"Being out of control with my money makes me feel as if I am not enough...the implications that I am worthless because I cannot get out of debt."
I often receive e-mails from people from around the world telling me of their financial struggles.
With their permission, I am going to share some of their e-mails with you as a learning tool.
“I make a lot of money, by some people’s standard, but I live paycheck to paycheck and feel as if I live on the edge of financial ruin.
My husband and I argue about money and it always comes down to control and touches off feelings of shame for me, feelings of inadequacies for him. But, we never use those words.
We always end in a stalemate, never finding an answer that both of us can live with, other than feeling for me, to make more money so we will argue less.
I believe if I can figure out how to work smarter...or if I was smarter to begin with, this would all go away.
I am exhausted from working so hard all the time but I cannot stop. Who ever invented REDBULL, I will marry.”
This last e-mail I received earlier this year from a gal in the UK and the telltale answer of what is really going on with her is:
“…I cannot stop.” Her drive to achieve ‘more’ is the road to infinity: endless. She will never ‘get there.’
And, it’s not about the money. Earning more money, winning the lottery, or marrying a rich guy will not solve what she believes is her problem.
The problem is about both of their shame, and both of their profound under current of feeling that they are each not enough, ever. Those two feelings combined with their own sense of inadequacy, is the boulder in the doorway to peace in their marriage.
Very early in a child’s life, the drive for perfection starts by the time they are five years-old, and picks up speed as their world expands.
What we witness as our children grow, is sometimes tossed off as amusing, entertaining and even charming, but sometimes it is a sign of something brewing deep down in their psyche.
Kids don’t come out the womb perfectionists. It’s their environment that shapes that energy. It’s their assumptions about love and acceptance and how to bring that closer to them, that then creates their need to be "more".
Doing ‘more’ is the opposite of ‘enough,’ but if we keep running after perfection with the secret hope that someday we will get it ‘right,’ we are removing ourselves from being present, feeling whole and grounded.
In others words, fantasy versus reality.
Challenging the mis-conception that we are not enough just as we are, without turning somersaults on the high wire, in the rain, wearing a top hat and blowing bubbles, takes work.
Put on your overalls, roll up your sleeves, tie your hair back and book a 30 minute FREE time with me (schedule here) so I can show you how to start on your journey, how to use the correct tools and how to stop the voices in your head constantly telling you that you are not enough.