One Way toward an Abundance Mindset
During this morning’s SDW Co-Writing Session writing life discussion we talked a bit about how easy it is to:
get sucked into hustle mode
pour our energy into nourishing others while ignoring our own needs/desires/nourishment
think numbers are the only markers to give our attention to when determining the value of our spiritual and creative work
Since that session I’ve been thinking about all three of those things and how a scarcity mindset is a common root of all of them.
I admit I can fall into thinking my flourishing, my writing, my book sales can only go in the directions I want them to go if others and their writing and their book sales are going in the opposite directions.
It makes me feel icky every time I realize I’m thinking or acting like there’s not enough to go around, that this is the way things work, that my vocational flourishing can only happen at the expense of someone else’s. I don’t like that icky feeling, but I’m glad it’s there to remind me it’s time to reframe everything (again) and move toward an abundance mindset instead of a scarcity mindset (again).
Also. The answer is not to kill desire, ambition, dreams of breakout bestsellers. It’s 100% okay to want these things. (I kind of wonder about the writers who say they don’t want these things.)
But I don’t want to want those things more than I want to love God, love people, make good art, etc.
Also. One way I’m moving toward an abundance mindset with SDW is to include opportunities to share others’ writing and work. Right now, we’re doing that through the SDW Daily Nourishment Guest Contributors program, SDW Community Announcements, and SDW Four-Hour Retreat guest leader spots.
If you become a SDW Member or a SDW Partner or just kind of come around sometimes I’m not going to make you join a Facebook group, but I will probably invite you to be a SDW Daily Nourishment Contributor when it’s time to make the 2024 schedule. And I might invite you to lead an hour of a SDW Four-Hour Retreat.
Because I really do believe we’re better together.
I’ll be writing more about some of this in the Spiritual Direction for Writers book. This is a preview, I guess.
If you have any thoughts, comments, etc. feel free to send them to me at charlotte@charlottedonlon.com or post them below.