Managing Money Stress with Lindsay Bryan-Podvin

This week's financial wellness content is brought to you by Wealthfront. Psst. (mouse clicking) (ethereal music) Headspace Studios. (ethereal music) (calming music) Hi, my name is Lindsay, and welcome to "Radio Headspace" and to Thursday morning. Financial anxiety can feel overwhelming, affecting everything from our daily mood to our future plans. Today, I'll share mindfulness strategies to help you understand and interrupt negative financial thought patterns so you can feel more and control. Let's jump in. (calming music) So, financial anxiety can happen to literally anyone, even for the person who seemingly has it all together financially. They make good money, they have a a hearty savings account, they have money set aside for retirement, but they are still stressed out when they go out to eat and cannot bring themselves to order an iced tea instead of the water that comes for free. Why do they feel so worried? I think a lot of us tend to judge that person, or if that's us, we tend to judge ourselves for that behavior. But as a financial therapist, I'd like to invite you to think about how that particular type of anxiety is keeping you safe. So oftentimes, when I meet somebody who is very anxious about spending money, oftentimes I'm asking them to go back in time to think about why that type of behavior of holding on tightly to money kept them safe. So, for example, they might have said, "Well, in my first job right out of high school, I was struggling a lot financially. I got into a lot of credit card debt. It was so upsetting and stressful, and I finally managed to pay it off, but I'm so worried that I'll end up there again. So now, these are the things that I do. I'm very strict about tracking every single penny." The other thing that I hear come up all the time is that this is a learned behavior. Their parent or grandparent exhibited holding on tightly to money in order to stay safe, and they adopted that behavior. (calming music) And what we know about epigenetics is that trauma can be passed down for up to seven generations. Having money meant I can flee this country if it is no longer safe for me, or having money meant that I could put a deposit down on an apartment and have somewhere for my kids to live. So, I'd been working with somebody in my practice who was very financially successful by all measures, and they were so fearful that somehow they would make a mistake and it would all be gone, that they literally would not allow themselves to even go to a park and play a free game of volleyball because they were so stressed about having to buy potentially new shoes because their shoes might be damaged by the sand in that beach volleyball. I didn't just say to them, "Let's look at how much money you have in your bank...