Where Abundance Lives – Working with Lakshmi Beyond Money

Why more money doesn’t create thriving — and what does

There are moments when I look at my life and realize I should feel more abundant than I do.

Nothing is necessarily wrong. My needs are met. I have things I enjoy, people I love, and moments that should feel like enough. And yet, something in me still feels like I’m just surviving and getting by. I started asking myself a question I didn’t have an answer for: “why don’t I feel abundant, even when I have enough?”

I want more—not just more money, but more ease, more freedom, and feeling like life is open and available to me. But when someone offers me something … I hesitate to accept. I tell myself it’s not necessary, or that I can do it or handle it on my own. I realized how uncomfortable receiving made me feel.

For a long time, I thought I needed to create and manifest abundance. It was something I needed to work for, earn, or prove myself worthy of receiving.

When I began working with Lakshmi, I started to see abundance and thriving differently.

Lakshmi – Goddess of Abundance, Generosity, and Thrival

One of my favorite Goddesses to connect with is the Hindu Goddess Lakshmi. She is best known as the Goddess of wealth, abundance, and prosperity. Traditionally, she is also known for her generosity and rewarding generous people. As I’ve worked with Lakshmi, I’ve expanded this to include thrival—the act or state of thriving.

The Hindu tradition in India still reveres, honors, and worships Lakshmi, especially during the Diwali festival. Because she is a living deity, not buried in antiquity, we have more historical and traditional information about her.

However, we can access her energy and frequency through personal experience. My connection with Lakshmi has come from intuitively working with her through meditation, journaling, and reflection. As I gradually attuned my energy with hers, I soon recognized when I felt her presence in my life.

As a Goddess, a divine Being, she not only holds the frequencies of abundance, prosperity, wealth, and a myriad of other qualities, she is the epitome of them. By attuning my energy with hers, I’ve learned to acknowledge, embody, and embrace those qualities within myself.

When we approach Lakshmi in this way — with respect, openness, and attunement rather than imitation — she begins to meet us where we are. The first place she challenges us is to consider how we define abundance. Often, it’s narrower than we realize.

Abundance Beyond Money

In the West, we associate Lakshmi only with financial wealth because our culture and commerce revolve around having “enough” money—for meeting our basic needs, feeling safe, and breathing easier. But her abundance is much more than simply money. It applies to thriving in all areas of our lives

For me, financial wealth means having more than enough money to live the lifestyle I desire, do fulfilling work, and do fun things. It allows me more freedom to experience more of the beauty this world offers. I can enjoy leisure activities, travel, and deepen my life experiences.

As I’ve worked with Lakshmi, I’ve realized that while money can offer freedom and choice, it isn’t the source of abundance itself. That challenged a long-held belief that more money would eventually make me feel more abundant. Money is simply one way abundance moves through our lives. That understanding revealed something deeper.

Abundance in Daily Life

Lakshmi’s true wealth comes from appreciating and enjoying the bounty and abundance of life. Her abundance lives in the natural world.

For me, I feel abundant when I pause to enjoy a stunning sunset or an awe-inspiring vista. The joyful chirping of birds, a luscious garden, or the companionship of a beloved pet remind me how amazing my life is. I experience abundance when I’m sharing food, laughter, and love with family and loved ones. I’m happier and thriving when I’m appreciating my health and doing physical activities I enjoy, like gardening or dancing.

And it doesn’t stop there. Abundance also reveals itself in how we spend our time and energy, especially in the work we’re called to do.

Abundance Through Meaningful Work

Lakshmi’s abundance comes to us in doing satisfying work, especially when it feeds our soul. For me, this is my writing, whether that is my fantasy stories or writing about the Goddess. My heart sings with joy knowing I’m touching people’s lives positively, if even for a moment, as they enjoy a story or essay. I love that I’m providing an uplifting experience, and perhaps helping them extend that feeling into their lives. I enjoy sharing the messages of the Goddess and her principles to help other people live a more fulfilling, satisfying, thriving life.

And yet, so many of us experience doing work that drags us down or sucks the life from us, just to earn “enough” money to survive. Having experienced this, I fully believe living a life of drudgery doesn’t align with the Goddess’s principles of abundance. For most of us—dare I say all of us—some type of work calls to our souls.

We want work that makes us happy, feel like we’re contributing to the well-being of our society and community, and affecting other people’s lives in a good way. This can appear in a variety of ways, not just having a business or other “prestigious” jobs. Isn’t it nice that there are people who enjoy serving us food or making it? I absolutely appreciate the people who collect my trash. Think about when the trash collectors go on strike and how much they positively affect the quality of our lives! I’m grateful someone likes to cut hair and dye it, because I certainly don’t like to, but I like someone doing it for me.

Moving From Survival to Thrival

Recognizing the inherent diversity of doing work that calls to us allows us to thrive. We can sense when something fits… and when it doesn’t.

When we align our work, relationships, and daily lives with our inner truth, we move beyond simply getting by — and into a state of thriving. I believe we’re meant to thrive, not simply survive. However, this doesn’t mean just having financial wealth. Money, in and of itself, doesn’t generate happiness or thrival. One of my most unhappy times in my life was when I made a six-figure salary.

Money as Energy

When I stopped thinking about money as a finite resource, things shifted for me. Money is simply energy, especially in our modern world of debit cards, credit cards, and crytocurrency. Like any other energy, it isn’t inherently good or bad, but it allows us to do many things we can’t otherwise.

