Post No. 3,523 - Guest Post from Jennifer Scott of SpiritFinder: Managing Money Stress to Protect Your Mind and Build Stability

This week sees another contribution from returning guest author Jennifer Scott , of Spiritfinder.org . 

This excellent article addresses ways to manage stress associated with financial matters. The principles of managing that stress are also, IMO, applicable to managing stress from other situations which can seem intractable (i.e., other situations which can benefit from the advice of viewing them as a smoke alarm), so keep them in mind for other areas of your life as well. 

I am aware that there are people in the world generally, and my readership in particular, who may not be in a situation to improve their finances - for instance, those who have medical debt in places like the USA, the struggle of the urban poor in developing nations to afford university degrees (and, often, overcome discrimination), those who have experienced natural disasters (as recently was the case in Tibet and Nepal, and occurred in northern NSW and south eastern Qld a few years ago - with some affected people still homeless), and those who live under extreme discrimination - such as some minority groups, particularly those experiencing the effects of centuries of colonisation. 

However, the principles and broad approach of managing a scarce resource (i.e., building skills that develop stability, and a reset - adapted to other situations) also can, and should, be applied to other areas - for instance, building healing energy to help a family member or friend, building community support for a project, or responding to fears about crime. 

Also note that, if seeking financial advice, you make sure the advice is from appropriately qualified and registered people or companies, as outlined, for example, at https://moneysmart.gov.au/financial-advice for here in Australia. 

Please enjoy this excellent article, and consider contacting Jennifer to learn more. You can find all of her articles on this blog here.   

Managing Money Stress to Protect Your Mind and Build Stability 

Busy parents juggling work, caregiving, and bills often carry a constant hum of financial anxiety that never fully powers down. The core tension is exhausting: staying responsible on paper while feeling emotionally unsafe, because one unexpected expense can trigger spiraling worry. That financial stress impact rarely stays confined to a bank balance; it can feed mental health challenges like irritability, rumination, and burnout, and it can show up as stress-related health problems such as poor sleep and headaches. Naming the financial anxiety consequences clearly is the first step toward protecting peace. 

Understanding the Money Stress and Mind Connection 

Money stress is not only about math. It is your brain and body reacting to uncertainty, scanning for threats, and bracing for what could go wrong. A March 2024 Bankrate survey shows money can negatively impact mental health, which helps explain why “being good with budgets” still might not feel calming. 

When your stress system stays switched on, small money surprises can trigger outsized anxiety. That can make you more reactive with loved ones, less patient at work, and more prone to late-night looping thoughts. It also makes it harder to stick with helpful routines, because your mind is focused on immediate safety. 

Think of finances like the smoke alarm in your house. If it is overly sensitive, burnt toast feels like a fire, and you live on edge even in a safe home. For many families, 88% of Americans experiencing financial stress means that alarm is blaring for almost everyone. With this link clear, building income resilience becomes part of protecting your mental health. 

Build Income Power with Skills That Strengthen Stability 

When money pressure sticks around, it helps to look beyond today’s bills and toward what can make your finances feel steadier over time. Earning a degree can increase your income potential, which often translates into more financial stability, and that stability can ease chronic stress, supporting better mental health and overall well-being. A business degree can be a practical option if you want to build skills in areas like accounting, business, communications, or management. And if flexibility is what you need right now, online degree programs can make it possible to keep working full-time while staying on track with your studies; if you want to explore options, I’ve left it here for you. 

Use This 5-Step Money Reset to Lower Anxiety 

When money feels chaotic, your brain treats it like an ongoing threat. This five-step reset creates quick structure, so you can make decisions from a calmer place and keep building the stability you’re working toward. 

