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Author Insight
The Grocery Argument That Changed Everything
When I complained to my husband that only half of the grocery receipt I was reviewing was for groceries and the other half consisted of treats only he enjoyed, he asked me a question I couldn’t answer. We are very different. I am an aware shopper. I often buy what I use regularly when it’s “on special,” meaning its low price point. I rarely run out of things or need to buy them at the often artificially higher price points. He puts things into the cart whenever they appeal to him. I can afford the higher prices, but I learned to do this over 60 years ago, and I see no reason to change this habit. Besides, I hate the manipulative tactics of most grocery chains. I also tend to space out my own edible treats because I enjoy them more that way. When my complaint tried to impose my values on my husband, he asked me, “Why shouldn’t I have exactly what I want whenever I want it? We can easily afford it.” I couldn’t answer with anything but old rules that I thought I had long since discarded. When I used the 3 sentences of the procedure we teach in “Embrace Prosperity” I realized that I had been so busy managing “important stuff” that I had been forgetting about doing things I really enjoy. When I started remembering and enjoying my own special treats, my critical thoughts disappeared. Use this process to learn what’s behind your own critical thoughts.
Book Excerpt
Embrace Prosperity
I can still remember my days as a young, newly-married, recent college graduate who had to make a careful decision about every penny I spent. So much has changed since then, and I am grateful for all that has happened that has made those changes possible.
I'm one of a small percentage of people my age in the United States who is comfortably retired after a thoroughly satisfying and fulfilling career as a psychotherapist, consultant and coach. However, I haven't retired from my life mission of helping others emerge from the boxes their families and cultures taught them to live in. I carry out my mission now through writing and publishing books to help individuals experience joy and abundance in their lives and relationships.
It wasn't always this way. Although I was raised in a middle-class family and I’ve always had more than enough material things, I was taught to believe in scarcity. And no wonder—my parents met and married in New York City during the Great Depression of the 1930s. They must have experienced scarcity wherever they looked.
Once, when I realized that my mother had started working in her father’s grocery store when she was about eight years old, I commented on it, and she told me, "All immigrant families worked.” I was startled when I realized that although both my parents were born in the US, all their parents immigrated from Russia and Eastern Europe in the early years of the 20th century. I had never before thought of them growing up as members of immigrant families.
I was taught to believe in scarcity and to save what I earned for important goals, like going to college or buying a house. I was taught to carefully conserve my resources. None of that advice was bad, and following it has served me well.
The part that hasn't served me was the built-in definition that there wasn't and wouldn't be enough. I could never really relax and enjoy what I did have because of the fear and constraint that went with that belief.
It's been a lifelong journey move from "earn, save, spend only on necessities" to "earn, save, spend, invest, enjoy and share." This journey also included learning to work and share with a life partner who urged me to do what I considered to be irresponsible things with money.
There been many bumps in the road since we married in 1960. Overall, it's been both fun as well as challenging.
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