I’m trying to develop a new relationship around money.
I didn’t really know it then but the psychological impact of living in a 3rd world country at the age of 19 really altered my sense of the dollar. In fact, I was angry at it.
When I came back to the States upon this brief period in my life, I was confused. In the same month I went from physically handing out one egg per child for their meal to scrubbing crusted yolk off of my college apartment siding, donating $5 for a family’s monthly living to a $5 all you can drink wristband, and the most shocking, distributing care packages to people living in a landfill behind the walled off resort town to purchasing single use coffee cups.
What was happening and how is this fair?
There was no transition between the two phases of my life. I was 19, came back and was suddenly a junior in college. I changed my major back to science/education and was determined to complete my degree and leave this place of living where (in my shaded lens) we were all way too entitled/selfish/closed off.
Hello Peace Corps! Funny thing about life; when you think you have a plan, you are slapped across the face with something else.
I fell in love and we were pretty inseparable from that point on. He had graduated already and would find every reason to hop on his motorcycle to make the 3 hour drive back because of x or y or z. I did have a knack for putting holes in walls and he, a born handyman, was the only person that could fix it.
We had a life together and were building our assets quickly; both extremely hardworking and on our way to being out of college debt before our 30s! We purchased a foreclosure home and followed through with our vision to sell it after putting in time grouting tile over beach sunsets over our teacher holidays.
Literally what more could you ask for? Yet… this thing… so deep inside continued to haunt me. I have it so good; this doesn’t seem fair.
I didn’t know how to communicate the way I felt or the resentment that was building inside. I felt alone and mad; but it was hardly rational.
I could not erase the look in the eyes of a man days away from his death covered in HIV rash, nor the crooked smiles of women lying in hospital beds with only half a pint of blood for donation in the warm fridge. I could not undo the impressions of the hand holds and hugs from barefooted kids squealing with joy to see me or the lingering scents of the sauce-stained kitchens where my dish service was welcomed!
For years, it is like I have been trying to unsee, unfeel, unhear; but to deny these parts of me I continue to remain unreal.
Throughout the last ten years a snowball of anger has been growing inside of me. My self-made snow-dozer has been crushing many parts of the life I had/have.
I have been confused. Anytime I start to feel successful I find myself removing the tiny pebble that stops the snow-dozer and I lay myself right in front of it. “I don’t deserve this, the child with the bloated belly due to starvation should be here. NOT ME. I had shelter, food and an education. Remove me and give my resources to them.”
I’m trying to develop a new relationship around money.
“Staying broke because you fear it’s gross to be rich or that you don’t deserve money or that you getting rich somehow prohibits someone else from getting rich too is all rooted in lack. Lack is the state of being you’re in when you believe you’re in need of, when you believe that what you desire doesn’t exist, when your outlook on life is a glass with a hole in the bottom…”
“A lack mindset believes that there’s not enough to go around, that you’re not good enough or worthy enough to flourish, that the money you spend may never make its way back to you, etc.”
“It is also based in fear - fear of not being secure, unlovable, trying to fill a bottomless hole in your heart.”
“Greed comes from the same lack mindset as poverty.”
“You cannot give what you do not have, so if you want to help others you have to take care of yourself first.”
Credit: “You are a badass at making Money” -Jen Sincero
I’m trying to develop a new relationship around money….and myself.
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