I realized I had created a world for myself where I had control, but no meaningful connections.  No true collaboration or support.  People were around because of what I could do for them, and not because of my intrinsic, lovable self.  That sucked.  So I changed.

My entire network fell away.  Once I ceased my money manipulation, the only people who stuck around were the ones who cared about me regardless of whether or not I paid.  I became a lot more critical about how money interacted in all of my relationships, and a lot more conscious of how money came into play in the relationships around me.

I realized that security is an illusion.  Everything that I thought went into stable (controllable) relationships was a lie—in reality, I was the only thing that could make or break my feeling of love, stability and security—not even my partner had that power.  And once I realized I was in control, I quit trying to get more of it.

Nowadays, I can see in others how they allow money to fuel their illusions—about themselves, relationships and business.  For example:

• Chris thinks her job that makes her miserable is the only way she can make money.  Her spouse agrees with her.
• Jason thinks his divorce is 100% his fault, so he doesn’t want to keep any of the assets that he and his wife built together.
• Jennifer wants her husband to earn more money, so she tries to help him with is work. And then gets frustrated and resentful when he doesn’t follow through.
• Bob thinks that he needs to “help” his wife with her job search.  He creates tasks and “to do” items for her because he knows she wouldn’t get anything done otherwise.

These thoughts—that they need to control their spouse for a desired outcome–make them unhappy.  I see the beginnings of marital strife (they might not even notice).  They think their issues are about money, but they aren’t.  It’s really all about intimacy and vulnerability.  What I discovered through my (continuing) recovery from control and codependency:

• Your spouse can’t be invested in where you work; otherwise, your job becomes more important than your feelings and relationship.
• When financial mistakes are made, each spouse is 50% responsible . . . the “active” person usually gets blamed, but the “passive” person acquiesced.
• You can’t “help” your spouse be more successful; then his professional actions or inaction become more important than who s/he is as a romantic partner.
• Disappointment over someone else’s professional obstacles is an intimacy killer.

When I realized I had issues in my relationships stemming from my need to control–and that I actually was attracting people who wanted to take part in that unconscious tendency on my part–I took a time out.  So I am the last person to use as a role model.  But I know this:  The reason your relationship is not working isn’t because your spouse isn’t doing well at work, or made a financial mistake, or isn’t heeding your professional advice: it’s because you’re choosing control over intimacy.

• Control means you keep track of mistakes; intimacy means forgiving and forgetting them.
• Control means you judge progress or tasks finished; intimacy means you simply enjoy being with someone, regardless of their progress.
• Control means you interpret all of your partner’s actions as a means to make you happy or unhappy; intimacy means you make yourself happy first before coming together with someone else.
• Control means you give something to get something else back; intimacy means you give of yourself when you can, but are also honest about when you have nothing to give.
• Control means you use your moods to manipulate your spouse; intimacy means you figure out how to meet your own needs, but also speak openly about them after you have a handle on your emotions.
• Control means you are invested in events playing out a certain way and stay anxious about them; intimacy means you detach from outcomes so that you can appreciate what your spouse is experiencing in the present, regardless of what that means for the future.
• Control means you don’t trust your spouse to solve his or her problems without your input; intimacy means you trust them to make the right choice and know if they don’t, things can still turn out all right.

If there are money issues causing conflict with your partner, you need to clean up your own behaviors and attitudes before judging your loved one.  Intimacy, love and support go a lot further toward solving money problems than control, judgment and accusations.  Whenever you feel a conflict coming on, ask yourself, are you choosing intimacy or control? 

It’s not easy to choose the unknown over the controllable, but I promise, every time you do, you’ll get a little closer to a sense of peace and satisfaction that sticks around regardless of your current financial state or relationship challenges.  Not only will you be on your way to a better relationship with your money and your partner, you’ll be on our way to a more meaningful life.

I’ve been losing weight this year.  After about ten years of letting the excess weight “ride” for a variety of reasons, I finally found the energy and renewed motivation to start exercising regularly.  I already ate pretty healthy, so that wasn’t a huge hurdle.

My weight loss went exactly as planned for about two months.  In fact, everything went as planned.  It was perfect!  I imagined myself sailing through the next year (I’ve got a lot of weight to lose) without ever feeling challenged, denied or deprived.  Pride goeth before the fall, right?

Of course, I hit a plateau.  My weight loss completely stalled.  I tried to exercise more—and I did, but it’s tricky with some of the energy issues I deal with.  I didn’t want to eat too much less than I was, because I’ve been very aware of my hunger levels on a daily basis and knew the range I needed to stay in to feel satisfied. I felt stuck.  I didn’t understand what I needed to do to lose more weight.

