Staying Calm in Rough Financial Waters

One of my clients asked me today, how do I stay calm these days when there is such gloom and doom, and the news everywhere is so negative and seemingly scary. Good question.

First: always acknowledge reality; yes, prices are going up, greed put many of us at risk, and yes, things need to change. 

Second: acknowledge your part in it if any...did you take out a mortgage you could  not afford ?

Do you live beyond your means ? Are you a frugal spender who saves money with joy ? And, do you then sock away that savings for a rainy day ? This mess became uncontrollable because borrowers were in denial about the risk, and lenders were greedy, and the government looked the other way...just say it as it is...

Third: Stop reading newspapers, watching the news, cut out all the negative stuff.

Fourth: Always be fine tuning your skills, and learn additional ones

Fifth: Be very frugal..don't assume anymore debts, live on cash.

And lastly, take your fears and hold them in the cup of your palms, and look directly at them and be soft with them. Acknowledge them, listen to them list everything and say to your hands:

"I understand, I am here for you, we will figure this out.." Remember, you cannot solve a problem if you are in the fear mode. Creativity only comes when you can open the door calmly.

Self-compassion

All of my life has been spent in a mild state of heightened awareness; I notice every tiny detail, I can feel a blade of grass turning in Montana. I am never totally relaxed. I am vigilant at paying attention to everything because my childhood house was full of uncertainty. There was no safe harbor except the house keeper and the collie. I am the youngest of three children.

Growing up in an environment where nothing I did was ever good enough; the constant implication that there was 'something wrong' with me added to my sense of isolation and inability to make genuine friends as a youngster. On a deep psychic  level, the unspoken question lingered : "If I am not good enough for my family, why would a stranger want me..?" Always feeling  like the black sheep, feeling like the outcast took it's toll on my self-esteem. I had never 'fit-in'. 

Most of my adult life was spent surrounding myself with people who kept reinforcing that rejection because the dance was familiar to me. Breeding ground for self-loathing, for sure.

It was not until I was 38 that I met a woman for whom I was working, who said to me one day:

"You have such a good heart, a pure soul and a beautiful spirit." No one had ever said such a kind thing to me. That was the turning point for me. 

I have spent 20+ years trying to find self-compassion and joy. 

When I read the beginning of Susan Piver's book : HOW NOT TO BE AFRAID OF YOUR OWN LIFE, and her comment was:  "Not fitting in finally had it's place" I knew I was onto something profound. Someone else had been the black sheep, someone else suffered as I had.

Having self-compassion is a practice that starts today. Being able to hold our anger, fears, pain in the cup of our upward palms, and looking right at them, gives us breathing room for forgiveness. We are all flawed...we are supposed to be. How boring would life be if we were all alike, we would have nothing to learn, nowhere to grow, no next step.

Do you have a ritual you can count on when you start to feel as if you are going out of  'focus' ?

How do you manage your fears, anger and pain ?

Hidden In Plain Sight...

How many of you have or have had the experience of feeling dis-connected from the moment ?

Have you ever felt part of you is screaming in the wind, 

but no one can hear you ?

So often our method to survive a moment of shame, guilt, embarrassment, fear, is to 'zone' out; acting like a deer in the headlights. No one can see into our thoughts, no matter how clairvoyant they claim to be...and yet, we can be in the worst pain with our guts wrenching, but nobody really sees us. We are, in that moment, hidden in plain sight.

Does that describe your childhood too ? It did mine, and has taken years to finally heal.

Share with us your 'war time' stories....how did you survive your childhood ?

Getting My Goat on a Monday Morning

GETTING MY GOAT ON A MONDAY MORNING

I ran across yet another person this morning promising the entire world that financial riches lie just beyond that glass wall, and for $19.95 plus shipping and handling, she will tell you how to break through that glass wall and embrace all that dough, find Mr. Right, and lose 30 lbs.

Let’s see…that must be the thirty-first person to claim to have “the answer”.

How many of these people already own the SECRET, and e-books from sites claiming to have the answer?

No one is willing to put “the bell on the cat”…no one is willing to be the child in the Emperor’s New Clothes; no one wants to tell the truth: You actually have the answers right inside of yourself. It may not be attractive, it’s not sexy, and frankly, it can be pretty darn painful at times, but, it’s your truth…and nothing but the truth. You own it; it’s your core issue.

We have become soft; a culture bred on quick fixes and cheese doodles. Have all those ingested preservatives finally damaged our capacity to truly heal? We seem to drift towards terminal vagueness and the desire to ‘check-out’, be numb or be dumb, that’s the ticket.

Everything we need to understand in order to change has already been written…and those books are probably sitting on the shelves of all these people throwing their money to purchase yet another “answer”.

The truth is: having money or food ‘issues’, or any other self-destructive behavior comes from living one’s life on two tracks. Not being whole, not being authentic; being afraid to really go deep and shine a light on the childhood shame and confront the proverbial monsters in the closet.

Gaining self-awareness is the key to change, but the pop culture spin that has currently become so topical, is nauseating. The truth is: all these suffering souls were in trouble long before gas prices hit $4.50 a gallon, long before the mortgage industry hit the skids. They just hid in denial.  True healing requires courage, faith, discipline and desire. It takes work…hard work to constantly confront those pieces of ourselves we have spent so much energy running from. There are no real quick fixes.                      

Sept ‘08 The Financial Whisperer

The Financial Whisperer

Los Angeles, CA

thefinancialwhisperer.com