One way for me to wrap my head around this was to consider other types of energy, for example, electricity. I use it as I type this on my computer to power my computer. I can’t see or touch it, but I know it’s there, and I never question my abundance of it. We can use electricity for good—lighting our homes—or it can harm us by electrocuting us. Considering money as energy, I can allow it to flow to me and through me with ease, like breath, trusting it will always be there.

Abundance as a Whole-Life Experience

Money and our work don’t solely define our lives. Thriving isn’t something that happens in isolation, nor is it confined to one part of our lives. Instead, abundance moves through us holistically, touching many areas at once.

When I think of thriving and having an abundant, prosperous life, it’s helpful for me to look at the eight areas of life. I can consider which areas are open and flowing, and which may be constricted. This helps me recognize how blessed I truly am.

The eight areas are:

• Work and career—how you make/flow money
• Finances—how you feel about money and how much you possess
• Family—the people you love, both blood and found-family
• Relationships—with friends and co-workers
• Physical—activity and health
  Creativity and fun—what do you enjoy doing
• Community—where you live and where you’re accepted
• Spirituality—how you connect with Goddess/Universe/Source.

When I evaluate my life this way, it can highlight those areas where I’m thriving or where I’m surviving. This isn’t a judgment one way or the other, simply an awareness of where I am currently. Once I’m aware, I can begin changing the areas where I’m surviving rather than thriving. Reflection, journaling, and energetic practices are a few of the ways I’ve found to support my abundance as a lived experience.

Giving and Receiving

As we become more aware of where abundance flows easily — and where it doesn’t — another truth emerges: abundance is meant to circulate. It moves when we are generous, sharing our abundance and good fortune with others. However, this doesn’t mean self-less giving, but being Self-full. Lakshmi’s generosity is balanced reciprocity, a mutual exchange of energy, of both giving and receiving.

In order to give, we need to receive.

Not just as an idea… but in the moment we’re offered something.

I grew up hearing the old saying, “It’s better to give than to receive.” As an adult, I began questioning that paradigm as I saw how our society expects women to give and give and give—tirelessly, selflessly, unceasingly. We’re made to feel guilty or ashamed when we ask to take care of our own basic self-care needs, so much so that we may ignore them. I’ve witnessed too many women try to give from an empty cup, then wonder why they’re resentful. I recognized myself in that pattern—giving easily, but not knowing how to receive without discomfort.

Lakshmi’s abundance can’t flow to us until we open our hearts to receiving it. The blessings we ask for can’t enter our lives if we’ve locked and barred our hearts because it’s “more blessed to give than receive.” No matter how much I wanted it or prayed for my life to get better, it didn’t until I surrendered my need to constantly give. Things shifted for me when I allowed myself to receive

Letting Abundance In

When we work with Lakshmi to expand our perceptions and beliefs about what constitutes wealth to something beyond money, we realize how abundant our life truly is. I’ve experienced in my own life that the more I focus on what’s already in my life rather than what’s missing, my life just gets better and better. As I express my gratitude for the “little” things in my life, I allow myself to receive even greater abundance and prosperity.

When I look at my life now, I can see how much abundance filled my life in ways I didn’t fully allow myself to acknowledge.

It wasn’t that it was missing. I just wasn’t always open to receiving it.

I recognize now the moments where someone offered me something, or the Goddess gave me blessings, and how quickly I dismissed them. Too often, I returned to effort, to doing, to trying to make things happen.

And I can also see how things began to shift when I allowed myself to receive… even in small ways.

Not perfectly. Not all at once.
But enough to recognize that I can’t force abundance into my life.
It’s something I’m learning to surrender to, open my heart, and let in.

If something spoke to you in this, you don’t need to rush past it or figure it out right away. Sometimes, simply noticing what comes up within you is enough.

You might take a few moments—whether through journaling, reflection, or just sitting with yourself—to explore what this brought up for you. There’s nothing to fix or change here. Only something to notice, and perhaps begin to understand in your own way.

1. Think back on your life to a time when you felt abundant and at peace with yourself and your life. What did this feel like in your body? What about the situation made you feel abundant and serene? How could you re-create this in your life today?

2. If you took money out of the picture, what would abundance look and feel like for you? What would you be doing? Where would you live? What makes you feel abundant—what emotions do you feel?

3. Take a moment to go deep within, then ask yourself, what work makes you happy. Don’t allow money or your belief if you can or can’t make money doing it to enter the equation. Explore what your heart is calling you to do. This may take several sessions to delve beyond the conscious mind’s limitations. Just keep asking yourself, “What work makes me happy?” and exploring what comes up.

Continue Exploring with Lakshmi

If something in this essay resonated with you, Lakshmi’s Sacred Abundance offers a way to continue the exploration through relationship and devotional practice.

Through spending time with Lakshmi, the Guide invites you to explore abundance beyond simply having more. You’ll discover the relationship between receiving and giving, prosperity and generosity, support, Sacred Reciprocity, and what it might mean to recognize yourself as part of that flow.

There isn’t one right answer or a particular place you need to arrive. The Guide offers different ways to spend time with Lakshmi, reflect on your own experience, and discover what becomes visible for you.

I invite you to join the conversation on my Substack, Lunar Ink & Alchemy, to share your experience and insights from reading this essay.