Money Talks

I recently checked in at Danielle LaPorte's blog and found many gems in her two part series on money. The first one pertains to personal money practices, the second about business. I felt really inspired especially when reading about the personal money practices. Many things Danielle shares I already do. Yet many more, I do not.

Reading the personal money practices posting, I thought, yeah...that's great! Especially on the introductory statement encouraging us to start talking about money with friends, and how making money transparent gives us power. Totally makes sense. Then I started thinking, is this something I can blog about? In theory and heart, my answer was yes! In practice I started to shrivel up. I went to write about it last night and the creative steam was nowhere to be found. No surprise since her whole initial point is that we've kept money in a mystical space, charged with emotion...which it doesn't deserve. In heeding Danielle's encouragement, I am pressing forward with my initial thought to talk about money, publicly.

The emotionality of money isn't hard to deny. Some have little or none, others have enough, and even few others have a whole lot. This creates a totally different experience in life for people in their respective spots in the money continuum. The feeling of unfairness can't help but well up inside when you hear of someone (or know someone) who appears to have more than you, presumably by way of having more money to spend. The feeling of unfairness goes into even deeper waters, into the realm of humanity when you assess the situation of basic survival needs such as access to shelter, healthy food, and health care. I can't help but feel that if our society as a whole heeded the recommendation to be open about and demystify money, we would not have such problems of basic survival in our society. One could argue that continuing to cover up our collective money topic only gives money power in a way that prevents the have-nots from bettering their lot. This is because those with the money wind up having more power, even though it's really just power we've unnecessarily given to the have/have-not money situation. When I look at it that way...our reasons for keeping our money business private seem petty.

In evaluating my thoughts on money recently, I've learned that I most definitely do not always practice healthy money habits. Though I talk to close friends about money, I don't always get into the deep points, the points that can make the difference. There's still that little hold-out most of the time where you don't want to look like a failure, so the real fears aren't allowed to surface and heal. I also tend to want to spend as soon as I get it, and sometimes follow through on that tendency. The worst thing I do about money is when I feel insecure or like money is scarce, I tense up, shut down, and don't do anything productive about the situation. In my scarcity moments, the only thing somewhat helpful is that I will spend less. But inside of that is a level of stingy. I'm not a stingy person by nature, so when this happens, I wind up feeling a decent level of misery about my finances, and I don't appreciate all the positive effects and practices in relating to money that are available in my life. Danielle's recommendation to focus on priorities instead of limitations, is actually a great way to frame our spending choices in a very empowered way.

The good? I'm a strong believer in not feeling bad for convenience costs, paying for services I don't want do do or don't know how to do, and buying things from people I know even if it is more expensive than getting a "deal" elsewhere. I do pay close attention to money, as Danielle recommends, but not always in the most productive ways. For everything in life, there's always a lot to gain by expanding my understanding through a little discomfort and pulling through that discomfort with a willingness to grow (think of the growth as the proverbial "light at the end of the tunnel"). There's no exception to this truth when it comes to my relationship to money and having continued success in this facet of life.

What are your money habits? Are they productive or keeping you from peace and success?