Abundance - Our Natural State?

In a recent mini-lecture in the Yiddish Psychology Classroom - an online hub in which I share psychology-related content in Yiddish - I discussed the concept of ‘Abundance’ and how it relates to psychological health and wellness. 

An important claim upon which I based much of the lecture is this: “we are all born with a natural state-of-abundance mindset”. 

Understandably - this sparked some questions. 

How do we know that this is the case? 

Are we all truly born with an abundance mindset? 

What about children born to parents who are already carrying a legacy of intergenerational trauma; do they, too, come to Planet Earth with a brand new, untouched abundance mindset? 

I love questions after lectures. It tells me that the student is listening, curious, and on some level excited about the topic. I, too, tend to the be the student asking a lot of questions. My teachers of youth may remember finding reasons to send me on important errands - ‘can you go to the copy room to make 30 copies of this sheet?’ and ‘can you bring a pitcher of cold water and cups so we can all have a refreshing drink?’ - just to get some space from my many  questions sometimes. 

I smile fondly at those memories. Being an inquisitive mind is one of my abundance traits - and may be one of your inborn abundance traits as well. 

So, let’s get into it. 

First - to define ‘abundance’. 

As an adjective - abundant: enough; more than enough; widespread. The dictionary definition adds, ‘plentiful’, and ‘rich in quality’. 

Feeling into the word - even now, with a pause to close your eyes and feel into sound of this word - may give you your own definition of how this word lands for you. 

Now, as a noun - abundance: fullness; richness (not just rich in money, but rich in many a thing); an overflowing sense of ok-ness, trust, and calm. The dictionary adds: ‘plentiful supply’, ‘large quantity’, and ‘wealth or affluence’. 

Again, pausing to feel the word can produce in each person their own lived experience of it, right now. 

So, while in popular culture this word, Abundance, is often quickly linked with monetary wealth or a ‘rich lifestyle’, a peek into the deeper meaning of the word reveals that it speaks to something much bigger: a internal state of being that feels full, complete, enough, open, and almost with a touch of awe and appreciation for the bigness that is life itself. This can feel abstract, especially if - as an adult - you do have wide dreams for abundance that absolutely includes money and wealth. But stick with me for a moment - for if we want to understand how each of us, starting from when we were very young, have an inborn tendency to abundance, we have to allow for a moment of separation between those two things: money and abundance. 

Separating those two makes quick sense when we reflect on the multitude of stories, or examples in our own lives, of human beings who are monetarily very rich, but emotionally or mentally very sore. Would we call that person abundant? It’s a worthy wondering. 

Let’s hold that thought while we explore further - beyond money. An example of wider abundance could be to look at a tree and marvel at just how many leaves exist on it. To look at the night sky and note how countless and never ending the stars seem to be - especially when you move outside the city lights and find yourself in a vast forest or stretching desert (two more examples of nature’s abundance). To hear a baby giggle, to eat a well-made homecooked meal, to dance at a wedding without a care in the world - more examples of the feeling of abundance. 

Yet - leaves and sand and stars and dance music won’t pay the bills like a full bank account would. And that brings us back to the baby, who lives with a state of abundance that far precedes money. Babies, for the most part, do not have to pay bills. So, their state of abundance - as we will see with some of the fun research below - is untouched by worry or future thinking. In its purest form, it is abundance that just is. 

Research
If we frame Abundance as a state of being content, happy, fulfilled, curious, and openminded, exploring just for the sake of seeing what else exists, and fulfilled with the present moment - what else comes to mind other than a baby or toddler in their natural state? Deci & Ryan, two researchers who studied this starting in 1985, found that babies had measurably high states of curiosity, exploration, and natural growth if left to their own ways of doing things. Support them with autonomy (meaning, let them do things on their own), competence (point out when they did something by themselves, no matter how ‘good’ the outcome) and relate to them (be there just enough), and these traits went up even higher. In Neuron, researchers Kidd and Hayden (2015), wrote about the biological drive for curiosity, where babies and children - as well as adults - have a drive to seek things simply to enjoy it, rather than from a place of lack, or not-enoughness. 