This is the point at which I usually become frustrated and abandon my plan—or in the past, I might have gotten so resentful and self righteous that I may not have even been aware that I abandoned my goal!  Your unconscious, subconscious self starts to remind you it’s safer and easier to stay the same.

This isn’t me.  My body never does what I want it to . . .

(or things my clients’ inner meanies tell them):  I’ve always had trouble with money . . . Something always happens to screw things up . . . I work so hard and never get what I want . . .

It’s not like I was really listening to myself.  My inner voice was (finally) revealed to me through someone else.  I was commiserating with my friend Mary about hitting a plateau, when she said, “I know, I’m not losing weight either, it’s so frustrating!”

I paused.  I had not realized Mary had been trying to lose weight.  “So, you’ve been trying to lose weight?” I asked.

“Well, I’ve been watching what I eat, mostly,” Mary said.

“Mostly?” I asked.

“Well, there were birthdays, and then Easter, so I guess there’s been more candy and cake around lately,” Mary said.  “I guess I just don’t feel like dieting.” 

I already knew that Mary hates exercise, so I didn’t even go there.  But as much as I love my buddy Mary, I realized, she was being a whiner.  Did I believe she was really trying to lose weight? No.  Did I believe she really wanted to lose weight?  No, not really . . . because if she really wanted to, she would be trying to figure it out.  Like I should be doing.  Oh. Duh.

Epiphany:  If you really want something, you have to continue to come at it from different angles.  You don’t give up.  For anything.  For any reason.

We all know this.  But sometimes the confusion of what we SHOULD want and what we actually want gets all messed up and it’s easy to let your subconscious inner self take the wheel and stay safe.  My brain was spinning with what I couldn’t do instead of what I COULD do.  So I asked myself the hard questions:

Do you really want this, or is this something that you think you SHOULD want?  Are you following a “supposed-to” dream, or is this something you want with every cell of your body?  Once you admit how badly you want something, it’s hard NOT to do it.  I realized that weight loss was in my top 3 priorities for 2012, so I gave myself permission to make it an ACTUAL priority in my schedule again.

What are you telling yourself?  I was telling myself that there was something wrong with me that prevented me from losing weight like everyone else.  Some of my clients tell themselves that they can’t have the same money success as so-and-so because they don’t have the same circumstances.  The answer is the same: Who cares?  So what?    If you want it, you want it.  Just because you’re not like everyone else doesn’t mean it’s impossible to get there—you just have to experiment with how you CAN get there. 

Are you willing to go through some discomfort and pain to reach your goal?  Do you want it bad enough? I realized, I wanted weight loss more than Mary.  I became conscious of the fact, the realization, that I was willing to experience discomfort to change myself.  Not the discomfort of deprivation, but the discomfort of complete clarity about what I needed to do.  The discomfort of changing who I am.

Are you willing to let go of old expectations?  You may need to scrap your original theories, ideas and plans that you thought would get you to your goal.  Your plan may have been unrealistic.  OR, your plan may have been COMPLETELY realistic up until now.  My reality is that the plan that got me to point A was not going to get me to point B.  Scrapping the plan and creating a new one was the most liberating thing I have done in awhile.

Are you willing to stay in awareness?  No matter what tactics I experiment with to lose weight, I have three points that I am aware of at all times:  what food I consume; how much I weigh and how much I exercise.  I record these things every day no matter what.  I lost that when I got discouraged, but regaining that awareness was the first step to getting back on track.  With my clients, they have to stay in awareness with what they spend (consume), what their balances are (weight) and what behaviors they engage in to improve their money relationship (exercise).

Are you creating a new way of life or are you trying to take a short cut?  With weight loss, I have been very conscious that the changes I make must be ones that I can sustain—this is a lifestyle change, not a temporary tactic.  That even if I didn’t lose weight, I would still be proud of how I conduct my life at the end of the day through exercise and eating healthy.  The same concept can be applied my money clients: is this a get-rich-quick tactic, or something you’re willing to work at over a lifetime?

I did it.  I broke the plateau after one month of tweaking when I ate, what I ate . . . when I exercised, how much I exercised . . . but I did it.  I’m starting to lose consistently again, with actually very little discomfort.  I just needed to be willing to “go there,” to that place of “I am different than everyone else, so I might need to make an extra effort here.”  The extra effort is barely noteworthy in the grand scheme of things, and it’s nothing in the headiness of actual weight loss success.

