Brené Brown stated “the opposite of scarcity is enough or what I call wholeheartedness…vulnerability and worthiness: facing uncertainty, exposure, and emotional risks and knowing that I am enough.”
Just sit with that for a moment. That’s a pretty tall order for many of us living in a culture that breeds the need for abundance. Too often we interpret what people do as a measure of their value. Often, that measuring stick is even more critical of our own flaws and lack of worthiness. When individuals see themselves as not doing something meaningful or not contributing to society, they fall into the trap of comparison.
Comparison activates our shame triggers and causes us to not only judge our own inadequacies, but it also leads to judgment of others which ultimately places a wedge in connection. Once shame is activated it compels us to either get small and retreat, move toward, often with shaming statements, or hustle for worthiness by our compulsion to do better, do more, etc.
In Lynne Twist’s book The Soul of Money, she states “the thought of not enough occurs to us automatically before we even think to question or examine it. We spend most of the hours and the days of our lives hearing, explaining, complaining, or worrying about what we don’t have enough of…before we even sit up in bed, we’re already inadequate, already behind, already losing, already lacking something. When we go to bed at night, our minds race with a litany of what we didn’t get, or didn’t get done, that day.
If you’re reading this and thinking that’s me… don’t panic. I’m right there with you at times. I’ve had to work hard to recognize when scarcity is driving me. The way to combat scarcity is to choose to let go of that mindset and trade it for sufficiency. Brené defines sufficiency as “an experience, a context we generate, a declaration, a knowing that there is enough, and that we are enough.”
The journey to enough and sufficiency is a process that I practice daily. I even need to keep myself in check by having accountability with people in my life who point out when scarcity might be driving. In my work with clients, we practice learning to recognize scarcity, identify when it’s raising its ugly head, and then help to call it what it is, and redefine sufficiency.
For more on the Daring Way work click here.