Anxiety: Make it Work for You
credit: vladislav reshetnyak
Whether it’s obsessing over a single task or being fearful of the future, anxiety can ruin our excitement over wealth building. Learn how to calm the storm.
Anxiety can take on many forms, large or small. Unfortunately, more often than not, survivors of trauma struggle with anxiety quite regularly. Whether it’s replaying an incident in your head over and over again, losing sleep over your workday tomorrow, avoiding checking your bank account balance, or believing you might die before you’re 40; anxiety can have a purpose in helping us stay on track financially if we allow it to work for us instead of against us.
Anxiety, or fear-on-loop, is part of an alert system that all humans are born with in an effort to keep us out of trouble. When our emotions are operating in a typical and predictable manner, fear alarms us that there is danger nearby and to make actions to safe guard against it. For those that have experienced trauma, though, our fear signals have been tampered with.
Trauma comes in many forms and in different sizes. “Big T” traumas involve physical abuse, sexual abuse, chronic neglect, growing up in a violent neighborhood, a sexual assault, a life-altering car accident, etc. “Little T” trauma can include a natural event (i.e fire, earthquake), divorce, bullying, and…ongoing financial concerns. Stressing about bills actually negatively impacts ongoing mental health, according to a 2016 study.
Anxiety can manifest in several ways. How does it impact you? Perhaps it prevents you from checking your bank account because you fear you will have a negative balance. Perhaps you procrastinate on paying your bills on time because your brain is used to stressful environments and the drama of having collections call is feeding that old brain. Perhaps you cashed out your 401k to buy a camper van because you don’t believe you’ll live past a certain age and just want to YOLO. Perhaps you buy things impulsively at the store because it makes you feel better in the moment, then hate yourself after. Whatever the scenario, anxiety can be severely damaging to our financial well being. Luckily, there are ways to combat these compulsions and steady the boat a bit just enough to appreciate the journey.
Anxiety, like many things, is manageable when you gain a sense of control over it. What better way to cease control over an aspect of your life than by money. Money is basic in its nature; a simple tangible item that has immediate natural consequences tied to how we interact with it. There is no mystery to money, rather it can be quite predictable if we acknowledge that our anxiety with it exists and seek to change it. How to we gain control over it?
1) Reframe your thinking. Realize that money can become a tool to better your circumstances, rather than the enemy that creates more loss for you. Take away the mystery of it all and sign up for a CreditKarma account. It’s free, it keeps monthly track of your credit score, and it consolidates all of your debt onto one platform so you can see what you’re working with.
2) Radical acceptance. Okay, so you have a mountain of debt, unpaid parking tickets, and credit card bills because it’s become overwhelming to look at and you’ve let it all go. Part of re-establishing a healthy relationship with money is to stop running, turn around, look debt straight in the face and say, “not today.” Make the decision that this ends today and start tackling things a bit at a time. It IS doable, but you have to start small.
3) Write it all out. Be brutally honest and write out your debts, your bills, etc. Then write out your income for the month and start budgeting. How can you minimize your living costs in order to start saving and/or throwing money at the debt monster? Can you cook at home for a few months instead of going out every night? Can you go to a bargain store instead of the corner market that costs more but is more convenient? What is it going to take? Whatever it is, you are capable of it. You have the ability to create another narrative for yourself, so start NOW.
4) Take a breath. Remember your grounding exercises when you feel yourself slipping. Whether it’s square breathing, listing all 5 senses, naming 10 things in a room, etc.; honor that this is a difficult process and you might need a quick mental break. In therapy? Try brain spotting, EMDR, or CBT (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy).
5) Know your triggers. Does going out with friends cause you to spend more on drinks than you normally would? Does a shopping spree create a panic attack when you get home because now you have a higher credit card bill? Know what sets you off and stay preventative. Again, be honest and delight in the self-awareness piece of it all. You got this. One day at a time, be patient with yourself.