The older I get, the more I realize that my success is hardly ever about the specific tactics I use or how strongly I feel about a given goal; it’s my ability to regroup and return consistently to what I believe is worth doing.  It’s being willing to suck at something until I get good at it.  It’s acknowledging that the steps someone else took to reach their goal is hardly ever the path I’ll need to take.  And that’s okay.  I’ll get there anyway.

When we’re willing to accept that our money problems and challenges don’t have to be addressed or solved in the perfect, exact, ideal way we imagine–and still be willing to allow for the possibility that everything will be all right–we lower our resistance, attachment and control issues.  We release judgment.  We stop comparing ourselves to other people.  When we let go of the idea of the perfect financial situation (the perfect retirement, cash reserve or being perfectly debt free), we stay open to good things we might not have noticed otherwise.

So, how do we stay open? Fast Company magazine did an article on the myths of creativity in the workplace, stating that creativity isn’t something that you’re either born with or not; you can cultivate it in everybody. Here’s what they found:

It’s harder to be creative in isolation. We already know that better solutions come from team work and not individuals, and the collaboration between people also helps foster more creativity.

Creativity happens when people feel good. In an office environment, creativity can be attributed to good work conditions, good people and a positive environment. People have to want to come to work in order to be creative there!

Creativity CANNOT happen under pressure. Employees do not perform creatively with threats of negative consequences from their partners, bosses or managers.

Creativity doesn’t happen sitting at a desk. How many times have you heard someone say that they got a great idea in the shower? Creativity can flow when we leave the problem and let our subconscious go to work.

How can we apply this to being creative with money problems?

Eliminate Isolation: Find someone or a group of people who can listen to your situation without judgment and offer different perspectives and ideas for your consideration. You can’t be open to possibility if you only see the solution you’re stuck on!  Some people might prevent themselves from reaching out due to shame over their financial situation, but if you can overcome that, you’ll find that nobody is financially perfect.

Feel Good: Not only is this good energetically, you also can’t practically make your best money decisions when worried, angry, hurt or depressed. And you can’t move toward a financial resolution if you haven’t forgiven yourself for poor decisions in the past.  If you feel that way, you need to break the cycle and go do something else before you decide on a course of action.

Maintain Low Stress/Pressure: Just as a manager cannot motivate employees with threats of negative consequences, YOU cannot think about money problems with a deadline hanging over you, or in a panic because you think you’re going to miss out on something, like the perfect house, interest rate, market turn, etc.  Downtime is essential to increase your sense of money peace.

Cultivate Creative Venues: This can be project based, such as getting yourself involved with something so you quit thinking about your money, or it can be environmental, like a space delineated for creative thinking. Movement or regular exercise will also opens up your creative channel; basically anything that forces your thoughts away from worry for any amount of time. 

If you strive to bring more creativity to your money problems, and stay open and willing for things to unfold in their own time and in their own way, you’ll be surprised at the deeper satisfaction and peace you feel about your unique and perfectly imperfect financial life.

Now it’s your turn: How else can you bring your creativity to solving money problems?

The past several years, many people have had ENFORCED downtime—it’s called being laid off.  It’s been a source of shame for many whose financial lives were completely disrupted by unemployment—even when the monthly expenses have been covered by another spouse or family member.

Whatever you might think of the concept of downtime, it is ESSENTIAL.  In The Top 5 Regrets of the Dying, by Bronnie Ware, Ware discovered that most of us die wishing we’d lived differently.

Ware interviewed patients during their final 3 to 12 weeks of life, and what she discovered these top 5 regrets:

1. I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself — not the life others expected of me.
2. I wish I hadn’t worked so hard.
3. I wish I’d had the courage to express my feelings.
4. I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.
5. I wish that I had let myself be happier.

To put it simply:  If most of us die wishing we’d laughed more, loved more, and played more . . . that we’d expressed our true feelings . . . that we’d made happiness an urgent priority, and worked far, far less . . . then (most of us) are living with inverted priorities. Out of whack. Worrying about money?  A total waste of time.

Replace your worry time with downtime—what I am calling it–but it can also be what you think of as Free time. Family time. Creative time. Date night. Vacation. Road trip. Self care. Play time.  We need more of it. According to Ware, our dying breath calls for it.

The issue a lot of people have with this is that they tend to think that downtime comes at the cost of less financial success.  Hard Work = Money.  Efficiency = Money.  Perfection = Money.  Is this really true?  I don’t think so.  And just because you’re not worrying every moment about your money doesn’t mean you’re ignoring it. 

Here’s the thing.  Doing more never seems to get people closer to happiness.  And using money as the measure of knowing whether or not “doing more” is working for your life ends up tying too much meaning, emotion and need to our money.  We know this.  Yet many continue to behave as if their sole purpose in life is to advance for more compensation and professional accolades.

