My entire life I’ve struggled with money scarcity.
It’s not a pleasant thing to admit to myself, let alone publicly.
Acknowledging my money scarcity mindset makes me feel vulnerable.
Exposed.
Wide open to criticism and ridicule.
But I’m showing up today with my heart open, intent on not only healing my own childhood wounds, but also to share my experience in the hope that it helps you too.
Below is the mantra I wrote for myself to help rewire my brain surrounding financial apprehension:
“I live in wealthy abundance. I exhale any anxieties about money.”
I repeat this mantra to myself twice a day for 5-10 minutes at a time.
And you know what?
It appears to be working — a few days ago, while walking my dog, I found a $10 bill on the ground:
Crazy.
Here I am with a money scarcity mindset, and I literally find money laying on the ground.
I’m taking that as a sign from the universe that I’m on the right track.
Table of Contents
Having a conversation with my therapist catalyzed a shift in my views towards money (image credit)
A couple weeks ago, I had a conversation with my life coach/therapist, a person whom I’ve been working with for over a decade and trust fully.
Specifically, we were talking about my plans to not focus on any income generating activities for the next six months, and instead focus solely on how I want to feel during the day.
I’m a creator and craftsman at heart, and I’ve noticed the more I focus on money, the less happy I am.
Conversely, the more I focus on the art of creation, rather than how much money the creation can/will make, the more fulfilled and content I feel.
My goal over the next six months is to manifest my idealized “art of creation”.
I have no doubt in my ability to monetize. I’ve been monetizing my entire entrepreneurial career.
But in this case, the art comes first. Monetization can come later, if it comes at all.
The topic of monetization shifted the conversation towards the concept of money scarcity, namely this chronic feeling I experience surrounding:
No matter how much money is in my bank account, it’s not enough.
It feels unsettling to talk about money scarcity, especially publicly — likely because, logically, I know I’m in an extremely lucky, privileged position.
Factually, I shouldn’t worry about money…but I still do. (image credit)
For all intents and purposes, at age 34, I have more than enough money to live a comfortable lifestyle for the rest of my days.
Look, I don’t live a big, ostentatious life.
I live comfortably, well within my means.
I don’t want for anything.
And I’m able to enjoy my life without breaking the bank.
My problems with money scarcity date back to my childhood.
My money scarcity issues started in childhood (image credit)
It’s easy to develop a money scarcity mindset when you’ve seen just how bad things can get in your own family.
My parents fought constantly over money.
Multiple times per week there would be fights over bills, mortgages, and jobs.
Similar to me, my mother was also highly sensitive to money — she was absolutely terrified of one day ending up homeless, living on the street.
It was arguably her biggest fear in life.
My father, on the other hand, had large aspirations and lofty goals.
He wanted to run a successful biotech business.
He wanted to own racehorses (him and his brother used to breed them as a hobby when they were younger, so horses were always a big part of his life).
His intentions were pure — my dad wanted to give his family everything he never had.
My father grew up extremely poor, often existing near the poverty line.
His own father died very early, leaving his mom to take care of four boys and a girl.
I have incredible empathy for my father.
I can’t imagine how a situation like that changes your own views towards money — how it can twist reality, making you believe that money will solve all your problems, and that your dream life is just around the corner, if you just take the right risks.
I love my dad.
And, at times, his financial leadership put the family at risk — especially from my mother’s perspective. I have no doubt that the family’s money issues further exacerbated my mom’s already incendiary mental health issues.
Dad, if you ever read this, I’m sorry. I’m sure it doesn’t feel good to read.
But this is my story, and I have to tell my truth.
My sincere hope is that through being candid about our family situation we are able to help others avoid some of the same mistakes we made.
Writing this down is healing for me, and my sharing is done from the goodness of my heart to help others.
Dad, I hope you see that my intentions are good…and can make your peace with it.
Life is good. I love it, and I’m so incredibly lucky.
At age 24, I started PyImageSearch.
Just before my 32nd birthday, PyImageSearch as acquired for a life changing amount of money.
I was also very financially responsible while running the business by:
Don’t get me wrong — I’m incredibly lucky, grateful, and privileged to be where I am now. I know that.
But old scars run deep, and despite my prosperous financial situation (and what my financial advisor tells me), my body and nervous system just can’t seem to agree with the logic and reality of the situation.
