Mango Land by Anne Nayer, msw – Coach Paradise

If abundance were measured in mangos we’d all be rich here in the Virgin Islands. Like a value laden stock portfolio I check the state of my grafted mango tree each morning to see if the thrushies have found the fruit ripe enough too peck at so I can pick it before they treat it like a sampler box of chocolates, taking a out of bite of each piece and then putting it back in the box.

If the red and yellow flamboyants dotting our island home are any indication of the passionate, colorful lives we lead we’d have to take turns being featured on the life-styles of the rich and famous or the celebrity channel and let’s not forget about super moon bonuses paid out in shimmering silver like Oprah handing out cars or tickets to Australia; sunrises and sunsets so dazzling that they command audiences larger than the biggest summertime block buster and a winter time that I’ve come to call rainbow season where we each have our day basking in the pot of gold at the end of the spectrum.

We behold more stars on any given night than anyone in NYC sees in a lifetime except at the Hayden Planetarium and we don’t just sing about the fish jumping but get to witness the drama of life and death on the high seas on a daily basis.

The Law of Attraction suggests that whatever we focus on expands whether it’s a dwindling bank account or random money found in last season’s jacket pocket. Since we are vibrational beings – pure energy – we attract people, places, situations and things that have a similar vibrational frequency to our own. If we’re vibrating at the lower end of the scale feeling powerless and depressed we tend to draw people, places, things and situations with similar vibrations into our lives – as in misery loves company and when we’re scowling, the whole world seems to be scowling too and the bad news is what’s hot off the press. When we’re smiling the whole world smiles back at us and it’s a bright sun-shiney day or at least a rainy day full of clouds with silver linings.

The only reason we ever want anything – whether it’s a Porsch, true love, a day off or a raise – is because we think it will make us happy – and the best way to be a vibrational match for happy is to feel happy now. It doesn’t matter what we’re happy about or if we’re in that delicious state of joy of happy for no reason – irrespective of the state of our bank account, relationship status, career trajectory, number of bedrooms or pool or no pool. A focus on abundance can only result in an expansion of abundance in our lives – it’s the law.

Sustaining that focus can be a serious challenge if we are used to coming from a place of lack, of not enough, of I’ll feel good when….. my ship comes in, I get the job, the guy, the house, the car (fill in the blank).

An underlying theme for many of us when we scrape the surface is that we are not good enough. We didn’t get good enough grades, weren’t good enough to fulfill the expectations of our parents or teachers or our culture’s mandates, don’t have ideal bodies or an ‘acceptable’ sexual orientation or mainstream political views. We are brought up to think that the pie is limited and that like a piñata at kids birthday party, if we don’t rush in to gather the candy that drops to the ground, it will be gone or like a game of musical chairs, if we don’t rush, and push someone out of the way we may be the one left standing.

It’s a lot of programming to overcome – all this negative pr about ourselves, about the state of the economy, the environment and the world at large. What if we have been sold a bill of goods and not knowing any better have bought it. What if there is more than enough to go around – enough food, enough money, enough love for everyone. What if we don’t really have to scramble, compete, steal, hoard, stockpile and live in fear. What if we turned that formula on it’s head and relaxed, collaborated, shared, trusted, distributed and understood that giving and receiving are part of the same loop – whether it’s money or love or our attention that we’re giving.

There’s no better time to tune into this message than mango season and I like nothing better than to stop and pick up bags of fallen mango and delight in the impromptu fruit stands that have popped up everywhere with their neat little piles of yellow goodness arranged carefully on roadside tables making me think that Fort Knox is leaking golden ingots and reminding me that paradise is merely a thought away and that it’s our home.