6) Provident Living series #1. Enough, Gratitude and Contentment.

It's a Rather Large Nutshell

Light hearted but sincere  thoughts on Enough, Gratitude, Contentment and Abundance

By Sindy Wakeham

I just completely chucked out my entire blog and started again! Mention homesteading, self-reliance and self-sufficiency to people and they get this glazed look in their expression that says, ‘I’ve just gone off-grid mentally’. Warning and disclaimer: Any side effects of boredom or guilt tripping are NOT by intention or design! 

I spent a few days checking articles, blogs and podcasts out on the topic. It’s exhausting! Every one of them tended to be focused on mostly food storage and emergency preparedness and some just frugal living. With 3 including a spiritual wellbeing element and labelled the lifestyle as Provident Living.

Provident Living has been a part of my life since a child by my mother’s examples and teachings. Quick plug here; my book, Escaping the Dole to Blue Garden Cottage in which I share more about those foundations is available here (ISBN:9781739390808). Anyway, Provident living was a natural part of a very frugal life every day out of necessity and it never had a label. 

I’m going to try and ‘nutshell’ it all for you with subtopics in a few blogs separately. Don’t want YOUR eyes all glazed over now just because so many people have differing ideas about what it actually is which can be a turn off to the subject.

Just in case you simply can't get enough of the subject, I will be publishing a book again next year (earlier if I can manage it), deep diving into an alternative view on the whole provident living topic but until then...here’s a snippet!

The coconut shell hubby polished for me. Such a sweetie!

What is Provident Living then?

As I’ve mentioned in my previous blog there are a few subtopics, all cousins and I promised to go into more detail from that point on. Let’s start with:

Enough for Our Needs

That’s the self-‘sufficiency’ bit as discussed in my previous blog. No, I'm not talking about the Tom and Barbara version of self-sufficiency. It's first assessing what we DO have and finding contentment in it. It’s about our understanding and interpretation of ‘what’s enough?’ or sufficient for our needs and appropriate wants. I'll get back to that in a mo. It starts with our mindset around what abundance and prosperity looks like for individuals.

There IS such a thing as too much! I am painfully aware of what ‘too much’ is, having to clear out and streamline my own home of years of clutter and yes...hoarding of a sort, in mind, body and home environment. It's that holistic thing again I mentioned in my holistic life organisation podcast. 

Have you ever come home from doing the grocery shopping or accepted a freebee from someone and find there is literally NO ROOM to put it?!? That's me on occasion.

What IS enough?

A 'clutter bug's studio'.  This is the 'Before'. Wait for the 'After'. 

Clearly my craft studio has too much and it's representative of a number of places in my home too. I'm NOT showing you those! Oh go on then!

Here's one of my clutter corners being sorted later today, so you will have to wait for the before and after images. 

Bedding, books and other items needing a place or a box for donation.

Embarrassing or what!?! Not because of other people's opinions but more because it reveals that I'm still in the process of putting my own home in order and decluttering more than just space. It reveals how I sometimes feel about my qualification to 'coach' or 'teach' others about exactly what I'm still doing myself. That's why I am inviting you on my journey so far.  It proves I'm speaking from experience. And by the way, the photos I use are my own. No 'set up' images except for the illustrated ones I make myself on Canva...just because I can't YET pay someone else to do that for me (and AI is still beyond me). Then I'd have more time for the decluttering.😂

What does too much look like for you?

Tell you what... taking photos of your own space and collating them in a board or collection to see from an outside perspective, shrinks the image to a view as if you are seeing it in someone else's space like on TV. It's very revealing and doesn't take up a stadium/pitch.  You know the show I'm talking about. 

So take some pictures of your rooms, get on Pinterest or the other image app and create a 'Before' board. 

What does that reveal to you and your space? Maybe that you already have an environment in perfect harmony and order and can give yourself an achievement sticker. You can skip creating the 'After' board then.

I propose another interpretation of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs.

I hope this image says it all about needs but none of the similar pyramids, Maslow or articles says what ENOUGH means. That's the tricky bit. They don't say what's enough. Nobody can say what's enough for everyone. It's completely individual but history and experience shows us, as I said above there IS such a thing as too much. 

Here's a general idea: If you go to bed with your stomach growling at you and hurting, it's either because you have had too  much of the wrong thing to eat or you you haven't had enough food in that day for your health needs (you will know which one it is).  We as individuals decide what's enough or what type of food is good enough for us even when we have science and experience that contradicts it.

If you are sleeping rough on the streets, or are crowded in a property that keeps you warm in the winter and sheltered from heat, or where you don't have access to safe, private washing facilities, you don't have good enough shelter from both elements and for safety.

If you cannot read or write, (if you are reading this then obviously you can), manage your finances and life, then you may have a lack in knowledge and experience or support.  

How about employment in a world where you have to pay for those needs and cannot by primitive living skills, provide them for yourself?

What about internet access? Yes, it IS now in many parts of the world a need because almost everything official requires digital connection and in deed, many jobs including self-employment are done online, like for myself. 

Even Maslow's hierarchy might need a bit of updating now because we've moved on since 1943. But for the most basic survival, nothing has changed. 

It could be the old question, Is the Glass Half Empty or Half Full?

Gratitude

You’ve heard it thousands of times. It’s not just good manners. Gratitude is a deeply spiritual practice and trait. It has the power to transform meagre portions into a feast, lack into abundance and crisis into opportunity without even changing the starting substance. I mean, who wouldn’t love that kind of power!?

I remember as a child, learning a children’s song from somewhere, not sure where because our family weren’t really a religious family, Count Your Blessings. 

It’s a phrase and tune that’s followed every situation of discomfort and good ones, sometimes only after the event/situation and on reflection. It has the same power as the phrase ‘Oh well’. It accepts what you don’t have power over and discovers what you do and can change. It helps to let go of things because you recognise just how much you DO have and CAN change.

Gratitude takes you out of self and recognises the source of your abundance which enables you to more easily share of that abundance and thereby attract even more abundance (The Law of the Harvest). 

Is that it? Gratitude and recognising the abundance you already have? Nope.

You get my drift. Provident Living can be as lacking or abundant as you chose to make it. I suggest that if you keep it abundant with a great WHY, it will have the power to turn your ‘lack’ into abundance. Then take action to create abundance out of all you DO have and get to a point that gets you want question your WHY.

Your WHY being your most compelling reason to do anything, the thing that brings you to a major turning point and gives you the tools to create the contentment we all crave at some point while at the same time making your ‘fortune’.

Conclusion

Discovering WHAT is enough for us and what our NEEDS are can be as simple as first making a record of what you already HAVE and then deciding if it meets your needs. This discovery can open your eyes to a different idea about what ‘abundance’ actually is. You will find as you think about it, you already do live elements of an abundant provident life and you CAN find contentment by degrees in different aspects of your life as you live providently. We've just scratched the surface today and I did say it was a rather large nutshell...More to come in the second article of the series.

What are YOU grateful for today and how provident or abundant IS YOUR life?

Leave me a comment. I'm grateful for your feedback and contributions.  

(Next article in the Provident Living series;  Living within my means.)

Until next time,

Sindy.