Scarcity mindset - That grabby energy feeling
Some recommended I write to you about the kind of thing I am a bit uncomfortable telling you. The kind of thing that stretches me out of my comfort zone and makes me feel vulnerable - so you can look into what is here and decide, with more honesty, if this is a place which sings to your soul. Or not.
What would I tell you if we were old friends curled up in front of a fire and we were catching up? What would I tell you three hours in? The thing I had been avoiding talking about?
It feels like a secret.
Because shame thrives in shrouds.
The truth is, I often battle against the thought, “I REALLY NEED this to work" about SelfCareSchool. I believe in it 100% I know it is transformative. I know the people there get epic value. I know I am great at holding space and encouraging others to find their truth. And…
Also, I am a disabled person living with a chronic health condition which looks likely to last the rest of my life. Scarcity surrounds this. If I am lucky, I work a few hours a day, and if I do too much, the batteries are drained for days. It leaves holes in my brain and I make mistakes easily. My schemes for remembering things are a maze to everyone and sometimes to myself, and it is somehow just about jigsaws together when I can make up the rules according to listening to what my body needs. But it kicks against a 9-5, and the energy it would cost me to get there would cost me the energy to be there, and the energy to be there would cost me to energy to get home, and the energy to get home would cost me a week.
And this makes me unemployable.
This also makes me not fit some regimented tick box which entitles me to government support.
So, when I think about SelfCareSchool, there is a terrified part of me which says if not enough people come, I will not be able to pay my bills. There is a fear-based tap on my shoulder which whispers, “You can't offer equitable pricing - businesses do not work like that.” There is a nervous part of me that opens her big peepers and looks out at the horizon and whispers “, am I good enough to hold this together?”.
And a body which crumples of tired. It is always tired. Getting dressed some days is all the energy she has in her.
And I have to listen to that more than I listen to the fear. I have to know that if I am to survive in these times, the only way is through. I have no option but to hold on and not try and over-exert myself to a false sense of security.
Instead, I am left reaching to the blurred edges. I put my trust in the universe that SelfCareSchool will work because the folks I support deserve respect and kindness. I put my trust in the rightness of good things that a business can be run on the idea that if you can't afford to come, you can JUST COME ANYWAY because, dammit, this shit is all made up anyway. I put my faith in the energy of balance to believe that no one is getting turned away from my door for financial reasons (you absolutely can be turned away for being a dick - I take guardianship of this space very seriously), but you're not going to be turned away through lack of means.
You may think that is a ridiculous hippie bullshit way of trying to run an organisation, and no wonder I struggle to get it all to jigsaw together sometimes - but it's all I have.
This thing runs on congruence and optimism and sometimes thin air - and we are here. Providing wild benefits for the folk who come through the door, week after week.
I know that when I slip into that grabby energy of scared, the whole house of cards comes down. The energy shifts and people smell inauthenticity a mile off.
And I'm not here for it.
My whole life has been a game of how can I stretch my heart wider. What can I learn here? Who is not in the room and should be? And who am I not willing to leave behind?
This is the engine room of SelfCareSchool, and it's beating heart.
If you want to see how things could be different and to taste some of the wildness of optimism, there's a sofa with your name on it just after you've had a nap.
