Open the flow of abundance in your life

What is abundance, anyways?

I believe that experiencing abundance is the antidote to being paralyzed by anxiety and fear about the state of the economy or your personal finances.

So what is abundance, anyway? The dictionary defines abundance as:

1. A great or plentiful amount.
2. Fullness to overflowing: "My thoughts . . . are from the abundance of my heart" (Thomas De Quincey).
3. Affluence; wealth.
   

And I am here to tell you that not only is abundance a state of being, it's also a mindset and way of experiencing your life.

Practicing gratitude is the quickest and easiest route to experiencing a sense of abundance. As soon as you start appreciating all the things you have in your life, especially the intangibles like love, friendship, creativity, and inspiration, your perceptions effortlessly shift into an experience of abundance.

While it's tempting to think that abundance is comprised of affluence of material posessions or money, the truth is abundance comes from a different source.

Lynne Twist, in her book Soul of Money, observes, after many years of philanthropic work connecting people with loads of money with the poorest people on the earth, that the experience of abundance and the feelings of contentedness, security, and happiness that come along with it were more often found in the peoples in the poorest communities than among those individuals with great wealth of money.

Perhaps you noticed my very specific choice of words in that last sentence. If not, I'll lay it out for you again. The experience of abundance and the feelings of contentedness, security and happiness that comes along with it were more often found in the peoples in the poorest communities than among those individuals with great wealth of money.

Yes, it seems that abundance is experienced more by people interconnected and interdependent with each other within caring communities, than it is among individuals who feel all alone and defensive in a competitive world even if they have boatloads of money.

So the more you are connected to a collaborative community of other people who reciprocate caring for each other and sharing resources, the more likely you are to experience abundance in your everyday life.

And that's not all. Abundance is an experience of being and having enough.

As I said above, abundance can be a mindset. It can be practiced, cultivated, and mastered as a philosophical or spiritual path that truly comes from inside of you.

While there are those lucky folks who grew up feeling deeply loved and cherished and who experienced the sense of being good enough, valuable and worthy on a cellular level since childhood, most of us came from human families that did their best and still left us with some faulty formative experiences that convinced us at a young age that we were not good enough in one way or another.

And the nagging, often subconscious, beliefs of not being good enough, not being valuable enough, not being enough, cuts us off from experiencing abundance in its purest form as a deep abiding knowing that your human and spiritual needs will be provided for by the basic design of the Universe. Abundance will flow to you through your community, your loved ones, your creative work, and all kinds of wonderful, unexpected ways, especially if you are open to receiving and experiencing it.

Abundance is so much more than money and financial wealth, it's an experience of a different kind of currency - love, inspiration, hope, belonging, self-worth, etc...

To find out more, I invite you to join me for my teleseminar Opening the Flow of Abundance in your Life! on Weds, March 24th at 12pm. Register here.

Success Manifestation

After a decade long self-discovery journey and becoming an Ordained Minister so I could help others to find truth and happiness, I decided to blend my self-discovery process with my know-how of the wellness industry to show emerging and established practitioners how to transform their special gifts, talents and burning desire to help others into an authentic, fulfilling, client attractive business that integrates seamlessly with their chosen lifestyles.

My experiences mentoring other women to help them find their truth and unique selves during my ministry training has lead me to develop a self-discovery process that allows you to find your inner voice and step into your most authentic, powerful, fulfilling self. I teach this process of self-discovery through one-on-one coaching, tele-courses and mypublications.

But it doesn't stop there. Once you have discovered your calling, the world needs you to get out there and do it! You need to make the decisions and take the steps to manifest it into a real practice or business. Through my years working in all aspects of the wellness industry from back office, to front desk, to treatment room as a practitioner and coach, I have learned all of the important keys needed to create a thriving wellness business. So, I can guide you through all the aspects of creating and running a focused, client attractive business based on the platform of your passions and talents. (Check out my free workbook "Six Steps Every Practitioner Needs to Take")

Hence my motto: "Be yourself and change the world!"

To date, I have helped many emerging and established practitioners shift more fully into their calling and manifest valuable practices making positive change in the world. To read about some of the people I've helped, check out the Success Stories on my website.

Diva Toolbox Blog - Joanna Scaparotti says Be yourself and change the world!

Featured on the Diva Toolbox Blog today:

Be yourself and change the world!

That's my motto. It means owning your gifts, your life experience, your perspective, and all the wonderful things that make you uniquely you. And then taking these gifts to the people around you and helping them heal and become their healthiest, happiest, most magnificent selves. Read more...

Diva Toolbox Blog - Joanna Scaparotti says Be yourself and change the world!

