Abundance Vs. Scarcity: How Emotion Shapes Our Experience
Have you ever had a string of really great luck, where the world seems to fall at your feet? Gorgeous men are suddenly everywhere, flirting with you and asking you if you’re free on Saturday night. The same week, you get a raise and compliments at work. You feel like you’re on top of the world, and the luck just keeps coming.
Or, you get the opposite: everything falls apart and it all happens at once. You lose your job, your pet iguana dies, and the cute guy you’ve been seeing says he needs a break. I’ve been in this boat many times. I’m sure you have too.
Imagine you have a beautiful gift basket, full of money, wonderful food, and the promise of love. You have been told to choose one very special and deserving woman to give this gift to.
The first woman walks into the room, and you tell her you would like to give her this gift. She crosses her arms, raises an eyebrow, and says “Huh. Why? I haven’t done anything to deserve this. There must be something you’re not telling me.”
The next woman walks in the door. You tell her you have a gift basket that you would like to give her. She smiles, looks you in the eye, and says, “Wow, this is so wonderful – I can’t wait to enjoy this beautiful gift. Thank you!”
Who would you rather give the basket to? It’s a no-brainer, right? The second woman, of course!
When you are truly open to new possibilities and opportunities, the world – and men – respond.
When you are operating from a place of confidence and power, people can sense it – it’s much more attractive than cynicism. When you are feeling abundant – regardless of what’s happening in your life – you will notice that love, money, and joy seem to flow through you and into your life effortlessly, as if by magic.
The same effect occurs when you are feeling overwhelmed, fearful, and desperate; negative experiences seem to come into your life, one right after another. You start thinking thoughts like: “Nobody really enjoys my company, they’re just being polite”; “The economy sucks, I won’t find a job”; “I’ll never find the right guy, he just doesn’t exist.” When you operate from a position of fear, you draw experiences that reflect your fears into your life. When you operate from a position of abundance and power, you draw experiences that reflect these feelings into your life.
So how do you reach a position of abundance from a position of scarcity and fear? To be open to receiving, you need to break the cycle of negative emotions and desperation.
If you are feeling lonely, fearful and closed-off from new opportunities, take out your journal and follow these 3 steps to get you started on your path towards abundance and joy:
- Find Your Desire: If you’re feeling scared, shut down, or like things just aren’t going your way, I guarantee there’s something you want instead. Ask yourself what you really desire right now: “I want my boss to notice what a good job I’m doing;” “ I want to feel gorgeous right now;” “ I want to meet a really great man.” The feeling of scarcity is actually pointing to a wealth of desire!
- Enjoyment is the Key: After you discover what you really want, can you enjoy the experience of wanting it? Desire can either bring you pain, or bring you pleasure… its all up to you. If you can enjoy your desires, it becomes woven into the fabric of enjoying your life. And what else could feel more like abundance than joy? In reality, the feeling of abundance is a hair’s-breadth away from the feeling of scarcity. You can practice right now!
- Get Grateful: One of the most powerful emotions you can use to diminish feelings of fear is gratitude. Take some time to write about all the things in your life you are grateful for. Embrace this feeling of gratitude for a few minutes (or longer!) and really revel in it.
Once you have opened yourself up, abundance can flow – uninterrupted – into your life. So whether you want a boat-load of money, a promotion, some time off, or a fantastic, handsome man, just open your heart and get ready to receive the abundance that is out there waiting for you. You may be surprised to find what you’ll find inside your gift basket!
love these very practical steps. I use them in my own life frequently and they are, IMO, right on target. I have also noticed for me the first key piece in all of this was to give myself permission to ask for what I want and then to also give myself permission to feel the desires that I genuinely have. We all have needs — it’s just a matter of how in touch with them we are. Thanks for sharing! :)
I couldn’t agree more with Isa. Thank you for giving us that lovely basket of goodness in this very post. I do think that reveling in my desires really does begin with permission… yes, I do deserve to have those desires met! It becomes such a delicious experience to begin hunting them down, and have these wonderful desires come into fruition. Operating from a place of abundance, and being the “gift basket giver”, is just as enjoyable as receiving and actually increases the bounty that you have to give. Best deal ever.
When I start to feel dragged down, and a bit scarce in my life, I have found that a certain quote from Mother Teresa helps me get back up on the bounty train… “never let anyone come to you without coming away better and happier.” Just wanted to share that, as it works for me everytime. THANK YOU for yet another wonderful, insightful post!!
at the risk of sounding contrary, i would actually give the gift basket to the first candidate, the one who dismissed it, chances are, given her reaction, the circumstances that made her this way indicate she needs it more. it might feel better for my ego to have the gratitude from candidate number two, but in terms of who would benefit, that is a no brainer to me.
i do agree that we tend to attract what we feel, believe and know.
nice article
thanks
marina
Marina, you might WANT to give your gift to the first woman, and she might be more in need of it, but she would not accept it. You wouldn’t be able to force it on her–she would leave it sitting on the sidewalk and walk away from it. But if you instead silently opened your heart in love to the first woman, that she could walk away from and it would still reach her energetically. The gift basket is moot.