Here’s another thing:  I didn’t start making consistently good money until I started scheduling self care and downtime for myself.  After years of working 60 hour weeks, I stopped. I am finally (mostly) cured of workaholism.  And my career has never been better. 

I used to think downtime was to let my brain rest—I was trying to find justification for taking downtime in a logical way.  What I discovered is that it’s completely illogical—the more I played, the more opportunities popped up for me to make more money.  Once I took the focus off my money and back onto myself, the money worked itself out magically.

The level of money you have has nothing to do with your level of happiness (unless you let it).  Sometimes we get so busy or invested in our money, that we forget that it’s incidental to our actual human experience.  However . . . if you decide to start focusing on what’s important in life—what people who are dying ask for—then a nifty little by-product of more happiness and satisfaction may just be more money, too.

The connection between a more satisfying life, more happiness and more downtime are not obvious in the middle of busyness.  You have to experience downtime before you can feel the benefits, just like you theoretically understand that exercise is good for you, but can’t see how good it is until you actually start doing it consistently.

Start small.  You don’t need to cut back time from work, or give up anything . . . just sit still for awhile.  Here’s some steps to get you to a daily practice (cribbed from Martha Beck, life coach extraordinaire):

1. Start with 15 minutes daily.  Refuse to be bothered by anyone or anything during that time.
2. Sit quietly and notice your body.  Allow it to relax.  Allow yourself to be still.
3. Get outside of yourself.  Watch nature or natural motion, like water, fire, etc.
4. Detach from thought.  When you catch yourself thinking about something, stop.
5. Keep returning.  When you catch yourself thinking again, let go, take a breath and focus on the outer world again.

Downtime will give you more awareness about what you like and don’t like about your life.  Instead of participating in the rat race every moment, you’re taking time out to remember who you are.  Problems won’t seem as insurmountable.  Nothing will seem as urgent.  Money will stop being a character in your life and go back to being what it is supposed to be—simply a tool for your life.  When that happens, you’re back in the driver’s seat.  You can choose how money interacts with your true purpose, work, community and own happiness.

Budgets can be very motivating when you think you’re making changes that will increase cash flow immediately.  The problem, however, is that real life intercedes and forces you to abandon the budget when you exceed the limit or forget to include a specific expense.

Instead, I advocate conscious spending.  This is the belief that once you examine your consumer habits and understand where you derive the most enjoyment, you can actually better utilize every dollar. 

When I got serious about tracking expenses, I was shocked to discover that I spent over $150 monthly at Starbucks!   Instead of just slashing that expense, I chose to be conscious about change.  I was able to establish a new “normal” while never feeling deprived.  There four steps to conscious spending:

Gain clarity.  You must track your cash out flow—a distinction that often gets lumped in with budgeting itself, but that gives you more awareness BEFORE you attempt to cut back.  One way to achieve this awareness is simply to review the Trends tab in www.Mint.com.  Of course, there are plenty of other budgeting software options to help you with starting the budgeting process.

Decide perceived value.  Perceived value is your “gut” number.  Most people have a built-in barometer that tells them if they are over spending in an expense category.  It’s subjective for each individual.  When I saw the facts of my coffee habit, I immediately realized that although I was spending $150, I was NOT receiving $150 of perceived value.  There were many things I would enjoy more than $150 worth of coffee and pastry! 

Some might say, I got to the same end result of budgeting; cutting back on a “fun” expense.  But if you had told me to just to cut back, the cutback would have been an arbitrary number, rather than an informed decision.

Distill the experience.  I’ll never eliminate Starbucks; that was certain.  So I needed to break down all aspects of the “experience” to figure out what was essential to my enjoyment. I realized that I didn’t care about the pastry, so that could go with no regrets.  What ultimately became my new “normal” was a drip coffee on weekdays . . . and I was perfectly satisfied as long as I could still go hang out and work.   Sitting in Starbucks was the most meaningful aspect of that spending experience.

Track the new normal.  After a couple of months of experimenting and deciding what worked for me, I realized that I could allocate $40 toward coffee and be completely satisfied.  Only at this point did I actually set up a single budget item in Mint, so that if I went over $40, I would be alerted, and could figure out what went wrong.  Going over budget usually was a reminder to return to consciousness—much like how a meditation practice doesn’t help you achieve 100% stillness, but helps you learn return to the practice, so that over time, you can let go of your thoughts more easily.

The goal of conscious spending isn’t to limit anyone, but instead help people increase awareness about how they are behaving in everyday life.  When you start to break down your experiences to achieve the most satisfaction from your spending, you add MORE to life, not detract from it.  We really can have just about anything they want; the key is to be completely conscious about what those things are.

