Hello again.

Week two of May. If you’re finding your way here for the first time, there’s no prior reading needed — this week stands completely on its own.

Last week we looked at where our stories about worth and abundance came from. This week we’re going into something more physical — what scarcity actually feels like in the body, and the quietly profound question of what enough genuinely means for you.

 

This week’s focus: the body knows before the mind does

Scarcity isn’t only a thought. It’s a feeling — and most of us know it physically before we’ve found words for it.

There’s a particular tightening that comes with it. A quality of holding-on that lives in the chest, or the hands, or somewhere behind the sternum. A low hum of not-enough that sits underneath ordinary days — even when things are, objectively, okay. Even when the account is fine, the situation is stable, the external evidence suggests there’s plenty.

The feeling arrives before you’ve done the maths. Before you’ve actually assessed the situation. It’s a learned response — conditioned over years, often decades, by experiences that have long since passed but left their mark on how the nervous system responds to the world.

This is worth knowing, because it means that more — more money, more success, more security — doesn’t automatically produce the felt experience of abundance. If the baseline is set to scarcity, it adjusts quickly. The goalpost moves. The feeling of enough stays just out of reach.

And alongside that sits the question most of us have never genuinely answered: what does enough actually feel like?

Not as a number. Not as a milestone or a threshold. But as a felt sense — something in the body and the breath that says this is okay. There is enough. I am enough. A real, physical experience of sufficiency rather than a concept held in the mind.

For many people, that experience is genuinely elusive. Not because they don’t have enough, but because enough was never defined from the inside. It was always contingent on the next thing. Always something that would arrive when certain conditions were finally met.

The invitation this week is to begin locating it — however tentatively — from within.

 

 

A client’s experience — David’s story

David described himself as someone who, by any reasonable measure, had done well. Comfortable income, meaningful work, good relationships. And yet he couldn’t shake a persistent low-grade anxiety around money — a quiet vigilance that never quite switched off, no matter what the numbers said.

When we started exploring what scarcity actually felt like in his body, he described it very specifically: a tightening across his upper chest and a slight shallowing of his breath. It was there in conversations about money. There when an unexpected cost appeared. And — interestingly — there even when things were going well, as a kind of bracing for what might go wrong.

He had never, he realised, allowed himself to simply feel like he had enough. There had always been a reason to stay vigilant. Always a reason why now wasn’t quite the moment to relax into sufficiency.

Recognising that the feeling was in his body — not just his circumstances — was the beginning of being able to work with it differently.

 

This week’s challenge: finding scarcity in the body and enough in the present

Two threads to follow this week, and they’re connected.

The first: notice where scarcity lives in your body. The next time that low-level tightening arrives — around money, around time, around receiving something or asking for something — get specific about the physical sensation. Not the story about it. Not I feel anxious — but something more concrete and physical. There’s a tightening in my chest. My breathing just shortened. My hands want to close. Getting that specific begins to create a little distance between you and the feeling.

The second: ask yourself honestly what enough actually feels like. Not as a thought — as a body experience. Call to mind a moment when you genuinely felt sufficiency — even briefly. When something landed and you felt, however fleetingly, this is okay. I have what I need. What did that feel like, physically? Where did it live?

If that moment is hard to locate, notice that with gentle curiosity. Not as failure — but as useful information about how rarely you’ve let yourself rest in sufficiency.

Notice with gentle interest the gap between what’s objectively true about your situation and how it’s registered internally. These often don’t match — and that gap is where the most interesting work is.

Write one honest sentence about what you’ve found. That’s enough.

 

Seasonal wisdom — end-autumn on the Sunshine Coast

Mid-May and the season has well and truly settled here. The mornings are cooler, the evenings arriving a little earlier, the quality of the light noticeably softer than it was a few weeks ago. Autumn is doing what it does — thoroughly, honestly, without rushing toward what comes next.

There’s something in that worth borrowing for this week’s work. The season doesn’t ask for more light or an earlier spring. It does what it does — fully, at the pace it’s made for, completely itself right to the end.

That quality of genuine settling — being fully in what is, without reaching for something else — is exactly what this week’s work invites.

 

Join the Journey

Follow along this month on Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn — as we continue to explore scarcity mindset and abundance with reflections and questions every few days.

Until next week — notice the feeling before the thought. It’s been there longer, and it has more to tell you.

With warmth,
Gemma-Lee Harvey

 

 

About the Author:

Gemma-Lee Harvey is a Holistic Counsellor and Lifestyle Coach based on Australia’s Sunshine Coast. With a diverse background spanning psychology, business, counselling, and coaching, she creates a nurturing space for exploring one’s full potential. Her gentle yet practical approach kindles the transformative spirit within, guiding individuals through life’s challenges as they rise through empowerment.

 

Contact:

🌐 www.phynixbydesign.com.au
☎ 07 5493 6742
📱 0448 562 814
🏢 Brightwater Wellness Hub, Shop 7E 69-79 Attenuata Drive, Mountain Creek QLD 4557

Opening hearts & facilitating transformations since 2017

Phynix By Design ~ Life Reignited