Hey, how are we all doing out there as I record this episode? We are at the beginning of all the social distancing. The stores are all out of toilet paper and we don’t know what’s gonna happen with all of the coronavirus stuff. So I hope for people listening in the future, this is all just kind of a crazy memory to you, but for you listening right now in the thick of all the thoughts and feelings that this pandemic is bringing up, I am here for you.

I always have free 30 minute sessions available. There will be a link in the show notes and you can bring anything you want to a session and we’ll just look at what’s going on with you and I’m gonna help you maybe look at things in a little different way. So if that’s something you’re interested in, definitely jump on and sign up for one of those.

Okay, let’s talk about abundance and scarcity. First, I’m gonna explain scarcity and how it affects our lives. Then we will dive into what abundance mindset is and how to cultivate it for yourself. By the end of this episode, you’ll be able to start recognizing some of the patterns of thinking that you have, and you’ll also know how to start allowing more abundance in your life.

We all have beliefs about how much we have and how much we can create, whether it’s money or relationships or stuff, or experiences, all of it. When something like the Coronavirus comes up, it’s just fans of flames of what we already believe, and that’s why people start hoarding and taking everything at the store and protecting their own with an every man for himself attitude.

They may even start acting out of integrity with themselves by doing things like stealing, maybe something simple like sneaking something out of someone else’s car at Costco, or going to an extreme like looting. And this is where we kind of create a problem for ourselves. Like this toilet vapor thing is kind of funny and my teenagers are just loving all the memes, but.

There wouldn’t be a toilet paper shortage if everyone wasn’t afraid of the toilet paper shortage. So it’s this scarcity mindset about how much toilet paper you have or how much you are gonna be able to get that’s created this huge, ridiculous thing. Okay. So a scarcity mindset believes there is not enough now and there won’t be enough in the future.

It also doesn’t believe in. Your ability to provide. What this looks like is thinking things like, we live paycheck to paycheck. I don’t have enough space. People are taking everything off the shelves. What if I need medication and I can’t get it? What if the hospitals are full and I can’t get the care I need in everyday life?

It can simply be I need more hours in the day. I never have enough time to get things done. I don’t know how we’ll make ends meet. If money doesn’t grow on trees, you have to work hard for money and we can just never get ahead. What are some of the things you find yourself saying or thinking? These may be things our parents said to us, or just ideas we picked up along the way.

Try to be really objective because. These ideas always seem like facts, so you have to step back and question things a little. A really simple example of scarcity is sibling rivalry. In this case, a child believes that their parents love is finite, and so they fight to get the biggest piece of it. And many people still act this way as adults.

When we are in a scarcity mindset, it will feel scary. And tight and hurried and uncertain and out of control. I am gonna read a bit from Stephen r Covey’s amazing book, the Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, and he says, most people are deeply scripted in what I call the scarcity mentality. They see life as having only so much as though there were only one pie out there, and if someone were to get a big piece of the pie, it would mean less for everybody else.

The scarcity mentality is a zero sum paradigm of life. People with a scarcity mentality have a very difficult time sharing recognition and credit power or profit. Even with those who help in the production, they also have a very hard time being genuinely happy for the successes of other people even, and sometimes especially.

Members of their own family are close friends and associates. It’s almost as if something is being taken from them when someone else receives special recognition or windfall gain, or has remarkable success or achievement. Although they might verbally express happiness for others. Success inwardly, they’re eating their hearts out.

Their sense of worth comes from being compared and someone else’s success to some degree means their failure only. So many people can be a students, only one person can be number one. To win simply means to beat. That is what scarcity is. It’s feeling like there’s not enough, or we’re always worried about other people taking things away from us.

Now for lost moms, we also add another layer to our scarcity story because of our past. So we all have kind of this scarcity around money, relationships, the things we own, all of that. But we also tell a story like we lost a child or maybe multiple children. So we are on the wrong side of the statistics and we know how quickly things can change.

We believe we have a dark cloud over us and that we can’t handle another loss. So we have a scarcity in our capacity to feel negative emotion. Now, what I mean by this is that because we have already suffered, we think that we shouldn’t suffer any more and we think that we can’t suffer anymore. I’m using suffering in the sense of grief or what I call a clean pain.

Many people say I couldn’t survive losing a child, but we know firsthand that you can. But then we do the same thing thinking we couldn’t handle losing another person in our lives or dealing with something else that is really hard. When my baby river’s heart stopped beating, we had just moved to a new place and we were stuck in a real estate situation that was very difficult financially and emotionally.

And there were some other things going on in our lives, and it seems so unfair that everything was happening at once and it seemed really hard to be grateful during that time. Have you seen this in your life, or maybe you’ve noticed it in someone else? The other side of this is we have scarcity about our capacity for resilience.

We don’t think we can bounce back or even get through any other life challenges, and this can be such a tough place to be right now. So many people are feeling this way, feeling that they won’t be able to manage whatever comes as this virus progresses. And it’s okay if you feel that way. It’s all part of being human.

Remember that this life is supposed to be 50 50. Life is supposed to be hard half the time. Well, I’m here to tell you that you can handle so much more than you think you can, and it is so much easier when you learn how to manage your mind and when you have a coach showing you how scarcity is showing up in your life.

A lot of us believe that other people are stronger than us or they do things better. We compare ourselves and we definitely don’t see ourselves as inspirational, but I think every one of you hearing my voice right now is incredible. You are here learning, and you are looking to grow and become a better version of yourself.

