If there was a scale from 0 to 10 with “lack” being zero and “abundance” being 10, where does your typical mindset usually rank?
I don’t know about you, but it's hard for me to answer that question. I usually have a strong conviction that things are going to work out long-term, but too often I live as if I’m on my last dime and that every decision I make is life or death. (If you have also struggled with a chronic fear of making mistakes, read Finding the Gift, August 5: Analysis Paralysis.)
In other words, I believe in abundance, prosperity and all good things, yet my actions and daily mindset often are out of alignment.
For example—and this is simple, but it demonstrates how I can operate in a
spirit of lack—I want to be able to spill a glass of homemade almond milk, which takes a full twenty-four hour process to make, and not really care, knowing that there's plenty where that came from. Plenty of almonds, but even more importantly to me, plenty of time.
And I want to clean up the mess without the urgency of, “Clean it quick, or the new wood floors will be ruined.” I want to live in the belief that even if they are ruined, it's not ideal, but okay. They can be fixed and it's not the end of the world. Rarely is anything the end of the world. Too much of the time, I am living the lie that, everything is at stake.
What number would you give yourself on this scale of zero to ten, when evaluating your mindset for abundance versus lack?
Wait. Actually, there should be two scales.
The first one
reveals our ability to hold high hopes, big dreams, positive beliefs, and prosperous expectations.
The second one would show how we really live. Do we operate out of an abundant mindset, or one of lack?
In that case, I would have to give myself a nine on the first one, and maybe a three on the second one.
This is important to know. While some of us may need to work on having a more prosperous mindset, others may need to focus their personal growth on how they actually live.
For instance, I don't need to spend energy trying to increase my positive belief system. I already fully believe in the goodness of God and the accessibility of a beautiful life, full of blessings and abundant gifts.
My energy, however, needs to be spent on catching myself when I am operating from a place of lack, a place in me that's about ten years old. She is poverty-level poor, lacking basic necessities.
I have to remember the truth—that little girl made it. She fought to have a different life. MY life.
So maybe we have another set of scales—one showing how old we are, compared to how old we act.
Some of my beliefs from which my daily actions
arise come from a much younger age. And the scary thing is that she’s operating from a reality that isn’t real anymore. I have to be careful not to let her run my present-day life.
How old are you? How old
do you feel when it comes to mistakes, finances, goals and aspirations, life challenges, stressful situations and relational difficulties? Sometimes it's not the things around us that need to change, but simply the spiritual age we're bringing into the dynamic.
The grown-up version of you has much wisdom and experience and an ability to see things from a higher perspective.
For today, let's make sure we know who's in the
driver’s seat of our lives. Let’s evaluate if we need to grow our beliefs, our daily operating systems, or both. And let’s take the wheel with all our years of wisdom and experience, while nurturing the tender parts of ourselves who still need healing.