Now it’s your turn:  What are some ideas or challenges you can share that will help others spend more consciously?

Go high tech.  Managing the budgeting process in a low tech way simply means keeping a spreadsheet or written account of your spending.  Things get missed very easily this way, whereas if you use budgeting software, you’re going to be 100% confident of the incoming data.  Additionally, low tech budget management is easier to abandon and harder to get back on track than high tech.

Commit to your budgeting software.  There are tons of good budgeting software options out there to help you manage the budgeting process; you simply need to decide what features you prefer and stick to it.  I am sure hundreds of budgets have failed before they even started, just because the people became paralyzed when deciding which software option to use!

Keep accounts simple.  Most budgeting software options allow you to track your entire financial life: loans, retirement plans, home values, etc.  People get so caught up in setting up all of their accounts, they forget why they originally started the project: to bring clarity to the budgeting process!  Therefore, I recommend you ONLY set up the accounts that have expenses running through them: usually your checking accounts and credit card accounts.

Keep budgets simple.  You don’t need to track fixed expenses against a budget; for example, if your rent is $1,500 per month, you don’t need a “rent” budget that reflects that outflow each month.   That’s just a waste of time, and potentially annoying, if you’re using a program that sends alerts about your spending!  Therefore, unless you want to reduce a specific area of your spending—like food, shopping, entertainment—there shouldn’t be a budget item for it.

Use “rules” to reduce time spent categorizing.  My favorite budgeting software is Mint, and it’s great at figuring out how charges should be categorized, but almost any option will have this same feature: the ability to make the program default to a specific category whenever it encounters a certain transaction.  For example, I can set up a rule that anytime Mint encounters a charge from Caffe Ladro, it should be categorized as Coffee House.  Then I never have to worry that it’s miscategorized again (although you might know from my personal budgeting anecdotes how closely I have to watch my coffee spending!).  The more you set up rules, the less time you have to spend categorizing expenses going forward.

The more you want to change your spending, the more detail you need.  The budgeting process is mean to help you use your money more efficiently, so in order for you to really understand and take action, you need to understand where your money is going at a glance; if all your budget report shows you is that you spent $1,000 on Food and Dining, you have no idea what got you there.  Many budgeting software programs will break this category down into Restaurants, Fast Food, Groceries, Coffee Houses, etc., but you may want to break it down even further—into such categories as Date Night, Workday Lunches, Networking, etc.  Keep in mind you don’t bring this level of detail to ALL your categorization, only the areas where you want to cut back and understand your spending dynamics better.

Update at least twice per month.  When starting the budgeting process, it can be fun to categorize and start to understand your spending behaviors; eventually, however, it won’t be as fun.  This is when you need to book time in your schedule—maybe just 30 minutes to an hour–to review and manage the budgeting process every couple of weeks. 

Review with your loved one.  Once you have organized and updated your categories, you should book a special review time twice per month to share the data with your loved one or family member; you may have intimate knowledge of your spending patterns because you’ve been managing the day-to-day budgeting process, but for the person not involved, reviewing the spending can be a real eye opener.  And, it can put you both on the same page in terms of clarity, inclusion and decision making.  I have seen combative couples completely realign themselves and become a team after only 15 minutes of reviewing the Trends tab in Mint!

These 8 steps are meant to help you start the budgeting process in the simplest, quickest way.  The reason I recommend keeping the budgeting process so basic is that the majority of your energy can then be spent understanding the thinking and emotion behind the behaviors that cause you to overspend.  If you continue to examine your spending, analyze your behavior and make gradual modifications, you’ll be shocked at the improvements you can make in 6 months!

People’s fear and anxiety become a constant inner monologue; reviewing and rehashing the source of their worry until they feel stressed all of the time.  Then their bodies can’t tell the difference between what is ACTUALLY happening and what they are only imagining.  This makes it especially hard to distinguish what issues need action and what is just directionless worrying or shame over things you can’t control.  The source might be a fundamental thinking dysfunction.

The source of fear and anxiety around money is rarely about the facts or reality, but instead is the result of your projection into the future.  You imagine all of the horrible things that will happen if X or Y doesn’t change.  To escape that scary future, you take action that you hope will prevent that imagined scenario. 

People make preventative decisions all of the time; the difference between knowing when it’s ultimately bad or good for you is understanding motivation: are you running away from something scary, or running toward something happy?  To help you identify your underlying thoughts around a situation you can ask: Through my actions, am I trying to . . .

• Avoid a negative consequence?
• Avoid the ambiguity of my existing situation?
• Prevent people from thinking badly of me?
• Guard against a situation playing out in a certain way?

