How I Shifted My Perspective From Lack to Abundance | Episode 125: Check in with Syd
Feeling like you don’t have what you want to have is the perspective of lack. Lack can often be triggered by fear of the unknown or fear of being out of control.
In this episode of the Carrying Connected Conversations podcast, Syd is sharing about how she shifted her mindset from lack to abundance. Ang was curious about why Syd needed to comfort her inner child and how that ties into her lack mentality. Whether or not you’ve feared financial lack or lack of peace, love and joy, this episode will help you to understand the difference between a lack mentality and an abundant mentality through Syd’s experience.
Listen to the episode now to hear Syd share her massive breakthrough in understanding how to live from the perspective of abundance.
You can continue reading about the conversation Syd & Ang had on the podcast through the transcript below.
Ang: Hello and welcome back to another episode of Carrying Connected Conversations. Welcome back to specifically this episode today because this is Sydney’s check in episode. This is our third check in that we’ve been doing since we decided to come back to the podcast back in September. I am quite excited for this check in today because first of all I have so many questions for Sydney. It’s all about her shifting her perspective from lack to abundance. If this is something that you are already thinking “oh my gosh that is me, I am 100% living in lack and I want to get to abundance” then this will be a great opportunity for you to reflect on your personal life as Sydney is reflecting on her personal life. Keep in mind this is a check in episode, it’s not our expert conversations. This is definitely a check to see where Sydney is at and of course where she is trying to get to. Let’s go ahead and jump into it. But before that let’s see how Syd is doing today. Syd, how are you doing today my wonderful friend and co host?
Syd: Hey hey! I am doing good. I am a little nervous. I'm not going to lie. I am excited. I feel like I have a lot that I want to share today and I am really excited to dive in and to also reflect on the wisdom that I’ve gained through my own experience. But with it comes a little bit of nervousness because talking about lack is a fear based topic for me. It definitely has a lot of fear attached to it so the nervousness is to be expected, but as they say, we must move forward in life with courage and courage is not about not fearing, it’s about fearing less. Not letting that fear control you. So let’s dive in.
Ang: Yes! I love this! Obviously I was able to read some of the notes that you wanted to talk about and I want to start this off with a question based on what you had written. You talked about how your fear of lack came from your inner child who was terrified for her safety. You were having to find the need to comfort her. Then you of course mentioned the fear of the unknown and fear of being out of control. So, my question comes from the part of learning to comfort her because I can totally relate to the fear of the unknown and the fear of being out of control. What does that mean to learn to comfort your inner child? Is that you specifically speaking about how you comforted her in the past or is that how you are coming forward now understanding this idea?
Syd: Love this question because it really dives into how I am able to have courage despite being afraid of something. For me that fear of lack really actually is a fear of the unknown and a fear of being out of control. It’s not that I fear lack, it’s that I have a perspective that is tied to lack. What I mean by this is I am going through living my life and my thoughts are very limited because they are focused on the lack that I perceive in my life. In order to heal my perspective of lack and shift it into one of abundance, I’ve learned that it actually really starts with comforting my inner child. Exactly as you asked there, how do I do that? For all of us our inner child very much is tied to the ego space of fear. It’s because we were taught something when we were a young child, a belief or we experienced something that was painful. Whether it was our own experience or we are taking on generational trauma from our ancestors. Ultimately, it is this inner child within me that doesn't feel safe. Fear is literally your mind telling you you’re not safe. You must be afraid. You must be terrified of this thing. For me, in order to shift my perspective from lack to abundance, I had to begin to acknowledge when the fear came forward and how that perspective of lack is tied to fearing the unknown and fearing being out of control.
In those moments when I feel my thoughts filled with fear, filled with worry, filled with doubt, and I can feel the emotion of that fear in my body. No matter what I do in my entire journey of shifting my perspective from one of lack to abundance, nothing will help me to move forward until I comfort my inner child. Really what this is, is a positive coping mechanism to allow myself to flow through my emotions, to release the emotion of fear that has been built within me and then I can guide myself from a calm, centered and connected space, rather than from a space of letting fear control how I am reacting to life. When I am comforting my inner child it is literally me, usually sitting in meditation having my eyes closed, and I will visualize my inner child. I will start it off by saying, “I know you are afraid, I know you are scared, please talk to me”. Then I let her speak. It is giving voice to the fear that is within me. The fear is literally this tiny little child who is terrified. Often she doesn’t actually go deep into what she is terrified of, she simply says, “I’m scared, I am so scared right now”. For me that is a huge emotional release. I usually start crying and I really acknowledge that fear, as the monster in the closet or the monster under the bed. I let myself acknowledge what it is that I am terrified of, then once my inner child has spoken, I visualize myself wrapping my arms around her and pulling her in for a hug and holding her. Then I say, “you are safe, you are safe, you are safe, I am here, I am here with you, I know you are afraid. I know that you are terrified right now. You are safe. We get to do this together.” Through that simple act of acknowledging the fear and letting myself feel the emotion behind it and then hugging my inner child and really affirming my safety, also affirming this idea that we are working together. I usually call in my Higher Self at that time too. I make it known that it’s the three of us, a time of three, my inner child, my current reality self and my higher self. We are all working together to overcome whatever it is that we are terrified of. In that moment comforting myself and nurturing myself is what pulls me back into love, into compassion, so I can lead myself feeling safe rather than letting the fear lead me.
