Pardon me, your Lack is showing...

I've written about children and their feelings of lack. I've written about my own struggle with feelings of lack that are rooted in my childhood. Now I'm going to write about your feelings of lack. I have gotten pretty familiar with your feelings of lack over the last year. They show up when you post on facebook, respond on group lists, and in your comments on blogs. When someone writes something that pushes your lack button you respond from your place of lack. Your lack speaks of your pain, your fear, your childhood, your grasping and your rejecting. Your lack tells others that you reject what they are saying because it makes you feel uncomfortable or judged or angry or insulted. Often when the person wasn't writing to you, and sometimes even when they do not know who you are. Your place of lack is deep inside you and when it takes control you are no longer able to hear what others are saying or respond from a rational place or take a deep breath before you blurt out a harsh and negative response. It clouds your perception of what others are saying. Walls that protected you as a child go back up. You have your feet planted in your personal place of lack, your arms crossed in front of you and you know, you absolutely know, that what the other person is saying does not apply to you or your life, or your children, because you can't have what they have, there isn't enough, you aren't entitled, or it just isn't possible because of all those reasons your mind replays over and over again.

"It must be nice to have (money, time, a husband, a partner, energy, the option, family near by who will help) but I don't so that's not possible for me."

You then seem determined to teach your children that lack is the natural way of life by creating it in their life.

"It's my job to teach my children that they can't have everything they want."
"I have to say no to my child because they can't have (junk food, plastic crap, unlimited screen time, the electronic game they want) because (they'll get cancer, the planet is doomed, they will become addicted, they will not learn the difference between wants and needs.)

Lack parenting says, "I didn't get what I needed and wanted as a child and now my child cannot have what they want and need." Lack parenting sometimes stems from a place of not being willing to admit that maybe we didn't turn out as o.k. as we thought we did, maybe our parents weren't as absolutely perfect as we hold them up to be. Maybe if we admit that our childhood wasn't perfect we will have to admit to the hurt, the injustice, the damage that we have bottled up and hidden in the dark, sad, scared place in our heart.

Do you like living in a place of lack? Do you like filling your children with your fears about the environment and the food they eat and the people around them and the scarcity of everything from love to fossil fuel? People eat junk food and live long lives, people eat healthy food and get cancer. To a young child the connection between the desired toy and toxic chemicals and fossil fuel is sketchy at best. Children who live in freedom, who can play computer games whenever they want, eventually end up playing for however long their personal interest dictates, no addiction involved. In life there are things your child won't be able to have (mine will never have naturally red hair) and we don't need to create scarcity or put road blocks in the way of things they can have if it is really important to them.

In my mind meeting everyone's needs includes meeting the needs of the planet. That's a huge leap, I know. When I am meeting the needs of my children and getting my needs met, we are also in conversation about the world around us. When we decided to get rid of our gas guzzling van and become a one car family again it had to be o.k. with the entire family. Our girls weren't excited about the idea at first. Feelings of lack came to the surface. We talked and more than that we listened. We discussed the oil disaster in the gulf and how getting rid of our van was a gesture of honoring the water and all the living things being affected. We decided that we'd donate it to the Humane Society because that way we were helping animals locally, too. While the couple hundred dollars we might have gotten through selling the van would have helped us, we let go of our feelings of lack and created a lot of positive feelings by donating it and making a symbolic gesture.

Imagine a world where everyone's needs were met. Imagine a world where everyone lived life following their passions and living authentically. Imagine a world where the joy and peace and bliss you feel when you are doing what you were truly meant to do is a common experience. You can live in freedom instead of fear, you can embrace the abundance instead of clinging to lack.

If you are reading this right now and thinking that I'm pointing my finger specifically at you, let me assure you that I am not writing this directed at any one person. The number of people who live in this place of lack that I am writing about, who cling to fear and feel that they have to teach their children to live from a place of lack is, unfortunately, huge. If you are reading this and feeling defensive or uncomfortable or angry then I probably am writing about you, I just didn't have you in mind at the time. Do you really want to raise your children from a place of lack?

Being raised with lack can lead to eating disorders, health issues, compulsive buying, seeking out unhealthy relationships, and addiction, just for starters. Growing up feeling that there is not enough of something can lead to trying to get more of it in the future: control, love, material possessions, food.

Being raised knowing that your needs will be met, that who you are and what you want in life will be respected, that your parents are on your side, have got your back, and are committed to enjoying the adventures along side of you leads to children who grow up feeling secure, confident, capable and understood. These children know how to get their needs met in healthy ways. They also know that everyone has needs and if we all pull together and get creative everyone's needs can be met.

If you are feeling the lack in your life it is time to get creative! Instead of saying "I can't" say "let's figure out how to make this happen." Instead of assuming you can't have the life you want, start looking for all the small ways you can begin to move in that direction. Instead of clinging to fear figure out what makes you feel empowered and start making a difference in ways that matter in your life.

And don't even think about saying "That's easy for you to say because your life is different from mine and I don't have...." Everyone has their challenges. If you come to challenges from a place of lack it is likely you'll feel trapped and defeated. If you come to challenges from a place of "Yes!" the challenge becomes an opportunity for creative problem solving. It becomes a challenge like a sudoku puzzle. The more you work on the puzzles the easier it becomes for your mind to see the paths and patterns that lead to solutions. I am raising my children to be puzzle solvers, capable of getting their needs met and finding solutions to the challenges in life.

