Receive Your Gifts: Abundance with Ease

Experience a breakthrough!

What if we got it wrong? What if success does NOT have to be so stressful?

As an Executive Coach, I work with people who create Big Success. They push themselves, and they do extraordinary things: complete and publish a first book, create a company, lead teams, gain visitors (from 173 countries) to their blog and more.

Some time ago, I was about to sit down to work and I felt depleted.

An idea that I’ve shared with clients arose in my mind: “It’s okay to get tired. But let’s stay aware. We CAN avoid burnout.”

I thought about launching a whole new project and product. I took in a breath and felt tired. Really tired.

Then three powerful words arose in my mind:

What about ease?

I’ve learned that there are times when our first thought (like “I’m so tired. I don’t see how I can do this) can be misguided.

Shift your thoughts with just three words: What about ease?

Think about it.

• Confidence Attracts. Stressed out repels.
• Ease attracts. Desperation repels.

How can you put Ease into your process?

And, let’s take this to another level: Abundance with Ease.

This became clear to me some years ago. I took a seminar in which I learned to break a wooden board with my palm-strike. Sure, the breaking of the board represented a “breakthrough.”

Then I had a thought. What if you remove the board?—You could have an EASETHROUGH.

That’s the big, helpful idea! Remove the board or obstacle in your life.

One of my favorite topics that I give speeches on is “Receive Your Gifts: Abundance with Ease.”

Right at this moment, you have a number of gifts in your life.

Still, the question is: Do you RECEIVE your gifts?

This became clear to me one time. I have a particular elderly relative who is simply miserable. I gave this person a gift and he simply put it aside. He did not open it. He did not receive the gift. Why? Because this guy harbors resentments, disappointments, and judgments against a number of family members. He has gifts: he can walk, he has family members, he is financially okay. But he has bad habits in his thinking—so his whole life is full of upset (and metaphorical “wooden boards.”).

I see things like this guy’s behaviors and his upset-patterns of thought, and I realize I want a LIFE that is so different from that!

Don’t you?

The essence of “Receive Your Gifts: Abundance with Ease” is in removing the obstacles in this present moment. [Remember: Remove the wooden board and have an Easethrough.]

If you only focus on the future, you might live in worry.
If you only focus on the past, you might live in regret.
Really LIVING is found in this present moment.

Is it easy to let go of worry and regret? Probably not at first. Why? We have a lot of “practice” with worry and regret. Worry and regret are connected to the three major obstacles (“wooden boards”). They are resistance, judgment and attachment.

Nonresistance, nonjudgment, and nonattachment are the three aspects of true freedom and enlightened living. – Eckhart Tolle

Here I’ll provide a few brief comments on the processes of nonresistance, nonjudgment, and nonattachment:

1. Nonresistance

We lose a lot of energy to resisting things. One of my clients resisted the idea that her mother simply could not be loving. Later, with nonresistance, she learned to receive the gift of nurturing and kindness from her friends.

2. Nonjudgment

Judging things in certain ways can keep us worrying about the future. One of my clients said that he could not take it if he lost his job. In essence, he was judging himself to be incompetent. The positive process was to set aside the idea of “incompetent” and to focus on improving his skills both work-related and for keeping himself strong (nutrition, exercise, quiet time…).

3. Nonattachment

When one door closes another door opens; but we so often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door, that we do not see the ones which open for us. – Alexander Graham Bell

The truth is: loss is coming. The idea of nonattachment is to approach life in a way in which we convert “demands” into “preferences.” If we lose something, but we had held it as a “preference,” we can more easily recover.

Demands can get us into trouble. We might try to demand that another person love us, or be thoughtful, or be conscious of how their actions affect us. Still, such demands often get another person to rebel, and we get exactly what we had hoped to avoid.

Nonattachment is a process of flowing with life as it is. This is opposed to swinging a metaphorical bat of expectations and to trying to beat life and other people into submission. Such acts just create misery.

We realize that it can be useful to have a goal and to engage with the process of making it manifest. Still we can hold the goal with a light grip. We do what’s necessary, but as some disappointments arrive, we are okay because we hold things as “preferences.” Sure, an author prefers to have a best-selling book. Still, she is grateful for selling 10,000 copies.

*  *  *

Let’s hold onto the idea of an Easethrough. That’s when you remove the “wooden boards” of resistance, judgment and attachment.

Now it’s your turn. What “wooden boards” (obstacles) are in your life? How can you shift your approach to one of nonresistance, nonjudgment and nonattachment?

Then you can truly Receive Your Gifts.

Warmly,

Tom

Tom Marcoux
CEO (leading teams in United Kingdom, India and USA)