9 Ways To Combat Financial Anxiety During Covid-19
An IIT Bombay alumnus, Kuhoo has worked with IntraEdge and Purple Interactive, and has even authored a poetry compilation titled 'Zindagi Ke Martbaan Se', prior to incepting The K Junction in 2016.As the COVID-19 pandemic has become a known panorama, in response to its catapulted changing dynamics, the businesses and the employment sectors are grappling with tremendous apprehensions about their future due to sluggish economic growth in a great lockdown which conjures-up a vision of the worst fallout in a manner resembling water, cascading down the stairs.
Thus, like millions of other people, you might find yourself on the sudden verge of lay-off or pay cut while working from home. Unlike other situations, the in-come level turmoil may be unpredictable and can be a devastating blow for many. Hence, such a catastrophe can be a doom and has a great potential to inflame a sharp and manipulative `psychosocial syndrome' i.e. financial-anxiety is a `money anxiety disorder' which cultivates a feeling of stress, worry or concern about your finances, whereby individuals have an uneasy and unhealthy attitude towards engaging with and administering their personal finance in an effective way.
Financial anxiety is a monetary monster that haunts many by stoking worry for income level distributed across people. It can be highly debilitating and can cause significant distress in one's life. For instance, many of you might be waking-up in the middle of the night, and while you try to get back to sleep, your mind wanders-off to the blurry thoughts about having no funds to thrive. And before you know it, you're in a full blown 5am panic during which you lose sleep and accomplish very little. What begins as a passing thought to remember to pay the bills can suddenly leave you horrifically anxious and worried about how you'd pay those bills if you lost your job, how to climb out of debt, or how to make your budget stretch for the month. If this is regular, it can negatively impact mental and physical health and career. Although financial anxiety is common, it's not insurmountable - and recognizing what triggers your anxiety can help you cope with it.
Acknowledge the Signs
• Financial anxiety shares many of the diagnostic criteria of generalized anxiety disorder, like excessive worry, irritability and difficulty concentrating.
• Feeling heavily depressed or anxious about finances.
• An obsession with being frugal.
• Discomfort with accumulating wealth.
• Physical body reactions like intense sweating, headaches, shoulder aches or cold palms.
• Inability to change financial behaviors, loss of control in one's thoughts & feelings or loss of hope and disconnectedness.
• Insomnia or over sleeping.
• Loss of appetite or binge eating
If the question `how to accumulate money' leaves you in cold palms and with a strange feeling then there may be a deeper reason behind the stress. However, the good news is that you can absolutely put your negative thoughts and abrupt actions in full control by taking a step back from your worst fears and making sure you control your cash and not the other way around.
Ways to Manage your Financial Anxiety
Explore your Body & Mind: If you have a sudden physical reaction like cold or sweaty palms and racing heart-beats due to unpleasant emotions while conversing about money,
acknowledge it immediately. Start paying attention to your negative emotions and how your body is reacting while discussing money. How does your mind react when you make any transaction or check account balance? Try igniting more awareness of what kind of emotions and patterns are situated inside your body and mind; for example, sweating heavily due to intense fear. Consider what is in the conversation that is triggering these negative feelings. Is it how you communicate with yourself while conceptualizing finance? How do you communicate with your partner? Or are you feeling guilty or ashamed of being underpaid or pay cut?
A proper body and mental health check-in and evaluating behaviour teaches us to work with our emotions instead of getting overwhelmed and how to step aside these unwanted feelings and be able to witness more clarity of what's going on so that we're not so consumed with its peripheral symptoms.
Capture the Essence of Positive Thinking: Positive thinking helps with stress management and can even improve your mental health. An individual must embark upon focusing on the good aspects of the finances in-stead of undergoing negative feelings. Positive thinking doesn't mean that you keep your mind in the sand and ignore life's less pleasant situations. Positive thinking just means that you approach unpleasantness in a more positive and productive way. You think the best is going to happen, not the worst. Positive thinking won't magically pay your bills or stretch your budget, but it can help capture the essence of stillness and calm over your fears. It will help you recognize and appreciate your financial strengths, which could lead to solutions to some of your problems.
Square breathing or Box Breathing to Ease the Stress & Anxiousness: Deep breathing multiple times a day always helps to become centered in oneself when the outside is going haywire because of financial ups & downs. Square breathing also helps to relieve stress. It is a type of breath work that can shift your energy, connect you more deeply with your body, calm your nervous system, and decrease stress in your body. It can also heighten the performance and concentration, while also being a powerful stress reliever.
Reframe the Limiting Belief Systems: Money is a form of energy. And our idea about money usually comes from our subconscious mind and consciousness of scarcity. Deep down, we might have belief systems about money that are in most probability rooted in our childhood. We might have seen how money was treated by our primary caregivers when we were small.
Even if one loses a job, he/she can handle the situation differently depending upon the belief system about money. If that person has been carrying limiting beliefs about money, then financial anxiety is suspected to hit him harder. One can take help of a professional therapist or counsellor to reframe the subconscious mind, and hence the belief system. There are many ways to do that - meditation, affirmations, mirror work, NLP, hypnosis and many more.
