Flowing into Risk and Abundance
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Over the years, I have had the honor of presenting on various topics to wonderful audiences and good hearted people all around the country. A concept I often discuss is what I call, "living and loving with open palms."
I think about it this way…
If I live and love holding all of what I have tightly in my fisted hands, nothing will escape from my grasp - not my knowledge, or support, or information, not my time, not my love, nor my money, or my opportunities...nothing will slip away. Nothing is lost, nothing is risked.
However…
Nothing new can enter those tightly closed fists either. No new knowledge, or support, or information, or increased time, or financial abundance, or clients, or opportunities, or love, or blessings. Nothing can enter a heart, a life, a relationship, a job, a project, a community, a team, an organization, a friendship, or a family when the entry points and exits are all sealed shut due to fear, anger, bias, misunderstanding, shame, competitiveness, or unresolved heartbreak or trauma.
The key to opening that locked down space is a willingness to risk being vulnerable.
Risk means different things to different people. For some it means learning to forgive, or learning to trust one’s self, or learning to find your voice, or taking a breath and putting your idea out in the world. For me, it meant learning to tolerate the formerly intolerable: uncertainty.
Like many human beings I like to predict and control outcomes. It took me a long time to accept that we can plan all day long, extend our hearts and support to people, invest in places and things, and sometimes the result is not what we had hoped for, or prayed for, meditated on, or worked our darn tail feathers off for.
When life hands us a different outcome than what we’d hoped for, it can strike at our souls. In that wound there is pain. There is anger. There is sometimes regret. And plenty o’ frustration as well. There are also gifts in the wound, but they often are not apparent right away. The key is not to let that wound scar over with all of that mess and hurt inside of you. Of me. It’s a heck of a lot more painful to dig open a scar, or pry open a fist that is holding on to pain and fear.
I don't want to live a life with closed fists - closed due to fear and worry. Closed due to disappointment or betrayal. That is not living. That is not a life. After a long period of struggle, many years ago I finally learned to lean into risk, to lean into vulnerability. And I continue to do so, one step at a time.
Twenty-ish years ago I began practicing my concept of "living with open palms." My knowledge, information, prayers, money, abundance, healing, and love flow out from what I have been gifted with. As I flow into other people's worlds by extending, teaching, and supporting, I invite beautiful experiences toward me. This manifests in ways I never dreamed possible, every single time.
More knowledge, support, information, abundance, love, humor, and opportunity flows in to the space created from opening my palms and flowing out in support of others. It is so simple, yet such a struggle until we begin to practice this. Part of the practice is knowing, naming and maintaining healthy boundaries as well. Finding our voice, speaking our truth, advocating for important causes - these are all the ways we practice living with open palms.
Simple in theory. Not always easy in practice.
If this little message in a bottle that I have placed on the ocean of the Internet has washed onto your shore today, and if this humble message of hope resonates with your heart, I encourage you to risk just a little. Try to let go of just a bit of fear, anger or hurt. Open your palms up to what adventures and goodness await you. Let your gifts flow to others so more goodness can flow toward you. Practice being a person whose words and actions match. Not perfectly, but predictably.
How do you do that? By risking, by reaching out and supporting someone, by kindly answering a question, by taking a moment to share what you have been gifted with, by extending grace, by giving without the expectation of that being returned, by being present with yourself and others.
You don't have to do it all at once if that is too scary. Opening up a closed hand one little "pinky" finger at a time is enough.
You are enough.
