Last week I set up the context for why wait to honor what is true about ourselves inside of my family moving and packing up our house. Why, for instance, do I allow a stack of papers, books, forms and binders to creep up and up and up on my desk? Why do I hold onto the borrowed books of others, waiting for a visit that never seems to come and just not send it or drop it off? I am in the habit of waiting – for not wanting to deal with it, and this week I have had the spectacular experience of handing some outstanding items in our house, broken things, as well as a difficult conversation and the surprisingly effortlessness and positive outcomes that flowed. I was truly baffled at myself, asking: Why did I wait?

The first two examples are material: I had a beloved head-set and a fabulous and expensive toy for my child, both broken, one hanging out tangled up on my cluttered desk and the other collecting floor junk on the stairs in our basement. I could be asking, why didn’t I just throw it away? But I really enjoyed these items and wanted to have them fixed or replaced; I just didn’t know how and didn’t want to put my energy there – when there is so much else (i.e. more important things) to do! – even though my energy got drawn to them every time I walked by them, which was often.

Finally, I went to the website for the headset. Turns out I didn’t need to dig up that purchase receipt I was avoiding trying to dig up and eventually couldn’t find. The warranty was simple: I registered in five minutes, and the next day made an outing to the UPS store and shipped it off for replacement. The toy: called the store the gift came from, said that we loved it, but it broke, what can we do? Come in they said and get a new one. What?! You don’t need proof of purchase? You don’t need a vile of my DNA?

Part of this story is that I am awakening to my cynicism, to a whole new area of my scarcity-thinking. If I had had any sense of the ease of these processes, would I have put it off for so many months, years in the case of the toy? I assumed it was difficult, that it would be hard, and I didn’t even try.

Apropos, I put off a difficult conversation with a colleague beyond the time I promised to have it, and out of the noise in the space, I manifested a big mistake. I had convinced myself, like the above items, and many other relationship snags, that I was over it, that the charge was gone, that it wasn’t necessary. I was also fearful, scared of not knowing how to do something. How often am I stopped because of fear, because I am not sure how to do it?

It turns out simply asking really helps. Asking for support, guidance, calling the store, having the conversation. The outcome with my colleague was enormous relief and a huge opening of creativity and energy flow for everyone involved. The broken items are out of my space and usable resources of joy have returned.

Why did I wait? I waited out of fear and avoidance, distraction and disillusion. I was scared. I was in scarcity-thinking. These are some of the powerhouse weapons of scarcity I use most. I think now I can claim that when something piles up and hangs around in my space, that it’s an indication I am relating to it in scarcity, not like it’s wrong or bad, but that it might be starting to suck my energy and drain some attention from what I care about.

It’s important to note that I have had some other ‘clean up’ conversations that were much less successful, and I can think of other products I’ve tried to get fixed or replaced that did not work out so well. The emergent question here for me is: How do I want to live? I have some sense of choice of how I relate to what is in and around me. In fact, it might be the only set of choices I actually have. So while scarcity is not opposite of sufficiency, I can choose to be in flow with people, places and things. Once I recognize the scarcity, I could embrace it and see what is available, what other options: move it, give it away, make a call, say good-bye to it … Sufficiency as an experiment is something worth trying, easy joys, disappointments and all.