WHAT ARE YOU TOLERATING?

In the months following a divorce, death or relationship breakup, suddenly single women are overwhelmed with all the changes in their world. There are new decisions to make, new actions to take and many women lose their self-confidence during this emotional time.

I remember feeling frozen for several months after my divorces. Nothing, not one thing, was the same. I felt disoriented, fearful that I might do the wrong thing and regret it later “big time”. I was in a haze, just putting one foot in front of the other and trying to get through each day without crying in front of my boss or the clerk at the grocery store.

Fortunately, I discovered personal development after my third divorce. Regardless of how busy I was working, raising children, and making sure I held it together in public, I made time every week to develop the inner qualities identified as precursors to success.

My mentor, Jack Canfield, teaches an exercise to increase awareness of what we are tolerating in life and how these tolerations might be holding us back from living our dream life.

What I was tolerating with money

Back then, I’d never given much thought to how tolerating things might be contributing to being stuck. But once I did, I realized I was tolerating many things that were holding me in life conditions I didn’t want. Among other things, I discovered I was tolerating:

• Not really knowing how much money I had

• Earning less than male co-workers doing the same job

• Habit of spending more than I made

There is no shortage of people who will give you advice about budgeting, asking for a raise or staying away from the mall. But if I was a person who could have successfully stayed on a budget or confidently asked for a raise, I would have already done it! In order to stay away from the mall, I was going to have to dig deep and understand why I wasn’t already doing that.

What lessons did I learn?

I was able to use three methods to understand my tolerations.

1. Meditation and self-reflection

2. Journaling

3. Group discussions with others going through similar challenges

I remembered several early life experiences that led me to believe that there would never be enough money, no matter how hard I worked. Believing I would never have enough made me fearful of looking at my bank balances and confirm I was right!

For years I accepted whatever I was offered for my work because I didn’t believe I was worthy of making more. I allowed male supervisors to define my worth instead of researching and asking what someone with my experience and skills was actually worth, regardless of being male or female. This was all tied up in my lack of worthiness from my childhood. Most women suffer from a lack of worthiness based on the minimizing messages we receive throughout our lives from authority figures and the culture at large.

As far as heading to the mall every weekend, I learned that it wasn’t about the things I bought, but about a feeling I was trying to capture. I wanted approval and acceptance from others, and I was confused about how to get that feeling in a healthy way. Through my work with great mentors and teachers, I learned to give myself approval and acceptance so I could have that feeling all the time! That was when I stopped creating more credit card debt and started creating the net worth I enjoy today.

Pulling back the curtain and acknowledging what I was tolerating was a doorway into reinventing myself and my financial life.

Want to take the next step and get unstuck with money? Sign up to receive information about our 2022 course, Developing More Confidence with Money – A Personal Development Course for Suddenly Single Women and receive a 50% discount. Email [email protected].