You can’t implement a fear-based decision and expect to get satisfactory long-term results. Fear breeds more fear.  You CAN confront your fear and examine the thoughts that got you there—and often find that your fear is unfounded.

Using Fear As A Tool

Once you rid yourself of any ongoing anxiety, then your fear starts to become a valuable tool that you can use to help you guide decisions.  There are many instances where people regret getting into a specific investment products or buying real estate, and they KNEW it was a mistake, but did it anyway.

Humans tend to ignore internal reactions to their situation—which is usually much more reliable than our brains when telling us to be cautious!  When animals in the wild sense something is off, they run in response to their fear.  We are the only animal that doesn’t run in the opposite direction when our Spidey senses start tingling, because we override it with our big intellectual brain.

When you are confronted with a financial dilemma, the best decision is NO decision if you don’t feel absolutely confident that you’re moving ahead with complete clarity.  Listen to what your gut is telling you, and ask yourself:

Is someone trying to talk me into a course of action?  Intimacy may be at odds with the money in your romantic relationships, but regardless of who is involved in the money discussion, you must understand the power dynamic.  Persuasion means that someone else is trying to control you, so you have to ask yourself, what’s in it for them?  What would the alternative options be if their solution wasn’t an option?

Is there artificial resource limitation (ARL)?  ARL is when the commercial says, “We have only 5 mattresses left at this price, so hurry to claim yours!”   Sales people make you think that you will never get a better home, interest rate, investment deal or mattress EVER AGAIN unless you act now.  This is simply never true, but it’s a great way to stir up your anxiety and force a decision.

Do I understand all of the details?  Never commit yourself to a financial decision unless you can explain it to someone else—what it is, and the advantages and disadvantages of taking action.  If you can’t, then wait to make the decision until you can explain it.

Do I feel too ignorant or that I am missing something?  Many people commit to financial decisions because they are embarrassed to admit they’re confused.  They are afraid that they are not intelligent enough to understand, when in reality, it’s the explanation itself that needs clarification.  There is always time to gain more understanding.

Am I delegating authority to someone to avoid taking full responsibility?  Some people don’t like to deal with money or think about it, so they give away all of their power and authority to someone who takes care of it for them.  This is true within couple dynamics, but also between clients and advisors.  They hope this person will protect them and keep them safe; unfortunately, that strategy never works because it’s codependent.  Relationships need to be a collaboration of partners who BOTH take responsibility.  No one else can really protect you from anything just because you delegate responsibility.

Notice The Feeling

The feeling of fear or anxiety is always the first warning sign that something is wrong.  This is your cue to stop whatever you are doing, take a step back and become fully conscious in the moment.  Removing yourself from the situation might feel extreme, but it might be exactly what you need to think over your options carefully and gain perspective.

The next step is to understand: am I manufacturing my own anxiety because I am imagining a disastrous future? Or, am I developing anxiety because I am uncomfortable with an aspect in the present moment?  The present moment is your key to knowing that you should immediately listen to your fear.

Intellect will talk you out of fear and anxiety.  Intellect will tell you that you are wasting time or will miss an opportunity if you don’t stop dinking around.  On top of that, women are culturally conditioned to be nice and acquiesce to others, and ALL of us are conditioned to place trust in people we believe are smarter or more educated than we are.  However, a person’s level of niceness and intelligence does not correlate with our own best interests.   So the next time you start to feel fear or anxiety over a financial decision, remember to stop and become fully present before taking action.

The good news is, domestic corporations are in better shape than in many years, if they would just start to take their excess cash and invest in the workforce—which they have started to do again, it’s just slow to see the momentum.  For this reason, profits will be modest in 2012, which will contribute to a sluggish market.

Overseas, a European recession seems inevitable, yet Europe’s leaders will most likely act to prevent financial collapse.  The economic center continues to shift eastward because of China and emerging markets. As traditional investments remain flat, alternatives will matter more than ever.

I don’t imagine we’ll see much of any movement in the market until the Fed stops manipulating interest rates in 2013; that’s just Economics 101.  The problem is, rising interest rates will most likely cause housing prices to fall again, as it gets more difficult to sell in the rising interest rate environment.

Making gains this year will require an active, global, multi-strategy approach.   Make sure you have international exposure in China and southeast Asia.  And many bond funds have been outperforming the stock market, so it makes sense to use that asset class too.

Since you can’t control the stock market and the economy, you must focus on what you CAN control:

Maintaining enough liquidity. There’s a big difference between the money you need in 2013 and the money earmarked for your retirement two decades from now. To safeguard current needs, you need to protect yourself against having to sell in the middle of a market correction.   This means cash and short-term bonds.

