Let Go of Your Financial Stress

by Stephanie Brail

With uncertain economic times, and increasing pressure upon the middle class, it can be difficult not to worry about finances. Many helping professionals will offer outside solutions ranging from reducing your debt to increasing your wealth. Of course, it is important to learn how to manage your money effectively. But what is the number one sure-fire way to reduce your financial stress?

This may sound surprising, but it is you and your own attitude.

The reality is, life is going to be filled with stress. A great deal of this stress will invariably involve finances no matter what your level of income. A poor person worries about how to put food on the table. The rich person frets over a major investment that has tanked. The common denominator here is that stress exists across all income levels.

What does differ, however, is that the poorer person often looks longingly at the rich person, thinking that having wealth will solve all of life's problems. "If only I had money," we think, "then I would be happy."

One only needs to look at the ruined lives of certain celebrities to see that money does not buy happiness whatsoever. Britney Spears spends over $100,000 per month on entertainment alone, but what good has that done her? (It could be argued that it has hurt more than helped her.)

Being a person with chronic fatigue syndrome who has struggled to make ends meet and generated severe debts as a result, I know all too well what it is like to struggle. As someone without a day job (and I could not take on a day job because it made me sick and I had to go on disability as a young adult), my finances were ever fluctuating. The omnipresent question: Where will my rent come from?

I noticed though, that no matter how much I was stressing, rent would always magically appear from somewhere. My bills would end up getting paid, food was on the table, and I would even be able to enjoy myself in spite of it all.

Why not drop the stress and trust a little more? If rent appeared no matter how I was feeling, I might as well I drop the frustration around it. I did a little experiment and tried to stop worrying about my money or even trying to get it to come in.

Sure enough, rent magically appeared regardless of how much stressful energy I put into try to get it to appear. In fact, some months I would be going about my business and two days before the rent was due, someone would hand me a check for services that would be exactly what I needed.

I have always been OK and taken care of.

This exercise can be challenging - even now I have moments where I get stressed out. But then I remind myself that stressing never made the money come in any faster. So then I just throw my hands up and let it go. The minute I do that, it seems that more money comes in or a solution appears. (The reality is, the money or the solution was there all along but I was looking at the glass half-full.)

Now, I do realize that such a simplistic answer is no consolation to the person who is facing foreclosure on a house. Consider, however, the case of my friend, who did have the worst happen to him. He was late on mortgage payments and so stressed about it that he refused to open his mail. He found out his house had been auctioned off when one day he came home and he had a note from the sheriff to be out in two weeks.

That was 2003 and now, some five years later, he owns a much bigger house, with a swimming pool, and has a beautiful fiancee to boot. It was that defining moment in his life that spurred him to take action, change his career, and change his life completely.

Sometimes the worst things that happen to you are the best things to happen to you.

So here are a few tips on letting go of your financial stress:

1. Trust that you will be OK.
Trust God, your higher power, or the goodness of people. Take a few deep breaths when you get that big bill. You will be in a much better position to handle a financial crisis if you are level-headed and detached as opposed to freaking out about it.

2. Let go of needing your financial situation to look a certain way.
We often base our sense of self-worth on outward things like financial success. For many, having a nice home says "we've arrived." Consider that your home says nothing about your inherent worth whatsoever. It's just a place you live in.

3. Find ways to nurture yourself that don't involve spending a lot of money.
For many this is church or a spiritual practice. It could be getting out to nature. It could be spending time with your kids.

You are more than your money. It is a shame that we had to come up with the term "net worth" to describe someone's balance sheet. Consider not your "net worth" but your "soul worth." That is your true worth. Your soul worth never goes down, and it always has a positive balance. And it's something you can always count on.