I remember the day when my son brought home a stray dog, which he named ‘Charlie.’ Charlie seemed like a sweet dog, even though he was a little apprehensive with me. I knew he had been roaming the streets for some time; he was clearly undernourished. So I quickly borrowed a bowl from Bella (our four-legged family member), filled it with food, and set it down. Charlie gobbled it up in minutes. When Bella innocently approached the now empty bowl, Charlie attacked her violently. Even though Charlie’s belly was full, his sweet demeanor turned into anger and aggression.
This story brings to mind the concept of scarcity and how the fear of scarcity—which seems to be pervading our world—impacts us all.
Spirit views this fear of scarcity as the most “vile of illusions” that impede our evolution as conscious human beings. It is this fear that creates separation, isolation, selfishness and greed. It represents a loss of human ingenuity and joy.
We can see this in geopolitics, the control and depletion of our natural resources, and the perpetual hunger for wealth and global power.
Today, a new friend, Arpad, joined our board session to bring a message about this concept of scarcity. Here, he offers a worldview of our human race from a higher perspective.
-Transcript Begins-
Arpad: We, in spirit, and indeed from a universal community of light, see your planet with as much a sense of regard as with concern. For we feel the perspective and values of mankind do not reflect the wonderful abundance that surrounds you.
In this way, scarcity has become the most vile of illusions that humans participate in and which impede human’s evolution as a conscious species.
It is the worldview of fear that perpetuates the scarcity energy that becomes an emotional sickness of disconnection, isolation, selfishness, resentment, hatred, and greed. So much of human consciousness is devoted to combatting or perpetuating fear, that it represents a tremendous loss to human ingenuity and joy.
Elena: Thank you for coming to us to offer this message. Is there practical advice for us…the human race?
Arpad: We bring this to you not that a practical solution is readily available. However we ask, for the time being, that you both join the stars. This is not to look at your planet within the vast vacuum of space, but rather recognize the place of your world amongst the many magnificent others in your galaxy, and universe!
Look at the face of your planet, see the blue and the light it reflects…almost a glorious star. Can you take in the immensity of your glorious home with the billions of beating hearts and souls carrying each their own light? Does this beauty not leave you in breathless awe? What need can therefore not be met on this beautiful planet or by the will of unified collaboration?
Go to the stars lovelies [referring to Eryn and I]. There is no calling of ego in starlight. Do not swallow the distraction and misdirection of fear’s petty scope and concerns. Close your eyes, feel your feet embraced by the earth, breathe, feel the air fill your belly and heart, feel the armor of your strength, feel the powerful cloth of your skin, feel in the wholeness of your body the completeness of life, what is missing? What can ever be incomplete?
Never forget this feeling, hold it deeply within you, a reassured, ancient wisdom. You are each a soldier of the planet, you each wear the colors of your brotherhood and sisterhood, a kinship of life on this glorious and mystifying paradise. Never forget lovelies.
-Transcript Ends-
A few days after this message from Arpad, I pulled out my laptop to research the topic of scarcity and was surprised to learn there was a lot written about the ‘culture of scarcity’ and the ‘scarcity mindset’ in business, sociology, self-help and spiritual publications. What interested me the most is how it affects everything from the management of natural resources to our economic systems and personal lives.
According to Inc. Magazine’s article “The Scarcity Fallacy,” Bill Carmody writes how, despite his success, he feels anxious and that perhaps he could or should be doing better. He describes the feeling of scarcity as “the big lie that we all have brought into. It is this innate fear that rests deep inside of us, whispering to our subconscious mind that we simply don’t have enough. And whether we are conscious of this drive or not, each of us tends to act upon this inaccurate impulse.”
He continues to talk about how we “spend inordinate amounts of time calculating how much we have, want, and don’t have, and how much everyone else has, needs, and wants.”
Social scientist and author Brené Brown talks about our ‘culture of scarcity’ in her book Daring Greatly, and how we are suffering from a ‘never-enough problem.’ In one of her studies, she asked participants to answer the question: “What do you hear or see in the phrase: Never ________ enough.” Brown writes:
Are you enough? How would you answer the phrase “Never ____________ enough”?
It only takes a few seconds before people fill in the blanks with their own tapes:
- Never good enough
- Never perfect enough
- Never thin enough
- Never powerful enough
- Never smart enough
- Never certain enough
- Never safe enough
- Never extraordinary enough
Brown attributes this to our culture where everyone is hyperaware of lack, adding “We spend inordinate amounts of time calculating how much we have, want, and don’t have, and how much everyone else has, needs, and wants.”
The constant assessing and comparing that we do, she argues, is self-defeating. She writes:
“What makes this constant assessing and comparing so self-defeating is that we are often comparing our lives, our marriages, our families, and our communities to unattainable, media-drive visions of perfection, or we’re holding up our reality against our own fictional account of how great someone else has it.”
Scarcity not only leaves us feeling frustrated, angry, anxious, jealous, resentful and exhausted, it robs us from living the moment and enjoying our lives more fully. In the article “The Scarcity Mindset is Killing Us,” Louise Altman explains:
“Living in the scarcity model, we often find ourselves living in the in-between. We’re here, but we want to be there. The benchmark for our arrival there is often elusive – sometimes permanently. The scarcity assumption is built on two contradictory ideas; there’s not enough of what I want to go around and there’s more out there that I want but I don’t have it.”
She continues to write about scarcity as the ‘great separator’ and its impact on our natural resources.
“Scarcity mindsets pit us against each other and against the world. In the scarcity model, we cannot afford to restore the earth to balance because of economic interests. The contradictions of capitalism require us to believe on one hand that abundance is our birthright – that endless expansion based on cheap labor and natural resources is the inevitable, limitless progress of human nature. On the other, the message is clear, we can no longer afford to care for the earth or its citizenry – scarcity (aka austerity) is the only way to guarantee future economic prosperity.”
Ask yourself, what does scarcity mean to you? Do you feel you are constantly living your life in deficit? Do you believe you can only gain [security, wealth, happiness, etc.] at the expense of another’s loss of it? That there’s not enough to go around for everyone?
How we choose to view the world affects our actions. And our collective actions shape the world we live in.
If we can stretch our mindset to a broader, higher perspective like Arpad’s, can we not begin to create change in how we shape our lives, our values as a society, and our values as the human race?
We cannot perpetuate this fear in our lives if humanity is to evolve and flourish, for it only separates us.
I believe in the power of one. And I believe oneness has power. If we begin to shift our illusion of ‘scarcity’ and recognize we each have the power to affect change, we can become many, and hopefully some day work in unified collaboration for the greater good of all.
As one of our guides, Khaled, said, “See how one grain of sand can seem as impressive as the face of a mountain? Such is the power of intent with light!”
Additional Resources:
https://sustainablehuman.com/how-scarcity-creates-greed/
http://sacred-economics.com/film/
https://charleseisenstein.net/books/sacred-economics/
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