Before I even open my mouth (or move my fingers?) I’m going to preface this one by saying:

I know finances are a sensitive topic, bear with me 🫠
I know everyone has different views + financial situations 👀
I know my unique experience does not apply to everyone 🙅‍♀️

Ok phew now that that’s out of the way - today while I was reviewing my finances + systems as a whole, I realized how much growth has occurred in the last 2 years specifically. It took me about .5 seconds to make the connection between the improvement in my mental health and the improvement in my financial situation. It is of my belief that the two are HIGHLY correlated (as is everything in your life, it’s all one big circle) and that the sooner you start making changes in one area, the sooner you’ll see improvements across the board. Today we will focus on my takeaways regarding anxiety and its relation to finances, specifically.

When I was highly anxious and constantly in fight or flight mode, I did not have the mental or physical capacity to worry about anything other than simply getting through the day. Advice related to anything other than anxiety went in one ear and out the other and my game plan was to just wing everything. That was working..until it wasnt. Once my anxiety really revved up, things started to go downhill fast in EVERY area, but very clearly when it came to my money (or lack thereof 😅)

This led to:

low self-worth
low paying jobs
an inability to stand up for myself or ask for raises/negotiate
an absence of any sort of structure related to my finances (I’m talking zero game plan here)
dried up savings account, sad
no money to put towards retirement + future house fund + savings, in general, yikes
living paycheck to paycheck
constantly being stuck in survival mode and last but not least……
more anxiety - yay!

I’ll fast forward thru the period where I was really in the trenches and skip to the part where I began to take baby steps in both areas. It’s hard to say which one start improving first (again, it’s all related) but I can say without a shadow of a doubt that these 2 play off of each other in very obvious (and sometimes VERY sneaky) ways. Once I began to get my anxiety under control, I noticed some immediate shifts in how I was showing up professionally and personally.

Some of the big ones included:

Increased confidence in my ability to show up and be seen (no more hiding + trying to blend into the background)
Increased self-worth (and ability to say ‘no’ to jobs that were not serving me and YES to ones that would’ve seemed too intimidating before)
More money 💰💰💰
More energy to dedicate towards work that was fulfilling to me
Clarity on where my money was going (what was working and what wasnt working)
More time to spend creating systems that worked FOR me!
Less time spent worrying about money/checking my balances/moving money around to pay bills and most importantly….
LESS ANXIETY - actually yay!

When you lay it all out, it really becomes clear as day.

Now, if you are finding yourself falling into camp one, please, before you do anything else, first pause and show yourself some compassion. From a logical/genetic standpoint, it makes perfect sense that when you are clouded by fear, everything else falls to the wayside. Nothing will be higher priority than survival, it’s literally coded in our DNA. I get why and how you ended up where you are because I was there..and I mean REALLY there. This post isn’t meant to shame or induce more panic - it’s purely meant to bring some awareness to how great of an affect anxiety (and mental health in general) has on areas of our life that we may not even realize. It’s also meant to serve as a source of inspiration and an added incentive to start taking the necessary steps to getting things in check.

The ripple effect of micro actions (whether you start with your finances or with your mental health if you’re too deep in to look at anything else) is truly incredible. Once you start to notice small shifts in the right direction, you’ll not only be motivated to keep progressing, but often times the progress continues to happen on its own. It’s like the universe is picking up on what you’re putting down and rewarding you for stepping outside of your comfort zone and trying something new. It’s liberating, inspiring, exhilarating and honestly…. life-changing.

As I always say, my hope is that these posts eventually reach the right people and serve as a beacon of hope that things can and WILL get better. Regardless of how long you’ve been in survival mode or how much of an uphill battle you have ahead of you, start small. Start today. Start SOMETHING. The sooner you do, the sooner you’ll be looking back on your past life and truly enjoying your present one - which is kind of the whole point.

For my readers, here’s are a few great books related to money + abundance to kick-start the process:

Youve got this 💘