Wow! I can’t believe it’s been weeks since I’ve posted. I’m afraid much of January has been a blur due to a loss in our extended family and posting our New Year’s class for Epic Every Day. I’m sorry I didn’t give you guys a heads up.
Anyway! January is over 🙂 So let’s talk about the rest of the year. I’m reading Brene Brown’s book, Daring Greatly, right now. Love it!! So worth reading if you haven’t read it! In chapter one she talks about scarcity and how we tell ourselves there’s not enough __ from the moment we wake up in the morning (“I didn’t get enough sleep last night.” “I don’t have time to do x.” “I’m so behind!” “I’m too tired to x.”) until we go to bed at night. Even just now I was reading the news and thinking about how many wars the USA is involved in. It’s easy to get caught in “there’s not enough safety.”
I often get caught in the trap of thinking that if I just had more time or just reorganized my schedule the right way–in other words, if my circumstances changed, I would have enough. I wouldn’t be in scarcity because there would be enough time, energy, money, etc., etc.
However, Brown argues the answer isn’t based in circumstances. (If you’ve been reading my blog for any length of time or listened to our podcast, you know this is one of my favorite realities.) Circumstance solutions don’t fix heart problems. If we’re stuck in scarcity mode, we’ll never have enough money to feel secure. Instead, we need a heart change. “Wholeheartedness” is her term (deeply explored in her book, The Gifts of Imperfection) for being enough–being able to be vulnerable and believing in your worth, “facing uncertainty, exposure, and emotional risks, and knowing that I am enough” (Daring, 29).
I love that idea! Being is something that no one can ever take away. You can lose your job but if you are the asset, you can find/create another job. You can lose relationships but if you’re the asset, you can create other relationships. No matter the circumstances, you have the ability to bounce back because of who you ARE.
Working on scarcity is one of my goals for this year so I’ve been trying to reframe my thoughts. Instead of telling myself I’m behind, I tell myself that I’m starting from where I’m at. Instead of waking up and thinking how tired I am and how little sleep I got, I thank God for the amount of sleep I did get and remind myself that I have the opportunity for sleep in 15 hours or whatever it is 🙂
We all have a choice about every day. We can start out with the glass half-empty and spend the whole day lamenting our circumstances. Or we can revel in our being-ness–that we get to be God’s trust fund children, that we have a heavenly Father who loves us and take care of us, that we are fearfully and wonderfully made, that we are who we are. Being who God’s designed us to be instead of living in scarcity gives us room to thrive.
