by Christy Whitman

In a world where there are very few absolutes, the act of giving is almost fail proof in its capacity to raise our vibration and magnetize greater abundance into our lives. This quote by author and former NBA champion Bill Russell explains in words both beautiful and concise exactly why this is so: “The quickest way to receive love is to give it;” he writes. “The fastest way to lose love is to hold it too tightly; and the best way to keep love is to give it wings.” Of course, this wisdom applies not just to love, but to happiness, energy, and abundance in all its many forms.

Why is it that the fastest way to receive anything we want more of in our lives is to give it to someone else? Because the act of giving raises our vibration (the frequency generated by the sum total of our thoughts, emotions, beliefs and desires), and places us in an ideal state to receive the very experience that we created on behalf of another.

We live in a universe in which people and events are magnetized together by virtue of how similar they are in energy. “Like attracts like” is the essence of the all-powerful Law of Attraction. When we understand this law, we realize that the same quality of energy we generate for others, we also generate for ourselves.

The act of giving shifts our mindset from one of lack to one of abundance. It is a declaration to the Universe that we have more than enough – time, attention, money, energy, happiness, and every other type of resource – to share. And this powerful declaration, done for the sake of another, actually increases the level of abundance we experience within ourselves.

One of the many benefits of being a Law of Attraction coach is that teaching others to manifest more abundance in their lives requires us as coaches to maintain this mindset in ours. In holding the space for our clients to manifest their desires, we open the door to more easily allow in the manifestation of our own. What we give to another, we simultaneously give to ourselves.

Using the power of giving to create more abundance in your life is easy. Simply practice giving to another a resource which you perceive yourself as lacking. Here are some examples:

  • If money feels tight, make a small financial contribution someone else’s wellbeing. The amount is not important; it’s the act of giving that raises our vibration and increases our awareness of (and gratitude for) all the ways in which we already are abundant.
  • If you are feeling pressed for time, consider letting a single car go ahead of you in traffic, rather than impatiently tailgating the car in front of you. This takes maybe 3 seconds, but gives back an immediate sense of ease.
  • At a time when you are feeling low on energy, challenge yourself to give some positive attention to someone else… a smile, a joke, or an extra moment to hold a door open. The moment you do this, you create a radical shift in your consciousness from deficiency to surplus and from lack to abundance.

The key to attracting more abundance in any area of our lives is to shift the quality of the energy that we bring to the situation. The act of giving has the power to shift a deficiency mindset to an abundance mindset in an instant. The secret is that we are both the giver and the receiver, because anytime we create a shift in consciousness, we alter the reality that in every moment of our lives we are in the process of creating.