By Ken Honda | Published January 20, 2023
When times are difficult and we start worrying if our income is enough to cover all the bills, often times we start seeing the entire situation from a place of worry and anxiety instead of a more positive perspective.
When we start falling into a spiral of anxiety over having enough money to pay the rent and still eat well or take care of our families, we’ve already predicted the worst possible outcome to the situation.
With this negative lens on, not having enough money to pay rent means not having a place to live, which means we would be homeless and eventually jobless and ultimately, death! Although we might not consciously equate worrying about money with death, in our subconscious we’ve already imagined this as a possible outcome, so our bodies tighten up as we lean into this negative perspective.
Focusing only on the negative outcome is a bad habit that we pick up when we’re big worriers. However, it blinds us to all the possible positive solutions or outcomes that exist, too.
When we worry about money, we stop looking for solutions like opportunities to earn more in different ways, at different jobs, or even starting your own lifework doing something completely different. We fail to ask friends or neighbors for help, and we fail to recognize blessings in disguise even when they’re right in front of us. Perception can be everything!
Whenever you notice yourself feeling a bit worried for money, even if it’s not extreme, try this exercise that I often recommend: Ask yourself how many friends or other acquaintances near or far you know that would be willing to let you stay with them for a week if you asked them for help. Even if you only know a few people who would give you a place to stay short term, that’s still several weeks of time you would have to get back on your feet and start fresh if you needed to.
Knowing that you have so many people in the world who would take care of you if you simply asked, how does that make you feel? Do you feel your anxiety ease up now that you know it’s not a life-or-death situation anymore? When there’s a safety-net in place, you should be able to notice yourself feeling a little lighter, like everything will be alright no matter what happens.
This is the ideal state to be in if you struggle with money worries. Instead of feeling constricted and restricted with no opportunities in sight, remember that there are realistically so many people out there who would be willing to help you, no matter the emergency. Even if you never take them up on the offer, you should feel some relief knowing that people are there for you regardless.
Once the fear lessens, you can start getting creative and look at your spending and earning habits with a totally different attitude than before. Now you can focus on all the positive possibilities, too!
If you want to learn more about how money stress functions and where it comes from, there’s a whole lesson dedicated to this topic in my new course, the Happy Money Healing Program. It’s perfect to learn from my videos at your own pace, with a lot of exercises to help you approach your relationship with money and money stress in healthier ways. You can also connect with other people taking the course inside the Arigato Living Community. Hope to see you there!
