I heard Suze Orman say, “You’ll never be powerful in life until you’re powerful over your own money.” This has nothing to do about being wealthy or about having power over others, it has to do about feeling powerful in your own life. And it kinda makes sense.

As a freelance writer I don’t have a regular income, if I don’t sell any projects or if I’m not hired for work I won’t receive a check that covers my rent. That is a fact, and that fact is scary. Time and time again it has filled me with anxiety, but who hasn’t felt that pounding heart and those sweaty hands?

No one loves seeing the numbers drop on one’s bank account, but the decrease on my bank account is synonymous with me possibly loosing the freedom to do what I love, and so it triggers a lot of fear. The financial fear of loss have been holding me back over the years, it has drained me of energy and it has stifled my actions. And it wasn’t until 2014 that it started to shift. And it was no magic shift of itself, but a deliberate choice I made because I was done feeling this way.

I took a close look at myself in my financial mirror. Looked at every fear involved with finances, at every thought or feeling that might be learnt by past conditioning, at things that I picked up along the line of my life, and at how it has made me act today. I found out how I want to feel about my money, and I researched how to go about that change I was looking for.

I discovered that my financial fear was controlled by a fear of loss – ”I know what I have, but I don’t know what I might get”. Since living in uncertainty is the only certain thing we got, my past behavior made me cling to what I had. But what I found out, that opened my eyes, was that my behavior in fact held me back from attracting financial abundance.

Before I always felt a sense of loss every time I paid the bills. I felt as though I was one step closer to loosing my dream (to live this life, doing what I love). My bank person helped me make some investments, and since she noticed my fears, we decided to invest in so called ”safe bets” which in the end didn’t generate that much of a revenue. And me myself didn’t feel like doing any risky moves because I didn’t know enough about the market or I was too afraid to loose money to dive into it.

So what happened after I started to challenge my financial worries? In 2014 I went from being fearful to at the end of the year start taking action. Not to say that all my financial fears have gone away, but I manage them differently. As a birthday gift to myself this December I made some investments of my own choice. Because as a Suze Orman has said – ”Nobody is going to care about your money more than you do.” So that’s what I’m doing.  And instead of feeling a loss every time I pay my bills, I nowadays do it the Gabby Bernstein way – Giving thanks for being able to pay them.

For me it’s all about taking responsibility and being in charge of my own life. Because if I’m not running my life – who is? This journey has in essence just been about making a little shift in how I view things. From instead of feeling pushed around and having a sense of loss, I now feel in charge, powerful and grateful. And that to me is worth a whole lot, because when I’m at peace I can invest my time on the right things instead of the wrong ones…

Love, Johanna.

Tags: action, awareness, fears, Finance, Gabby Bernstein, inspiration, meditation, mindfulness, quote, spirit junkie, Suze Orman, The bead movement, Uncertainty