Hello, and welcome back to the Thoughts that Bind! Today we’re going to talk about shortage consciousness. What it is, how it works, and what you can do about it, without espousing any specific spiritual ideas.
Recently, we just discussed the perspective of letting your life in (which you can find here if you didn’t get a chance to look at that yet). And in it, I mentioned the fact that working on getting your mind right is imperative to beginning to let your life in. (You know, kind of like the sister of living your dreams and getting what you always wanted, but in an authentic and realistic way.) And the two concepts of getting your mind right that I mentioned were self love (believing you’re worthy) and allowing yourself to see that there is no shortage of good things that life would be willing to give to you. And I’ve talked ad nauseam on this site about self-love and acceptance (a good start would be here, if you’re interested). But I realized that shortage consciousness is something that I really haven’t addressed yet. Which makes it the perfect topic to take a stab at today.
Disclaimer
Before we dive in, I want you to know that I’m not an expert. I’m not a spiritual teacher or philosopher or financial advisor. As I often point out, I’m just someone on the internet with a perspective of my own. Don’t take anything I say as gospel, because it sure isn’t.
But I do have some thoughts. Having grown up with a lack of money and certainly a lack of confidence that more would come, the mental and emotional effects of poverty are a real thing. And everywhere I turn, the people who try to advise on this issue are speaking from a very new-age spiritual point of view. They use terms like “the universe” and “abundance mindset”. And it’s not like I hate new age philosophy. In fact, there’s a lot of it I like, but this approach seems a little daunting for some of us.
You don’t have to restructure your whole belief system to get out of a poverty perspective. And so if you don’t believe in the law of attraction but you want to stop selling yourself short, stick around. Because I want to talk to you.
The seeds of shortage consciousness
Sometimes it’s helpful to realize where something came from if we’re trying to eradicate it. And I think this can be helpful in terms of slashing our perspective of lack. Usually, a poverty mentality will come from one of two places, or a mix. You’ve either had experiences where your needs weren’t met, or your upbringing primed you to believe they wouldn’t be.
I would recommend a period of reflection for you to identify where these attitudes came from if you don’t already know. And regardless of your success with that, there is a more important step. Which is simply to identify the scripts you have playing in your head that are holding you back. From my perspective, there are two general categories of these thoughts. 1)There is not enough good stuff in the world. 2) There is enough good stuff, but I don’t deserve it. The good news is, both of these lines of thought are things that you can combat and overcome with time and effort. So, take heart.
There isn’t enough
When we internalize a personal lack of abundance, it can twist something in our brain that leads us to the conclusion that there isn’t enough of the good stuff in the world. We know that that isn’t entirely true. There are lots of people who have nice things– a lot of nice things. But this perspective can start to feel real to us based on our own experiences and the experiences of those we spend time with. We get a very streamlined idea of what is “possible” and “doable”. And often, this streamlining process becomes a false equivalent of “reality”.
Basically, our subconscious tells us “nobody I know has a life like that. So it doesn’t exist.” But it does. Anything you’re looking for already exists in some abstract way. And combating this way of thinking can be kind of fun.
What you want to do is introduce more of your dream into your life. Find people, online or in real life, who have what you’re looking for. People who have achieved the things that you hold dear, and familiarize yourself with their lives, habits, and standards. The goal is not to emulate and become them, but rather to increase your level of comfort with observing their realities. The more you see your dream playing out in other people, the more achievable it will seem to you. This is the way we break down the barrier of “there’s not enough good in the world”. We get comfortable with its existence. We get used to seeing it, so we know that it is, in fact, out there.
I’m not worthy
Then there’s the other category, which often comes up after you’ve convinced yourself that your desires do exist in this world. And it’s this idea of, “Well maybe all that good stuff exists in the world and people can have it, but I can’t. I don’t deserve it. I’m not good enough for it.” (Or some variation of this idea.) Now, I will admit, this one tends to be a little more of a process than the first one, but the first step is very simple.
Ask yourself one question: why not? This isn’t meant to be a gotcha question (unless it does work out that way, which is awesome and perfectly valid). Many of us have concrete and abstract reasons why we aren’t worthy of our own goals. So write them down and try to sort them out. Which ones are valid, and which ones aren’t?
You will be able to throw out some of your reservations right away. (Sometimes we just flat out lie about ourselves, to ourselves.) For those ones, practice reminding yourself of the truth frequently, until you start to remember and navigate life from an accurate perspective. Post the updated truths about yourself on your bathroom mirror or your desk or refrigerator–wherever you’ll see it most frequently. And read it off, daily. More than daily. This is a great way to start chipping away at the lies you tell yourself to hold yourself back.
That being said, some of the reasons we tell ourselves are not lies. So what do we do then? Well, we break these truths down into another two categories. Actual setbacks and perceived ones. We can treat the perceived ones similarly to the lies. Remind yourself of their less than factual status frequently. You are human, just like everyone else. And that doesn’t make you less worthy of happiness and fulfillment than any of us other humans. Write it down, “So what? That’s not going to stop me!” and put it everywhere as a reminder to you that you can overcome.
You do have limitations
So, then there’s something that we have to take into account no matter who we are. There are limitations on us. Our skill, our resources, our energy. And once we’ve gone through this process, there are going to be many of you at this point going, “well, I stripped away all the lies and misperceptions. What do I do now?” And I get it. A lot of spiritual teachers and motivation speakers might have you believe that if you just get your mind and emotions right, then you can do anything. But as we already covered, I’m neither of those things. And I don’t think you can do “anything”, so I’m not going to lie to you.
But I will say this. I am a firm believer that everyone, with enough time and effort, has the ability to live a life that is fulfilling to them. It may be a matter of learning skills to get where you want to be. Or it might be a necessary adjustment of plans and expectations–or both. But this moment is not the ultimate indicator of where you have to end up.
I think being honest with ourselves about our limitations is an important first step to becoming who we want to be. It helps us take stock of where we’re at and get realistic. If we’re able to look at the present moment as a foundation to build on, then we know what our next steps can be. That’s the great part about life, is that we can learn and grow. We can nurture new skills, and then build new ones on top of that. So have faith in yourself, and in the gift that time gives us. And get serious about putting in the elbow grease towards your own goals.
The ultimate point
What I’m trying to get across here, is that life is malleable. This idea you have of yourself and your destiny is not, and will not ever be set in stone. And when it comes down to it, this idea of shortage consciousness or poverty thinking (or whatever you want to call it) is really us insisting that we know how life goes, and it will not change.
The ultimate purpose of this post really hasn’t been to get you thinking like a rich person or to “activate an abundance mindset”. (Maybe someday I will be able to authentically write about that for you guys.) But really, what I wanted to say to you all is that there is more to life, more for you. More opportunities and possibilities than you could ever imagine. And you actually don’t know it all. So don’t be convinced of lack. Don’t let your ignorance be louder than your skepticism. Don’t ever underestimate the power of the vast unknown in your life. And for the first time, let yourself embrace the fact that maybe your worst fears about yourself and life could be wrong.
Thanks for reading. And as always, give this post a comment if you’ve got an idea or something to say because I love hearing from you. If my words touched something in you today, go ahead and subscribe to the blog for some weekly binding thoughts that will help you live life as it comes. Until next week, be well, my friends.
