Modify your Spending

The economy is bad and you still want to spend. It seems too difficult to control, but if you do not stop you will face grave financial consequences. Does this sound like you? Do you want to know why you are spending despite your budget crunch? Do you want to know how to stop this reckless spending? You will learn an easy technique by reading this information.

The following paragraphs highlight the unhealthy motivations for spending and offer suggestions for how to successfully modify this impulse.

Why we spend

There are two main reasons we spend money: 1) we need to purchase necessities and 2) we are inherently impulsive with behaviors that alter our mood. This article will focus on the latter because it is purely unhealthy.

Impulsive Spending

Impulsive spending typically occurs when we need to alter our mood. When we are stressed, we spend. When we are bored, we spend. When we are angry, we spend. Finally, when we are excited, we spend. Feelings and mood states motivate our every action, even spending. When any of the aforementioned mood states motivate spending the results will always be negative. Spending is like a drug that satisfies a craving to experience an altered mood state. It briefly alleviates stress, boredom, and anger, and increases excitement. However, the aftermath only increases these feelings.

How to modify impulsive spending

In order to modify impulsive spending we have to know what it does for us and what we are telling ourselves from the initial urge to the final purchase. Spending essentially makes us feel better. The act of acquiring something new is exciting, and this excitement momentarily distracts us from our negative feelings, such as anger, sadness, fear, and hopelessness. While it does not make logical sense that you might be spending more now when resources are limited, you can see the emotional reasons as your negative feelings likely have increased with the stress you are experiencing in this struggling economy.

You can use your feelings as cues to learn what you are telling yourself in the spending process. You might say to yourself, “I need that, “or “I deserve to have something nice,” when you are experiencing a negative emotion.  Once you know what you are telling yourself, you can change your internal dialogue. For instance, you might challenge these thoughts with thoughts like this: “I do not need that. I am feeling the urge to spend money because I feel angry or bored.” This will allow you to interrupt the urge to spend and give you control of the impulse.  You can repeat this exercise whenever you feel the urge to spend money on anything that is not a necessity. You will have plenty of opportunity to reward yourself and purchase luxuries when the economy improves.

When it comes to your health, there are things you can do to influence your luck in the healing process.  I have composed my top three methods for getting better faster and sometimes even changing a terminal situation.
1)    First, keep a good positive outlook.  I am sure you all have those friends who always seem to be sick.  If someone around them catches a cold, they catch a cold.  If someone around them has a sore back, they have a sore back.  They are constantly complaining about what ails them.  Much of this, I believe, exists because that is what they are attracting to themselves.

Seriously, if you keep on telling yourself that your back hurts, eventually your back will start to hurt.  It really is mind over matter.

It always amazed me as a child, and even as my kids were growing up, how few times we ever missed school the day of a field trip at school, or the school picnic, or a Friday before a long weekend.  Why was this?  Because we knew those were fun days or that if we were sick before the weekend we couldn’t play with our friends all weekend long.

In reality, our positive outlook on the day’s experience told our mind “do not let our body be sick today”.

When my family had come to the realization that my Mother could no longer live at home with my Dad (she had a mild stroke, which was caused by a tumor on her heart, and had started getting dementia), I remember hearing over and over in my head her telling me, “Please don’t ever put me in a nursing home.”  As I called around to the different Assisted Living facilities I was told over and over “we cannot provide that level of care, check with a nursing home”.  As I looked at my list of facilities and numbers, I told myself this one will be the one.  I dialed the number and the pleasant woman on the other end of the phone said, “Yes, we can definitely help you and your mother.”

As my family and I arrived at the facility, I found a penny (I believe finding pennies is good luck) on my way into the facility.  The woman who met with us was so incredibly positive, and told us how she began working there because her own mother spent her final years at the facility.  She explained that it was such a positive experience for her; she wanted to share with others.

I truly believe that the positive outlook of the facility and the people associated with it have helped not only my family’s outlook and abilities to help with my mother’s care, but by working together to decrease my mother’s medications, her mental capacity has dramatically improved.

2)     Laughter really is the best medicine.  Most people look for the negative side of health and that is what they focus on.  Maybe it is just my upbringing, maybe my family is demented but we always seem to find something funny about our hospital visits.  I can remember I got my tonsils out when I was 17 years old.  My older sister sent me flowers and when she ordered them she told the clerk “my younger sister is getting her tonsils out.”  Well the clerk must have just assumed I was 8 or 9 years old because she delivered me a giant sunflower with a smiley face on the flower with googlie eyes and a smile that changed from a full toothey grin to sticking its tongue out at you.  My sister asked who sent the childish flowers when she came to visit and we both laughed when I told her “you did”.  Even though it initially hurt to laugh, I went home within 24 hours from the hospital and was eating regular foods the next day.  I still told my mom it hurt for the next week though, just for the ice cream.
The gift of laughter, I feel helped me through my two pregnancies and my deliveries.  I remember several funny experiences during the Lamaze classes.  One time during the class the girls’ father and I were “visualizing a peaceful place” and working on our relaxation techniques.  I suddenly heard snoring next to me.  Dave had apparently found such a peaceful place he decided to take a nap there.  They also showed a lame video where the husband was massaging his wife’s back with a shower head.  He started by saying “She’s coming, she’s coming”, and for some reason started to sing “She’ll be coming around the Mountain” to his wife.  Dave and I both laughed about the singing being worse than labor itself.  On the day I did go into labor, I was in the midst of pushing and the nurse said, “She’s coming, she’s coming.”  Dave and I both looked at each other and immediately started to laugh, thinking about the “She’ll be coming around the Mountain” performance.  Needless to say, I am probably one of the few women who were laughing while delivering a 7 lb., 11 oz. baby girl.
I truly believe laughter can make all things in life less painful and helps in the healing process.
3)     Lastly, and to me most importantly, is how God can help improve your health.  Whoever your God is, there are times when you are sick and you have to put your faith in God and know that he will be your strength to get you through.  Practitioners in the field of medicine will tell you that they have seen or experienced unexplainable healing of sick patients.  A friend of my brother’s was going in to have an emergency ultrasound and possible delivery.  They had believed that she had miscarried in her third trimester and would be delivering a still born baby.  On her way to the hospital the friend prayed to God that if everything was okay to give her a sign.  Before going in, she said God show me one red rose as a sign that my baby is okay.  When she had arrived at the desk the receptionist said, “This was just delivered for you.”  She handed her a single red rose in a bud vase that was sent by her sister who lived out of state.  She delivered her baby and that baby is a full grown woman today.
I just heard a sermon today where the young minister told the story of his own male parishioner getting diagnosed with a tumor on his lung.  The surgery was scheduled for the following Monday but instead of staying in the hospital his parishioner wanted to go home and watch the minister’s sermon from there.  During the sermon the minister talked about having faith in God and allowing him to heal you.   The male parishioner went to the hospital on Monday, after praying to God all weekend, knowing he was going to be fine.  After the surgery the doctor came in to the patient’s room and shared that he could not explain why they only found a small blood clot where the tumor was originally found on the x-ray.  He said that he had looked at x-rays for a long time and divine intervention was the only explanation he had for a mass the size of what was on the x-ray turning out to be a blood clot.
So remember, next time you are feeling under the weather, just remember how much control you have in the healing process and how you can make your luck at getting better.

Make and Accept your own Luck

We often thank luck for good things that happen to us and blame luck for our misfortunes. Have you ever thought that luck might be the product of our own minds or the effects of predetermined events dictated by energetic, spiritual, or theistic forces? These are questions I have contemplated since I began to realize that what I have considered luck (good or bad) in my experiences might really be the result of my own unconscious beliefs, what I attract to myself through my thoughts, and (my) God blessing me with good graces or pointedly challenging me for reasons that make sense only after considerable introspection into how I am living when these challenges are bestowed upon me.
In the following paragraphs I will discuss the influence of the unconscious mind, energetic attraction, spiritual beliefs, and belief in a higher power on what typically is experienced as luck.

The Unconscious Forces Responsible for Luck

The power of the unconscious mind is a concept that is generally accepted in our society. We all do things that don’t make sense and for which there is no conscious explanation. For example, you likely have on occasion done things like forgotten something you needed for work, used words you did not mean to use, or referred to your spouse as your mother or father in conversation. These are some simple examples of how what is stored in the unconscious mind is expressed in ways that are beyond our control. Therapists work to help us understand our unconscious mind so that it does not need to be expressed in defeating ways and can be used to enhance our lives. So how does this relate to luck? Let me explain. If you are plagued by unconscious fear, doubt, or pessimism, you likely will have experiences that both illustrate these states of mind and allow the feelings to be expressed. In other words, you might experience bad luck. Conversely, if you are confident, hopeful, and optimistic, your experience will be contrary, and you might experience good luck. You see, our unconscious feelings direct us to act out in ways that will represent them. So if you have negative unconscious feelings you will seek experiences that can be considered to be the result of bad luck, whereas positive unconscious feelings will cause you to seek good experiences. Although we do not have direct access to our unconscious mind, we do have the ability to engage in some introspection (self-exploration) to explore what thoughts and feelings directed our actions that were experienced as luck when good or bad luck strikes.

Energetic Attraction

We are all comprised of energy. If you don’t believe it, just feel your pulse. Your pulse is confirmation that your heart is beating, and your heart is beating because it is charged with energy. In fact, energy is stored in every molecule in our bodies, and is expended in every action and reaction. This same energy connects us to the world. Some energy is negative, some is positive. If you emit negative energy, you will receive negative energy in return in the form of bad luck experiences. If you emit positive energy, you will attract good energy and good luck. It sounds simple and it is if you believe in the power of energetic attraction. If you do not believe, then you will not be able to benefit from this phenomenon. I have enjoyed the benefits of energetic attraction more in recent time by choosing to face every day with a positive attitude, no matter what challenges lie ahead or what negativity others around me may be giving off to the world. It takes practice, however, because we are all inclined to act in ways that are most comfortable to us, even if they are negative. Be sure to challenge yourself every day to generate positive energy through positive thoughts and actions to experience the benefits of energetic attraction.

Spiritual Beliefs

To be spiritual is to believe that there are forces beyond us that influence our lives. Are you spiritual? Do you believe events are predetermined or that forces align to affect outcomes? If so, then you might understand why sometimes you have good luck and sometimes it’s bad. Spiritual philosophy suggests that things happen for specific reasons, and we have little control in such instances. While this knowledge or belief in spirituality might not give you control of what type of luck you will have, it will help you understand that your experience, good or bad, was necessary to affect change in some related way—perhaps to help someone or align your life with forces that will help you in the future. Subscription to this spiritual philosophy will help you accept good luck experiences and tolerate bad luck experiences without further contemplation. You can apply this to your next bad luck experience to change any related negative energy you might emit as a result.

Belief in a Higher Power

Belief in a higher power takes spirituality to the next level. If you believe that God dictates every event in your life, then you will accept your good and bad luck as necessary predetermined experiences. God might bless you with positive experiences as reward for good deeds or because you believe in his or her strength and best interest for you. On the other hand, you will accept God’s challenges as messages that he or she wants you to pay attention to something important, or that good results will come from your personal challenge. You also might believe that these challenges are cues to restore your belief and confidence in God and ask for help and guidance if you are off track.

In the case of belief in a higher power, luck essentially does not exist, and everything happens for God’s reason. This state of mind eliminates the curiosity about luck, but might encourage “why me” questions to God when you are faced with challenges. You can use these as cues to examine your faith and make necessary adjustments through insight you gain from these experiences.

Are you communicating with your spouse? Communication is given much lip service, no pun intended, by relationship experts. While most couples understand that communication is important for a long lasting and healthy relationship, its definition eludes them. Conceptually, the need for effective communication in healthy relationships is clear. However, applying good communication skills is far more challenging. Why is this? For starters, in order to use effective communication, we have to know what it means. Is talking good communication? Is listening good communication? While these are important elements of effective communication, they are not solely effective. There are several levels of communication that need to be understood before success with it is possible. The following paragraphs highlight several main tenets of healthy communication including the three levels of understanding, content and process, and perception.

The three levels of understanding

Everyone wants to be understood. We are validated when we are understood. We feel important when we are understood. And most importantly, we feel wanted when we are understood. Like the term communication, understanding has a complex definition. Most of us believe we know its meaning, but in my experience as a relationship counselor, many couples cannot recall experiencing true understanding by in their relationship. As I have helped couples navigate through relationship problems stemming from poor communication, I have traced many of them back to a lack of understanding of each others’ needs and wants. From a basic awareness of what your spouse is asking to the most complex and dynamic meaning of his or her needs, understanding is of paramount importance in a healthy and communicative relationship. My work has opened my eyes to three levels of understanding that I believe if achieved, can mend the most damaged relationships and strengthen healthy relationships.

Level 1

Level 1 understanding is quite simple. If you hear your spouse and can reflect back to him or her what he or she says, you have achieved level 1 understanding. This means that you are listening with undivided, or minimally divided attention, and you are generally concerned with what your spouse is trying to tell you. Your ability to reflect back their words or ideas reflects your willingness to pay attention to their thoughts, wishes, ideas, or concerns. This creates the foundation for levels 2 and 3 understanding.

Level 2

This level of understanding is where most couples are deficient and, as a result, where many problems often arise. To achieve level 2 understanding, couples must have some capacity to have empathy for their spouse’s position, feelings, and experience. To be empathic toward your spouse you have to be able to truly have a sense of what he or she may be feeling or experiencing. This requires your reflection on their experience and putting yourself in their position to imagine what the feeling is like. At this level you should be able to discuss and process your spouse’s experience and offer feedback and support in a way that will deepen your connection and create an environment safe for open expression of all emotions. Expression of emotions in a safe environment will build confidence in your relationship and prepare you for level 3 understanding.

Level 3

The third level of understanding requires not only an empathic gesture toward your spouse, but also a true experience of their emotion. Reaching this level is extremely challenging but ultimately rewarding. To some contemporary relationship experts, feeling your spouse’s feelings may suggest that codependence exists in your relationship. The term codependence received much attention in the previous two decades but has gradually faded as pop psychology has taken a back seat to real psychological interventions. In brief, codependence suggest that when couples share the feelings of their spouses, they have no sense of self and only feel what and when their spouse feels. The goal of interventions with codependent couples was to create boundaries between their own feelings. While this is definitely important to maintain independence and avoid enmeshment, like most things in our society, it was taken too far and actually had counterintuitive effects on relationships. Couples became fixated on having their own feelings and distancing themselves from the feelings of their spouses. Yes, this created independence and self preservation, but also resulted in spouses alienating themselves from each other. To achieve level 3 understanding you have to embrace the feelings of your spouse and actually experience them. As a couple you are one, and as one you experience and work through the same feelings, no matter who owns them. Healthy couples can share feelings, be in tune to their spouse’s feelings, help process their spouse’s feelings, and maintain fluid boundaries to continue self-preservation in a way that does not alienate their spouse. Having no sense of what your spouse is feeling can be as equally damaging as taking on your spouse’s feelings as your own so your spouse does not have to own them. Those with level 3 understanding have the ability to take on their spouse’s feelings, work through them with their spouse, and discern who owns them in their efforts to provide support.

Content and Process

The content of what we are saying is rarely, if ever, as important as how we are saying it. The process of our communication, or how we say something, has great significance in our relationships. If you say hello to your spouse in an angry tone, the feeling it will elicit will be much different from what he or she may feel with a loving hello. This is a simple example of how entire conversations are often held between couples. As human beings we are as in tune to the feelings we get in a conversation or dialogue as we are to the content of the discussion. In personal relationships we are more in tune with the process and feelings of our conversations than the content of our interaction. If you pay attention to how you are saying what you want to say, you may find that your spouse is more receptive and understands you better.

Perception

The old saying goes “perception is reality.” There is truth to this in relationships. I have often counseled couples who argue about different topics in the same discussion. How is this possible? It’s easy-they have misperceived what their spouse has said and react to their perception. Their perception is loaded with feeling usually from both here and now experiences and experiences from the past. The feeling is expressed in the here and now argument. This creates a dynamic in which each participant reacts to real feelings from the past and present and protects him or herself with defensiveness and anger, which fuels the argument further. This pattern continues until one submits, the couple stonewalls each other, or they avoid the point altogether, and often continues into the next discussion or argument. If you want to eliminate this pattern, clarify, clarify, clarify. Let me explain. You think your spouse has said something that has offended you and your typical reaction would be to defend yourself. You initiate an argument that persists into the next day or even later. This continues and you both feel more distant and helpless and misunderstood. The feelings are powerful and maybe disproportionate to the event but are nonetheless present. You feel that you can’t get your point across or be heard. The anger builds and you are likely to react to your spouse in your next argument with residue from this one as you have done many times in the past. How could this have been alleviated with clarification? Here’s how: when you believe that your spouse has said something with the meaning you have assigned, simply ask what he or she means and relate what you heard and how you experienced the statement. This will allow you to hear the meaning from his or her perspective. You can then compare it to what you believe he or she was saying. Your perception will be supported or confirmed.