick some. Noticing the abundance all around you is a wonderful first step - but letting yourself actually receive what you desire is another one.
Receiving requires slowing down, and it may involve some practical considerations. I had to carve out a few hours that I could spend dedicated to blackberry picking. I had to remember to bring my basket. I had to buy some jam sugar so that I could preserve them afterwards. And I had to allow myself to pick them slowly, otherwise I would end up with thorns in my fingers.
Once you’ve noticed that you already have a lot of love in your life - friends, family, social groups - letting yourself receive it may require some action on your part. You have to carve out time to spend with them, nurture those relationships, and slow down enough to let yourself be in the moment with them.
If you desire more freedom in life, rather than focusing on how trapped you feel in your job or current life circumstances, you’ll want to tune your attention towards the places and ways that you already experience freedom, and then let yourself experience it fully. Can you choose to spend one evening a week taking yourself on a mini adventure? Can you savour the free time you get on your lunch break?
This is the art of acting in alignment with the state of being that you crave.
It can be tough when our logical brain is telling us that this is a waste of time that could be better spent solving the “problem” of our lack. But learning to receive is about unlearning the idea that lack is a problem when really it’s just another option for us to explore in a limitless universe.
Gratitude comes naturally
It’s a well worn fact that gratitude holds enormous benefit for us. Not only does it help us to feel more content about our lives as they are right now, but it also helps us to bring even more into our lives to be grateful about.
But I’m not a fan of practices that encourage us to pretend to be grateful until it becomes real, when there are so many ways to naturally and genuinely experience true gratitude.
After a while I started whispering “thank you, more please” to each of the brambles while I was picking my blackberries. I started noticing more and more and more of the berries - more than I could ever eat, more than I could ever hope to pick - and I started to feel overcome by just how plentiful our Earth is. And this feeling of plenty translated into a natural sense of gratitude towards the Earth for all that she provides for us.
Gratitude is a natural consequence of fully experiencing the world.
And the more deeply you experience the world, the deeper the gratitude you feel for it.
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You already live an abundant life. The only question is, what are you allowing yourself to receive an abundance of?
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