Last time, I told you why I built the Loosen Your Money Knot program. This one is about one of the ways the knot shows up.
Some of us handle money by tightening up.
It’s all about feeling stable and in control. Underneath that stable feeling is a belief that if you aren’t in control, everything will go wrong.
So you closely watch the money. You track everything. You know where every penny is. You balance every account, and you check them often. Because seeing that it went exactly where you wanted it to go is a relief. You think hard about every decision. You prepare for the worst case, and then you prepare some more.
Spending tends to go one of two ways.
The first way: you don’t want to spend. Watching your savings go up and your debt go down feels so good that you build your life around it. You take advantage of every free offer and discount that you can find.
The second way: you have to spend, because it takes money to live. But deciding to spend can feel almost painful. It can take a lot out of you. It’s not really that you don’t want to spend your money. It’s that spending feels less controlled than not spending.
I know this one from the inside. When we consolidated our debt, I over-controlled and over-managed everything I could. Watching every penny became a comfort because I had answers and information about it. It was my way of proving I was in control. That I wasn’t a mess. That I wasn’t a failure with money.
If this is you, at some point you were the one who had to notice, to figure things out. You were the one who had to know where everything was.
It’s probably inconceivable to you that someone could spend money and not notice. You can’t even imagine it. That makes sense. Knowing where every penny goes feels good, because it means you’re in control.
Where that comes from is different for every woman. It depends on her money stories.
Loosen Your Money Knot starts October 20. The bonus session, Money Feels Different, closes at noon Central, October 19. You can see what’s inside and join here.
Find your happy. Love what you do. Make a difference.
Linda