Truly, I can’t tell you how painful it is.
The number of times I’ve woken up at night wondering if I have “enough”.
How I’ve felt anxiety, a pit of dread in my stomach around the clock.
The truth is that I need more rest. Running PyImageSearch took a lot out of me, more than I’ve admitted either to myself or to others.
But if I’m resting, I’m not working which means more money is going out than is coming in.
The funny thing is, that’s the exact situation I’ve tried to tried to create for myself my entire life — to not have to worry about money; to have the freedom to just enjoy life.
But now that I’m here, I don’t feel free.
If anything the money anxiety is worse because now I have something to lose.
I have to keep telling myself, “You’re safe. You’re okay now.” (image credit)
No matter how much I tell myself:
“You’re safe. You’re okay now. You have enough money. Stop worrying about it.”
…I just can’t seem to to actually stop worrying about it.
My therapist and I dug into the issue quite a bit yesterday, and she urged me to reflect on the issue and journal about it.
Left unchecked, my money concerns could be quite damaging in the long-term, actually preventing me from further safety, wealth, and success.
In a paradoxical way, worrying about finances would actually put me back into a situation like the one I grew up in.
I agree with her — I’ve been stuck in the same faulty mindset surrounding money nearly my entire life.
It may not be my fault that I think this way, but it is my responsibility to fix it.
And change it, I will.
Crafting my own prayer and mantra practice (image credit)
My therapist’s recommendation to me was to develop a prayer practice/mantra surrounding money scarcity:
While I’m a deeply spiritual person, I’m still quite sensitive about the word “prayer”.
For context, I grew up in an extremely (border-line cult-like) Christian environment.
The situation was so intense, so suffocating, that I rebelled strongly.
By sixth grade I was agnostic, and by 10th grade I was fully atheist.
I have nothing against religion these days — in fact, I embrace some of the teachings and support those who practice religion — but back then, I was disgusted by it (as you would expect a kid filled with teenage angst to be).
Back then, I over-corrected so hard that I turned my nose up at religion, fully repulsed by it.
This over-correction prevented me from exploring my spirituality, which gave rise to a whole host of issues in my late-teens and early-twenties (a topic that I’ll save for another article).
I’ve now corrected back to a “spiritual middle-ground”, where I feel significantly more happy and healthy.
Life is beautiful. (image credit)
I wrote the following mantra for myself:
“I live in wealthy abundance. I exhale any anxieties about money.”
I repeat that mantra to myself twice a day for 5-10 minutes at a time.
I also repeat it to myself if I catch myself, in the moment, having a scarcity mindset regarding money (i.e., making decisions surrounding monetization rather than how I want to feel, which is far more important in the long run that money).
I share this mantra, and this story, with you in hopes that it helps you in your own journey.
This practice is still new, but I’m a dedicated, border-line obsessive person — I’m also confident in my spiritual path, so I feel assured that in time, this mantra will do its work, both on the spiritual level, and on the neuroplasticity level.
I’m sure I’ll have more to report at a future date, but if you’re reading this, perhaps send me positive energy while I’m on this journey.
Thank you for joining me in this exploration, and I sincerely hope that my experiences can offer some insight or comfort in your own journey. If you’re reading this, sending you all my positive energy and gratitude.
Adrian Rosebrock. “How to Heal from Money Scarcity: My Personal Mantra”, NaturalDisasters.ai, 2023, https://naturaldisasters.ai/posts/heal-money-scarcity-mantra/.
@incollection{ARosebrock_HealMoneyScarcityMantra,
author = {Adrian Rosebrock},
title = {How to Heal from Money Scarcity: My Personal Mantra},
booktitle = {NaturalDisasters.ai},
year = {2023},
url = {https://naturaldisasters.ai/posts/heal-money-scarcity-mantra/},
}
AI generated content disclaimer: I’ve used a sprinkling of AI magic in this blog post, namely in the “Takeaways” section, where I used AI to create a concise summary of this article. Don’t fret, my human eyeballs have read and edited every word of the AI generated content, so rest assured, what you’re reading is as accurate as I possibly can make it. If there are any discrepancies or inaccuracies in the post, it’s my fault, not that of our machine assistants.
Header photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash
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