I’m researching  how to counteract “scarcity consciousness” and create a mindset for wealth and abundance. 

I’m interested in your relationship with money and how you feel and think about it. So I’ve put together a short 10 question survey. I wonder if you would take a few minutes to take the survey if you haven’t already. I will share the results with all. 

Here is the link: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/J325X9Z. Thank you!

In Deepak Chopra’s book “The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success”, he tells a story about the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, the guy that founded Transcendental Meditation as well as the guy the Beatles hung out with in India.

The Maharishi wanted to organize a massive pilgrimage and attract hundreds of thousands of people to the event.  However, the Maharishi was poor and didn’t have a lot of money. Nevertheless, he continued to plan for the event. One of his organizers, seeing the clear lack of financial resources, approached him. “Sir”, he said, “This is a noble effort, yet it is significant in size and cost. Where will the money come from?” The Maharishi replied “From wherever it is now.”

I don’t know too many people that have this kind of “abundance consciousness”. What seems much more common is “scarcity consciousness”: the feeling that there is not enough. What’s interesting is that this scarcity consciousness seems to have little to do with how much what we actually have.

Examining Scarcity Consciousness

Examining my own life, I’m able to identify some reasons for my own scarcity consciousness in the past. I wonder if any of you can relate.

There were 8 kids in my family, and until I was in the 6th grade my mom stayed at home while my dad worked at his own business. Dad spent a lot of time at work in order to support eight kids.

As a child, I could see that he was stressed out. It seemed to me that to own a business and try to make money was not a good thing, as it meant you would be stressed out and not be able to spend time with your kids.

I went to a Catholic grammar school and high school. In 12 years of my schooling, there was never any discussion of success, money, how to make it, what to do with it, or why we should even care. In fact, the message I received was quite the opposite:  money is the root of all evil, if you want money you are greedy, and it’s easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter heaven.

I entered college with no real goals and certainly no desire to make a lot of money. After slumming my way through college and eventually dropping out, I had a succession of in-home sales jobs which left me struggling financially and  in debt.

I got a “real” job in a mall at a Things Remembered store, but got fired because I kept forgetting to turn on the revolving tower of key blanks. When I got into my car to drive home, my car wouldn’t start.

That night I found an ad in the employment section of the newspaper promising “High pay in a rock and roll atmosphere!”

To make a long story short, I took the job, (another in- home sales gig)  started making a lot of money, gave my beater car away and bought a used Pontiac  Fiero. After a few more months, I lent the Fiero to a friend, and started driving a Porsche. Then I found out that the owners of the company were con men. I quit the job, turned in the Porsche, got back the Fiero (payments were not kept up) and was struggling again. My girlfriend dumped me, I got evicted from my apartment, and my Fiero got repossessed.

At that point, (1987, 27 years old) I remember making five decisions which would reinforce whatever scarcity consciousness I had and impact my life for more than a decade:

• To aspire to make a lot of money means you have to cheat people.
• It’s better to be poor (maybe I’ll become a monk…)
• I never want to own a business.
• I never want to get married or have kids.
• I never want to own a house.

In the years that followed, I struggled constantly with a lack of money, but I also did a lot of work on my own personal self development. Somehow, in spite of those experiences and decisions, from  2003 to 2009  I managed to start a business, get married, have kids and buy a house.  I figured I was done with scarcity consciousness.

But the effects of subconscious programming run deep, and exist at a level most of us are not aware of. I’ve become aware that I still have work to do to counteract the negative programming of my early years.

I can’t blame anyone or anything for whatever scarcity consciousness I’ve created for myself. So I’m currently reading, studying, doing affirmations, seminars, self reflection, self hypnosis and a lot of hard work to see if I can create a higher level of  “abundance consciousness”.

That’s my story. Next week I’ll share some of the resources I’ve been using.

Blessings and abundance to you!

To hear a podcast of this blog, go to my podcast TedinYourHead.com episode 66

Ted