Guilty as Charged: I Have A Poverty Mindset Part 1

Posted by LaTara on March 6, 2008

Today I was listening to Moms Morning show and the topic is about Money and pricing yourself according to what you are worth. As Kelly was talking I had to reflect on my life and where my mindset is.

I am guilty as charged. My mindset is so ingrained in the poverty mode that I find it hard to come out of it. Over the past few months this has been my struggle.

How do you move beyond what you think you are into who you actually are?

For me my poverty mindset comes from years of living in a pit I was not thrown into. How I got there is not important right now. I have dealt with that and if you want to know more visit my pit healing blog where I learned that forgiveness is just a start. For now I want to deal with my here and now.

As a result of being thrown into the pit I became a person who would shirk from all things good in my life. People, relationships, and yep, even a mindset of being worth more than I valued myself at.

As a single mother I had to stretch a dollar so far that the poor dollar would just scream for mercy. I learned how to make $50 in food stamps work for me and my son for the whole month. After I paid rent all I had left to my name was $90 for the whole month.

Even once I started making more money as a Day Care owner, I still lived with that mindset of not being worthy of more. Sure I made good money but to this day I couldn’t tell you where it went. I spent it all; never saved a penny.

Why?

My poverty mindset!

This mindset was the reason why I had to give up my day care and send my son to live with my mother for a year in Oklahoma. That was one of the darkest moments of my life in the pit.

I just did not value myself enough to say “ENOUGH” when a situation loomed before me and I was to set in my poverty ways to save money to just get out. So I lost something very valuable to me - the ability to be a motivating force in the live of children. I loved keeping my babies!

There were many more situations that occurred and I see now that it was this funky mindset that caused me to live as I did and in some ways still do.

My good friend, Angelia White, publisher of Hope for Women Magazine has been such a supportive force in helping me to see that I am worth so much more than what I value myself at. Over the past few years she and I have been one another’s cheerleaders and God give us both a little insight into the life of the other. We share it, deal with it head on, sometimes coming to tears, and then we heal from what the other has done because of God’s divine leading in our lives.

Angelia has been the one to say “LaTara, you gotta get out of this. You are worth so much more. When will you believe it for yourself?”

The light has been turned on and now I can see my way clear to a mindset that is rich in God’s blessings for my life. And He is giving me the morsels slowly.

Why?

I am just not ready for the whole enchilada yet! In my unplugged moment I so receive that. I have to in order to learn the lesson and move out of a chapter in my life I really don’t want to repeat again.

I had to let go of a lot of things in my life that defeated a mindset of proactive self-worth. I will discuss that tomorrow.

A scripture that I fall back on often in my poverty thinking moment is Psalms 139. Let me paraphrase a few verses that I have learned to put LaTara right in the middle of.

I, LaTara, am fearfully and wonderfully made. This my soul must know and believe. My Creator wrote my book, knitted me together and designed me with a sure Destiny in mind.

Do you have a poverty mindset?

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