There’s a dichotomy of thinking that I’ve learned can either hold you back from life so much or conversely open every door: living by a scarcity complex or living with abundance, respectively. And I KNOW a recent post was about the dangers of living in opposites, but this is different, because. It just is. Trust me.

I used to live with a fear-tinged perspective that glazed over my worldview. I used to think in terms of scarcity, that there wasn’t quite enough for me (but plenty for everybody else), that there was always something missing. This way of thinking led me to essentially living on autopilot, with fear in the driver’s seat. I’d consequently live in a state of constant comparison, low self-esteem, with a general belief that my life was lacking something at the core. There was an overarching anxiety that was telling me that there wasn’t time to relax because there was something to constantly be striving towards. I’d be quite reckless with money, fill various voids with booze and the rest of it but it never filled those holes – there was this persistent undercurrent of lack. A belief that I wasn’t enough, what I had wasn’t enough, where I was going was never enough. Lack, lack lack. As you can imagine, it’s a bloody exhausting way to live and to think. And as we know, if we let our minds run the show on autopilot, things will never change.

I read a book I thought was going to be really preachy in an obnoxious way, which then surprised me in the most pleasant way. It kind of took me by the shoulders and rattled me til I felt a bit motion-sick. That kind of oh moment. The book was You Are a Badass: How to Stop Doubting Your Greatness and Live an Awesome Life by Jen Sincero. The title alone is enough to put you off, but stick with me. 

If you are at the point where spirituality n shit is absolutely not for you, might I suggest this book. It encourages you to explore the gross, dark parts of yourself in a pretty hilarious way. Sincero’s approach is no-nonsense at the core and explains things so well, on a sincerely (pun actually not intended for once) human level, such as gratitude, meditation, learning how to surrender, the importance of personal discipline even right into the depths of your murky subconscious (ew). All of that I’d never have given my time of day for, because I was rejecting it subliminally – I wasn’t interested, because I knew that it would help me and I didn’t want to be helped; I was too proud. This book though turned out to be one of the things that pulled me out of the proverbial water. There’s a lot to say about it, and something I’ll explore in a more detailed post another time, but one of the things that struck me most – that’s relevant here – is something called abundance. 

I give you permission to cringe away for a sec, or sigh or take an “Ugh”. Go on.

Abundance is one of those spiritual buzzwords that I think people don’t fully understand; I certainly didn’t til I read more deeply into it. On the surface, abundance connotes a happy-go-lucky image of – for me – a lady in a wheat field, swaying her dreamy white linen dress in the breeze, picking fresh strawberries, laughing while she skips along because she doesn’t have a damn care in the world. She’s abundant! There’s nothing going wrong in her life! I bet she’s got one of those signs that says ‘Live, Laugh, Love’ above her wine rack!

That’s what I pictured, anyway.

Going back to the point, abundance is misunderstood. Misunderstood as ignorance, I think. The ‘nothing can hurt me because I have wrapped myself up so thoroughly in cotton wool to the point where I can’t hear you because I’ve actually stuffed some in my ears, tra la laaa.’ 

But what abundance fundamentally means is thinking without limits – living without that fear-based perspective, living instead by embracing that everything you want is within your reach and wholly believing that (even if you know that really, not everything is – but that’s ok). It’s by living with a love-based perspective, by knowing there is always more and that there is enough for you (and there always was). By living without that undercurrent of fear, imagine the possibilities! I, myself, was more excited about life, open to trying new things – I joined an acting course for crying out loud – and moreover, was more forgiving when things did go wrong. It was all ok because there was always more – more opportunities, more people to meet, more experiences to be had, wherever I went. I decided that was a better place to be rather than living by ‘What if?’ And ‘What’s the point’? 

So personally, if you’re feeling stuck or stagnant – which is totally acceptable at the moment by the way – then I invite you to look into this concept, read that book, see how you feel afterwards. I’ve banged on about it a thousand times but I really do believe the most powerful thing you can do as a human is shift your perspective, if you use your malleable mind to its full potential and keep it open to new possibilities.