Increase your diversity. Maintaining a mix of asset classes even if some will be more volatile (and making sure you’ve got a wide array of stocks and bonds–domestic, international, growth, value, large cap, small cap).   If you are frustrated with the standard mutual funds with broad diversification, consider exploring sector funds, such as energy or biotech—they may be more volatile, but you also may find a short-term opportunity. 

Make sure you’re saving enough. And in the right places.  Every single millionaire I have worked with is someone who just put savings on autopilot for 30-40 years and didn’t even watch the market.  They just saved into the stock market without thinking about it AT ALL.  Saving is where your real power lies.

Don’t let your myopia get the better of you. When times are good, investors tend to think the party will never end. So they over borrow and put too much in stocks, only to be taken down by one bubble or another. When times are bad, investors think that will never end. So they pull their money out of the market and sit on the sidelines, missing great market runs like the one we had in 2009. It’s people who can see through it all, taking reasonable chances during good times and bad, who are rewarded.

I admit that I have never been very good about figuring out ways to save money on food; maybe this is another blind spot for me.  But when I broke my ankle, my mom came to help for about 3 weeks, and I was awed and impressed at the ways she pulled together meals for us—and she spent MUCH less than I would have in the same time period.  She made the process seem very accessible, even for me, who doesn’t like to cook.  I recommend beginning with the following five steps.

Plan Your Meals.  As I sat there hopped up on vicodin, my mom would take a piece of paper and map out a two-week schedule.  She’d ask me what I was hungry for and make notes on that.  She makes a mean pot roast, so I am sure we had that, but instead of just having pot roast one night and then having leftovers, she planned to repurpose pot roast into a Mexican dish as well as an Asian dish. 

If it had been me, the leftovers would have languished in the fridge, and I eventually would have thrown them out, but mom revitalized the meat by adding different flavors in subsequent meals.  Since I don’t cook, the lesson I took away from the experience is to never cook your meat for only one meal—so I typically cook all of my protein on Sundays so I can just heat them up and throw them into different things as I go about my week.  Since half the prep is already done, it’s easier to throw together what you planned to eat, instead of eating takeout.

Inventory Your Cupboards.  Another step in the process for my mother was to poke around my freezer and cupboards to see what needed to be used up.  If she saw I had a lot of rice, she’d factor that in to some of the meals.  Or if I had one frozen entrée, she’d simply add another to her grocery list so we could have frozen dinners together one night.  I used to have cans and cans of soup, but over the three weeks she integrated them into our lunches and some dinners, so that she was sure to use up anything I already had.  After she left, I noticed that the more I planned my meals and shopping, the less random stuff I had just hanging out in my cupboards!

Stick To The List.  By meal planning, my mom was able to accurately predict what ingredients she needed for the upcoming meals, which was important.  What was even MORE significant when I adopted her process was the fact that having the meal plan almost completely eliminated impulse buys at the grocery store.  When I had already mapped out what food I would need for the next 10 days or so, I was able to pass up impulse purchases easily. 

Shop Less Frequently.  The meal plan always went out 10 days to two weeks, depending on how my mom repurposed different items.  Sure, she might have ran out to the store for something minor, like milk, but for the most part, the major shopping was completed 2-3 times in a month.  When she left, I was still on crutches and unable to push a grocery cart—so I had AmazonFresh deliver my groceries.  I was amazed at how much money I saved by having them come only twice per month! 

Be Realistic About Your Eating Habits.  As I planned my meals and shopped for groceries less frequently, I started to be very honest with myself about what I was willing to eat for a two-week period of time.  I realized my tendency was to grocery shop for “perfect” Mindy, who ate lots of vegetables, no junk food, and was very clean and healthy.  But when I got bored with it, I got takeout—and drove up the cost on my monthly food bill.  I finally realized that planning “fun” food into my schedule made it easier for me to stick to it . . . for example, if I am tired at the end of the day and don’t feel like eating my low-fat healthy meal, I always have the makings for grilled cheese or a BLT sandwich—two of my favorite meals!  And they cost a lot less than takeout.

Since I have gotten more realistic about my eating, I have actually gotten healthier AND spend less on food.  My mom is still several levels above me in the food-frugality-ninja world, but I am proud of the strides I have made, because I didn’t have to become a coupon clipper or super-obsessive to make clear progress.  I have just integrated simple organizational tools–which anyone can adopt–that made all of the difference in my grocery budget.  So if you’re looking for ways to save money on food, these five steps are a great way to start.

