Scarcity and Me: Learning to Live Beyond “Not Enough”
Why scarcity took the driver’s seat in my life, and how I’m finally reclaiming the wheel.
The Shadow of Scarcity
Scarcity. It’s a word that has followed me like a shadow, sometimes quietly trailing behind, sometimes grabbing hold of the wheel and steering my life. Today, I grapple with it a little less than even a few months ago, but the truth is: this shift has taken intentional work.
At 47 years old, I can see just how long scarcity has been part of my story. Being a Gen Xer, a woman, a woman in business, a nurse, and a yoga teacher, scarcity has shown up in a thousand different ways, sometimes obvious, sometimes subtle.
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A Generation Shaped by “Not Enough”
As a Gen Xer, I can see how the culture I grew up in shaped my relationship with scarcity. We were the generation raised in the shadow of recessions and layoffs, told to work harder with fewer resources, and often sandwiched between louder, bigger generations. For women especially, the message was to “do it all,” but without the systems or support to make that possible. That backdrop quietly reinforced the belief that there was never quite enough time, money, opportunity, or recognition, and it left its imprint on me.
That imprint became even more visible in my professional life. I can almost pinpoint the moment when scarcity moved from the background into the driver’s seat: near the end of my career as an Emergency Department nurse.
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Scarcity in the Emergency Department
I worked in the ED for over a decade. When I started, the job was demanding, yes, but there was still enough. Enough supplies, enough people, enough space to breathe. Over time, that slowly eroded. What began as small annoyances, like not having enough pillows for patients or running out of turkey sandwiches, morphed into something much bigger.
Before long, it wasn’t just about pillows & sandwiches. It was about not having enough nurses to staff a shift, not enough “working” equipment, not enough experienced staff, not enough beds to admit patients, not enough room to truly care for the human beings who came through our doors, many of them on the very worst day of their lives. Scarcity became the job. It seeped into every corner, every conversation. If someone complained about a broken process, the answer was always the same: we don’t have enough.
Eventually, that scarcity didn’t stay at work, it followed me home. Suddenly, I wasn’t getting enough sleep. I wasn’t getting enough exercise. I wasn’t finding enough joy. I wasn’t getting enough of me. And in the end, scarcity is what pushed me into burnout. After more than a decade in the ED, I walked away from a career I had worked hard to achieve, a career I was damn good at.
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The Imprint of Scarcity
Fast forward more than five years, and scarcity has still played a role, whether as a whisper, a wound, or a weight. Why? Because it left an imprint. Scarcity became not just a circumstance of my work, but a nervous system pattern etched into my body and mind. My responses were dysregulated. My brain and body were still wired to expect “not enough.”
What I’ve learned is this: healing scarcity isn’t about ignoring it or pretending it doesn’t exist. Ignoring doesn’t equal healing, and silence doesn’t help either, both only keep the wound hidden instead of allowing it to transform.
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Healing the Wound
Today, the difference is that when scarcity shows up, it doesn’t linger as long. What once spiraled into days or weeks of anxious thoughts now moves through me more quickly. I can name scarcity when it arises. I can breathe into it. I can soften my jaw, drop my shoulders, place a hand on my belly, and remind myself: I am enough.
Scarcity is sneaky, though. It doesn’t just show up at work. It shows up in business, in relationships, even in teaching yoga. It whispers: you’re not giving enough, you’re not successful enough, you’re not young enough, you’re not doing enough, you’re not earning enough. It thrives in comparison, feeds on perfectionism, and takes root in the soil of fear.
For me, healing scarcity has been about creating rituals that remind me of abundance. Ayurveda has taught me that nourishment is not just physical, it’s emotional, mental, and spiritual. Yoga has reminded me that the breath is always available, that spaciousness lives inside me no matter what external chaos is unfolding. And my own messy, lived experience has taught me that when scarcity arises, it’s not a personal failing. It’s a cue. A reminder to pause. An invitation to regulate.
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Releasing Survival Mode
Scarcity, in many ways, is a survival pattern. It kept me alive in the Emergency Department, in the chaos of burnout, in the hardest seasons of my life. But I am no longer in survival mode. I don’t need to grip it like a lifeline. Today, I can thank scarcity for what it taught me, and also loosen my hold on it.
The truth is, abundance isn’t about having unlimited resources. It’s about shifting how we see the resources we do have. It’s about creating enoughness inside of ourselves, so we can step into our lives with resilience instead of fear.
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Putting Scarcity into Hibernation
So yes, I still grapple with scarcity. But I grapple differently now, with awareness, compassion, and tools that help me come back to regulation. And with the deep knowing that while scarcity may have shaped my past, it doesn’t get to write the ending of my story.
Because I am not defined by “not enough.”
I am learning to live in the truth of always enough.
And today, I am putting myself out there more than I have in a long time, because for now, I’ve placed scarcity into hibernation. On my calendar are workshops, and a series I’ve been slowly creating that will come alive this November. It has been a long and winding road to get here, one that has required the steady presence of my therapist, friends who have stood by me and reminded me, even when I felt like a puddle of mud on the floor, that I have so much to offer.
It’s been shaped by the encouragement of my astrologer, who with every session reminds me: I am both a Nurse and a practitioner of Ayurveda. I am what the world needs now and in the future. I am more than capable of doing these things, of accomplishing my goals, of being successful; not because of anyone else, but because of me. Because I’ve done the work, the training, the education. And above all else, the hardest and most transformative part, I have given myself the space to heal.
