Replace scarcity thinking with abundance!

(Franconia Sculpture Park-CMG original)

There have been many times in my life when I had to choose- food or gas, eating out or eating in, carefully balancing my checkbook before I made any purchases or paid any bills.  There have also been times when I have felt I was alone, I didn’t have any friends, I didn’t have a partner, I didn’t have the type of parents I wanted, body I wanted, clothes I wanted, shoes, hair, feet- you name it, at one time or another I have thought pretty negatively about mySELF and my LIFE.

Now, I have come to name this thinking and start to recognize when I am in it.  This is a phrase I heard someone else use and I just love it, it is called, “scarcity thinking”.  

Scarcity thinking are those tapes in my head that tell me that I don’t have enough.  Not enough money, time, patiences, friends, love, good looks.  Scarcity thinking can come fairly easy and since I have practiced it most of my life and I saw my parents practice it, I can do it pretty gall-darn well!  My parents practiced it because they saw their parents practice it.  

My dad tells a good story.  When he was probably less than thirteen years old but older than six, he was out playing with a group of friends.  They would run in the street, on top of the buildings in the neighborhood and down by the river.  This made these growing boys very hungry.  So, being the kind soul my dad is, he invited the boys back to his house for some food.  My dad knew that there was little food in their house but that didn’t stop him from standing on top of the counter to seize the bulk of dried raisins and a few other stores that his mother received monthly from the welfare department and start to hand these out to the kids.  It was just at this moment, and I can imagine the picture in my mind, that his mother walks into the house after a long day scrubbing people’s floors.  She sees my father, standing on top of the corner, smiling ear to ear as he doles out  the food that she had been counting on to help feed their family, (as a the sole provider for three growing children in the 1930’s, her job was not an easy one).  She screamed at him to get “down off that counter” and then at each boy to “put back that food”!  The smile on my father’s face quickly faded and turned inward to shame and guilt.  He has carried this with him all of his life.  He has told me this story dozens of times.

I know that the truth of my father’s circumstances was that they were poor.  It was the time during the Great Depression.  He knew scarcity thinking and he gave it to me.  Purposely?  No, but it might take generations to change this deep seeded belief.  I plan to have it start here with me.

One way I’ve started to change my scarcity thinking is to start  with how I think about money.  I read “How to Turn your Money Life Around” by Ruth Hayden this summer.  The foundation of Ruth’s book if that before you can be successful with money, you need to change your money beliefs.  She has you write what you currently believe to be true about money and then change those beliefs (if needed, and they usually are needed since you picked up the book in the first place) into positive affirmations.  Then, you write these affirmations five times each twice a day.  You post them around your house, in your car, at your office so you can SEE them and think them 24-7 until they become your normal way of thinking.  

I have been doing this since the 2nd week in July.  It has been working.  My money beliefs are slowly changing from scarcity thinking to abundance belief.

The final key to change your scarcity thinking is surrender.  Surrender these scarcity beliefs to the Universe- let them go. Flip the switch to truly believing and trusting that YOU WILL BE OK-  that you are cared for and loved and that you will be provided for.  Trust that the Universe, in all it’s greatness and with all it’s power, will and CAN provide you with abundance.  Know it in your heart.  Go for a walk in nature and look at the grass, the trees, the water, the variety of birds and animals.  How did that happen?  The sun rises and warms us each day.  The moon looks over us at night and pulls the tides in and out.  AMAZING!  Do those things worry that they aren’t good enough, that they lack beauty?  Does the rose think, “I am not as gorgeous as the lily”?

Sit, meditate, say “I am filled with abundance, I have all I need”.  Now add your own positive affirmation.  Write it down, post it up and make it part of your daily routine to move your life out of scarcity and into abundance.

Blessings and abundance,
Carrie