You can find abundance in a scarce world
Swap: There will never be enough.
With: I am enough.
'There will never be enough' is one of the most destructive narratives. Scarcity is a powerful belief that shapes how a person, family, community, religion, church, group, political party, nation, president, prime minister - all of us - behave, act and respond.
Scarcity is, on a basic level, the difference between supply and demand. In economic terms, it's the difference between limited resources and theoretically limitless wants.
How do you satisfy a person, group, community, political party, or social group's insatiable need for more of the resource that is in limited supply? And how do you prioritise who gets access to more of this finite resource? Here in these very simple gateway (to the politics of economics and poverty) questions, you can see the opening for tyranny, manipulation and control.
However, there is something that drives the damaging use of scarcity in this way, and its best defined in the psychological term: scarcity mindset.
Stephen Covey said:
"People with a scarcity mentality think that there is only so much in the world to go around. It's as if they see life as a pie. When another person gets a big piece, they get less. Such people are always trying to get even, to pull others down to their level so they can get an equal or even bigger piece of the pie."
Brené Brown said:
"Scarcity thrives in a culture where everyone is hyperaware of lack. Everything from safety and love to money and resources feels restricted or lacking. We spend inordinate amounts of time calculating how much we have, want, and don't have, and how much everyone else has, needs, and wants. The greatest casualties of a scarcity culture are our willingness to own our vulnerabilities and our ability to engage with the world from a place of worthiness. The three components of scarcity are shame, comparison, and disengagement. To transform scarcity, we need to Dare Greatly; we need to cultivate worthiness, a clear sense of purpose, and we need to re-engage."
The idea of abundance has been co-opted and twisted. Abundance should not be used as another word for excess, luxury, wastefulness, or opulence. Abundance is simply the energy of generosity, enoughness, and care. Abundance doesn't mean excess wealth for one and all. We all know that's not how the world works anyway. In our current FIAT money system of economics and politics (this is a series for another time… perhaps a book), the gap between the rich and poor is widening at an alarming and evil rate. It's driven by scarcity, fear, and greed. Not abundance, generosity or enoughness.
Abundance means there are enough resources for us to use in a regenerative, creative fashion to keep us all healthy and thriving. Abundance = enoughness.
Wayne Dyer said:
"The first step toward discarding a scarcity mentality involves giving thanks for everything that you have."
And everything you are.
And if that's the first step, perhaps the second is to begin to believe in the enoughness of things, starting with yourself.
Because I believe the problem of scarcity, from economics to politics, from the global to the individual, begins at the heart. When we believe we are enough, we won't overcompensate for our lack by taking what is not ours (which is the birthplace of poverty).
This mindset shift has the power to change the shape of our world. And while that seems overwhelming and monumental and the biggest, most exhaustive task, start with yourself. Your world will change when you practice looking at yourself, your body, your mind, your resources, what you have, and who you are with a gracious and generous view of enoughness.
And while it may be hard to believe, especially if you are in actual lack; believing that you are enough, even here, even in this, even labelled with this lack, is what will give you the strength to keep moving and to one day, live your way into change.
CONSIDER THIS: "The simpler we make our lives, the more abundant they become. There is no scarcity except in our souls." Sarah Ban Breathnach.
Written by Liz Milani
Instagram: @thepracticeco
From this week’s series, "Flip The Narrative", with a subscription, in the App.
