Have you ever thought about abundance, what it is, what it means to you, and how to create it in your life?

Well, I have thought about this a lot and when I recently came across the below paragraph in Dr. Christiane Northrup’s amazing work “Women’s Bodies Women’s Wisdom” I knew I had to share it with you.

She writes:

“Instead of learning how to pay attention to the genius of our intuition and inner guidance, we instead internalize the belief that we are not worthy enough, smart enough, of good-looking enough to live lives of freedom, joy, and fulfillment. Lacking a compassionate language that acknowledges universal human needs, many women (and men) turn to addictions such as overwork, overcare, smoking, drugs and alcohol, and overeating to numb their pain. This results in an endless cycle of abuse that we ourselves help perpetuate. What I’m calling abuse might not be as subtle as feeling guilty about getting enough sleep! Being abused or abusing ourselves, we become ill. Then we turn to a medical system that is et up to deliver mostly quick-fix pharmaceutical solutions to problems that can’t be healed until we change our core beliefs and thoughts.”

What Dr. Northrup so accurately depicts in this paragraph is that we seek external solutions to heal our internal wounds. These internal wounds are what we often inflict upon ourselves -both relentlessly and unconsciously- through our beliefs and thoughts about ourselves, our abilities, and our innate worthiness.

I want to tell you a short story:

A client and I recently talked about her love life and she confessed that she really never wanted anything more in her life than to fall in love and have this love reciprocated to her.

"But," she said, “I have dated numerous men but all of these encounters never felt special or even close to anything I had imagined real love would feel like.”

I asked her if she thought she was love-worthy just the way she was and she responded “Well, that’s a hard question, but I think so.” And so I asked her to pay attention to her thoughts and her actions for a week.

I wanted to see how she spoke to herself and how she responded to her own urges and desires. I wanted to find out if the idea that she was love-worthy was something she conceptually believed or if it was actually something that was reflected in her life.

During our next call, she was pretty stirred up and said: “Caroline, I am AWFUL to myself and I never even knew it.”

She had a tendency to overeat when she felt lonely and experienced tremendous guilt whenever she said no to anyone. She scolded herself for being lazy, eating too much, not exercising enough, not being further along in her career and so forth. She was engaging in all of this self-abuse without even knowing it.

So it was clear to both of us that the real shift that needed to happen in her life was not to try to meet better men, go out more, or online date. Her true work was in ditching her self-abusive cycles and creating inner freedom from a place of true kindness. That is how she would create abundance in her life.

Over the years as a coach, I know that self-abusive behavior only breeds more self-abusing behavior unless we consciously interrupt this cycle and get out of our own inner prison.

For example, overeating, self-sacrificing and guilt are intimately connected and can create a pretty vicious cycle that can feel like an inner prison.

When we live in such an inner prison, abundance, flow, and ease in any area or our lives becomes impossible.

We cannot invite lasting love, success, fulfillment, or joy into our lives, because our “internal abuse system” as Dr. Northrup calls it, will always find a way to sabotage us -thrusting us back into our own perceived insufficiencies.

So where do we begin to create abundance, bliss, and happiness that lasts beyond moments of immediate gratification, external approval, or pharmaceutical solutions?

We must start by creating powerful shifts on the inside FIRST.

This is our job as human beings, as women (and men), as wives and husbands, as mothers (and fathers), as friends to our loved ones, as companions to ourselves, as active ingredients in the story of life.

This journey starts with busting our inner prisons and creating inner freedom in it’s place. This step cannot be skipped.

For a start, here is what I believe inner freedom means (& I want to know what you think in the comments below):

living a self-approved life
speaking to yourself compassionately, humorously, and gently
being in clear contact with your desires and not being afraid of acting upon them
trusting your intuition by feeling -truly FEELING- your beautiful body
equally honoring when you need rest and when you need stimulation
recognizing when something feels good and knowing you deserve it
receiving the love that the universe, other people, nature offer to you
having a clear sense that you are a special part of something much bigger
knowing that what you have to offer is unique and a gift to the world
acting in accordance with your values; even if they differ from the norm
feeling proud of who you are even when the temptation to compare yourself is right in front of your eyes

As you know, The Busy Girl’s 6-Week Plan To Balance & Fulfillment is starting for it’s 3rd round on Monday, February 16th and guiding you to create this Inner Freedom is the keystone of the course. You can find out more and sign up for the course here.

Questions? Hesitations? Concerns about time or money? Email caroline@carolinezwick.com, tell me what’s going on, and we can talk about your questions, address solutions, and chat payment plans. If you want to take this course, we will make it work.

I’d be honored to have you along for this powerful, transformative journey!

Here is to your inner freedom, love.