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“I have found that when negative emotions control the purse strings, money will not flow purely and evenly. When it comes to money, emotions speak louder than reason or necessity. Your emotions, expressed through your financial actions, have gotten you to where you are now and will continue to shape your financial future if you let them.” ~Suze Orman, The Courage to Be Rich

FEARS AFFECT OUR FINANCES

Our emotions play a huge role in our finances. Money is a reflection of the perceptions we have about ourselves and the situations in our lives.

Have you found yourself falling into a financial back hole? If so, you are not alone. It’s so overwhelming and all-consuming isn’t it?

The natural response when worries about money start to creep in is to fall into a state of fear and panic. As the worries go round in our head, a whole host of other negative emotions start to crowd in and this stress starts to be felt in our body as well as in our mind.

The thing is, these emotions don’t do anything to make the situation any better. In fact, fear actually makes the situation worse. It has a way of repelling money.

So, what should you do instead when these negative emotions start to take hold?

Take Control of Your Thoughts

First, take control of your thoughts. Our thoughts are the only thing we really have any control of.

Sara Ban Breathnack in her book Peace and Plenty offers a great example of how to think differently so you can start turning the situation around.

She suggests to:

“Take a blank piece of white paper. Write the word SCARED in the middle of the page. That’s your known world….

SCARED

What would you say to a child who came to you asking if everything was going to be alright?…We know how to comfort the fears of others: we just don’t remember to use the same tender, loving tactics on ourselves.

Now, transpose the a and the c in scared and you’ll find not only another word, but a world of difference….

SACRED

Doesn’t that make you feel better?”

Re-Channel Your Energy

Second, we’re going to take all the energy we’ve been giving to fear, and we’re going to start finding ways to improve and increase the flow of money into our lives.

Start with the following steps:

1. Control your thoughts = Control your life.

When we start to take control of our thoughts we not only take practical steps towards a better financial situation but we also open ourselves to abundance.

A first step in controlling our thoughts can be mindfulness, simply bringing your attention to the present moment and accepting what is. This then gives you the breathing space to take more positive action. If your thoughts are running in a hundred different directions, worrying about all the possible worst-case scenarios, take a few minutes to just feel the sun on your face or the hard wooden floor under your feet. This centers us, we know that whatever might happen in the future, in this moment right now – we are ok. From there we can then move forward.

2. Tell fear to shut up!

Fear can be a persistent little monster, but unless we are literally in fight or flight mode i.e. running from a lion, it serves relatively little purpose.

The best thing then is just to get tough with it. Tell fear to go take a hike for a while. Sometimes we just have to blank out all the fears and what-ifs in our heads and refuse to listen to them. This gets easier if you are taking positive action at the same time.

3. Know what you owe.

The unknown is always more scary than the facts, so even if it turns out you owe a lot of money, it’s always much better to be aware of the exact situation. Only then can you start doing something about it.

Set some time aside and go through everything you owe and then look at what you have coming in every month. Write it all down in a spreadsheet or on a piece of paper. Yes it might be scary, but comfort yourself with the thought that because you are now doing something about it, your situation will never be as bad again.

4. Look for the good in this situation and see something positive that can come out of it…eventually.

It’s not always easy to be positive, but gratitude is something that can get you through these difficult times. Count the good things in your life, even if money is not one of them right now – instead think of your health, family, friends, etc. Also know that your current situation is a valuable learning experience.

5. Find and start at least one side hustle to create more money

To ease the financial burden you are experiencing. You will start feeling more peaceful about your finances.

This is where it starts to get practical. Even if you have some money coming in currently from a job or other means, it doesn’t mean you have to solely rely on that to get you out of this situation. Instead, start looking for other ways to start earning additional income, and if you want some ideas to get you started, click here for a list of side hustles.