23 Oct Overspending: your dirty little secret

So you love spending, you love bringing beautiful new things into your life. It feels good and gives you satisfaction to get the things you want and need. You can totally justify the purchases; you really do need that new pair of shoes because they’ll go with that new pair of pants you bought the other week, which you needed for work because they’re just amazing. And that new kitchen item is a necessity because it will surely make the job of grating carrots easier for all the coleslaws you’re going to make this summer. But oftentimes, during or sometime after the purchase, there’s an underlying sense that you shouldn’t be spending. You don’t really need these things do you? But your other voice pipes up, yes you deserve this, you can afford it, it will make you happier, it will make life better. So you let it go. But then it happens again, next week. And then again. If you look deeper into it- which you really don’t want to, it feels a little bit out of control. A sense of ‘I shouldn’t be doing this but I can’t stop’, and yet it’s all backed up by convincing arguments as to why it’s ok. 

Spending gives us that initial good feeling and as humans, we’re all about the good-feels. The problem with this, is that we’re being a little deceived by our brain because not all pleasure moves us towards being the human we want to be in this life. Unless we manage our mind, and the thoughts we have, we’re always going to be stuck in the cycle of telling ourselves that ‘I need this’, feeling good for a moment and then feeling bad. Some of us do this with eating too much food and drinking. Uncovering what is going on in your mind and finding out why you are trying to get things to fulfill you from the outside world is part of the work to evolve yourself. If there is a sense of lack and scarcity in your belief system instead of abundance there will always be the need to fill a gap. 

If you can give yourself what you want and need from the inside, then buying things and spending becomes a conscious choice with none of those underlying bad-feels. Imagine what life would look and feel like if you put all your money into the things that really mattered to you.