"I want you to have what you want. Learning how to hack your havingness level then, is a skill I both practice and teach..."

JULIA LALLY

HAVINGNESS - WHAT IS IT?

Contrary to what your conscious mind thinks, believes and wishes for -  opening to receive that desired thing can be trickier. (In fact, in my experience, most people tend NOT to open that quickly to what they want, most of the time. It's like as humans we have our own personal threshold of what we are willing to receive and enjoy. Get too far out of range of that level, and we shut down.)

As a coach hell bent on helping her clients succeed, with a passionate desire to help them get what they want, this question of havingness level is a constant source of fascination to me.

What is it? Why does it exist? How can we alchemise our lives to transcend it?

how do we shut down our havingness level?

Believe it or not, shutting down our capacity to receive is often completely within our control. (Yes, I know and agree that systems of oppression and disadvantage come into play too. And you can listen to all that on more in my podcast here, where the focus is more on the social and political for those who get off on that kind of thang. 

But the truth is that I concern myself professionally with helping people overcome their own personal version of shut down. The places they CAN control. And consequently, this is the focus of this article.)

So let's have a look at some of the common ways people close down their receptivity.

Lack of havingness really comes down to a shortage of belief that you deserve the thing. 

But that core belief can pan out in a number of obvious ways:

You Fuck It Up

Maybe you get close to success and then fuck it up in some unbelievable way. Perhaps you say exactly the wrong thing at the interview. Perhaps you arrive late when it is crucial you don't. Perhaps you get angry at someone who is trying to give you something. Fill in the blanks - what are some of the ways you have back-tracked on your desire when you are literally just about to get it?

Hiding from Attack

Perhaps you are afraid that if you receive it, the entire world will turn against you?

For example, with money, I notice frequently how I try to hide any material success I might be experiencing from certain people. This is curious to me. I earned enough to invest in something I wanted, I prioritised my precious time to have made that thing possible - so why down play that success to my friends and family? Like it was barely nothing? I have noticed how I can try to divert attention from the sheer magnitude of what I own and love in my life, in order to not upset other people. 

Of course, this may be polite. This may mean people's feelings aren't aroused. But it also means I am hiding. And in order to hide you must keep your havingness pretty low. Or else all that shameless having starts spilling out of your pockets and rolling around on the floor like a guilty secret finally exposed.

It's no surprise. People have a lot of feelings about money, wealth and abundance in particular. Jealousy, judgement, disdain, anger, despair. Sometimes it can feel easier to hide and avoid people's inevitable projections. When it comes to havingness though - you can only hide for so long.

Falling for the Lies of Consumerism 

Consumerism is a trick of low havingness too. Our minds are always craving the next thing. We are ultimately very suggestible. And the whole of society seems intent on persuading your fickle mind into moving onto the next thing you can attain, without allowing you time to digest what DID just arrive, for example. Scarcity sells. 

Great for the economy. Not so good for your havingness.

Speed is a critical part of this too - notice that if you are trying to rush to get something, you may well be refusing to feel, enjoy and truly have the experience fully. Also notice if you have a hard time keeping money in your bank account - a constant stream of unnecessary spending is quite a good sign that your havingness level needs work.

Hoarding

Havingness is like a flow. It is a profoundly receptive state. It is so saturated with willingness to receive the thing, that it grasps at very little.

This is a deeply relaxed place to be.

Often with clients, there is a fear of spending the money on coaching with me. And honestly, I get it. Oftentimes, it's not so much the investment though, as the fear that the investment won't pay off and that nothing will change, that stops people handing over their credit card.

But nothing WILL change in stagnation. Hoarding the opposite to the addictiveness of consumerist spending. If you hold onto things too tightly, everything shuts down. Including your capacity to receive. I frequently recommend that people who hoard up their spending by 10% every month. And give stuff away that they no longer need. Sometimes just emptying out the stagnation can allow fresh energy, relationships and material abundance to flood in.

why do we struggle with havingness?

It is curious, isn't it? The whole idea that it might be you who blocks you from having what you want? 

Digging a little deeper though, it is easy to understand why we might behave in this self-sabotaging way.

Firstly - as I mentioned above - it is polite. ESPECIALLY for women. In historical terms, women have only relatively recently gone from being property to owning property. And in some parts of the world still they remain like items for barter in a world of patriarchal marriage and property rights. So it makes sense that the very act of having might seem a little radical. We are conditioned to not want too much, to not ask for too much, to not be too much of a handful. And even if our conscious mind wants the things it wants habits are largely unconscious and - after millennia of conditioning - can be difficult to break.  When was the last time you actually passed on something you wanted, even as it was offered, for example? The politeness and the desire to not appear to be too much trouble runs very deep. Heaven forbid that we are thought to be GREEDY.

scarcity as safety

In fact, keeping our havingness low makes sense when you look at it from the angle of the nervous system. (Which I am often apt to do.)

