14/01/2022
Over the past three years, many of us have been confronted with a relatively new phenomenon - not being able to get what we want. This has led to what is known in psychology as 'scarcity mentality'.
"Third year of the pandemic" used to be a phrase reserved for science fiction novels. And it seems the end is inching towards us at a maddeningly slow pace. During these three years, I’ve found myself intermittently slipping into a scarcity mentality, which has brought me face-to-face with the enigma of acceptance.
Much is spoken in meditation and self-development circles of acceptance. It’s one of those terms which, on the surface, seems relatively benign.
Often, when people hear of acceptance, they might initially confuse it with resignation, which suggests a hopelessness or ‘giving up’. Acceptance, however, is quite different from resignation.
Jon Kabat-Zinn, one of the founders of transforming mindfulness practices into modern methods, puts it beautifully:
"It takes a huge amount of fortitude and motivation to accept what is — especially when you don’t like it — and then work wisely and effectively as best you possibly can with the circumstances you find yourself in and with the resources at your disposal, both inner and outer, to mitigate, heal, redirect, and change what can be changed"
All sounds well and good, but how about when what we’re trying to accept and change at the same time is… ourselves?
***
For me, this has been the most challenging part of acceptance, which feels, at best, perplexing and, at worst, impossible: how can we accept ourselves fully, just as we are, yet still strive towards becoming the best versions of ourselves (however we might interpret that)?
I was recently confronted with this precise problem - coming across a part of myself which I felt a deep dislike of. Namely, since the start of the pandemic, I’ve found myself intermittently slipping into a scarcity mentality.
As supply around the world has spent the past two years playing catch up with changing demands - toilet paper and paracetamol, vaccinations and now rapid antigen tests - we have been left with a relatively new phenomenon in the 21st century: not being able to get what we want.
This scarcity mindset can create a sense of constriction in our thinking. When, at the start of the pandemic, paracetamol was hard to find, I found myself checking the supermarket aisles even though I didn't need any. When the only vaccine I was allowed to get during pregnancy wasn’t available for weeks, I found myself obsessively refreshing webpages. When Australia ran out of rapid antigen tests a few weeks ago, I started seriously considering sourcing them from The Netherlands.
All of this focus on what we are lacking can limit our brain function and decision-making capacity. Not an ideal problem-solving place, then.
More important though, in my opinion, is the fact that a scarcity mindset turns me away from my values and how I would like to interact with the world - which is with generosity and trust. Having noticed this scarcity mentality in myself, I felt frustrated and disappointed. I want to develop the parts of myself that have a deep faith that things will be alright, and that there is enough to go around.
The problem is that, by not being able to accept the scarcity mentality in myself, I was just creating more tension, rather than opening up to change.
So, how do we accept the parts of ourselves that we may not like. And once we have done that, how does changing ourselves fit in?
I believe that the first step comes from acknowledging that every part of ourselves is doing the best it can to keep us alive, within our given life history and circumstances. When I can view my scarcity mindset as a normal response to abnormal circumstances, as a protective instinct, I can start to accept it a little more.
Once we are able to move towards acceptance of these parts of ourselves, we can then treat these parts with the attention and care that they deserve, rather than silencing them. The funny thing is that this response might actually lead to those parts of ourselves feeling heard and comforted, which, in turn, might make that voice a little less loud.
If we are able to really, deeply accept these parts of ourselves, to an extent where their voices become a little less frenzied, this creates more space in our mind for seeing possibilities and options that we might not have seen before.
Since the start of the pandemic, I’ve found myself intermittently slipping into a scarcity mentality, which has brought me face-to-face with the enigma of acceptance. Much is spoken in meditation and self-development circles of acceptance. It’s one of those terms which, on the surface, seems rel...
