Do you need a hero?

Are you waiting to be rescued?

Do you often find yourself wishing that someone or something (a friend, a partner, the government, a family member, the lottery, a random stranger) would come along and fix your entire financial situation for you? Do you set aside financial obligations such as debt or bills, citing them as issues for “future you” to deal with? Do you keep putting off making real, difficult changes in your habits because you assume there’s some magical point in the future where you’ll have more money and everything will just…. clear itself up?

Well, for one, nobody is coming to rescue you. Only you can do that. Two, nothing changes if nothing changes. That is simply a fact. And three, the root of these behaviors & beliefs is ultimately avoidance. And two of the emotions that can propel us into avoidance are shame and stress.

Being rescued isn't the same thing as asking for help, but for a long time, I held a lot of shame around the idea of asking for financial help because I thought maybe I was just trying to get myself “rescued” and it was better, more noble, even, to weather the storm alone. Because that's what actual responsible adults do. Whew, the internalized ableism was so strong back then. 

The hard truth, besides the fact that nobody is coming to save you from your situation, is that avoiding your finances will only make the situation worse and allow your shame & stress to continue to be in the driver’s seat of your life. It can be extremely activating to take a raw look at the landscape of your money, but avoidance only makes a problem grow bigger in our minds.

The antidote to shame is a heaping spoonful of self-compassion. The antidote to a freeze response is vulnerability and action. The antidote to isolation is informed support.