The Grinch hated Christmas! The whole Christmas season!

Now, please don’t ask why. No one quite knows the reason.

It could be his head wasn’t screwed on just right.

It could be, perhaps, that his shoes were too tight.

But I think that the most likely reason of all

May have been that his heart was two sizes too small.

I understand the Grinch. I, too, have a heart problem especially when it comes to Christmas.

I wish it were that my head wasn’t screwed on right because then I might be able to screw it back on correctly. Or if it were just that my shoes were too tight, well I could fix that quite easily too. But if, like the Grinch, my heart is too small, that is a much harder problem to solve. Those first two issues are left brain problems with left brain solutions. But a heart that’s too small — that’s a right brain problem with a right brain solution. It takes a change of heart. You can’t just will that to happen. How do you grow a heart?

I go through this every year. My heart’s too small because I have a scarcity belt around it preventing it from growing. Every year I see at least two or three versions of the Scrooge story and a couple versions of the Grinch, and I try to loosen that belt, but it won’t budge. This scarcity belt squeezes my heart with thoughts of not having enough, so when we come to Christmas, my breathing quickens, my blood pressure goes up, and my heart tries to break out, but the belt only tightens. It’s not that my shoes are too tight; my scarcity belt is too tight.

There are many reasons for this kind of Grinch-like thinking. Though both my parents have passed on, I can clearly hear my father’s a-few-tones-higher-than-normal hyper-tense voice call out “Darlin’…!” and feel his blood pressure rise as he blames my mother for spending too much. But how long can I blame someone who isn’t even there for what is now my own business and my own responsibility? And my own privilege and opportunity to do better?

Focus on this scarcity thinking and you are headed for trouble. All sorts of dangers lie ahead. Believe me, I know them well. Blame, shame, envy, judgment and fear are yours in spades. And you can bounce from one to the other as you seek to justify yourself in your own mind. But of course you keep checking your bank account and making sure you never have enough, because you have made so many unhealthy alliances in your own mind with this thinking that it behooves you to cling to the excuses it provides.

Is there a way out — a way to loosen the belt? Yes, of course there is but it requires much.

First, focus on what you do have, because most of us have so much. Replace counting, comparing and nitpicking with gratitude. Gratitude solves a boat-load of problems. Like Bob Cratchit, surveying his poor family joyously around the table at Christmas, he proclaims, “I am so rich!” He is filling himself up with gratitude and he is right. You have to loosen the scarcity belt when you say that and mean it.

Secondly, you can give. Whatever station you are in in life, there are those with less than you, and a small bit for me is a fortune for someone else. So give. Don’t wait until you have more. That’s scarcity thinking. Give now out of what you have. The widow gave two pennies and Jesus said she gave more than anyone else because she gave everything she had and she gave from her heart.

Blame, shame, envy, judgment and fear cannot survive where there is gratitude and giving. It’s a changed mindset — an altered state — and it comes from traveling the 18 inches from one’s head to one’s heart. Scarcity thinking exists in the mind; gratitude and giving come from the heart. Responsibility is a very big word that means nothing more than the ability to respond and respond from the heart. You’ve heard the phrase “Get your head in the game.” Well, time to loosen that scarcity belt and get your heart in the game! Let’s go fellow Grinches! Grow your hearts and break that scarcity belt!

In his master’s steps he trod where the snow lay dented

Heat was in the very side which the saint had printed

Therefore Christian men be sure, wealth or rank possessing

He who now will bless the poor shall himself find blessing