Ang: My mind is literally blown. Hearing you say this it felt so comforting to myself because obviously when we hear inner child, we automatically think of a child. We think of this small person. It’s funny because my question stemmed from how you comfort your inner child, but when I was writing this question I was actually thinking of Sydney, I wasn’t thinking of your inner child to who you are now. The reason why I was thinking that is because obviously fear feels the same. Was there ever a time when you were a child that you did fear for your safety that you had to find ways of comforting yourself? If so, how did that look like then as to now knowing that the visualization technique is really what helps comfort her?
Syd: It’s interesting that you say that because I had a conversation with a client the other day about healing her inner child and what that looks like and why, why it is that we need to learn positive coping mechanisms around healing our inner child. For me, thinking back on my life, there is not a moment of being a child when I was scared for my safety in terms of lack and in terms of fearing the unknown and fearing being out of control. In terms of this topic of conversation, looking back on my life I cannot remember a moment where I was so scared for my life because of this fear that I carry right now. I can see that there were times in my life as a child where I was afraid. Whether or not it was because I was afraid for my life, I don’t think as a child you really understand that. Fear is an internal concept where our mind is telling us we aren’t safe. Our body jumps into the fight, flight, fawn or freeze reaction because it’s our body saying we are not safe, we’re not safe, we’re not safe. I don’t think as a child I feared my safety. I think as a child I was simply afraid and scared and terrified of whatever it was. Whatever it was that was happening. In those moments what did I do? I would go to my mom. Having that parental guardian that comforts you and nurtures you, that is literally the sole job of a parent, is to take care of your safety and make sure you are safe because as a child you don’t know how to do that. What I have learned and what I talked to my client about the other day is that often our parents are trying to do the best they can to keep us safe. In that process they might actually not be instilling positive coping mechanisms and they might not actually be teaching us supportive belief systems. So they are trying to keep us safe to the best of their ability from their own trauma that they’ve experienced and they’re own unsupportive conditioned beliefs that they are carrying.
What I have learned as a conscious adult is that I still have an inner child, I still have fears, I still have these things that make me believe I am not safe. I could do a number of different things. I could go to my mom and cry and look for her to comfort me and nurture me. That is something that I have done in a lot of my adulthood. What I have really learned over the past year, especially as I have learned to not seek external validation and not seek approval from others, is that if I want to validate myself and approve of myself, it means I also need to learn to comfort myself. I need to learn to nurture myself. The thing we often forget is when that fear comes forward or the problem, the challenge, whatever it is that is causing a difficult emotion, what we don’t need is the answer. What we don’t need is someone to fix the problem. What we don’t need is someone to teach us to avoid it and move forward. What we do need is to feel seen, to feel heard, and to feel understood. That is what comforting and nurturing your inner child is all about. It is simply reminding her, “I am with you, I am here with you”. This is what allows me to shift beyond the fear.
Ang: I am so glad that I dove into this because I really think this helped broaden, not only your own understanding for yourself, after all this is a check in for you, but even for our listeners. Knowing exactly how we can comfort our inner child now, and then going back and seeing if there was ever a time where you felt unsafe as a child, no but you did feel fear. The fear is the constant. Whatever you were fearful of as a child to what you are fearful of now as an adult you know what that feels like. It’s fear. Everyone knows what their fear feels like, so it’s understanding that there is a way to navigate the inner child now as an adult, and taking full ownership of it. It is beautiful for us to know that we can parent ourselves. It’s not to say that we didn’t have parenting growing up. I love how you said it, everyone is doing the best they can to parent their child based on their own trauma and the things that have happened to them in their lives. Now it’s a matter of us really making sure that we can calm ourselves, soothe ourselves, and comfort ourselves in a way that is very supportive. Like you said, the positive coping mechanism.
I’d love to talk to you a little bit more about going from lack to abundance. Looking at your notes that you talked about before our chat here, you talked about understanding the root of your belief system. Can you talk to me a little bit about that and then I can ask some questions?
