Are You in Financial Debt for Emotional Reasons? Help From Dr Robin Smith
“Awakening is about involving yourself fully in the game, in the ebb and flow of your life,” says Dr Robin Smith. “If you have been hibernating, right now may be a good time to emerge from your cave.”
Are you hiding from your authentic self and life by drowning yourself in an ocean of financial debt? If your relationship with money needs an overhaul, read Emotional Spending: How To Break The Addiction. And, here are six ways to deal with financial debt, inspired by Dr Robin Smith…
Are You in Financial Debt for Emotional Reasons? Help From Dr Robin Smith
Lisa Bradley recently appeared on the Oprah Winfrey show, talking about her overwhelming financial debt and inability to live within her means. She thinks she overspends as an adult to compensate for things she didn’t have growing up. “It’s almost like I reverted back to my childhood and decided to buy my Christmas toys, except they’re not Barbie dolls anymore,” she says. “I didn’t get the Barbie car when I was little, but I’m going to drive the Barbie car now.”
Are you driving the “Barbie car”, which you can’t afford to pay for? If so, these tips for dealing with the emotional reasons for your financial debt may help…
1. Learn to control the emotions that lead to spending money. Dr. Robin advised Lisa to stop buying things, face her childhood shame head-on, and gain control of her emotions. “You were out of control from the very beginning,” says Dr. Robin. “[The] child in you – the wounded child that lives in all of us – was driving in the front seat of your adult life. That child needs to be put in the back seat, cared for, nurtured and reminded that there is now an adult who can look out for her.” Sometimes getting control of your emotions is simply about being aware of them. Knowing that you want to shop because you’re depressed or sad may help you build better money habits.
2. Tune in to your “emotional hunger.” If you can’t express your anger, hurt, fear, or pain in healthy ways, then you’ll turn to unhealthy outlets — which doesn’t make you a financially independent woman! Shopping, spending money, eating, binging, gambling, and many addictions are signs of unmet needs. Women who spend money for emotional reasons are often ignoring their emotional hunger — which is why they’re in debt because of “emotional spending”! If not properly expressed, feelings of fear, doubt, insecurity, anxiety, and low self-esteem can lead to a shopping addiction and serious financial debt.
3. Know – and learn how to cope with – your spending “triggers.” Do you succumb to shopping or spending too much money when you’re with a particular person? When you’re fighting with your partner? After dealing with difficult coworkers? Look for connections between the events in your life, your emotional reactions, and your financial debt. Identify the triggers or emotional reasons that send you running to the mall and lead to financial debt. Your triggers may never go away – you’ll always have stress, pain, and discomfort in your life. Since you can’t get rid of hardship or life’s challenges, you need to find healthier ways to cope with your feelings.
4. Talk to an expert in psychology and financial planning. If you can’t figure out the roots of your emotional spending, talk to a counselor. You’re spending money for a reason — and it’s probably an emotional one. The sooner you figure out what need you’re trying to fill, the sooner you’ll start dealing with your financial debt. For help with the practical side of budgets and spending, read 9 Tips for Taking Control of Your Money.
5. Give yourself time to learn how to express your emotions in healthy ways. Whether you’ve been struggling to overcome a shopping addiction for months or years, remember that it takes to learn healthier ways to deal with stress and your emotions. “Whether it’s food, whether it’s debt, whether it’s alcohol — detoxing sucks,” says Dr Robin. “I know that’s a nonclinical word, but we all know what it means. It does not feel good when one starts to clean up their mess.”
6. Know you’re not alone! Dr. Robin says women who are in financial debt for emotional reasons are not alone – everyone struggling with money problems is “trying to fill a spiritual wound with a cheap surrogate.” “BMW may not sound cheap, but for a child who is aching to feel like she was enough, for a child who was aching to feel the safety and comfort in his own life, a BMW can’t ever touch that wound,” she says. “What becomes more dangerous is the deeper the wound, the more I spend.”
Are you in financial debt for emotional reasons — and is Dr Robin Smith’s advice helpful? I welcome your thoughts below…
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