No one WANTS to be vulnerable.  It becomes a lot easier when you know your friend or loved one accepts you unconditionally.  Which is fine when you’re admitting to a less-than-ideal habit . . . but I have seen that when it comes to money, sometimes unconditional love can become conditional.  And judgmental.  Which begins the slow death of the intimate relationship.

Perhaps your spouse has been laid off.  This sets off your own fears about money and having enough.  So you proceed to try and micromanage every aspect of your spouse’s search for future work—mistakenly thinking that the key to your security is your partner’s employment.  Not only is your spouse trying to figure things out, s/he has the added pressure of feeling like s/he is disappointing you by getting laid off.  Or because s/he senses your judgment, starts to feel like they are getting a handout from you, that they don’t deserve to have you provide for the family during their unemployment.  Shame ensues.  Intimacy dies.

Or maybe you have separate bank accounts.  There is a lot to be said in favor of having separate bank accounts, but I am not sure that those things have anything to do with a stronger, more intimate marriage.  When it comes to money, the most vulnerable position is to merge completely—if you’re in it forever, it doesn’t make sense to keep things separate.  If two companies merge, they “phase in” merging all of the different aspects of their different entities—but neither would be allowed to say, “I am going to merge our physical assets, but I am going to keep this cash account separate over here for my own use.”  So even without the issue of intimacy, holding back is counter-intuitive to a business merger.  In both cases, you either trust the other, or you don’t.  And if you don’t trust, then should you really be in an intimate relationship?

The idea of giving up control in an intimate relationship never starts with money alone, but it often becomes the primary battlefield, simply because it is the most tangible issue, with real-world repercussions.   If you fear vulnerability with money in your relationship, chances are you need to examine your comfort level in other areas of your relationship as well.  It’s never JUST about the money.

As a “recovering” emotionally unavailable person, I know all of the tricks to discourage vulnerability in an intimate relationship.  If you DON’T do the following, you will be well on your way to having a stronger relationship with your partner about money:

Don’t Listen.  I was so convinced that my way was the only way to do things, I would tune out the other person—essentially waiting for them to be done flapping their lips so I could Jedi-mind trick them into doing it my way.  Now I know that the only way to have an intimate relationship is to listen and try to empathize with everything, regardless of how I perceive it in the context of solving a problem.

Insist on Everything Your Way.  I come from a long line of people who think they are the only ones who know how to do things.  Yikes, talk about ego issues!  What I discovered during my masters program is that everyone in a team has a role, and that collaboration and handpicking solutions from a number of different concepts always works better than my original, solitary solution.  This is how to approach anything you want to stand the test of time.

Try To Fix Them.  I have witnessed a long-term relationship where the two people are always complaining about the exact same fault of the other person, all of the time.  It breaks my heart to see what they have missed out by not simply accepting the other person and working within each other’s perceived character flaws.

Try To Be Right All Of The Time.  The Tribe of Right All Of The Time insists on bringing up old arguments whenever they find a new piece of information supporting their previously not-as-supported stance on a topic.  So the argument never dies.  It never morphs into collaboration, because being right all of the time is the death of a stronger relationship.  Do you want to be right, or happy (and stronger as a couple)?  It’s another way that lack of forgiveness blocks you not only from your best relationship, but also the best version of yourself.

Remember When They Were Wrong.  When you’re in a relationship with someone who is Right All Of The Time, that means that you are Wrong All Of The Time and get blamed for it.  Or, if you’re right about something, they don’t talk to you for three days until they forget that you were right.  But there is a list—maybe just mental—of all of the times you were wrong, in case they need evidence to manipulate you into doing things their way: “See? You were wrong about X, why don’t we just do this my way for now.”

Emotionally Detach When Things Don’t Go Your Way.  When you absolutely can’t force someone to take your viewpoint or follow your lead, shut down completely.  Say, “It doesn’t matter what I say because you’re just going to do what you want anyway.”  And then wait for things to Go Wrong so you can add it to your list for the future.

Vulnerability and money is hugely intimidating for me in my endeavor to try and become more emotionally available.  I wonder if my willingness to be vulnerable with my money will be my greatest obstacle to a successful relationship, or if I am willing, my greatest opportunity.

For others, I believe that your openness to vulnerability can happen in stages—it doesn’t have to be all at once.  As long as you pay consistent attention to your finances in partnership with your spouse or significant other, you can’t get too off track.  Or if you do get off track or temporarily abandon your good intentions, you can support each other instead of blame each other.  But the key—as with many relationship issues–is to listen and communicate regularly.  And to decide together what is right long term for your own intimate relationship.

Now it’s your turn:  What’s your greatest money vulnerability or opportunity with your significant other?