1. Get a “money copilot” for one focused session: Book a 30–60 minute conversation with a nonprofit credit counselor, a fee-only financial planner, or your bank/credit union financial coach. Bring your questions (debt payoff order, retirement match, emergency fund target) and ask for a simple written recap. The point isn’t perfection, it’s reducing uncertainty and getting a plan you can trust. 
2. Do a full financial inventory in 45 minutes: Gather pay stubs, bank and credit card statements, loan balances, and your credit report, then list them on one page. Include due dates, minimum payments, interest rates, and any collections or past-due amounts, hidden surprises are a big anxiety trigger. Finish by naming your “non-negotiables” (housing, utilities, transportation, groceries, insurance) so your essentials are protected first. 
3. Set a simple 3-goal plan for the next 30 days: Choose one stability goal, one debt goal, and one future-building goal, small enough that you’ll actually complete them. Example: stability = save $250; debt = pay an extra $50 toward the highest-interest card; future-building = spend one hour per week on a skill that supports your income plan (resume refresh, certification module, portfolio project). This connects today’s budgeting to the income growth you’re building for long-term resilience. 
4. Build a budget you can follow, not a fantasy budget: Start with your baseline: average the last 2–3 months of spending, then set limits that reflect real life (including fun and irregular costs). Use the approach a personal finance guide calls a realistic budget by assigning every dollar a job, bills, food, gas, savings, and debt, so you’re not guessing mid-month. Add two “pressure valves”: a small buffer line (like $50–$100) and a weekly 10-minute check-in to adjust before things spiral. 
5. Reduce debt strategically with one method for 90 days: Pick either avalanche (highest interest first) to minimize cost or snowball (smallest balance first) to build momentum, then commit to just one. Automate minimums, then send your extra payment the day after payday so it doesn’t disappear into daily spending. If cash is tight, call lenders and ask about hardship options, lower APRs, or payment plans; getting a “yes” isn’t guaranteed, but asking can immediately restore a sense of control. 

Money Stress & Mental Health: Common Questions 

Q: What can I do when money thoughts keep looping at night?
A: Give your brain a boundary: set a 15-minute money worry time earlier in the day to review numbers and take one small action. At bedtime, keep a notepad by the bed and “park” any new worries as a single line to revisit tomorrow. Then do a 3-minute breathing reset: inhale 4 counts, exhale 6 counts, repeat 10 times. 

Q: How do I calm down before checking my bank account?
A: Try a 60-second grounding routine: plant both feet, relax your jaw, and name 5 things you see, 4 you feel, 3 you hear, 2 you smell, and 1 you taste. Open the app only after you pick one purpose, like “confirm bills cleared,” not “scan for problems.” 

Q: Why does a small money problem feel like a full-body crisis?
A: Your nervous system often interprets uncertainty as danger, so it makes sense that your body reacts fast. A study published in 2023 found how someone felt about an income decline mattered far more to emotional well-being than the financial change itself. Focus on what restores safety signals: clear next steps, supportive people, and consistent routines. 

Q: When I’m overwhelmed, what’s the smallest “win” I can do today?
A: Choose one task that takes under 10 minutes, like scheduling a bill, setting an autopay minimum, or calling to ask for a due-date change. Then do a quick body reset: drink water, stand up, and take a short walk to discharge stress energy. Small wins rebuild confidence. 

Q: Can mindfulness actually help with financial anxiety, or is that just fluff?
A: It can help because it trains you to notice worry without obeying it. Try the “name it to tame it” approach: say, “This is financial fear,” then redirect to a concrete step you can do in 5 minutes. Mindfulness works best paired with action, not instead of it. 

Build Financial Calm With One Small Step at a Time 

Money stress can feel like it hijacks sleep, mood, and focus, even when hard work is happening. The path forward is a steady mindset: pair stress management benefits with practical, values-based choices that support mental and financial well-being. With repetition, worry loosens its grip, confidence grows, and financial health empowerment starts to feel real, because progress becomes visible. Small, consistent actions build both financial stability and a calmer mind.  

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Note that I am cutting back on aspects of my posts - see here, and Gnwmythr is pronounced new-MYTH-ear  

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Post No. 898 – Money, and Which World Will We – and the Advertising Industry’s Advisors – Feed?

Money 

One of the earliest things I learned in my life generally, and my spiritual development when that kicked off, was that there is more to life than money (or social status, or worldly power, etc, etc, etc).

Furthermore, many of the people who chase after those things are either flat-out “nasty” people, or in a spiritual state of being that is “wrong”, or undesirable –unbalanced, from the point of view of Balanced Positivity. (This does NOT apply to all such people – Warren Buffett, for instance, is a notable exception, as is the Russian philanthropist Dmitry Zimin, who has a strong science and education connection, or Russian oligarch Alexander Lebedev, who chose to keep a Western newspaper going.) This “lesson” was noted while I was a child, seeing “Sunday Christians” who preached love on a Sunday and struck the knife in people’s backs on Monday.

So it can be important to focus on what are commonly viewed as immaterial things – such as values.

