In the middle of the night as I lay in bed drifting off to sleep during a particularly humorous episode of Futurama, I had the idea to check my bank account and bills.  This one small thought, instantly acted upon, led me to attempt to figure out how everything is going to work out with a looming credit card bill, rent just having been deducted, and a future with a job funded by a grant that is a few months away from ending.

In unconscious moments the ego easily gains a strong hold on your attention. It presents thoughts that you already strongly identify with, in moments where you will follow those thoughts to the point of action, creating a reality not based upon real life, but upon a thought pattern.

It was all too easy to stay awake even longer with a train of thought that I kept running after as if it could somehow help me.

That is the illusion.  Identification with thought always seems like it will benefit you, because thoughts are created to promote themselves.  Thoughts are quite good at convincing your attention they are important and necessary often to the detriment of your actual welfare and living reality.

I could see, as the night dwindled, I was being taken in not only by thought patterns but also by negative emotions, and however attractive that negative energy may seem at the time, it cannot improve any situation.  The night eventually set me about sleeping.

Today Chicago is a blanket of luminescent snow, a task to navigate through but incredible to behold.  The abundance of life is making itself impossible to miss.  It is everywhere and affects everything around it.  An abundance of snow is an outward manifestation of the nature of the universe, of life itself.  The fact of the outer existence of form is the evidence of the overflowing abundance of the ether, of God.

Creation, abundance, life begins in the formless, it begins within.  The formless is the foundation from which all outer form manifests. For all of the things in this world, like money, love, enjoyment, knowledge, we first must set the platform from which it will manifest outwardly in form.  There has to be an inner reality first.

No matter how many reasons your mind gives you to worry, and believe that your immediately perceived situation is your end-all be-all, you will not achieve change or prosperity until you experience the reality of abundance within yourself, as yourself.  You are living proof of an abundant universe where we have the opportunity to exist and thrive, and for our needs to be met and exceeded.

Experiment with feeling abundance in the present moment.  Look around and see the abundance of things, of electricity, of water, of snow, of people, and know that it is your reality.  For me, when I get into a place where all I see is lack I take a little while to snap out of it.  Listing in your mind what you are grateful for can help bring you into a prosperous state and give you a real experience of the abundant nature of the universe. Then with a clear mind and an open heart you can observe the transformation of your situation, however it may look.