Unraveling the Scarcity Mindset & The Soul of Money
Unraveling the âscarcity mindsetâ installed in me as a child was something I decided to tackle a couple months ago when I was mistakenly billed for a medical procedure. For a moment I thought I had to pay a thousand dollars, and even though I have the money, and more importantly, the ability to earn that money, I had a small anxiety attack that teleported me back to life before my 30s, when I had no money. I knew that if I didnât deal with my âinsufficiencyâ wiring that no matter how secure or stable I am in life I would never be as free and happy as I deserve to be. As we all deserve to be.
Below is a short poem I wrote â a glimpse into my childhood. After that are excerpts from a book that helped me complete this âsoul workâ of unraveling the scarcity mindset. Before this book has been a lot of other work: talk therapy, journaling, cutting cords, prayer and stillness. I learned to create a world of abundance and sufficiency. I am more mindful of the flow of money. I am grateful every day for food, a home and a warm bed. If you ever need someone to talk about this, you can email me at claudia@claudiadawson.blog.
“We are not human beings having a spiritual experience, but spiritual beings having a human experience.”
At one point, a womb was enough. Then came birth and all my parentsâ fears and failings and flails became mine. I was drowning too. Underneath poorness and not enough. Money came and went like a river in drought. Roofs came and went. Shelter lines came and went. A free loaf of bread and a peanut butter jar could last us all week. Saltines for dinner sometimes. A cup of noodles in tap water warming on a window sill. This had to be enough sometimes. At one point, a womb was enough. Another new school, another first day, Iâm 10 and wearing an XL menâs t-shirt down to my knees. I try to make friends, try to be bigger than my circumstances. I carve out a safe space inside of me, follow my intuition. Keep my head above water. At one point, a womb was enough. Then Iâm born and scarcity began to build a grave for me.
“Listen to your life. See it for the fathomless mystery it is. In the boredom and pain of it, no less than in the excitement and gladness: touch, taste, smell your way to the holy and hidden heart of it, because in the last analysis all moments are key moments, and life itself is grace.”
Once we define our world as deficient, the total of our life energy, everything we think, everything we say, and everything we doâparticularly with moneyâbecomes an expression of an effort to overcome this sense of lack and the fear of losing to others or being left out.
The toxic myth is that âmore is betterâ. More of anything is better than what we have. Itâs the logical response if you fear thereâs not enough, but more is better drives a competitive culture of accumulation, acquisition, and greed that only heightens fears and quickens the pace of the race.
More is better misguides us in a deeper way. It leads us to define ourselves by financial success and external achievements. We judge others based on what they have and how much they have, and miss the immeasurable inner gifts they bring to life. All the great spiritual teachings tell us to look inside to find the wholeness we crave, but the scarcity chase allows no time or psychic space for that kind of introspection.
When we believe that more is better, and equate having more with being moreâmore smart or more ableâthen people on the short end of that resource stick are assumed to be less smart, less able, even less valuable, as human beings. We feel we have permission to discount them.
This mind-set of scarcity is not something we intentionally created or have any conscious intention to bring into our life. It was here before us and it will likely persist beyond us, perpetuated in the myths and language of our money culture. We do, however, have a choice about whether or not to buy into it and whether or not to let it rule our lives.
By sufficiency, I donât mean a quantity of anything. Sufficiency isnât two steps up from poverty or one step short of abundance. It isnât a measure of barely enough or more than enough. Sufficiency isnât an amount at all. It is an experience, a context we generate, a declaration, a knowing that there is enough, and that we are enough.
Sufficiency resides inside of each of us, and we can call it forward. It is a consciousness, an attention, an intentional choosing of the way we think about our circumstances. Sufficiency is a context we bring forth from within that reminds us that if we look around us and within ourselves, we will find what we need. There is always enough.
So often we think of âabundanceâ as the point at which weâll know weâve really arrived, but abundance continues to be elusive if we think weâll find it in some excessive amount of something. True abundance does exist; it flows from sufficiency, in an experience of the beauty and wholeness of what is. Abundance is a fact of nature. It is a fundamental law of nature, that there is enough and it is finite. Its finiteness is no threat; it creates a more accurate relationship that commands respect, reverence, and managing those resources with the knowledge that they are precious and in ways that do the most good for the most people.
Money is a current, a carrier, a conduit for our intentions. Money carries the imprimatur of our soul.
If your attention is on the problems and breakdowns with money, or scarcity thinking that says there isnât enough, more is better or thatâs just the way it is, then that is where your consciousness resides. Those thoughts and fears grow from the attention you give them and can take over your life. No matter how much money you have, it wonât be enough. No amount of money will buy you genuine peace of mind. You expand the presence and the power of scarcity and tighten its grip on your world.
When we let go of trying to get more of what we donât really need, we free up an enormous amount of energy that has been tied up in the chase. We can refocus and reallocate that energy and attention toward appreciating what we already have, whatâs already there, and making a difference with that. Not just noticing it, but making a difference with what we already have. When you make a difference with what you have, it expands.
We think we live in the world. We think we live in a set of circumstances, but we donât. We live in our conversation about the world and our conversation about the circumstances. When weâre in a conversation about fear and terror, about revenge and anger and retribution, jealousy and envy and comparison, then that is the world we inhabit. If weâre in a conversation about possibility, a conversation about gratitude and appreciation for the things in front of us, then thatâs the world we inhabit.