That takes guts. It’s so much easier to just stay in scarcity and keep doing what we’ve always done. I want you to believe in the possibility that you are navigating this human experience like a boss, and that you can continue to do so no matter what life throws at you. A global pandemic is nothing.

When you truly believe in yourself and in abundance, healing and moving forward is a true and real possibility, and creating the life you want to live is within your reach. Something I love to do is find stories of other people who have been through challenges and then still continued on. They struggle, but they don’t give up.

I want you to think of someone you know. Or of a story you’ve heard or read that inspires you. When things seem difficult, remind yourself that you can do this just like they did it. Oprah Winfrey is someone we all know. She has an incredible story of coming from nothing, pushing through every obstacle, having failures and setbacks, but still believing in herself and what she had to offer the world she said.

If you look at what you have in life, you’ll always have more. If you look at what you don’t have in life, you’ll never have enough, and that is a perfect quote for scarcity and abundance. And isn’t something like this time where we are forced to step back from our busy lives, a wonderful opportunity to see really what we have, what we’re grateful for, and some of the things we’ve taken for granted.

I know that when we are allowed to resume being near other people, it will be that much more special just to hug someone or sit next to a stranger at a diner, or go and visit our elderly loved ones. Abundance will be easy at that time, but the newness will wear off because that’s the way our brains work.

So how do we cultivate abundance now and how do we keep it as a practice and a way of being in our lives in the future? First, I want you to believe that you can create anything you want, even during coronavirus, but really any time. What is a goal you want to achieve? It can be simple or it can be a big one.

Do you believe you can reach it? Most of us look to our past or evidence of our ability to get there, but I want you to believe first without any evidence. I want you to believe that the universe has your back, and that if you wanna make something happen, you can. Abundance is optimistic. It doesn’t focus on problems.

It focuses on what’s going well. You have to start with loving what you have. Love your life now just as it is, and be grateful, and then you have to practice that every day As you notice more things you have, your abundance will grow. People who live in abundance believe that there will always be more.

They collaborate, they are generous. They share knowledge. They freely offer help. They trust and they build relationships. They strive to grow. They believe that the best is yet to come, and they take ownership of change. I want you to think about your relationships, your work, your finances. What would be different if you were more abundant in your thoughts?

The great thing about our brain is it loves a job. If we give it the task to look for evidence of all the things we have, that is what it will focus on. Now we have to keep redirecting it back when it defaults to scarcity. Scarcity helped us stay alive a long time ago, but it’s not as necessary today. So we just recognize that as a part of us and we keep reminding our cave woman brain that we have everything we need and more.

Something that I have been working on for years is to be more abundant in my belongings. I grew up with a grandmother who lived through the depression. You guys, she saved wrapping paper. She peeled the tape off so slowly and carefully. She washed and saved any plastic container with a lid. She never threw away an egg carton.

She was always saving for when you might need something, and I loved her for it. She passed some of this on to my sweet mother too, but as I had my own household, I found that there was just too much stuff with a lot of kids and all that that brings, I really needed to reevaluate. I started working on my mindset as I moved into practicing believing that I didn’t need to keep everything just in case or to save money.

Later, I started believing that it was okay to let go of things. Those clothes that don’t fit the hand-me-downs you don’t really like, but you think you should keep for when your kid grows into them in about five years. The jar of screws and things, you have no idea what they go to anymore, but you might need them someday.

And the toys that we’re gifts that no one plays with, but you’re just keeping them because you’re supposed to or you don’t want to hurt someone’s feelings or. What if the person comes over and you don’t have that toy anymore? You know what I’m talking about? I started telling myself that it was okay to allow other people to enjoy the things I wasn’t using, and I believe that if I needed that item in the future, I would get it.

I trusted in that and it’s so much more fun this way. I am nowhere near a minimalist, but I do live in so much more abundance and I have so much less clutter. Right? So abundance doesn’t mean we have a lot of stuff. It just means we believe that we have exactly enough. Another beautiful example of getting to abundance is to practice being happy for those around you who are pregnant and do have their babies.

I know this can be a tough one for some of you, and that’s okay, but when you practice abundance, you find peace. You know that them having a baby takes nothing away from you. There is enough for all. There are enough babies. Your family is enough exactly as it is, and your life is full just as it is when you practice abundance.

You’ll feel happy, secure, plentiful, creative, and inspired. You’ll find ways to create what you want, whether it is more money, more children, more people you can serve, more love in your relationships or more joy as you go through this human experience. Abundance blesses not only you, but everyone around you.

Instead of hoarding for yourself, you are able to put so much value into the world. As you do that more value will flow to you in different ways. It’s a beautiful thing and it’s living into the best version of ourselves. Abundance doesn’t come from what we have. It comes from what we believe, and that’s why the richest of celebrities with supposedly perfect lives can feel empty inside.

And someone with nothing of material wealth can give everything to a guest, including their smile, kindness, and hospitality. What would be different if you believe there was not only enough, but there was plenty. And how could we change the world? If we could teach everyone the same thing, I’m gonna leave you to think on that.

Until next time, stay safe, wash those hands. And if you’re already on your phone, can you hop on over and leave a review on iTunes? Just swipe up and it’s really easy to do. I would really appreciate it ’cause it helps us get the podcast in front of more Moms of Angels. And if you love this episode, share it with someone who might need it.

I’ll talk to you next time.