How to stay calm, clear, focused and organized
According to the American Psychological Association, 80% of Americans suffer from ‘money anxiety.’ It’s linked to depression, decreased immunity, and is a leading cause of divorce. Tax time, in particular, finds us engaging in poor lifestyle choices – we eat and drink to excess, and are less apt to care for our health than at other times of the year.
As it looms ever closer, for many of us the momentum builds into a ‘fight, flight or freeze’ response as we dig into drawers, looking for each and every receipt we can find.
In the book ‘The Money Anxiety Cure: A Path To Financial Wellbeing’ I emphasize three things we need practice as we skillfully navigate our financial journey. How we maintain self-care during stressful times is an art, and the ultimate spiritual practice, which requires concentration, compassion and mindful attentiveness around not just what is going on inside of us, but also around us. Tax season is particularly challenging because if we can’t stay calm and relaxed, we only cloud our reasoning abilities and add more suffering on top of an already challenging situation.
So how do we face our fears and get through April 15?
- Maintain a positive mindset. Replace old stories that don’t support you by replacing them with a new, positive thought or story. Keep in mind that while this may not be our favorite part of the journey, it is just another necessary opportunity to practice being aware, attentive and present with your financial experience. Stay present and focused as you tackle you taxes. Keep coming back to the present moment. Just like in a meditation retreat.Don’t beat yourself up if you review your documents and feel you didn’t handle your finances well. What’s done is done. But as you realize what you could have done better in 2014, implement new practices in 2015. We are all on the road to improvement. Spending time in regret and frustration will not support you.
- Get organized and comfortable with the task. Make tax preparation a mindfulness practice. Prepare your workspace. If you haven’t been organizing your receipts in a file all year, do this one task now. Compiling your documents is critical, so do it impeccably. It will make you feel your task is more manageable and you are in control. If compiling is an overwhelming task, requiring hours of research and organizing, consider spending only two hours at a time on your taxes, then give yourself a reward. A fun movie, perhaps, or a hike with friends or your dog, or a drive in the country to clear your head. Also consider giving yourself an earlier deadline. By creating the illusion that you must be complete with your taxes by April 5, for example, you are relieving yourself of the real anxiety of missing the deadline. If you’re using a C.P.A., have your portion of the work prepared before your C.P.A. needs it. The sooner you get it done, the less time you spend with the thought of taxes occupying your mind.
- Tune Into Your Physical GPS. Is your breathing shallow, your heart racing, your shoulders up around your ears? When you notice this, get up, walk outside and take a deep breath. Then another. When you are ready, return to your desk (not the refrigerator) with a body that is refreshed. Maybe you need to take a ‘gratitude break’ to consider all that is good in your life, or take a 5-minute meditation to find your center and quiet your mind. How does the anxiety show up in your body, what is it telling you, and how do you react to the messages it’s giving you? Often it is telling us to slow down, pause, breath, get help, or maybe do a gratitude practice. A good way to honor your body’s intelligence is to keep coming back to the breath, noticing your back against the chair, or feet on the ground. Experts agree that improving your concentration begins with a healthy lifestyle, so avoid sudden high intakes of sugar (including alcohol) as it causes the blood sugar level to rise and then drop sharply, which can cause drowsiness. Get regular exercise. Drink plenty of water. Maintain regular bedtimes. If less sleep is required to get the work done, consider going to bed at your regular time but getting up earlier instead.
- Get Help. I get the best support I can afford. This means a good accountant, good attorney, an estate and financial planner, assistant etc. I find having a great team makes it more likely that I will stay on course in achieving my financial goals.
- Find comfort in being uncomfortable. We live in a culture that is all about avoiding discomfort. This weakens us and make us fearful of change. Seek the power of embracing discomfort. Accept where you are at without adding more stress on top of what’s going on. So if there is discomfort, be with it with spacious awareness.
- Let go. After you give it your all, let it be. So much of life is just doing our best, and having faith that there are other forces – our community, our faith, our family or friends – to provide support and protect us on our financial journey.
Money is an agent of change and transformation, and it’s not to blame for your stress. You have to decide on the kind of relationship you want to have with it. We must be wise and skillful if we want to create material wealth.
Additional Resources:
http://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/stress/2014/stress-report.pdf
http://www.moneytalksnews.com/financial-stress-may-costing-you-your-health/