Syd: Ya definitely. In all of our fear it stems from something. When we are afraid of something it’s because there is a belief system that is deeply embedded within us that is making us fear that thing. Fear of the unknown, fear of being out of control, it all stems from some sort of belief system that you have that says you need to be in control or you need to have stability in order to not be afraid. For me finding the root cause around this concept of lack is what I needed in order to be able to shift my perspective into one of abundance. What I am by that is if I don’t know why I am carrying these thoughts of lack, if I don’t know why I am seeing lack everywhere or I am so focused on lack, then I won’t know how to get myself into that abundant mindset. For me, one of the root causes to this concept of lack was the belief system that in order to make money it requires output. This really stems from the industrial age when factories started to become a lot more prominent in the creation of things. It was not necessarily machines but it was humans in the factory line that was having to make the product. It literally created this belief system of output equals input. The amount of work that you do equals the amount of money you receive. If you are sick, if you mess up, your pay will be docked. The amount of time you put in at work equals the amount of pay you receive. That belief system on output equals input really was rooted in my belief system which is why I then become afraid of being out of control or I become afraid of the unknown. My mind is saying, “have you done enough output, have you taken action enough, have you taken action enough in order to receive the money?” Then my entire belief system is built on the hustle and go go mentality, so I am constantly questioning myself. Am I taking action? Have I taken action in the right way? What am I missing? What action do I still need to be taking? And I am doubting my actions. It all comes from fearing the unknown because I don’t know as an entrepreneur I don’t know where my next pay cheque is coming from. I am afraid of the unknown and I am afraid of being out of control because in my line of work, my output actually doesn’t equal my input. Learning the root of that belief system is the stepping stone that allows me to shift my perspective from lack to one of abundance.
Ang: I love this. Okay, let’s talk a little bit more in specifics now because you talked about this intention. Is there a concrete way of saying, “hey this was my intention before”? I know output equals input, but do you find that it stems further into that in regards to taking action?
Syd: For me it was really about understanding, not only what is the root cause. What is the root belief that is triggering the fear, but it was learning about the intention behind my action. For me the intention behind my action was very pressure based. It was fear based. Pressure is coming from fear. Building my business is really when my lack perspective became known to me. In the last 4 years is how I have been working through shifting my perspective of lack into abundance. This is something that I am still working on, so I am not perfect by any means. I have gotten myself to a space where I am no longer overwhelmed in speaking about my financial position. I am no longer overwhelmed about worrying where money is coming from. Again, something I;m still working on just to give a little disclaimer.
Learning about my intention and how a lot of my actions in my business in the past. If I look at last year when I tried to create a program, or the year before when I tried to create a program and market the program, a lot of the intention behind my action was coming from pressure. I believe I need to create this in order to make money. I have to work 8 hours a day. It really came from the root belief system of output equals input. So, how do I change my intention? How do I get to where I am today where pressure is no longer the guiding force behind my action? Well, I needed to shift my belief system and I needed to see abundance in different ways. For me, my mind was so focused on lack and what I did not have, so all of my action came from that energy. I don’t have the money that I want to have, so I’m pressuring myself to take action because fear is leading me. If I want my intention behind my action to be one of purpose, rather than I have to do this, instead it’s I get to do this. Not just looking at the difference in words, have to versus get to, but feeling the energy in the way I say this. To me the purpose is, “oh my gosh I feel so aligned and I am so excited, this is my passion. I want to support people in broadening their perspective”. This is something that I actually do for a living. I help people break away from the limits of their mind, so this is a great example of how I’ve broken away from the limits of my mind. I had to recognize that my mind is so focused on lack, I need to start to see abundance as an energy in my life. I feel like I could keep talking, but did I answer the question yet?
Ang: Absolutely! I will give you the short form! Hahahaha
Syd: Hahahah
Ang: Essentially your old intention was pressure. Pressure from fear. Whereas new intention is purpose. Purpose from I get to do this. I think that right there is so powerful, not only understanding that there was an intention that felt off for you. It’s also for you to finger point it, knowing this is exactly what it was, it was coming from pressure. Actually hold on, let me just talk about this for a second. We are still in 2022. 2022 at the start of the year, I’m sorry but…
Syd: I’m glad you are bringing this up.
Ang: Ya because I know, I know. You said the goal for this year was to remove pressure. Well here we are, one month away from this year ending and what did you do every single month of this year? You decided to no longer take action from pressure, but to take it from a place of I want to. Now you have completely debunked this understanding, or this belief system that you carried before where output does not equal input. It is no longer pressure that is driving you from wanting to do or wanting to perform. Which side note, is probably why the computer is giving you issues. Now it’s coming from a place of purpose, so even though the computer is doing it’s own thing, you’re still okay to do things in your way and the way you want to do it. All because it’s you that is running your business, not necessarily the result that you are giving. You are helping them get there. You are the guide, the support system, you are not the answer in itself.
