Video Summary:

During the retreats that I facilitate, I sometimes offer the teaching, “How much beauty can you stand?” This evolved during several retreats I participated in where I was doing my own deep intention work with what I wanted to create in my life and the extent I was willing to allow it.

We were doing several days of ceremony and there was this amazing energy of abundance and spiritual guidance. I could intuitively feel that if I was willing to intend something and allow it, I would have it.

But after I received a significant amount of beauty, joy, and love during the ceremony, I reached my limit of new abundance. I could hear Spirit inviting me, “Why not allow more? Don't you want this too?” But beyond this threshold, I noticed a tendency to push any additional beauty and abundance away.

Hence, “How much beauty can you stand?” was born. If I could allow more beauty, it was all right there. I was the only one limiting it. So I accepted as much beauty as I was able to. And during the next retreat, I was able to accept more. My truth became that we can have as much beauty as we're able to allow.

It's a perfect time of year to work with this. How much beauty and abundance can you allow in your life? What if life truly is abundant, and there’s not something outside of you that's metering out how much joy and love you can have? What if it's only you that's determining how much beauty you can have?

Another way this shows up is by asking yourself what you really want. Not what you think you deserve, are comfortable with, or believe is possible. Back to Spirit asking me at retreat, “Is that what you really want? It doesn't take any more energy to create the thing you want most. Why not allow that?”

It's a perfect time to sit with what you really want in your life. And are you willing to allow that much beauty, love, and abundance? You can work with this by envisioning the thing that you really want.

Say you want to have a business where you offer your medicine and healing abilities. You could envision yourself having that and notice what it’s like. What does it feel like to have that in your life?

Or say you want a loving relationship with someone who loves you for who and what you are. Envision having that in your life. What do you experience when you sit with it? What comes up?

Do limiting or undeserving beliefs arise? Or perhaps the fear of, “What if I get my heart broken?” Or, “What if the other shoe drops and it gets taken away?” Are you willing to risk that level of loss and disappointment? This is the stuff that prevents us from allowing the things we dream to have in our lives.

If you want to be part of a supportive spiritual community, what comes up when you envision yourself having it? Do you allow yourself to be a part of it? Do you accept someone's invitation to dinner? Do you allow people to support you when you're having a rough time? Or do you say, “No, it's okay. I'm good.”

We say we want spiritual community, but are we willing to allow that much beauty, acceptance, and belonging? Remember, we tend to unconsciously push away anything beyond our abundance threshold.

So I invite you to pick something that you want to create in your life this year. And go big. What do you really want? And then envision it in your life and see what comes up. Look at the fears and limiting beliefs. Then you can work with them until you can sit with what you want and not push it away.

Have it be part of your meditation practice where you sit with the energy of the thing you want. See yourself having it in your life. See yourself being it. Then simply observe the things that come up.

It might be, “That's interesting. I’m sitting with the thing I want, and my mind is freaking out. It's telling me that will never work. And what about this? What if this happens?” And you can simply observe all that and do some inquiry: What is preventing me from allowing and holding the things I want?

Sit with it long enough to challenge the fear and the undeserving. When you sit with the thing you really want without talking yourself out of it or pushing it away, it won't be long until that thing comes to you. When it appears, you can say, “There it is! I'm so happy that it's here. I'm going to thoroughly enjoy it.”