Today's topic is one I'm particularly excited to share with you. The question I'll be answering is "Where's my piece of prosperity?" And the word I'd like to bring your attention to is PIECE: which suggests that prosperity is something it's not. Because TRUE prosperity is not tangible, it's not quantitative and, above all, it's NOT finite.

You and I live in a culture that not only perpetuates those false ideas, but is largely focused on promoting the notion that we should do everything in our individual power to secure our own PIECE of prosperity. To get your piece is to maintain the pervasive consciousness of scarcity. It means to live in a mindset based on lack, or competition or "me-first-ism"

Indeed, scarcity is an awareness of what you don't have, of all the things you "need" before you give yourself permission to live happily ever after. I personally know some financially secure people, even millionaires, who hoard and skimp and isolate themselves in a deeply impoverished way in order to attempt to secure what's theirs. Do you know someone like that? Do you see that person when you look in the mirror? And, if so, are you ready to make a radical shift; to fundamentally alter your thinking and, therefore, your life?

When you're ready to say "Yes!" to abundance and to your self, then you're ready to learn the secret. You're ready to know that the rules of the game have changed; for your piece of prosperity is not out there waiting for you to finally hit the jackpot, it's not waiting in the realm of "some day" and it's not sitting subject to the somebody who might get to it first.

Because the truth is that the missing piece you've long sought was there along. You just couldn't see it so cleverly disguised, unwittingly misspelled with an 'E': p-e-a-c-e. Yes, your peace is here right now… waiting like an old friend to be embraced. It's the ripened fruit resting patient and still upon the tree of life and ready for your absolute delight.

It is this very moment when I lift my pen from the tablet and take in the sounds of my true love as he fills our life with music. The gentle chords of his guitar bring me to the exquisitely sweet realization that the creative life I've yearned for is HERE, is NOW, is REAL. I'm taken in by his sounds, by the music inside of me; a happiness only I can hear but that I want so deeply to share with you right now. My awareness shifted, and so did I; moved almost to tears by the overwhelming joy of knowing my long-held dream of true artistic expression had come to pass in the most subtle and lovely way. So subtle, in fact that I might have missed those moments of peace altogether had I failed to simply stop… and notice.

This inner peace of prosperity belongs to you, yes you, if you're willing to claim it. If you're able to name it as the twinkle of a child's eye, as a tender moment you shared with another, as any gift or treasure that brings meaning or joy to your day.

In fact, that you are human provides you with the greatest gift of all: the consciousness to recognize, to affirm and to be truly grateful for the infinite joys of your beautiful life. I affirm your worthiness and your privilege to the Peace Of Prosperity within you, within me, within the grasp of anyone and EVERY one who knows where to look and how to give thanks.

In the 15th century lived a prominent Italian scholar and monk by the name of Giovanni Giocondo who said: "There is nothing I can give you which you have not got; but there is much, very much, that, while I cannot give it, you can take. No Heaven can come to us unless our hearts find rest in it to-day. Take Heaven! No peace lies in the future which is not hidden in this present little instant. Take peace! The gloom of the world is but a shadow. Behind it, yet within our reach, is joy. There is radiance and glory in the darkness, could we but see; and to see, we have only to look.

Life is so generous a giver, but we, judging its gifts by their covering, cast them away as ugly or heavy or hard. Remove the covering, and you will find beneath it a living splendor, woven of love, by wisdom, with power. Life is so full of meaning and of purpose, so full of beauty-beneath its covering-that you will find that earth but cloaks your heaven. Courage, then to claim it: that is all! But courage you have; and the knowledge that we are pilgrims together, wending through unknown country, home. And so, I greet you; not quite as the world sends greetings, but with profound esteem, and with the prayer that for you, now and forever, the day breaks and the shadows flee away."

Need 5 minutes of Inspiration? Watch The Peace Movie at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sHyQRHLIclk