Am I rich? My family love to think so, and because they do, they help me to create abundance by thinking of my abundance all the time. And I am not going to stop them. There will come a day, soon, when all their thoughts about my abundance and my own creation of abundance will result in physical abundance. I will thank them for their share in the process, but I will not stop their thoughts at the moment - let them work with me. So how does the credit crunch affect me?

I look at it with awe and wonder. I see the perfection of the Universe that we live in and I get a greater understanding of how things fit together.

I recently learned about Elliott waves. I can only describe these Elliott waves as the pulse of the Universe. Imagine a wave zig-zagging its way upwards. It moves up ten paces, then recedes seven paces, then moves up ten paces, then recede six paces, and so on. When you are riding the wave without realising it, you feel the exhilaration of moving up, and the fear of moving down.

Most of the time when you move up, the exhilaration is dampened by the expectation of moving down again. When you move down, your expectations are confirmed, and you desperately hope that there will be another move upwards. When the upward move comes again, your major emotion is a relief that the fear can now go, rather than gratitude and awe at moving up again.

Riding the wave is in many ways worse than riding a rollercoaster, because at least with a rollercoaster you know that it will end at some stage, and you will feel solid earth under your feet again. You know that when you go down upside down, you will not fall on your face, because you are strapped in safely. And at some point you will go down and stay down and leave the rollercoaster with wobbly legs. You know (fingers crossed) that the rollercoaster is safe, otherwise the owner would not have sold the tickets. And you know that you get onto the rollercoaster because you chose to do so and you know that the risk is minimal.

However, riding the wave of the Universe is not nearly so "safe". You do not buy a ticket, because by the time you realise that you are part of the wave, it is too late and you are born into this existence.

When you focus entirely on riding the wave, you love the bits where you go up, because it feels good to know that you can do that. The waves that take you down are really scary. When you go down, you get that sinking feeling in your stomach and you have nothing to hold onto. You do not know where the wave will stop, and therefore you cannot prepare for the stop. Will you fall flat on your face? No, never. The reason for this is that the wave always turns and moves up again. You can continue to ride the wave and simply stay in until you hit the next wave up, which is what most people do. They talk about the credit crunch with apprehension in their voices. They prepare for the fall and meanwhile cling to the wave as if it is the only real thing in the world. And because they prepare for the fall, that is what they get - that is how the Law of Attraction works.

When you become aware of the wave that you ride, things change. Suddenly you can distance yourself from riding the wave while doing it - like driving a car on a busy road while having a conversation with a child about bullies at school. If someone subsequently asks you why you slowed down at a particular point and changed lanes, you will probably not remember that you had to slow down to wait for oncoming traffic and then change lanes to get past another slow vehicle. But you will recall everything about the conversation with the child, even when driving a car requires much more attention and skill than talking to a child.

When you become aware that the wave is there, you stop riding the wave blindly. You start to ride the wave with intention.

You start to notice the waves that go up, and you know that they will turn down at some point, and you prepare for the downturns with anticipation rather than fear. You start to notice the waves that go down, and you know that they will at some stage turn, and that is a good place to tap into the energy of the rising wave.

At the moment we are at the bottom of one of these Elliott waves - the stock market, the banks and the economic downturn confirms this.

People react to this in two ways. The majority of people live in fear and trepidation and are preparing to lose money, jobs, homes, self-esteem, hope, and so on. Whatever happens next will confirm their expectations. They will walk away with nothing and not even notice when the wave turns up again, because they will still be clinging to the wave in fear. Nothing will change their views.

Then there is a minority of people that have become aware of the waves, and that are aware that we are at the bottom of a wave now. They are preparing to focus on the energy of the upturn and they are putting everything in their lives in place so that they can focus 100% when the upturn starts. For these people it does not matter if the upturn is a small wave, because they will understand a small wave is part of a much bigger wave. Their mindset rather than the size of the wave will determine their fortunes. They are the "lucky" ones - the ones that open a business or win the lottery during a recession and seem to turn everything they touch into gold. I have decided long ago to be part of this group, and I am now reaping the benefits, with loads of opportunities coming my way.

As for everyone around me, my question is: what will I do during a recession? The difference is that I need to list the opportunities that suddenly abound, and prioritise them. Then I need to focus on one after the other, and live my destiny. These opportunities have come for me at the end of a cycle, which is also the beginning of a much larger cycle, and I love it.

Do I take opportunities away from others?

A man called Foster Hibbard tells the tale of the two men that went down to the ocean, one with a teaspoon, the other with a bucket. Each of them took away the amount of water he chose to take away. The ocean doesn't care how much water they take away, because there is plenty wanter. I chose to go down to the ocean with a tanker truck - or maybe a fleet, to get my share. Will there be some water left for you in the ocean? Of course. That is called abundance, and it is infinite. The limits that exist, are in our minds because we do not understand what infinity means.

How will you benefit from the credit crunch?