To understand what I am about to say, try to remember a time when you received something really big. Or, if that is too hard, try to imagine something that you really, really want but cannot ever imagine yourself having, for example. Perhaps you win the lottery - literally imagine tens of millions in your bank account. Perhaps you are swept off your feet by an uber attentive and sexy lover? Try to imagine that level of attention.

The simple fact of the matter is that receiving means feeling. Everything. It is a high sensation game.

Half the time, at least, we receive a general shit show as women. We take the blame. We take the pay cut. We take the gaslighting. We take being ignored and sidelined. And all of that hurts, frankly. It would make sense that in the face of pain and despair we might seek to narrow our experience a little. Just try and cut out the bad stuff.

However, as I frequently tell my coaching clients, you cannot actually selectively numb.

It goes without saying that if you develop aversive habits to feeling the general pain of life, you will also start closing down on the possibility of receiving great things too. 

To receive is to feel. And the good stuff can feel as threatening to a shut down and sub-functioning nervous system as the bad.

Can you relate?

I know that I have been surprised at times to feel fear rising in my system when joy or ecstasy becomes too big. Or bigger than my normal range of sensation might know.

Habit is safe.

If you have narrowed your world down to a habitual basis, receiving will feel threatening on a physiological and emotional level.

avoiding disappointment 

Likewise, we are  tender human beings. We've all known betrayal. We have all felt the bitter sting of disappointment.

Keeping your havingness level low is a strategy that will ensure that disappointment is never felt.

Can you remember a time when you were hoping for something to come together in your life? Do you remember how it felt to be on the edge of receiving that thing, but not yet altogether sure that you would get it?

Such a place can be excruciating. Our nervous systems are better prepared to cut off and shut down there. Our brain wants us to survive, after all.

But the truth is that magic never happens in total comfort and safety. We must always be prepared to lean into the discomfort of inviting potential disappointment. Or else nothing changes. 

Recently, I danced with this one very intimately. I had a desire to move country. So I did.

My entire family, my business, my bank accounts. I packed all my worldly possessions into storage and got in the car and crossed two international borders in a pandemic. I literally did not even know if we would be let through customs. (In fact, a very nice French man asked if we had anything to declare and we said no and he said off you go then. Just like that.)

When we arrived at our airbnb destination, we had two months to find somewhere to live, find employment, and apply for residency. Each step of the way I had no idea if we would get what we wanted. If this whole thing would turn out to be a disaster. Every day I woke up to the heightened sensation in my body of potential catastrophic disappointment. The electricity in my nervous system felt fierce. And....

First came the job. Then the flat. Lastly, the residency. After that things started getting even more out of hand - because the local Canton was apparently so pleased to see us they gave us a week's free travel card and enrolled our teenage son in a free German language intensive school integration project.

Wowser.

I actually cried.

My point is that we succeeded. And that we would never have succeeded had we not been prepared to live with the bitter potential of  disappointment. But it was precisely because we surfed the waves, that our havingness expanded and went through the roof. (Thankyou, Switzerland. Yes. You and your world class ski parks. Your mineral spa pools. Your saucy fondues. Your extra large Toblerones.)

5 hacks to increase havingness

But enough! 

I digress.

More's the point - how exactly can you expand your havingness then? Cos if you are at the stage where you know you want the thing, but realising that you keep stepping just short of actually having the thing, then these are my recommendations.

Work that havingness muscle. 

Over time, things will open and change.

the havingness hangover

One last thing to say about havingness. And that is that blowing up your havingness can often result in a hangover.

What does that mean?

Well, take for example, my recent move to Switzerland. There was literally so much nervous energy and intentional focus that went into this leap of faith, that when we actually got the thing, the next week or two were - empty and sad.

I've noticed that over and over. Perhaps it is because there's a natural physiological down turn after holding that much adrenalin in the system? Or perhaps its more an existential angst that the thing you were so fixated on was not, after all, the be all and end all to every single one of your personal problems.

Either way, it is my belief that we sometimes avoid having what we want to avoid this kind of come down altogether.

Needless to say, it is a pretty self-defeating strategy. And I have resigned myself to knowing that the down will come, and being really attentive to my needs and my body for the time period after I receive. Receiving can be very close too grieving. Which is strange, as in our minds at least, receiving should be very close to days of celebration and feasting.

It is often not the way, however.

Go easy with yourself as you create your magic ⚡️