Most January’s I have a bit of a spending hangover, with a strong need to get caught up.  This year, however, due to some unexpected expenses, I’m finding it a little more difficult and the stress is building up.  It’s an especially yucky kind of stress, that makes me feel embarrassed and ashamed.  I hide my situation like a horrible secret.  When confronted by it, I feel like I’ve done something terribly wrong for which I need to be punished.  What starts out as a joyful experience of spending on something pleasant transforms into an evil deed I feel guilty about.  As I know is true for most things, it helps when you know you’re not alone.  For a lot of us, our relationship with money is complicated.  And so as a support to myself and hopefully others, here are some things to think about if you find yourself in a money funk.

Generally, money isn’t polite to talk about in most societies, which creates a built in secrecy-silence.  And with that there’s a money judgment coming at us from all directions; personally, professionally, religiously, and culturally.  Everyone has ideas about how we should be spending our money.  We’re pressured to spend money in so many subtle ways, and many not so subtle.  We want to fit in with our social group, we want to be charitable, and we want to indulge a little bit now and then.  All of this is on top of the bills and things we have to pay, even if we prefer not to, like medical bills and insurance payments.  Money represents our values and puts them to the test.  I often want to please everyone, so I overspend rather than say no to someone or some organization.  It feels so good to be generous, even to ourselves! And our financial situation can quickly take a turn for the worse, with an unfortunate accident or unexpected happening.  While we think we’re in control, we can quickly find our debt is out of our hands.

If you’ve struggled with money in the past or didn’t have much money growing up, this can have a big impact on how you feel about money now.  The attitude your parents had about money can be internalized without you even realizing it.  And your partner may have very different experiences with money and a different attitude about saving and spending.  All of this can get mixed up together. 

Taking an inventory of your own feelings can be helpful in understanding yourself:

-Are there certain times when you are likely to spend more money?

-Are there certain times when you’re more likely to save?

-How do you feel when you spend money?

-Do you feel differently when you spend or save in different areas?

-What emotions emerge when you think about money?

-Which aspects of dealing with money are most stressful, such as opening bills, being misunderstood, having to justify your spending, or feeling deprived?

Like most things that bring us stress and shame, it tends to build on itself, and take on a life of its own.  The more shame we feel, the more we avoid dealing with it.  One important factor is to bring empathy to your situation.  Think of your money situation as a potential mistake, not a personal failure.  Showing yourself understanding is not about letting yourself off the hook but more about allowing yourself to be accountable.  Financial resilience is about acknowledging the factors that led to your stress and problem solving as best you can to realign your financial situation and learn from it.  When we’re emotional, we tend to have blind spots and become reactive.  Allowing yourself to talk things through with someone you trust is another way of reducing anxiety, gaining knowledge, and sharing information.

Some tips that might help:

-Be aware of your warning signs that might lead to overspending (a mood, situation, person) and have a plan for when you encounter these

-Don’t save your credit cards on apps or websites that make it easy to be impulsive

-Delay purchases, take a photo or write it down and see if you still want to spend your money in the same way later on

-Share your goal of saving with other people.  Instead of turning down a social invitation, see if you can change it to something more affordable.  Most people will not mind at all when they know your savings plan.

-Set some savings goals and track your spending toward reaching the goal.  See how your mood improves and your stress decreases when you begin to feel more in control of your finances.

While we associate money with status, it’s important to see it for what it is.  Money is a resource.  Having more of it allows you to do more and having less of it is restrictive.  Not having enough is stressful and getting more of it can feel liberating.  But money is not a measure of your worth or your happiness.  It’s not an indicator of how well you love or what your heart is capable of.  What most financial counselors advise is that the best way to relieve financial stress is to have a plan that step by step brings your spending under control.  And the best way to do this is to bring your situation out of darkness and allow yourself to address it as a problem to be solved and not as a failure to be ashamed of.  Ahhh, the old adage, tried and true can be applied:  Name it to tame it.  I spent more than was wise this last December, and so I’m balancing it out in the New Year.  And with any luck, I’ll be able to spend again by next December!

This past week was the 30th anniversary of my sister’s death.  I still can’t believe it when I say it, or as I write it.  Part of the shock is the fact that there are still days when it feels so raw, as if it just happened.  Other days I struggle to recall something about her I thought I’d never forget.  And when I envision her, she’s still 33, while I’m now near 60.  Grief is a complex experience, but one we all come to share at some point in our lives.  No two losses are quite the same, but the vulnerability and depth of the emotions offer a familiar connection when one mourner encounters another.  So in the spirit of connecting with others who are hurting, I’ve been reflecting  on a few of the things I’ve learned that help.  Thank you for letting me share my process with you. 