The problem is, the pendulum can swing too far the other way, with too focus on immaterial at the expense of the physical – in many ways, including the denial of sexuality associated with neochristianity, and a refusal to engage with financial matters. The latter problem can result in problems such as:

• people being naïve re Abundance (see my post here on one of the problems that can occur around how people relate to this Law / principle);
• inadequate resources for deserving groups and people;
• people who are so focused on spirituality that they are oblivious to what those are supporting them are going through in the course of earning an income to support them (I’ve seen several people in this category, sadly). That means the so-called spiritual partner can end up being responsible for causing so much pain for breadwinner that it neutralises the value of the supported partner being “pseudo-spiritual”. This expectation of support from others is a concern I have with some monastic and religious traditions – although not all who receive support;
• naïve views such as “love conquers all” – which I’ve mostly heard from people who haven’t had to worry about how they’re going to feed / house / clothe their children, and thus haven’t really been in a situation where this has been tested (some people I’ve known have had that test of themselves and a partner, but all people involved have been adults capable of choice, and thus I argue it is not the same). This simplistic view is, in my opinion, a far too common cause of problems – including the problem of spiritual people not being involved in activism;
• failure to act on things that are important to people’s quality of being, such as this: https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/post2015/transformingourworld;
• also, a failure to act on things like the GFC, or addressing the nastiness of politicians (have you, Dear Reader, ever done something as simple and basic as write to MPs when they have indulged in such behaviour?); and
• a failure to recognise that we are a part of the world – that we are, in fact, a part of the animal kingdom.

So … what does one do about all this? Well, firstly, make sure one has a balance between the worldly and the immaterial – and review that balance regularly, and, whenever one is involved in financial matters, stay focused on ethics – which leads a focus on what the money is really about, not the numbers! 

This is a lesson I have learned far too late in life, and I hope that, next time, I learn this - especially the value of being focused on ethics - at a far earlier age. 

Here’s another link to consider on this topic: http://wildhunt.org/2016/04/column-living-in-a-material-world.html

Which World Will We – and the Advertising Industry’s Advisors – Feed?

I’ve just been watching The Century of the Self. Although I’ve still got a bit more to watch, I can state that this series focuses – in part – on perceived struggles between sexuality and suppression (named “control”), and a struggle between “rational” and “irrational” behaviour of crowds – the latter being a particular fear of Edward Bernays, who invented the term “public relations” to avoid calling it “propaganda”, and took psychology to the commercial world and politics (from the Wikipedia site: “He combined the ideas of Gustave Le Bon and Wilfred Trotter on crowd psychology with the psychoanalytical ideas of his uncle, Sigmund Freud”).

The first struggle - sexuality vs. suppression - is portrayed as being about Sigmund Freud, his daughter and their “opponents”. I’m definitely more in the Jung camp that Freud, but Freud did help widen awareness of the world of the diverse nature of consciousness.

The history of the last century, however, shows that people have both sides of whatever polarised category you want – and I note that some political events of late show people can be enlightened and act or vote way beyond being merely self-interested. Yes, movements like Nazism showed irrational herd instinct (sheeple) at its worst, but there are also examples of our better natures.

I also note that the involvement of advertisers in getting to go from buying what needs to consumerism is evil – this is a good part of what led to climate change ... It also goes far beyond the self-serving justification of “giving consumers what they want”, as it actively shapes and modifies people’s perceptions of what it is they want: it actively drags people down to a consumeristic state of being (starting in the 1920s, according to this programme). 

In other words, the advertising industry is feeding the unbalanced / unbalancing wolf in our natures / society's nature. 

In my view, all of these ploys and campaigns miss out because it ignores the nature of reality - which is that we have a Soul / Higher Self, and that our purpose for existence is – to simplify a little - to evolve.It is when one starts to acknowledge such that one is able to answer the challenge of "well, all we are doing is giving the consumer what they want - what's wrong with that?" with "it makes them less good people, and encourages a selfishness that puts them, other individuals and society back."

Another way that these concerning abuses and misuses of knowledge can be overcome by people thinking clearly and critically (e.g., BrendanMyers’ course “Clear and Present Thinking”, which I want to see taught in every school - although I saw my current partner's children show signs of having been taught to critique consumer advertising), and by learning and doing the psychic basics (flame, ground and shield, clear, etc - refer to my signature block below for more).

