Living in one of the wealthiest countries in the western world, it’s all too easy to take for granted the abundance that surrounds us. On the eve of our Thanksgiving holiday, it seems especially timely to push aside the inadvertent veil that plentitude often creates, obscuring the abundance in our lives
I experienced a simple but profound reminder of this during my recent fall cleanse, my biannual 21-day practice of nurturing my body with an initial vegan diet and then gradually reintroducing various foods.
About two weeks into the cleanse, I was allowed to reintroduce nuts into my diet, specifically up to twelve nuts a day. Gee, you might think, why bother? Twelve nuts might take longer to count out than to devour. Well, let me tell you, as someone who loves nuts of all kinds, after not being able to eat them for two weeks, the twelve almonds I savored might as well have been Beluga caviar.
My experience was completely transformed when I ate one almond at a time, really tasting and fully chewing each one. It was a stark contradiction to reaching mindlessly into the bag and eating countless almonds and neither tasting nor savoring the food.
Since this discovery, I’ve made it a practice to count out my serving size and truly enjoy each and every one of my allotted twelve almonds. I have a newfound appreciation for one of my favorite snacks by virtue of treasuring each and every bit of the abundance.
This made me wonder how much better would life be if we approach everything this way, if we view things through the constant lens of recognition and appreciation for the endless abundance that surrounds us?
Instead of overlooking the ever presence of bounty, let’s revere each and every morsel for its part of the blessed whole.
Abundance is everywhere around us for the noticing.
At this special time of Thanksgiving, let’s refocus our vision in gratitude for all that we do have.
