Scarcity masked as abundance skews our calibration, priming us to normalize the bare minimum.
I used to wonder how to stop my boyfriend from breadcrumbing me, thinking maybe he didn't realize it was hurting me. I wanted him to meet my needs, but eventually realized I was asking the wrong person. He either couldn't or wouldn't give more, so I shifted my focus away from him
to meet my needs elsewhere.
Lowering my expectations relieved him of the relationship's pressure, but it only masked the deeper issue. The real work wasn’t just choosing a better partner—it was addressing why I accepted less in the first place. When I understood that, I could shift my subconscious programming and break the cycle.
Lo and behold, my conditioning was buried in subliminal messages disguised as gratitude and suppressed intuition. This set my standards too low and kept me from recognizing that what I was receiving wasn’t enough. Phrases like "you deserve more" are meaningless when your internal compass is misaligned. Of course I deserved more. I just didn’t realize I was actually settling for less.
Like most people, gratitude was one of the many virtues that was instilled in me through family, civics, and religion. But there is a dark side called gratitude shaming. All virtues can be contorted into a weapon to subdue others, even ourselves. Well-meaning dysfunction is usually unintentionally perpetuated through generational patterns until we become conscious of them.
Done healthily, I believe a gratitude practice has the power to attract abundance. Appreciating our current state creates a high-level frequency. The energy generated by joyful thanksgiving is expansive and generous, attracting more of the same. When we are not in survival mode, we have more energy to invest in creating and generating. Where our focus goes is where our energy flows, and the universe reflects that back to us.
But there’s a catch…
Our conditioning shapes our beliefs about what is "enough" and what feels like "abundance." However, this conditioning may be misleading. If we experience scarcity but are taught to see it as abundance, our sense of what is normal becomes distorted, making us more likely to accept the bare minimum as sufficient.
Do you remember the story of the Emperor’s New Clothes? The emperor’s trusted tailors deceived him into believing he was wearing fine clothes when he was actually naked. The lie was reinforced by everyone he encountered…until a kid told him that he was naked.
Tiny Tim in A Christmas Carol embodied a Pollyanna-like denial, praised for his humility and gratitude despite surviving on scraps. His toxic positivity masked the harsh reality of malnourishment, which ultimately led to his death.
Sometimes, circumstances beyond our control require us to bypass the cruelty of reality in order to survive. Victor Frankel, author of Man’s Search for Meaning, was able to withstand the devastating Nazi internment camp with the same mentality.
Humans have remarkable adaptability, with nervous systems that deploy coping mechanisms to survive life-threatening situations or circumstances beyond our control. However, these survival strategies become harmful when we are no longer under threat and seek to grow and thrive.
As children, we depend on adults to meet our basic needs (as outlined in Maslow’s hierarchy of needs), yet we have little control over whether those needs are fulfilled. In response, we develop coping mechanisms like denying our needs to find happiness in the moment.
But like the emperor with no clothes, children raised to feel grateful for the bare minimum often grow into adults who feel comfortable only in scarcity.
Let me give you some examples of ways in which scarcity was masked as abundance in my life as a child and how it later showed up as an adult:
Example 1: Misinterpreting Religious Teachings
One of the anthems I grew up with was the church hymn “Because I Have Been Given Much.” It was about feeling so grateful for our bounty that we should give of what we have.
“I cannot see another’s lack and I not share;
My glowing fire, my loaf of bread,
my roof's safe shelter overhead
That he too may be comforted.”
Except that when I had just enough to meet my needs, giving my loaf of bread was like taking food from my own mouth to give away and starve. I only kept the crumbs.
As a teenager, I posted a scripture on my wall from the Book of Mormon, Alma 29:3 “But behold, I am a man, and do sin in my wish; for I ought to be content with the things which the Lord hath allotted unto me.”
“I shouldn’t want more than I have. I should be happy with what I’ve got.”
Should = judgement/shame.
To want more was a sin.
I was denying the universe (or God) from giving me more.
***
The idea of settling for what I had, ashamed for wanting more, was counter to other Bible stories that taught to multiply our resources.
The Parable of the Talents, found in Matthew 25:14-30, is a story Jesus tells about a master who entrusts three of his servants with his wealth before leaving on a journey. He gives five talents (a large sum of money) to one servant, two talents to another, and one talent to the last, each according to their abilities.
The first two servants invest the money and double it, while the third buries his talent in the ground, earning nothing. When the master returns, he praises the first two servants for their diligence and rewards them with more. However, the master scolds the third servant for being lazy and fearful, taking away his talent and giving it to the first servant.
The parable emphasizes the importance of using one's gifts and resources wisely, being productive with what is entrusted to us, and not letting fear or inaction lead to missed opportunities.
But whenever I talked about my dreams, my mom would caution me about how impractical my interests were and how unlikely my success. She was afraid I would get hurt and disappointed, and always told me it was too expensive and out of range.
I began to tell myself the same things she would say about herself:
“I am not creative. Other people have an eye for art, but I am just not built that way.”
“I’m terrible with technology; it’s too complicated for me.”
“I have German heritage, so I am just not emotional or affectionate. It’s just the way I was born.”
To me, she would say: “You can’t make money teaching dance; it would be wiser to do something people need rather than want. Like nursing or managing someone else’s business.”