Write your new story

Last week I talked about the power of writing a new story that you tell yourself about who you are and what you can accomplish and experience in your life. If you're still not living the courageous, authentic, joyful life that you want to be living, it is time for you to write your new story. Some of you have heard my transformational story before, but it's a great example of the process of writing a new story. So here it is again.

In 2007, I decided to write a new story about myself as a successful private practitioner who helped other people experience wellness and inspiration all the while living a healthy, balanced lifestyle of my own. I didn't consciously know it at the time, but hanging up a shingle meant that I had to face and clean out societal conditioning and self-worth issues. With each step I took towards "legitimizing" my practice, another fear, limiting belief, or doubt would pop up. The first six months were mostly full of trial and error, facing fears and limiting beliefs and my own personal growth into the role of practitioner.

In addition to the inner clean up work that I had to go through in order to confidently offer my services to others, I had to learn how to run a business too. There are so many authorities on how to run a business out there - it was confusing and overwhelming. I listened to what the experts said, and I tried this or that technique, bought client attraction and marketing systems from "experts", and doubted that I really had what it takes to practice in a way that served others and myself.

I did build a private practice quickly, but after injuring myself towards the end of the first year with overwork and poor body mechanics at the Reiki table, I realized that the only way this new story was going to really work for me and create the life I wanted was if it was built on my values and aligned with what was healthy for me.

With the help of my mentor, I learned how to go within to find my own Inner Voice of Authority and start making decisions and taking actions that truly aligned my practice with my beliefs and values. My mentor helped me clear away the roadblocks that caused my old story to repeat itself and truly learn how to write my new story.

When some of my Reiki students were ready to start practices of their own, I found a deeper calling than I had heard before. I realized that I could assist them in the process of becoming a practitioner and business owner by showing them how to listen to their Inner Voice of Authority and use it to write their own story of success and fulfillment instead of spending months, maybe years, listening to all the experts about what they should be doing to become a successful practitioner.

Truly, there's a transformation process that we each have to go through, like a caterpiller becoming a butterfly, in order to write and step into our new stories. It requires a shift in perspective and understanding on the deepest level about ourselves, our motivations, desires and our fears and limiting beliefs.

My process Clearing your Path for Success guides practitioners who are stuck in their old story through a 5 step process to identify the new story they desire, find their inner voice of authority, identify the roadblocks (fears, limiting beliefs, external pressure) keeping them stuck in the old story, work through the roadblocks to clear their path, and then write and step into their new story.

This process gives my clients the courage and confidence to live the lives they desire and do the work they love and feel called to do in a way that not only serves others but supports their own lives as well. Clearing Your Path for Success can take you step by step through the transformational process of clearing out your old story and writing your new story. It will quickly begin to create momentum and attract the energy you need to step into your new story. The best part about the process, in my opinion, is that it empowers you to find and overcome your roadblocks, access your inner voice, and make decisions from your heart.

If you are struggling with stepping into a new story in your life or your life or your practice, I invite you to sign up for the online class version of Clearing your Path for Success that starts March 1st. All the details and link to the registration form are here: Write your New Story!

It's time for your new story

Recently, I re-discovered how powerful thoughts are in creating our experience of life.

Without even realizing it, our subconscious thoughts set us up to experience the same emotions in new situations as we had in old situations. If your past experiences involved struggle, disappointment, suffering, lack of love, not enough money, etc..., you may be letting this story about who you are and what you can expect from life shape the life you're experiencing today and blocking the effortless love, abundance and success that you really want.

That's pretty powerful, isn't it?

Here's the thing though: you don't need to let your past define who you are today and how your life is going to be in the future. If you're tired of the pain, suffering and frustration your story puts you through, or if you've simply outgrown it as you have grown and changed in your life - you can invent a new, wonderful, exciting story for yourself. It's that easy.

It takes a bit of diligence and courage to root out and say goodbye to those familiar old beliefs about what your life is like based on your past, but as you begin to choose the new thoughts that shape the life you truly desire to live the shift into much better circumstances becomes effortless.

There are a lot of techniques that you can use to write your new story - positive affirmations, vision board, chanting mantras, visualizing and visioning, energy work, dreaming, working with a mentor or coach like me, journalling, and so much more. All of these techniques require a willingness to be really honest with yourself about your habitual beliefs and a Decision to step into a new, exciting worldview of what your life could be.

Writing a new story comes down to one thing - deciding to define your life based on what you want out of it instead of your past experiences.

Over the next couple of weeks, I'll be introducing some new programs to help you do this and shift into the life of prosperity, love and success that you really want. Stay tuned!