Syd: Well and that is exactly how I was able to shift my perspective from lack to abundance. When pressure is leading you and when lack is leading you in action, it’s because you are wanting to get to the end result. You are wanting to get to the moment that you have the money, or the love, or whatever it is you feel like you are lacking. You are taking action from the fear based energy of pressure because of the belief system that you are carrying. You are taking action to get to the end result. Whereas this shift in leaving pressure and finding purpose and how I’ve been able to tie in to my perspective of lack to abundance, is because I’ve finally realized when I lead from purpose it’s because my heart and soul are guiding me.
There is no such thing as lack when it comes to the energy in my heart and soul. I am abundant in compassion. I am abundant in knowledge and wisdom. I am abundant in intuitive downloads. My gift is being in conversation with my client and being able to guide them to find out where the root of their problem is. I can help them find out where their triggers lie, how their fears are affecting them and then my intuition, my gift, is to be able to connect the dots to help them shift their perspective so they can lead themselves forward feeling empowered and peaceful rather than overwhelmed and exhausted. Well if this is my gift and it comes naturally to me, then I am abundant in this gift. If it’s my purpose to share this gift with the world then I will never be at a point where I am lacking this gift because it is my natural innate gift. As long as there are people who come to me that want to have these kinds of deep conversations and they want to heal their patterns and break away from the limits they’ve felt stuck in, then I will always have the energy to help them. I will always have the space to help them. With this I’ve been able to see abundance as my guiding force.
That is not even a part of my notes that I wanted to talk about, that’s just me saying I’m abundant. I am abundant in energy. Part of my spiritual journey and connecting to the Universe is about recognizing the abundance of the Universe. I went on a walk this morning and I was thinking about abundance and what that means to me, getting ready for our call today. The sun was rising and I felt the warmth of the sun and I thought, the sun always rises, it always shines the next day. Even if there are clouds in front of it, that is the definition of abundance. The moon, even though she moves through her phases throughout the 28 day cycle, she always finds her way back to the new moon and full moon. That is abundance. When we are so focused on lack it’s because we don’t have something that we want. When I am stuck in that thought pattern, in that embodiment of lack, I am just saying, “I don’t have this, I don’t have this, I don’t have this”. That is what resists receiving more. It’s not actually that lack is an energy, it’s that I am creating resistance around recognizing the abundance that is available to me, the abundance that is already in my life, the abundance that I was created from, and the abundance that can continue to flow in my life. It’s recognizing that everything is energy and that is abundance.
When I am so focused on lack, I am creating a brick wall that is stopping the abundance of energy from flowing into my life. When I take a second and say, wait I am abundant in joy, I am abundant in love, I am abundant in all these things that I desire. Being able to spend time in nature, being able to have conversations with friends, being able to connect with my community. How am I abundant? How can I recognize that that abundance is what draws in financial abundance, abundance of love, abundance of joy. It’s all abundance, and that lack perspective has just been blocking the abundance from flowing in.
Ang: I love that. In essence, abundance is never ending. The way you explained the cycles of the Moon, and the sun, it’s always going to come out, it’s always going to be full, meaning it’s never ending. The more often we can tap ourselves back into the idea of whatever abundance we are seeking is never ending, we will always have it because we are it. I love love love that last little tidbit of information that you shared Syd. That was a beautiful way to wrap up today;s conversation, shifting your perspective from lack to abundance. For us to now see it full circle is that much more beautiful. I can already see how this is a wonderful stepping stone, which is why you probably felt the nerves coming in, it's a stepping stone of bringing this into your expertise. You already know what gifts you carry in our life, now it’s a matter of bringing it forward for others to see that same gift. I thank you and I commend you for really showing up today, despite you being nervous. This is really paving the stepping stones into everyone else's journey of what they are trying to get towards, which is obviously abundance. Abundance in all sorts of aspects.
Thank you so much Syd! That was absolutely wonderful today.
Syd: Yes! Thank you! You are right, that nervousness really comes from imposter syndrome of “who am I to talk about this”. When we break down the walls and realize it’s about your experience, even if you aren’t a professional, you have your own experience and that gives you full right to talk about whatever it is you want to talk about.
Ang: Yes exactly! Oh I am so excited. So excited for this chat to end, but of course so excited for where this chat is going to take you, take us and take your clients even. This is definitely a major breakthrough that you have had. So yay for you! Yay also for our listeners to connect to this same idea of abundance within. We are so excited for you guys to take on this information form today, take it as a learning, a time to help reflect on yourself. Don’t take it too far because we are going to be chatting at you again next week and the week after. We will be jumping into Sydney’s and mine expertise. More specifically my expertise next week and Syd’s the week after. Don’t go too far, we are so excited to chat at you guys then. From now until then, sending you all the love and light. Bye!
Syd: Bye everyone!