A big element of Abundance is risk taking. Trusting in oneself enough to do something new, make a mistake, start something big or small - and in adult life, this often leads to monetary abundance as well. Gopnick (2017) spoke of how children’s natural states are wired to take risks, when they are left to do so, and are focused on possibility and wonder. Stuart Brown, another child researcher (2009) and Bonawitz (2011) studied ‘play’, and how children used risk freely, even if they fell down, got a bruise, or didn’t figure things out right away. Their natural drive kept them going, and the less interference from adults, the more they stayed with their joy of taking risks. 

Children have also been found to have a natural tendency to ‘share’ - another hallmark of Abundance. In a research study by Warneken and their team in 2011, the researchers found that children naturally tended to share whatever was left over after a joint activity, when allowed on their own to decide what to do. 

And, the ‘Broaden-and-Build Theory’, by Fredrickson (2001) demonstrated that positive emotions like joy and interest are deeply intrinsic, and actually make our cognitive receptors (the things in our brain that open up to learning new things and taking in new information) bigger and stronger - literally, expanding our abundance of knowledge, opportunity, problem solving, and thinking. 

There is much research that can still be mentioned, and if this was a scholarly article I’d likely go on for 12-15 more pages. But what has been mentioned here is a good start to support the reminder that Abundance, in its broadest sense, is intrinsic, inborn, and readily available to all who come to Earth. The best way yet to test this theory is to watch a child or toddler in your own life, from a gentle distance. Look for the abundance traits that come through their behaviors: curiosity, glee, joy, sharing, connecting, giving, and wondering. Indeed - these are the traits that any wealthy person would want, no matter how much money exists in the bank on any given day. 

Does trauma play a role in this? Absolutely. 

Early attachment research shows that the more securely attached a child feels, the more they are able to lead with their natural traits of exploration, play, and creativity, because their nervous system has a trusting resting state. This research was heavily explored by Mary Ainsworth and John Bowlby. These two researchers developed a lot of psychological theories around the natural well-being of a child, and did a lot of their research by using ‘naturalistic observation’, simply observing children in many different environments. 

Conclusion

Why is all this helpful to know? If we, as adults, can get back in touch with that pure form of abundance that precedes money, we can unlock one of the biggest gifts of all - being in an abundant mindset regardless of where our current financial state lies. This does not detract from the joyous possibilities that also exist in regards to money and abundance. A separate conversation can include things we can do as adults to combine a return to our inborn abundance mindset with various skills to produce greater forms of wealth and money. But at the core, if we lack an abundance mindset, is there really any amount of money or wealth that can truly connect us with our inner knowing of how ok and how enough we really are, no matter what? 

Thank you, babies and toddlers, for being a reminder of this important, inborn trait.

May we all know it again. And, as mentioned before, if we need help remembering, we can always take a look at children in our own lives, and be reminded of just how much enoughness exists in this world before Money even has meaning. 

RESEARCH REFERENCES

Ainsworth, M.D.S. (1989). Attachments beyond infancy. American Psychologist, 44(4), 709–716.

Bonawitz et al. (2011, Cognition)

Bowlby, J. (1988). A Secure Base: Parent-Child Attachment and Healthy Human Development. New York: Basic Books.

Fredrickson’s Broaden-and-Build Theory (2001, American Psychologist)

Gopnik et al. (2017, Trends in Cognitive Sciences)

Kidd & Hayden (2015), “The Psychology and Neuroscience of Curiosity” (Neuron)

Ryan & Deci, American Psychologist, 2000; and Deci & Ryan, Motivation and Emotion, 2017.

Stuart Brown’s research on Play (2009, “Play: How It Shapes the Brain…”)
Warneken et al. (2011). Young children share the spoils after collaboration. (Psychological Science)