Name It…Claim It
by Pamelagrace Beatty
What we see is what we get. In other words, how we see ourselves and the world is how we and the world will appear to us. For example, when I was growing up, it seemed that we never had enough money. My mother was always saying we can’t afford this or that. I desperately wanted ballet lessons when I was nine. When summer came and we got new tennis shoes for the season, I would choose the kind that laced up and tied around the ankles because they looked like ballet shoes to me. I begged my mother for ballet lessons, but she said we couldn’t afford them. After several years of begging, she took me to the YWCA to see a modern dance class in action. The dancers were running around pretending to be trees and then falling on the floor pretending to be I-didn’t-know-what. “That’s not dancing!” I said. “Well that’s all we can afford.”, my mom answered. So, no dance classes for me. I wanted to be a ballerina. Period. But we didn’t have the money.
I grew up believing we didn’t have any money. I grew up believing there was never enough of anything. The truth was, we did have enough, we had enough for my parents to get us our schoolbooks, school clothes and plenty of food (even if mom sometimes got creative with leftovers to make them last through the week…but we had enough). I didn’t see that though. Deep inside me was the feeling that there was not enough.That feeling followed me through my adulthood. No matter how much money I made on my jobs, it was never enough (except for one time when it was way too much and I was in shock until I got another job where I felt again like I didn’t have enough. Then I was happy). The problem, as you can see, is that if we believe there isn’t enough, then there never will be enough. Look at the millionaires and billionaires. Does it seem like they recognize when enough is enough? How many billions of dollars does one need for life to be good? Does the idea of enough even figure into their lives?
But I digress. Obviously, if we believe there is never enough, there won’t be because that is how we see the situation or life in general. Another side effect to the belief that there is not enough is that it goes beyond money and things. You can see it as the underpinnings of war, corporate gains, and even sibling rivalry “Mom loves you better than she loves me.” As though a mother has only so much love to give. The belief in not enough can get down right personal…”I am not enough.” We could see ourselves as not thin enough, not tall enough, not smart enough, not pretty or handsome enough, and the list goes on.
How we see our abundance, or lack of it determines how we behave. If we believe we are not enough then we aren’t. I met a man who was very smart, well educated, had jobs that were demanding, and people listened to what he said. He lived in a beautiful, expansive home in the suburbs. He drove an expensive car. He told me that he could have been so much more if his mother had pushed him. So much more? Wasn’t who he was and what he had accomplished enough? Nope. I thought he was pretty cool. I was impressed with what he had done with his life. For him, it wasn’t enough. And sadly, nothing I could say to him helped him see himself differently.
If we believe we don’t have enough, or are not enough, well then, that’s how we live. If we believe the opposite, that we are in an abundant Universe and all our needs are being met, then that’s how we live. Of course, we may have to help ourselves to some of that abundance by working, saving, planning and so on but that work, and planning will come from a different place inside of us than the place where the belief that we don’t have enough comes from. It’s a totally different energy. Someone once said, while comparing pessimists and optimists, “The pessimist may prove right in the end, but the optimist has a better trip.” So, if you are hesitant to embrace that this is an abundant universe and there is enough and you have enough, I can guarantee that even if we are wrong, we will at least have had a better experience of it all.
