Havingness: Your capacity to Receive, Possess and Appreciate

Increasing Havingness: Building your Capacity by Halves

Receiving, benefiting, and owning responsibility for Attraction and eliminating that which does not serve.

The Christmas holiday reminds me that material consumption is at the heart of our economic system and that havingness has been equated to possession of things. To have possessions is to equate status to our worth as a person. At least, this is the thin narrative which implies a definition of what havingness and prosperity is. One rendition of havingness is expressed in the American Dream; where supposedly a pot of gold, like home ownership, or career or material success, or the good life, may be found at the end of the rainbow of hard work and achievement. Yet most people once were simply grateful to live in a house, let alone own the one they occupied. So this topic can be a hot button because some who’ve been weaned on the axiom “you only deserve what you earn” have been imprisoned by a belief that is two dimensional. It does not account for grace, nor goodwill, nor luck (good or bad), nor good fortune; just quid pro quo. Some then feel direct entitlement to what they possess, instead of holding it as a gift from God. And at the other end of the spectrum, when ones’ efforts or prayers do not correlate in the way they believe should happen; we see people having instead, a sense of shame or un-deservedness or ingratitude when either something good or desirable, actually comes to them. These are emotions and attitudes which deflect rather than invites, what we want.

One of the difficulties I’ve had with the concept of “havingness” relates to the fact that no clear “how to” or “how much” instruction had been attached to speeches about it. I guess the Secret is out, but it does little in my estimation to reveal what is actually is, let alone how it works!

The notion seemed to me some vague quality that if I were just positive enough (whatever that meant), and just extroverted enough (which appeared to contain a contradictory instruction to be somewhat pushy without regret and yet kindly enough without agenda); then by some magical alchemy and summons to the Angels, Muses, Valkaries, and delivery trucks, each would attend to my whims and bring everything I ever wanted into my lap. And, commonly, it was stuff that I was praying for, instead of feelings of joy, well-being, and having vital presence with my own life.

These mores which are well intended ideas to open to possibility, encourage enterprise and provide incentive to grow have become dogma and a moral trap; barricading minds into a constricted understanding of, and possibility for, abundance. But abundance is far more available to us, if we are just open to let it in.

It was these implied formula with no distinct measure, triggered first confusion and then an opening to a contact with Michael’s Consortium. This article is their response to me. What I have come to refer as my morning download.

So, what is Havingness?

Defining Havingness requires stating five major attitudes which foster attraction and maintain openness to receive:

1. Raise your openness to receive “what is present”. In other words think, “OK, so what have I got here?” 
2. Classify whatever happens or whatever comes into your sphere or possession as something that you need at the moment in life, whether it is apparent or not.
3. Willingly derive or accept benefit from whatever you receive in your path,
4. Own that something (vis viva [1]) is at work attracting it to you.[2]
5. Fully immerse yourself in the emotions attending your experience of what is present. And without imposing limitation or exclusion, the passage way through which things flow shall be kept clear and open, free from closure due to uncertainty or the back fill of rationalization.

So, this is what “havingness” is but notice it is not the same as deservedness. Havingness differs from deservedness in that there are no moral, emotional or philosophical prerequisites necessary to justify what comes into your life. (People with great material wealth show high havingness regardless of their moral code.) Whatever the “it” is that arrives, it just is! Stop trying to justify its arrival or control it by explaining or attributing a specific cause and effect to it. This will limit the flow! Instead, an attitude of “it just is” keeps the awe on maximum and judgment to a minimum. With the conscious observation of your mind, notice arrival of something being assigned arbitrary worth[3]. Like your value as a person being equated with what you do, how much you earn, how good you are, or what social class you occupy, or how strong, or beautiful, or young, and on and on and on, etc. If you lapse and lose the awe, which combines the external sense of gratitude and the inward experience of appreciation – upon which awe is fostered, then you fall into the chasm that is occupied by Ego and Chief Features: entitlement. Entitlement is the killer of both effort and of humility. And both are essential to havingness; allowing events, emotions, and objects into your experience without expectation or exclusion.

At this point you might be thinking: “OK, now that we have a definition and a set of attitudes how to view the concept of havingness what can I do to let it in? The answer lies in the behavior called halvingness – meaning letting new experiences in by segments of approximately one half of the

So, if it too big at first, cut it in half! (the 50% solution)

Here are the basics of this approach to increase havingness in quantitative terms.

1. Whatever happens that your really like, let yourself enjoy half the experience. It is totally acceptable to distrust how you got it, distrust the giver – if there was one, demean or guilt yourself into thinking that you don’t deserve it or pump yourself up making yourself overcome any inadequacy feelings and getting good and righteous about it. All of these are acceptable at 50% strength only. The other half actually opens to the nuances of the moment and bathes in all the new experiences and awareness’s you might be having with them.
2. Whatever you want to diminish in your life, tell yourself to reduce whatever it is by only 50% each time. Removal of anything that you’ve liked or depended on will breed rejection and anger towards yourself because instead of having something new, you will have an experience of loss or lack or shortage, or scarcity.
3. Make sure to give yourself the 50% of the new thing as the replacement of the 50% of the thing you are forgoing. For Example, if you have lost weight and you find that fear of gaining it back is pestering you, give yourself a 50% acknowledgment: buy a new piece of clothing for your new weight, and reduce your food intake by a few more calories. It becomes a Pavlovian conditioned response. You mind associates something new with further reduction of something familiar. On occasion, take yourself out to something really decadent, but have a smaller portion. (In havingness, the trick is not to experience deprivation but rather embrace the newness of what is as something added to your life and experience.)