Getting out of the scarcity mindset for abundance

are we living with enough?

For New Years Eve 2022, I went camping on a friend’s rural property in Northland with heaps of mates. I met a new friend while up there, a fellow plant lover. As we were exchanging our botanical nerdiness with each other, she brought up a fascinating point about scarcity vs. abundance. We were speaking about how much abundance there is of energy and herbal wisdom to share, but also how while she was living in the jungle, she felt how much abundance of food there truly is for the world.

This brought me to a place of realizing that my own patterns might feed scarcity rather than abundance.

The main difference between a scarcity mindset vs abundance mindset is that scarcity causes you to hold onto what you have, focus your attention on costs, and think small. Abundance is about thinking big, focusing on opportunities, taking risks, and betting on yourself.

So, our thoughts and how we look at things become reality. If we look at the glass as half full, it will be. If we look at it as half empty, it also will be.

No surprise this conversation came up then. The universe had been pushing me towards so much healing around how my thoughts were manifesting my reality. I had been working on affirmations, earth energy work and the Tibetan 5 Rites to get a handle on long standing body dysmorphia. Through the work, I found that my thoughts were constantly on that very issue. So, I was calling it back in. This is exactly the same issues with scarcity vs abundance.

It made me think of how I have been educating people in herbalism. I always say use the 80/20 rule when harvesting, make sure to leave at least 20% for reproduction. But, have I been actually reinforcing a scarcity mindset with this idea of sustainability? What if the earth is endlessly abundant and the environmental movement has it wrong?

In western culture, we are told that we don’t have enough. Not enough money, not enough success, not enough fresh water left on earth, no enough oil to sustain our habits, not enough food to feed the world. This idea that extinction is just around the corner.

But, what if we are wrong? What if earth can provide enough for us all? What if the narrative is not true and we are just manifesting what we are fearful of? Or that we have been lied to and there is plenty (and we are just not sharing it accordingly)? What if we do have enough food, water, shelter, clothing, medicine, air…

To quote one of my favorite books Braiding Sweetgrass:

“Modern capitalist societies, however richly endowed, dedicate themselves to the proposition of scarcity. Inadequacy of economic means is the first principle of the world’s wealthiest peoples. The shortage is due not to how much material wealth there actually is, but to the way in which it is exchanged or circulated. The market system artificially creates scarcity by blocking the flow between the source and the consumer. Grain may rot in the warehouse while hungry people starve because they cannot pay for it. The result is famine for some and diseases of excess for others. The very earth that sustains us is being destroyed to fuel injustice. An economy that grants personhood to corporations but denies it to the more-than-human beings: this is a Windigo economy.”

So the scary question is, what if the issue is with our system and our mindsets? Because, as I have observed through working in the environmental movement since I have been 18 years old, I can tell you, changing mindsets is sometimes the hardest thing.

So, if we want to call in more money, more love, more happiness…how do we get over this mindset?