Scarcity Is A False Safety Net

…because even nets have been known to strangle.

As I’ve started selling off stuff from the studio, I find myself confronting my scarcity daily. As I hold a bejewelled vintage jacket in my hands that is a size too small for me, I hear a voice say “You will never find another like it.”

Next, I grab tightly to a vintage lamp that has a giraffe at the base and looks like a palm tree - a girl wants it for $10. I feel a tight squeeze in my chest as she manhandles it.

”It’s fine,” I reassure myself.

But once it’s gone, I feel nothing.
I’m not pining for the items gone.
I’m pleased at the progress I’ve made in terms of clearing out the space.

But as Jill holds up a tulle gown that I’ve used a fair bit in the studio - that squidgy feeling comes up in my chest:
”But what if you need to use this later?”
I reassure myself:
”If we REALLY need something like this for a shoot, we will get another one - but right now, you aren’t going to travel with it and you don’t use it that often if you are being honest…”

It’s this constant back and forth that makes the purging process take longer than it should.

THEN, there’s the voice that pops up as I look around my studio space:
”This doesn’t serve me anymore, but I don’t want someone else to have it either.”
OPE.
What is that?
What am I? 7?
But I realize, it’s just the language of scarcity.
If someone else has it, they might:
Use it better than I ever could.
Be more successful with it than I ever could.
I realize I felt this way with past boyfriends. I no longer felt that we were good for each other, but that voice popped up -
“I don’t want to be with them, but I don’t want anyone else to be with them either!”
This is exactly why we should let the studio go.
This confirms it.
Because the space deserves to be used to its best abilities, to have someone come to work daily and look at it with loving eyes like I used to, to have someone that is going to make magic with it - if I truly love the space, I need to let it go.

But again, scarcity is around the corner:

”What if you never find a studio this nice again?”

I will - if I want to.
I mean, I found this little beauty, didn’t I?
It’s just scarcity trying to keep me settling for less than both myself and the studio deserve because of fear of lack - but here’s the thing:

I made this decision because of abundance.
To trust the wealth of the world.
To trust that the Universe is lining me up for something else.
To trust that not only is there something else, there is something that better suits my needs now.

Scarcity is only loud because I don’t have a plan or something “better” yet - but I don’t need something better.

I just need trust in my instincts and the Universe.