Growing up, my mama always said, “Belief kills and belief cures.” I think about that phrase often, reminding myself that things just don’t happen to me. That I’m in charge of how I react to things.
Still, I possess a frustrating duality. On the one hand, I can be one of those annoyingly sunny eternal optimists who believe that you can absolutely change how you think, act, and feel. On the other hand, I can also move through the world like Eeyore, with a cloud over my gloomy little head, cursed with a nagging suspicion that nothing really matters and that when good things do happen it’s really a set up for future disappointment. Trauma is like that. It’ll have you reeling from the past and then make you fearful of the future, so you are always beholden to your anxiety. These two warring ideals do sometimes threaten to tear me asunder, my cynicism spoiling my joy and threatening to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory just when things are going well. After years of practice and therapy, Pollyanna-Susana usually outlasts Sad Sack Susie and I stride into the world head on, armed with Mother Zora’s oyster knife, ready to tackle what comes my way. But Sad Sack Susie is never too far behind. She’s a nosy one and is always a part of the journey.
I’m years into a personal practice of rejecting scarcity. It’s an alternately rewarding and terrifying journey of personal growth and political work. Growing up poor and Black, I had up close experience of what it meant to not have enough time, opportunity, and resources. I couldn’t self-help or bootstrap myself out of poverty. Capitalism is too behemoth to outmaneuver with the banal advice from Rich Dad, Poor Dad, Dave Ramsey, or your cousin who “got rich” from bitcoin. Still, perspective does matter. I’m in a particular season of my life where I’m casting away old stories I used to tell myself in favor of new narratives. Call it magical thinking or manifestation, but I know words and thoughts have power. When I believe the universe is out to get me or that there isn’t enough joy or love to spare, the world is darker. And I don’t mean the rich darkness of soil ready to sprout seeds. I mean the dark, cavernous maw of loneliness and despair. A darkness that chokes and kills. And dead soil cannot bloom.
My internalized ideas of scarcity have also extended to how I thought of what I deserved or could receive personally. Could I, of all people, have a warm, peaceful home, affirming work, a loving boo, and supportive friends? Why me? These days I’m trying to ask, why not me? I’m learning that when I believe that my loved ones love me and don’t just tolerate me, I am able to receive their love and offer others grace. When I believe my work is valuable, I seek and find collaboration that honors my vocation.
My word for the year is abundance. When I say “abundance” I don’t mean greed; I mean “overflow.” My executive coach, the brilliant Rev. Dr. Theresa Thames, always reminds me to “pour from my overflow.” Such a simple phrase but so true. Pouring into myself looks like a lot of things. Reading for pleasure, baking for a friend, spending time with loved ones, spending time alone. Using the resources that I do have to outsource the things I don’t want to do to make more room for what I do want to do. Leaning on my community for support and reciprocating when I can. Choreographer and dancer Rashida KhanBey Miller reminds us that “pleasure is the fuel, not the reward.” I know I’ve written about this before because I return to this quote again and again. Pouring into myself means not putting off what I can enjoy today for tomorrow. It means rejecting capitalism’s deficit mindset. It means leaning into the abundance of joy and juicy pleasure ready for me.
Growing up in the church, I frequently heard the scripture about the thief coming to kill, steal, and destroy but God coming so that we may have life and that we can have that life more abundantly. Though I’m not particularly churchy these days, this verse continues to resonate. I reject the time thief that tells us we’re not enough and embrace hope and offer myself and others grace.
This is what I mean by abundance. Despite all the pain and turmoil in the world—and it seems to be unending—there is still good, and I receive it with open arms and reflect it back out to others. I believe that this is a feminist act of self-care and self-love. I’m reminded of the ending of Toni Cade Bambara’s essay, “On the Issue of Roles.” She lists all the things we can being out in the world, but also reminds us that if our house ain’t in order, we’re not in order. Rejecting the patriarchal and capitalist notion that we are machines that simply produce, that there isn’t enough to go around, is difficult, rewarding, and fundamentally necessary work.