I was driving home after a beautiful walk along the river on my favorite campus (Michigan State) when I was scanning my SiriusXM radio and stopped on a channel. It was a talk about widening our containers, our perspective, so that we can receive more.

This message really struck a cord with me because all year (and for the past few years) I’ve been widening my perspective and experiencing the growing pains and joys that come with it. Widening your container or perspective is about looking at where you are in all aspects of your life (personal, spiritual, finance, work, health, etc.) and then reaching further to make it even better. It’s proactive rather than reactive. So if you are sick and tired of being sick and tired, do one thing today to improve your physical wellbeing and keep doing it. If you’re fed up with your boss/job, then take a step towards finding and doing your passion career and do it everyday. If you’re financially or spiritually broke, make a decision to learn what you need to do to become financially or spiritually abundant and keep doing it. Widening the container is not a one time event, it’s a process. The process is called life. Yet I find that most people (and I’ve been there at times) are satisfied with being dissatisfied. And that’s not right.

But here’s the glitch about that container: When we ask for more in our lives but don’t have the space to accommodate more, we end up pushing away the exact thing that we want. What???? We don’t do this intentionally; it’s a subconscious reaction built on a belief system that we’re not entitled to more than what we have. Everyday we push our desires and dreams away because we often go through life thinking small, not believing that we deserve more than what we have, and being taught to be grateful for what we have (and hence, don’t ask for more). Who came up with those crappy rules? Your life and what’s in it is exactly as big as your container and what you can fit in it. Small perspective creates a small container and a small life. A big container is filled with an expansive perspective of all that is possible and creates a big glorious life.

But in order to bring in something new, we may need to make space for it. So that usually means that something has to go. Most people don’t want to give up anything even if it’s something toxic; they just want to keep adding in more stuff in hopes of covering it up. I call this Toxic Hoarding. To make space, we need to eliminate what isn’t working for us anymore so that we can add what we really want.

You don’t have to give up anything huge or life altering. It could simply be that you spend less time on Facebook (which has been such a depressing energy drain for me lately), less time gossiping, less time watching reality TV, less time with energy draining people, friends and activities. It’s about learning to say no, staying focused on what you want in your life and avoiding a life that is on auto pilot with mind-numbing activities! Or maybe you need a life altering change so you start to reduce the number of hours working for a toxic job, you leave the toxic job knowing that when a space is created it must be filled, you walk away from a relationship that no longer serves you, or you start to do something for yourself everyday that promotes well-being, purpose and abundance in your life.

So what does your container look like? Is it big enough to hold all of your dreams and goals. If it is, you’re not dreaming big enough. If it’s not, start to clean out your container and start to stretch your dreams and goals beyond your comfort zone. You know that I’m all about tools to help with changing belief systems and supporting change. So here are my top 5 picks:

• The Infused 7 essential oil kit by Oola and Young Living. This kit is all about balancing and growing 7 areas of your life: Faith, Family, Field/work, Finance, Fitness, Friends and Fun. I have been working extensively with this kit and I love love love it. (P.S. Be sure to get the Oola Balance and Oola Grow bottles, too, because they combine great with this kit.)
• For crystals, get some Azurite with Malachite (place on your 3rd eye to work on core beliefs) or an Elestial crystal (strips away anything that is not in line with your crown chakra).
• Tapping (the Emotional Freedom Technique).
• Meditation or time to quiet your mind every day.
• Build a vision board and go big on those dreams!

Please don’t live a small life. You were placed on this planet at this time in history to bring something that is unique to you. If you don’t bring it, you will deprive everyone of your gift.

About Allie Phillips: