Financial Anxieties

Money, or perhaps more accurately not having it, can be scary. Money is after all fundamentally how we look after ourselves as adults, keep a roof over our heads, stay alive. Managing our money and staying on top of things in the busy world that we live in can feel overwhelming, particularly if we’ve had challenges with money in the past, or we’re having money difficulties at the moment.

It's no surprise that money issues and mental health issues are strongly interlinked.

Opening up a bill, whether that’s through the post or email, or even more generally opening up our bank app, can cause a lot of anxiety And it might be something that we put off, we want to avoid. We find distractions that are less stressful.

Partly there’s the fear of the unknown, and partly it’s that seeing the bill has us having to acknowledge the reality. Something that we’re going to have to deal with; there’s no getting away from it.

When it comes to managing money and dealing with bills, knowledge is power.

Planning a budget that you can stick to helps minimise these ‘jumpscares’ when it comes to bills. We can use specific budgeting apps to help us set one up and stick to it. Practice checking in as part of a normal routine so we get more comfortable about knowing what is going out and when to expect and plan for the larger quarterly bills. The more we do this, this routine exposure we give ourselves to planning for and anticipating our bills, the more that anxiety should reduce and the more we’ll be able to just get on with things.

Our relationship with money is something we can pick up in childhood from our parents and other family members, and it can be a result of our own personal experiences. That’s something that can be explored and challenged successfully within counselling to help us reduce anxiety and develop a healthier relationship with managing our finances.

If you’d like to work with me on your mental health, you can get in touch with me via the website or drop me a message directly at mckellarcbt@gmail.com