Personal Lack

Conflict creeps into our home when we coming from a place of lack. When my children feel that they aren't getting something they need, or that there will not be enough of something, or they don't trust that their needs can be met because of past experience or because the thing they need feels bigger than what they think they can reasonably request, the feeling of lack affects their ability to stay calm or react reasonably or share or be patient. Knowing this I have been focusing on filling their cups to over flowing. I say yes, try to anticipate needs so that I am better able or available to meet them, and support their passions even when neither of us have a clue where following that passion may lead. This takes a concerted effort on my part because there are still patterns in our relationships that were formed in less positive parental moments. Actually, they were formed in less than positive parental years. It takes more effort because we are still working to recreate trust and respect and connection. However, as we get away from those out dated patterns and move farther into the life of a family where everyone's needs get met, the hours of peace and harmony, and crazy silliness, expand. I know that it is absolutely worth pushing through in those moments when I am feeling like it's too hard or too much or I want to say "no" just because it would be easier in that moment. Every "yes" builds trust, every "yes" moves us forward into the life that we have chosen to live. Every "no" is two steps back. It is vital to the life we want to live that I continue to meet the needs of my family so that everyone feels that their cup is full and their needs will be met and they are loved unconditionally. But there's more to it than that, I need to meet their needs with joy in my heart. If I don't want to meet their needs but do it anyway they know. If I grumble about preparing a snack, if I complain about getting up from the computer to give attention to my children, if I snap when they all want to go to the grocery store with me, that is not meeting their needs. Truly meeting their needs involves a certain amount of grace. For me, meeting their needs with a cheerful smile often takes a huge amount of grace.

The truth is that while I've been mulling over lack and its presence in our family, I have come to realize that I am the root of all lack. I am the originator of the feelings of lack in our family. And while I have at times been accused of having an over developed sense of responsibility (we'll get into that some other day) I don't think that is the case here. Deep down I do not believe that my needs can be met. Here I am saying to my children, "Everyone's needs can be met. We will figure this out so that everyone's needs will be met." and I don't believe it for myself. How can they possibly trust that it is true in their own life if it is not true in mine?

As a child I was taught about joy, but we were actually taught about "JOY" which stood for Jesus, Others, You. Put Jesus first, put Others second, put Yourself last and you will have joy. As a middle child who wanted to keep the peace, make everyone happy, meet the needs of her friends and family, I was primed to internalize this message. I don't know if anyone else in my family remembers this, but it is still echoing in my brain 16 years after I stopped believing that Jesus was a real person in history. My needs were not important. I internalized this before I could talk, it was reinforced throughout my life, and here I am, as an adult, trying to prove it isn't true. Constantly meeting everyone else's needs did not bring me joy as a child, and yet I'm trying to joyfully meet the needs of my children as an adult.

I grew up, got married, moved across the country, got divorced and finally started living life according to my needs. For a little over a year I lived my life my way. For one year my needs were all that mattered. That ended when I became pregnant. Fast forward 4 years and two more babies and you'll find me living in 900 square feet with no yard, no garage, a car that left for work every day with my husband, and no friends or family close enough to help. My needs were not only unmet, I stopped admitting they existed. It didn't seem that there was a way for my needs to be met so I gave up trying. My needs weren't important. My children and husband had needs that were important, but even then, I was so depleted that I could not meet their needs adequately and we all learned to live a life of lack. I tried to show them that their needs were important, but I also taught them that they could not trust that their needs would be met. If their needs were met, chances were they would be met while I cursed and grumbled.

This is the past that we are healing from. This is the reason that while other adults may say that my children are "old enough to do things for themselves" they still need me to get them snacks and bring them water. They need to have their simple needs met, they need to know that they can ask and I'll say "yes." We have to repeat that over and over and over so that they relearn that their needs are important and they trust that their needs can and will be met. However, I'm still healing, too. My needs continue to go unmet. I did not learn as a child how to get my needs met. I did not learn to express my needs. Often I can't even identify my needs. For me the patterns of the past are over 40 years old and I do not have anyone else in my life now who is consistently able to say "yes" to my needs. I have to be that person for myself. I have to say "Yes!" to my own needs. Many days my creative solutions fall short and I do not trust that my needs are important and can be met. Sometimes, for a moment, for an hour, I truly believe that everyone's needs can be met, even mine. Now I am trying to cheerfully meet the needs of my children when the behavior of putting the needs of others first caused scars of my past. It comes down to being authentic. As a child I would behave to please other people because it made them happy, because it met their needs. As an adult I can choose to meet the needs of my children because it makes me happy, because it is my gift to them and in choosing to give that gift I am free from obligation, expectation, freed from the patterns of the past. It is my choice. It is authentic to who I am and who I want to be. In that sense, it meets my needs and theirs. Our needs are being met. From that small place I begin to let go of my feelings of lack. I say "yes" to their needs, I say "yes" to who I want to be. Yes, this is the life we choose.