From scarcity to trust 

Fear of lack 

Scarcity is fear of lack.  We all experience it on some level.  For some it’s more obvious and for others it is hidden.  Obvious examples would be doing things out of fear of not having enough money, or of losing a job or a relationship.  Subtler examples include doing things for fear of not being loved, of not belonging, or of not being supported.

Scarcity underlies and motivates behaviors that aren’t necessarily in alignment for us, but which we feel that we “have to” or “should” do.  If your perspective around something is that you have to do it or think you should do it, it’s a pretty clear indicator that scarcity is motivating you and that there is an underlying feeling that if you don’t do it then something will be lost.  This can also be masked as obligation, duty or taking responsiblity for things that you are not actually responsible for.

Now you can argue and say “well if I don’t do what my partner wants me to do then I may lose their love” or “I have to do this job because if I don’t I won’t have enough money ” or “I should eat healthy otherwise I’ll get fat and sick.”  Well yes if you believe these things will happen if you don’t do xyz, then that may very well become true for you, but I want to invite you to see that in all of these examples your motivation for doing is fear, fear of loss of something, which again is scarcity.  When operating from scarcity you will always feel trapped, have less energy available to you and ultimately like a victim to your circumstances.

Trusting yourself 

Scarcity based to love based actions

So we all conceptually know that coming from love instead of fear is preferrable.  Most all of us have a desire be more loving and come from love in our day to day lives.  The way to start the shift is to first see where you aren’t coming from love (but instead fear) through exploring your underlying motivators as discussed above.

The next thing required to move from scarcity-based to love-based actions is the ability to listen inside to what you really want to do instead of what you think you should or have to do.  This can be tricky as what we want to do has been mostly conditioned out of us, so much so that we don’t even know what we want to do, but only what we feel we have to do.  Some questions to ask yourself to get the ball rolling are, Who would you be if you didn’t have to do anything?  What would you do?  What is most important to you?  What really lights you up?

The last element required is trust.  First trusting yourself and allowing yourself to follow that which feels good to you.  Secondly trusting that things will work out exactly as they are supposed to regardless of how you think they should turn out.  This is often challenging for us because once we discover what we want to do we also then get attached to a specific outcome occurring, thus giving our power over and becoming victim to circumstance again.  We must learn to rest in uncertainty of the outcome and simultaneously trust that our love-based actions will support us in all ways.

You can think of scarcity based actions in your life as having a “fight-flight” response in your physiology.  When you choose from scarcity (fear) you are coming from survival mode and your nervous system reacts by producing stress hormones.  When you choose from love (trust) you are coming from a place of abundace and your nervous system reacts by producing oxytocin, dopamine and serotonin, which are feel good hormones.  Network Spinal Analysis helps shift your nervous system from survival mode into ease, trust and love thus giving you an option, a new pathway, for how you can respond.  As you also make more choices from love you help reinforce these new neural patterns so that they become the dominate way in which you engage with life.

Dr. Amanda Hessel, Chiropractor, Network Spinal Analysis & Somato-Respiratory Integration, Boulder, Colorado