Inhale and Exhale

Stilling the waves of money anxiety starts with understanding where you are. Like meditation, thoughts will continue to come through your head. It is not a fight. You do not do meditation well or badly. There are no rankings or elimination rounds. When a thought comes into your head, it is the point to acknowledge it. Greet it. Politely let it pass. Then go back to your breathing. Financial Security is also about the inhalation (income) and exhalation (spending), and the relationship between the two. You want to breathe in slowly, and with control, and breathe out slowly, and with control. Spending has fixed parts and variable parts. If you keep a record, you can see some patterns. Even the variable parts have regular highs and lows. You can get a sense of the lung capacity needed. There will still be shocks, when spending is way higher than normal. For that, you need a buffer or support. To build that, always starts in the same place, for everyone. Where they are. Where you are. With a breath, and understanding where you are, is. So you can let it pass.

Building Lung Capacity

The Space Between

Earning £100,000 a year can still be filled with anxiety if you are spending £120,000 a year. If you are living on the edge of your capacity to borrow and pay interest. If you are pushing forward and up as hard and as fast as you can. Earning R100,000 a year can be Zen-like if you have the self-discipline of a Langa Gogo, spending R80,000 a year a putting some to work. Those are extremes, but the point is the only comparison necessary is spending and income, and the space between. Not other people. Vrittis, are the thought waves of the mind. Yoga creates a system to control these waves. A path of self-restraint that brings focus to the things that are most important. Creating the ability to move with intention, rather than being moved by what the world throws at us.

Taking Cover

Disability Insurance provides Income Protection. People are Productive Assets. We link our survival to our ability to make money, and if you become disabled, that ability becomes impaired. When I started working after university, my first job was in Disability Product Development. You pay a premium (your share of a pool of money covering all those at risk), and if something awful happens, the associated financial pain of the tragedy is lessened. One type of cover provides a Lump Sum, which then needs to be invested so that it can work on your behalf. Another type pays a portion of your salary till retirement. You can get “Own Occupation” cover which costs slightly more than “Any Occupation” cover, because you may still be able to work, but not do the thing you wanted to do. “Daily Tasks” cover is less job dependent and focuses on whether you can do the physical things you need to do to look after yourself. From that first job, I became determined to not be that dependent on my income. But while I was, I got the thing I was helping sell to others for myself - Disability Insurance. I kept the cover till I had built an Engine to cover myself.