Use the Zibu Symbol of Abundance: Use the Zibu Symbol of Abundance in front of your work desk to invite abundance energies into your life. You can also use the Zibu symbol of Release to remove unwanted negative energy from your mind, body and environment. You can either air-draw the symbols on your body, room, books, desk or you can also draw the symbols on a piece of paper with a pen and stick them on the wall or book or your work stuff. You can draw the symbols on your body with a pen as well.
Healing Crystals: Take help of healing crystals that are good for manifesting abundance consciousness like pyrite, citrine, green aventurine, labradorite and others. With intention, place them in the wealth corner (south-east) of your house or work place for manifesting abundance.
Banish the Financial Guilt & Shame: The feeling of guilt and shame or embarrassment over your mounting pile of debt or loss of job, pay cut or money mismanagement can lead to an aura of shame, whether it's a lack of money, incorrect budgeting or simply being ignorant about proper budgeting practice. `Practice empathy' to forgive yourself and let go of the feelings of guilt and shame. It is mandatory to develop the tendency of empathizing with yourself to nurture your inner child and make yourself productive during such looming situations. This will ultimately serve in erasing any negative feelings inside of you.
Visualize - I am a Money Magnet: Work upon your fears related to money. Write them down in detail. Then meditate upon those fears and visualize them melting away. Visualize yourself surrounded by money and abundant atmosphere and be happy in that state for some time. Repeat to yourself multiple times every day I am a money magnet.
Japanese Technique Arigato: Practice the Japanese technique Arigato, which essentially tells to thank the money whenever it is going from you to someone or coming to you from someone. Gratitude is one of the highest energies one can have around.
Positive thinking won't magically pay your bills or stretch your budget, but it can help capture the essence of stillness and calm over your fears
A proper body and mental health check-in and evaluating behaviour teaches us to work with our emotions instead of getting overwhelmed and how to step aside these unwanted feelings and be able to witness more clarity of what's going on so that we're not so consumed with its peripheral symptoms.
Capture the Essence of Positive Thinking: Positive thinking helps with stress management and can even improve your mental health. An individual must embark upon focusing on the good aspects of the finances in-stead of undergoing negative feelings. Positive thinking doesn't mean that you keep your mind in the sand and ignore life's less pleasant situations. Positive thinking just means that you approach unpleasantness in a more positive and productive way. You think the best is going to happen, not the worst. Positive thinking won't magically pay your bills or stretch your budget, but it can help capture the essence of stillness and calm over your fears. It will help you recognize and appreciate your financial strengths, which could lead to solutions to some of your problems.
Square breathing or Box Breathing to Ease the Stress & Anxiousness: Deep breathing multiple times a day always helps to become centered in oneself when the outside is going haywire because of financial ups & downs. Square breathing also helps to relieve stress. It is a type of breath work that can shift your energy, connect you more deeply with your body, calm your nervous system, and decrease stress in your body. It can also heighten the performance and concentration, while also being a powerful stress reliever.
Reframe the Limiting Belief Systems: Money is a form of energy. And our idea about money usually comes from our subconscious mind and consciousness of scarcity. Deep down, we might have belief systems about money that are in most probability rooted in our childhood. We might have seen how money was treated by our primary caregivers when we were small.
Even if one loses a job, he/she can handle the situation differently depending upon the belief system about money. If that person has been carrying limiting beliefs about money, then financial anxiety is suspected to hit him harder. One can take help of a professional therapist or counsellor to reframe the subconscious mind, and hence the belief system. There are many ways to do that - meditation, affirmations, mirror work, NLP, hypnosis and many more.
Use the Zibu Symbol of Abundance: Use the Zibu Symbol of Abundance in front of your work desk to invite abundance energies into your life. You can also use the Zibu symbol of Release to remove unwanted negative energy from your mind, body and environment. You can either air-draw the symbols on your body, room, books, desk or you can also draw the symbols on a piece of paper with a pen and stick them on the wall or book or your work stuff. You can draw the symbols on your body with a pen as well.
Healing Crystals: Take help of healing crystals that are good for manifesting abundance consciousness like pyrite, citrine, green aventurine, labradorite and others. With intention, place them in the wealth corner (south-east) of your house or work place for manifesting abundance.
Banish the Financial Guilt & Shame: The feeling of guilt and shame or embarrassment over your mounting pile of debt or loss of job, pay cut or money mismanagement can lead to an aura of shame, whether it's a lack of money, incorrect budgeting or simply being ignorant about proper budgeting practice. `Practice empathy' to forgive yourself and let go of the feelings of guilt and shame. It is mandatory to develop the tendency of empathizing with yourself to nurture your inner child and make yourself productive during such looming situations. This will ultimately serve in erasing any negative feelings inside of you.
Visualize - I am a Money Magnet: Work upon your fears related to money. Write them down in detail. Then meditate upon those fears and visualize them melting away. Visualize yourself surrounded by money and abundant atmosphere and be happy in that state for some time. Repeat to yourself multiple times every day I am a money magnet.
Japanese Technique Arigato: Practice the Japanese technique Arigato, which essentially tells to thank the money whenever it is going from you to someone or coming to you from someone. Gratitude is one of the highest energies one can have around.