Here are some more links on this topic:

• The Engineering of Consent – the Wikipedia article on this includes the following: “Under modern conditions of political advertising and manipulation, it has become possible to talk of the engineering of consent by an elite of experts and professional politicians. Consent that is thus engineered is difficult to distinguish in any fundamental way from the consent that supports modern totalitarian governments. Were the manipulated voter to become the normal voter, the government he supports could hardly be said to rest on his consent in any traditional sense of that word” … which has been very true, in my opinion, but has also come undone in a big way in recent elections …
• The Men Who Made us Spend – I’ve commented about this before: “ I’ve been watching the excellent (well, the first episode was … After loading skips I have to watch the second on catch up TV … ) series “The Men Who Make Us Spend” (see here also for another review of it; I can’t find any useful link on the BBC, which originally screened it – apparently they don’t make their programmes available to anyone else in the world), and reflecting on the fact that one of the reasons Australia has such generally poor politicians is because voters fail to think properly and effectively about many issues. (It's also why a lot of people foolishly put personal convenience ahead of internet safety, and expediency ahead of 'right living' ... )”
• PBS's  Frontline – The Persuaders – about the clutter that advertising creates, which includes a line to the effect “when a culture accepts advertising, it is no longer a culture”. Interestingly, this programme identifies that advertising in the 90s tried to start focus on “the meaning of life”. It also shows the power of words – such as changing “estate tax” to “death tax”, changing “War in Iraq” to “War on Terror”, and “climate change” rather than “global warming” … and there is the reprehensible, damaging “toilet to tap” (not mentioned in this programme). One of the practitioners of this technique admitted it was up to the practitioner to choose to do “good”, not “evil” – which puts back into the self-regulation model that failed so abysmally in the NSW greyhound industry. This is also credited with having led to more “emotive” and deceptive political advertising. The personalisation of advertising – whether political or consumerism - to break through “clutter” is based on data acquisition that is extremely disturbing, particularly when it leads to a loss of the common good.

The man behind The Century of the Self, Adam Curtis, has said that that “his favourite theme is "power and how it works in society" ”, and has a few other programmes that I may watch at some stage (if I can find them - hey, BBC, maybe remember there are people in the world outside the UK), including:

• Pandora’s Box, “looking at the consequences of political and technocratic rationalism”, which includes – according to the Wikipedia article, an episode on engineers in the early days of the Russian Revolution which sounds as if it could be as bad as I would expect engineers to be in social roles;
• The Living Dead: Three Films About the Power of the Past, which “examines the different ways that history and memory (both national and individual) have been used and manipulated by politicians and others”; and
• The Mayfair Set, which “looks at Britain's decline as a world power, the invention of asset stripping in the 1970s, and how buccaneer capitalists shaped the climate of the Thatcher years, focusing on the rise of Colonel David Stirling, Jim Slater, Sir James Goldsmith and Tiny Rowland—members of London's elite Clermont Club in the 1960s”.

There are others as well, but they looked a bit of a mixed bag, some aspects good, some neutral, and others not so good. Feel free to look at the Wikipedia links and chase whatever is of interest to you :)

Love, light, hugs and blessings

Gnwmythr, Pagan Energy Worker, Wéofodthegn

I am revamping my former website, and getting at least one other underway (pronounced "new-MYTH-ear"; ... aka Bellatrix Lux … aka Morinehtar … would-be drýicgan or maga ... )

My "blogiography" (list of all posts and guide as to how to best use this site) is here, and my glossary/index is here. The reasons for my caution when using Wikipedia are here.

I started this blog to cover karmic regression-rescue (see here and here), and it grew ... See here for my group mind project, here and here for my "Pagans for Peace" project (and join me for a few minutes at some time between 8 and 11 PM on Sunday, wherever you are, to meditate-clear for peace), and here for my bindrune kit-bag. I also strongly recommend learning how to flame, ground and shield, do alternate nostril breathing, work with colour, and see also here and be flexible. 

May the best in me, my Higher Self,
and those of the Clear Light who assist me,
help me to keep myself grounded, centred and shielded,
to be Balanced and a Fulcrum of Balance,
a centre of Balanced Positivity and Spiritual Maturity,
with my aura continuously cleansed, cleared and closed,
repelling all negative or unwanted energies,
whilst allowing positive, balancing and healing energies in and through.

The real dividing line is not between Christianity and Islam, Sunni and Shia, East and West. It is between people who believe in coexistence, and those who don’t.

Tom Fletcher, Former UK Ambassador to Lebanon

• All of the above - and this blog - could be wrong, or subject to context, perspective, or state of spiritual evolution ...

Tags: consumerism, discrimination, finances, hypocrisy, materialism, naivete, society, social status,

First published: Sunnudagr, 10^th July, 2016

Last edited (excluding fixing typo's and other minor matters): Sunday, 10^th July, 2016