Although your loved one is never coming back, and the permanence of this is so hard to accept, grief itself changes over time.  I really noticed that this year in the type of things I think about and the way that I feel.  In my earlier grief, I literally missed her presence.  Every gathering or encounter felt so horribly incomplete. I would think of things to tell her and then recall that she wasn’t just a phone call away.  While her absence is still a presence, my family is now more defined by the future than the past, my children and nephews, and soon their partners and maybe children.  The pain of missing her has now shifted into the pain of what never would be; she never got to marry, never had children, would she still make funny sounds to illustrate her stories and would she have been a good aunt to my daughters?  My pain is now in the loss of all the possibilities of what could have been for her that we never got the chance to experience together. I’m left with so many questions of how she would feel about something or what she would say, what would she be doing, and what she would think about me and what I’m doing (although I know for sure she’d be ok with me spoiling my kitties).

Grief changes you.  Once you cross the barrier of having profound loss, you’re never the same.  You acquire a depth of awareness that no other experience can reveal.  While it was nice to be ignorant, there is value in the journey of grieving.  Grief has a way of clarifying what’s important.  You realize that what you miss about your dear one is not the cleanliness of their house, but the way they made you feel at home.  Or that weighing 10 pounds less didn’t really matter compared to the weight of the love they shared with you and the laughter that lifted you up when they comforted you.  Loss makes us all too aware of how precious our time is and the importance of spending it with wisdom and purpose.  Grief has a way of humbling us in our powerlessness and in how lucky we are for each day that goes as expected.  

Grief makes us more compassionate.  When you’ve been knocked to your knees, you appreciate what it takes to get yourself up and how important it is to be lent a helping hand.  When you know how grief steals your rational mind and robs you of motivation, you gain an understanding of what patience really is and what support truly looks like.  You accept people for where they are and let go of the judgment in expectations of how to “move on” or react in the “right way.”  Grief brings a profound understanding of how damn hard it is to love and to let go.  Grief forces you to be engulfed by excruciating pain and survive.  It also  gives you the courage and capacity to sit deeply with others in theirs.  Grief creates community, it equalizes us in our humanity.

Grief leaves a big hole.  No, really.  You can feel it so vividly, I’m amazed it doesn’t show up on an MRI.  I can sense it within me, like a familiar ache, right below my breast bone and above my waist.  While I tune it out sometimes, it’s always there.  In some ways it’s a familiar friend, reminding me I still love my sister and she is not forgotten.

Last March I got a tattoo.  (Thank you Alana for sitting with me and holding my hand.)  I decided to do it when I came across what felt like the perfect one.  It was the Hebrew word עימי which I think looks lovely, but its meaning felt so right.  It translates to “with me.”  It’s on my forearm and to be honest, I’m so pleased and surprised by how much it helps.  Somehow the physical manifestation of my grief is comforting.  It’s so tangible and permanent.  It represents the hole that’s on the inside being visible on the outside.  It’s a powerful symbol to me that I am living with my grief, through good times and bad, ups and downs, everpresent.

Another thing that has really helped is having a bench designated in her honor.  It’s in our local park and it has a plaque sharing her name and bearing witness to her existence.  It comforts me to sit with her and have a good chat.  We picked a nice spot in the sun with a pretty view of the lake.  It gives me a place to go and an activity when I need something to do with my grief.  I leave flowers there on her birthday and gently stroke it when I need a touch.  The bench literally grounds me when my grief is free floating.

One of the most important gifts I received when I sought support is the permission and understanding that there is no right or wrong way to grieve.  There are no rules to follow or steps toward a “cure.”  You also learn that grief is not a disease, it’s a state of being that is normal and healthy.  Often what we experience as abnormal is other people’s discomfort with our grief.  (I can’t tell you the number of parents who have lost children who share similar tales of people seeing them in the grocery store or schoolyard and literally turn the other way.)  I ask for their forgiveness because they just don’t know.  It is us, the grieving, who walk towards one another with the outstretched arms and the broke-open heart. 

I was in my 20’s when my sister died.  I have now lived with her memory longer than I lived with her.  But she still feels very alive to me.  Her death was not the end of our relationship.  And while I think I can always get the last word when I talk with her or share a story about her since her passing, who knows?  The rainbow I saw on her anniversary date sure did feel like a bit of a wink in my direction.