Are You Playing The Scarcity Game?

“Laura” (not her real name) has the kind of life any­one would envy. She’s been hap­pily mar­ried to “Larry” (not his real name) for over 30 years. Laura and Larry adore each other. They have a grown son who’s inde­pen­dent and hap­pily pur­su­ing his dream career.

In their late 50’s, Laura and Larry are extremely suc­cess­ful by almost any mea­sure, and quite prob­a­bly never have to worry about money again in their lives. Their invest­ments gen­er­ate a hand­some pos­i­tive cash flow every month, which allows them to live the life of their dreams.

Laura and Larry are gen­er­ous with their abun­dance. They sup­port causes and orga­ni­za­tions they believe in and feel a sense of respon­si­bil­ity for mak­ing a pos­i­tive dif­fer­ence on the planet. Free to go any­where and do any­thing they want at any time, they want for nothing.

Well, almost noth­ing. For in spite of all the mate­r­ial abun­dance in her life, Laura lives inside a con­ver­sa­tion of scarcity. She can’t for the life of her fig­ure out why her life is so abun­dant yet she feels so unde­serv­ing. It isn’t that she’s not extremely grate­ful for what she has. She and Larry have worked hard and earned every bit of suc­cess they’ve achieved. Noth­ing was handed to them.

In return, life has spread its ban­quet in front of Laura and invited her to the feast. Her plate is over­flow­ing with “cake.” But like clock­work, every so often, Laura pushes the “renew” but­ton on her self-doubt and ends up leav­ing the ban­quet feel­ing empty, dis­con­nected and alone. She has her cake alright, but deems her­self not wor­thy enough to eat it.

I asked Laura who she thought was respon­si­ble for all her suc­cess. Who is the per­son who was smart and cre­ative enough to put together her life scenario?

“Well I did that”, she admits, “but I think I’m just a good actor. That’s not the “real” me. I think I have every­one fooled,” Laura replied.

“Who do you think is the real you?” I asked.

“The real me is the one who’s scared and thinks she’s not enough,” she responded.

“Really?” I asked. ” How do you know she’s any more real than the one who gen­er­ates abun­dance? Maybe you’re the one who’s fooled,” I suggested.

““I never thought about it like that,” she responded. “I just assume the depressed one is really who I am. I feel so uncom­fort­able when I’m happy. Feel­ing good just doesn’t seem real.”

In the end, it doesn’t mat­ter how much “cake” one has. If you live in an inner con­ver­sa­tion of scarcity and lack of aware­ness about and accep­tance of who you are, you are not much bet­ter off than a home­less per­son. You might not be sleep­ing on a cold side­walk or wor­ry­ing about your next meal, true. But oddly enough, the inner expe­ri­ence is the same.

In reject­ing our own wor­thi­ness to just sim­ply be, we become like orphans, cast out in the cold­ness of life at our own hands. All the mag­nif­i­cent homes and “stuff” doesn’t make any dif­fer­ence if you don’t deem your­self wor­thy to come to the banquet.

The soul of scarcity is rooted in the depths of not trust­ing or believ­ing in one’s self. It is a fun­da­men­tal belief that who you are is not enough. Noth­ing from the out­side can make up for the defi­ciency of belief in one’s self as a wor­thy human being. Where those beliefs come from can most often be found in one’s child­hood. The most inno­cent remark insen­si­tively deliv­ered can some­times mark a per­son for life.

John, a beau­ti­ful young man in his mid– 30’s, stood up in a sem­i­nar I led this past week­end and shared that in 6th grade, a girl accused him of being “too much.” After that expe­ri­ence, John shut down his voice and has lived under the radar since then, afraid of ever ruf­fling anyone’s feath­ers again. Today, some 20 years later, John finds his life unsat­is­fy­ing, even though he has every­thing he needs to be suc­cess­ful. He’s hand­some, intel­li­gent, cre­ative, well edu­cated and qui­etly pas­sion­ate, but no one knows who he is or feels his pres­ence. He’s become a “stealth person.”

John and Laura are poster chil­dren for play­ing the scarcity game in the face of over­whelm­ing abun­dance. It’s not that they con­sciously choose to live their lives this way. But the choice is made at the uncon­scious level, where fear sets up the lim­it­ing beliefs that deter­mine how we think, feel and what kind of actions we take in the world. As such, they are a per­fect demon­stra­tion for how it is with human beings. We all have our own ver­sion of their sto­ries. Yours or mine might look dif­fer­ent at first glance. You might not enjoy the level of mate­r­ial things as Laura, you might not be as shut down as John, but look to see how you push away abun­dance by insist­ing on your belief that:

1. There’s not enough… (time, money, oppor­tu­nity, jobs, etc.)

2. You’re not enough… (smart enough, edu­cated enough, pretty enough, etc.)

3. There will never be enough… (love, respect, atten­tion) to fill your needs.

The world, indeed, appears to be a scary place right now. Uncer­tainty abounds. Paul Krug­man, the Nobel-prize win­ning econ­o­mist and New York Times op-ed colum­nist, says we’re in the Third Great Depression.

Every day, 24/7, we’re fed a diet of bad news and it’s not get­ting any bet­ter. We read about the unem­ploy­ment rate going up and the num­ber of jobs going down. We see the value of our homes erod­ing, our retire­ment sav­ings and the kids’ col­lege funds dis­ap­pear­ing. We’re run­ning out of oil, ruin­ing the envi­ron­ment, and killing each other in the name of who gets to con­trol access to power and resources.

Scarcity = scare city.

In the scarcity game, we give our power away to the belief that what we fear is real. We allow fear to tri­umph over all other pos­si­bil­i­ties and dis­own the qual­i­ties in our­selves that demon­strate oth­er­wise. Laura’s belief that her “suc­cess­ful self” is just a good actor dis­hon­ors the parts of her that really are suc­cess­ful and have the results to prove it. John dis­hon­ors his voice of pas­sion by swal­low­ing it and keep­ing it all inside.

Are you play­ing the scarcity game? Ask your­self the following:

1) Do you believe that there is “not enough to go around?”

2) Do you define your­self based on what you lack, not what you have?

3) Are you moti­vated by fear, and/or do you moti­vate oth­ers by fear? 4) Do you think that if oth­ers gain, you lose; or if you give, you have less?

If you answer yes to any of these ques­tions, you are play­ing the scarcity game. Get­ting to the source of these lim­it­ing, fear-based beliefs and unrav­el­ing them cre­ates the free­dom to con­sciously choose from the present rather than the past.

F.E.A.R. = False Evi­dence Appear­ing Real

In the face of a world filled with fear, what does human­ity need now, more than any­thing? What can only you bring to the world that you’re not bring­ing because you’re afraid? What impact is the col­lec­tive con­ver­sa­tion about scarcity hav­ing in your life? How are you per­pet­u­at­ing the con­ver­sa­tion of fear in your own life?

I’m lis­ten­ing for your answers. I have my own thoughts about it and surely our dis­cus­sion will con­tinue. But let’s hear from you.

Tagged as: abundance, dr. judith rich, fear, lack, limitation, Rx For The Soul, scarcity