Scarcity speaks in terms of never enough, emptiness, fear, mistrust, envy, greed, hoarding, competition, fragmentation, separateness, judgment, striving, entitlement, control, busy, survival, outer riches. In the conversation for scarcity we judge, compare, and criticize; we label winners and losers. We celebrate increasing quantity and excess. We center ourselves in yearning, expectation, and dissatisfaction. We define ourselves as better-than or worse-than. We let money define us, rather than defining ourselves in a deeper way and expressing that quality through our money.
Sufficiency speaks in terms of gratitude, fulfillment, love, trust, respect, contributing, faith, compassion, integration, wholeness, commitment, acceptance, partnership, responsibility, resilience, and inner riches. In the conversation for sufficiency we acknowledge what is, appreciate its value, and envision how to make a difference with it. We recognize, affirm, and embrace. We celebrate quality over quantity. We center ourselves in integrity, possibility, and resourcefulness. We define our money with our energy and intention.
If you look back on the experience of freedom in your life chances are that it wasnât when you were measuring the options against one another, or making sure you werenât getting stuck with a decision. It was when you were fully expressed, playing full out. It was when you chose fully and completely, when you knew you were in the place you were meant to be in, when perhaps you even felt a sense of destiny. Thatâs when weâre free and self-expressed, and joyful or at peace with circumstancesâwhen we choose them. We bring that freedom to our relationship with money when we center ourselves in sufficiency, choose to appreciate the resources that are there, feel their flow through our life, and use them to make a difference.
Additional Reading:
How to feel like you have enough by Christine Garvey
Found notes
This note is not dated. Possibly an attempt to time travel. Not sure where the quote came from, but good advice nonetheless.
Dear Claudia of early â03 â you will get your heart broken a bunch of times more.
____________
âYou should be cooking on all 4 burners.â
A perfect question to wake up to:
Soâwhat do you want? Not just today, or at this moment, but within the arc of your existence?
â Mitch Horowitz, The Miracle Habits
Advice about difficult friendships
It shouldn't be hard to be friends with someone. The sooner you realize this the sooner you'll start making real friends.
On fulfilling your potential and self-esteem
When I notice myself worrying about âwhat other people will thinkâ I find Iâm usually not worried about any single personâs opinion. If I pick a specific person, Iâm rarely concerned about what they will think. What I fear is the collective opinion in my head. Itâs imaginary. â James Clear
Old horoscope â what kind of woman to be
Be a woman who knows her own magic and in that self-awareness find a potent confidence with which to live.
â Old horoscope, 2003
Create dangerously
âTo create today means to create dangerously. Every publication is a deliberate act, and that act makes us vulnerable to the passions of a century that forgives nothing.â âAlbert Camus
Favorite quotes: Warrior Goddess Training by HeatherAsh Amara
The first step to claiming your strength and igniting your will is to get clear about what you want. Not what your victim wants, or what your judge wants, or what you would like, but what your highest vision and purpose is for yourself. What I have found is that when you get clear about your heart's desire, the Universe steps up in magnificent ways to support you!
So I say, if you are burning, burn. If you can stand it, the shame will burn away and leave you shining, radiant, and righteously shameless. âElizabeth Cunningham
What is your main taproot? Make it deep and solid. Redirect it if it has grown attached to a person or ideal. Anchor yourself in infinity, in earth, to the life-force. Where is your true source of energy and stability? Reach deep.
How to clear old emotions: Take five minutes each day, whether you feel like it or not, to move through some emotions. You can also do this by dancing vigorously and yelling. Use your voice; scream, cry, om, growl . . . let your emotions move!
Life does not personally punish people or seek to cause suffering; it simply moves.
When you let go of who you wish you were, you reclaim your power to be radiantly, magnetically, and creatively who you are.
High school wisdom
Here are scanned pages from my high school notebook where I collected what I considered to be sage advice and quotes.
A lot of these quotes, which now seem banal, really helped me survive the discomfort of high school and bullies and a broken heart.
Here are the quotes that still resonate with me twenty years later:
âBe tough in the way a blade of grass is: rooted, willing to lean, and at peace with what is around it.â â Natalie Goldberg
"Do you imagine the universe is agitated? Go into the desert at night and look at the stars. This practice should answer the question. The superior person settles her mind as the universe settles the stars in the sky. By connecting her mind with the subtle origin, she calms it. Once calmed, it naturally expands, and ultimately her mind becomes as vast and immeasurable as the night sky.â â Lao Tzu (apparently refuted)
âThe greatest unexplored territory is the space between our ears.â â unknown (to me)
How to define your problems
To start defining your problems, say (out loud) âeverything in my life is completely fine. Notice what objections arise.
â #53 on 100 Tips For A Better Life
Happiness is a skill and a choice
Our happiness is built by attitude and intention. Attitude is not everything, but itâs almost everything. I visited the jazz great Jane Jarvis when she was old, crippled and living in a tiny apartment with a window facing a brick wall. I asked if she was happy and she replied, âI have everything I need to be happy right between my ears.â
Follow your inner moonlight
“Follow your inner moonlight; donât hide the madness. ”
Empty days
I always forget how important the empty days are, how important it may be sometimes not to expect to produce anything, even a few lines in a journal. ⌠the most valuable thing we can do for the psyche, occasionally, is to let it rest, wander, live in the changing light of a room, not try to be or do anything. â May Sarton
“I always forget how important the empty days are, how important it may be sometimes not to expect to produce anything, even a few lines in a journal. ⌠the most valuable thing we can do for the psyche, occasionally, is to let it rest, wander, live in the changing light of a room, not try to be or do anything.”