I adopted her limiting beliefs and played it safe, keeping myself small. Until my late 30s, I believed I was uncreative and had no sense of style, that the only worthwhile endeavors were focused on logic, analysis, and order.
Example 2: Financial Miscalibration
Friday nights growing up, my parents would bring home food from Little Caesars or a Mexican shop. Those nights, dinner prayer included “we are so very grateful we can afford to eat out every week.”
Like all good parents, my mom primed us to say “thank you” for everything. My grandmother gave us each $5 when she’d come visit us every month. Our eyes got big when we unpacked the big bag with treat cereal, pop tarts, and toys because “she had a coupon for it and it was on sale at the PX.” My mom would roll her eyes and throw half the stuff away after she left. My grandmother was frivolous.
But we inherited all our furniture and appliances from my grandmother whenever she felt the bug to redecorate her house.
***
At age 35, I was on one of my first dates with my boyfriend and he was getting hungry.
“Where would you like to go to eat?”
“HEB has a nice deli section,” I said.
My date laughed. He thought I was joking.
I felt silly. I’d honestly never really noticed the million restaurants we drove by every single day. I had little kids, and we had only been to restaurants with playgrounds like McDonalds…and only on special occasions. When I found out that the grocery store had a deli that accepted food stamps, I felt spoiled.
Sitting down at Applebee’s for lunch, I felt out of place. Only rich people went out to lunch; my date must be wealthy!
***
One Thanksgiving, my brothers and their families were gathered at my house for dinner. One brother made a comment about how we had been poor growing up.
“No, we weren’t,” I said.
“Yes, we were,” he answered. “Our parents had enough to make ends meet, but we scraped by. We never had much beyond bare necessities.”
“Maybe poor is subjective. I never felt poor.”
“Neither did I,” he admitted. “Except when I’d go over to my friends’ houses and saw how they had a much higher standard of living. And I don’t mean rich kids or anything.”
“I think the next generations’ expectations are unrealistic,” I argued. “Everyone has new clothes, the latest gadgets, and eats out every day of the week.”
“Just because someone can’t afford those things doesn’t make it unrealistic that others can.”
“Well, I think it’s extravagant,” I said.
Example 3: Infrequent Praise
I found notes occasionally on my desk from my mom:
“I was visiting a friend today and she told me you looked beautiful in the new dress you made.”
“Since your stepdad doesn’t believe in compliments, I wanted to tell you he is proud of how well you are doing at school while working an afterschool job.”
I wished my mom would tell me she was proud of me or thought I was pretty. I wondered if she didn’t believe in giving compliments either, if I only got ones she passed along because she didn’t really think those things herself.
***
I used to leave love notes for my boyfriend, so I was thrilled when I found a few he had left for me. But it didn’t last. Over the course of four years, I kept those notes—about ten sticky notes—in an envelope. Later, I discovered a box he kept, overflowing with the letters and pictures I had given him, filled with expressions of love and appreciation, not to mention the emails and texts.
“I’m the writer, not him,” I told myself.
But it wasn’t just writing. He was tight-lipped too, uncomfortable with giving or receiving compliments. He preferred that I write them, even if he rarely acknowledged them. His reluctance to engage with me left me questioning if he had lost interest.
“Acts of service are my way of showing love,” he explained.
Yet, those acts couldn’t happen when he was often absent, disappearing for long stretches. He would only do things for me if I didn’t ask—any request seemed to guarantee he wouldn’t follow through.
Beyond my expressions of love, he wouldn’t let me do anything for him, and he never asked for anything. So, his acts of service didn’t make me feel appreciated. Instead, they made me feel indebted.
Example 4: Disavowing and Disregarding
I often heard my mom’s friends or strangers say “Is that your daughter? She looks just like you!”
“Yes, she’s my daughter. But I don’t think she looks anything like me.”
My heart would drop. My mom was so pretty, I wish she thought I was too.
***
“You two make such a cute couple,” a guest would say at the event hall we managed. “When’s your wedding?”
My boyfriend ignored it, busying himself with wiping the counter.
“Soon,” I answered for him, feeling a pang of angst.
I worried that the question made him feel pressured and wished they wouldn’t put him on the spot. But they were only voicing what I wondered myself. It hurt more that he didn’t claim me, leaving me with nothing but crumbs of hope.
***
In conclusion, the reason we become susceptible to breadcrumbing is because we were subconsciously primed for it from a young age. Childhood emotional neglect hides in many forms, leading to a distorted calibration.
Early experiences and conditioning shape our beliefs about what constitutes "enough" or "abundance." If we are raised in an environment where scarcity is normalized—whether it's emotional, financial, or otherwise—we may come to believe that scarcity is actually abundance. This conditioning skews our perspective, leading us to accept less than we deserve or need because we perceive it as adequate.
If someone grew up in a household where love or attention was given sparingly, they might come to believe that receiving the "bare minimum" of affection is sufficient, even in adulthood. This belief system can prevent them from recognizing or pursuing true abundance because their baseline has been distorted.
In relationships, this can lead to accepting emotional neglect or limited connection as normal, when in reality, it is far from fulfilling or abundant. Internalized beliefs about abundance versus scarcity may not be accurate, and we might need to re-examine these beliefs to shift toward a healthier perspective.
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