It’s Time to Awaken Your “Unwoke”
Money- Self
Taking a fresh, open-eyed look at your money spending habits can be unpleasant and the results may be hard to swallow. It takes a certain amount of courage to be honest with yourself and others about a problem area, addiction, or a full-blown monetary rock-bottom. It’s not fun. In fact, it can be quite painful.
Feelings of shame, guilt, anxiety, and a whole host of others may be rising up in you and triggering an auto-response to seek an outlet of comfort. This sort of response is completely normal. We all do it in some form or another. However, take mental note of what kind of thoughts and feelings arise and what you are compelled to seek refuge in… This will give you a great amount of insight into your behaviors and what specifically you may need to focus on. Chances are, the behaviors tied to these automatic responses are what got you into monetary discord in the first place.
If these outlets are contributing further to your monetary issues (e.g. turning to online shopping when you are anxious- which was usually the case for me), then you are perpetuating the problem and burying your head deeper into your “unwoke” money-self.
It’s time to wake up! It’s time to get conscious and start making choices based on your values and goals, and STOP making choices in the sleep-like state that is your behavioral auto-pilot.
Luckily, you do not have to navigate this all alone. I can help you make sense of the emotions and behaviors, and together, we can craft a road-map for your financial future that is unique to you and your situation. No matter where you are at financially, I will meet you where you are and help you through what may be one of the most important coming to consciousness of your life- your monetary awakening. We will set purpose to your dollars and in doing so, help you lead a more intentional, fulfilling life.
Post-My Oms
I find myself often rather inspired after a yoga class. It’s almost as if the practice stirs up a bunch of good energy in my mind and it just whirls away up there until I take some sort of action to make sense of all of it. I often need to journal after yoga so that I can get all my thoughts on paper (or a computer screen). It helps me make sense of my experience (aka the emotions or thoughts that got stirred up). And it also helps me center myself so that I can then focus on everything else that I “have to do.”
I observe that I am more patient & calm, gracious, lovingly present, open, balanced, and feeling well overall if I allot time for these rituals (yoga and journaling). [Side note: the words in bold above are my personal core values. I will often bring them up and any Positive Mental Wealth client will be asked to identify his/her own personal core values.]
I have come to affectionately refer to my post-yoga or post-meditation inspired journalings as “Post-My Oms” (which is a pun on a meditation mantra “om” and a nod to the music artist Post Malone, whose music I enjoy). Most of the ideas for my money mental musings blog come from Post-My Oms.
I mention all of this to share with you a glimpse of who I am and what I have found to be calming forces within my stressful daily human experience that put me back in touch with my values.
“But Julia, what does all of this have to do with financial coaching?”
We all know that stress is inevitable in EVERY DAY LIFE. It can throw us off our game and make us lose sight of things that matter to us (for example, working toward our financial goals). If you are going to get serious about making lasting changes in your financial life, you will need to combat stress. It’s like the saying “pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional.”
It is impossible to outrun or bury one’s stress or pain without repercussion…just like financial problems… they will eventually find a way to surface and wreak havoc, sometimes to devastating degrees on your body, mind, and spirit.
If you do not effectively learn to manage your stress (which in some circumstances, our stress is directly tied to our current financial state), then you will continue a never-ending cycle of suffering in some form.
We cannot outrun our debt, bury our loans, or pretend like we don’t need a roof over our heads or a secure financial future. We cannot live in a state of delusion that these things do not matter greatly and can run our lives if we do not run them in an intentional, purposeful manner.
I am here to help you find ways to manage your stress and your debt. I can help direct you to resources, tools, practices (that include physical practices) that can become calming forces for you as they have for me. I will continue to share my post-om journalings in the hope I can make a body-mind-spirit connection for you that will bring you back to your center and get you focused on your values and help bring your money goals in alignment.
Keep moving toward your North Star
I have noticed that I am most at peace with my life when I am actively taking steps toward goals, to-do lists, whatever it is that has been looming over me that my conscience knows I really should be doing… If you are an anxiety-prone person, I know you know what I am talking about. It is when I prove to myself that I can indeed start taking one step toward something greater that my anxiety lifts.
Tony Robbins has said “motion creates emotion.” I think about this often. When I find myself stuck in the moment, perseverating on a fear, a thought, or a sensation, I need to physically keep moving toward what I know is best for me. I like to think of it as Movement over Mind over Matter.
This can be difficult, because every single day I feel like I am being pulled in a myriad of directions. It seems my attention is a limited commodity and I can easily get sucked down a virtual tube of meaningless mental chatter. I find that if I do not have consistent reminders in my environment, that I can effortlessly stray from the path that leads me toward my goals. For this reason, I use visual cues and app reminders on my phone to help center me throughout the day. I come face to face with my goals, my core values, my account balances, my vision boards, etc. They help me remember that I am more than this person in this moment in time, and by opening up to that realization in any moment in time, I can take a conscious step (no matter how small!) toward something that is actually meaningful to me and my future.
I will help you locate your own personal North Star by helping you with intentional goals that are based on what you truly want in this life. I will also help you set up automatic reminders and assist you with creating your own visual cues that can reroute you towards your center throughout your hectic day. My goal is for you to be able to snap out of whatever mental story is playing in your mind (whether it be good or bad) at any given moment, and hone in on your greater purpose- is what you are doing at this moment serving that purpose or is it hurting it? Become aware, accept it, and if it is not serving your greater purpose, then re-adjust your sails and re-start your course home. All you can do lies within this moment, and you can chose to move yourself closer to your goals.