financial stress | Total Wealth

Coming to terms with financial loss.

Kate Phillips — Sun, 06 Oct 2019 04:29:11 +0000

Coming to terms with financial loss is a challenge. My encounter with Stan in Orlando and his mantra of "It's hard."

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Taxes and Tummy Aches

Kate Phillips — Tue, 04 May 2010 23:29:35 +0000

Ten Tips to Get Your Bookkeeping, Taxes, and Bill-Paying Done! A funny thing happened on the way to getting my taxes done… Some kind of “tummy bug” hit. Not that awful have-to-sit-on-the-toilet-with-a-bucket-in-your-lap flu that leaves you wondering what else your body could possibly purge, but a milder I-just-don’t-have-an-appetite-and-my-stomache-kinda-hurts thing. Now, with all the “work” I’ve done with my relationship with money, I’m pretty conscious about how my mind, body, emotions, and financial world fit together. Was I resisting doing my taxes? To be honest, it’s one of my least favorite things, though I’m not sure the tummy ache was related. (I actually was in a pretty good mood after I got into the swing of things…) I’ll admit, I relish exploring the more creative, emotional, right-brained aspects of money… from brainstorming business ideas to helping someone process through their “stories” about money, perhaps gaining big “aha’s” or even reframing how they relate to money. But I’m not an accountant type; I struggle with mundane record-keeping tasks, and I’m not the person to come to with your questions about Quickbooks! Having huge breakthroughs in my relationship with money — and developing many distinctions that help others to do the same — created a new world of possibilities for me, but it didn’t make me a bookkeeper! Still, the bills must be paid, the taxes must be filed. And if you’re like me (naturally resistant to mundane financial tasks), you might even find your mind and emotions working against you to accomplish these things. As they say, awareness is a perfect place to start…. but awareness itself doesn’t guarantee change or even progress. What’s needed is focused attention and energy. Changing our focus and energy around something can have profound effects. Law of Attraction coach Sandy Forster, an Australian single mom who went “from…

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Winter Contemplation #1 (or, how to get unfrozen)

Kate Phillips — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 11:58:33 +0000

I live by Lake Marcel, poised between the Snoqualmie Valley and the Cascade foothills, between the towns of Carnation and Duvall (east of Seattle). It is peaceful, idyllic. It looks like the kind of place you’d go to visit your financially-secure retired relatives in their second home… nestled between tall fir trees, near the community beach. Part of my daily routine is to walk around the lake, weather allowing. I walk to stretch my legs, clear my mind, and… to listen. Sometimes, I hear Spirit speaking in Nature – perhaps through a bird or a tree, and often, through a living metaphor. Oftentimes, the answers to the very questions I have been pondering are to be found in Creation – in Universal, Natural Law, clearly observable in the physical world. (For those who have ears to hear and eyes to see…) As I’m writing my eBook on “Overcoming Financial Stress,” I’m thinking of how I manage and overcome financial stress – or any stress – in my own life. (Opt in to the right if you’d like a copy… it will be finished soon.) “Stress” is fundamentally a fear-based reaction. It’s a fear-based reaction to the past: we’re afraid we’ve made terrible mistakes that we should feel regret over; and a fear-based reaction to the future: we may have food, shelter, and love today, but surely it will disappear tomorrow! And who would we BE without the income, the home, or the “stuff” we’ve come to identify ourselves with? And perhaps things aren’t so great in the present. Perhaps we are confronted with uncomfortable challenges and find ourselves clinging to a past that no longer exists, discovering change the only constant. If only tomorrow were guaranteed to be like yesterday, if only we could predict it, manage it, control it! A natural reaction to change, challenge, and fear is to “freeze.” When we encounter a bear (or a large barking…

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Heroes, Villains, and Slippery Slopes

Kate Phillips — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 14:03:09 +0000

A financial coach examines the Curious Case of Bernie Madoff and the largest financial fraud in history.

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Nothing to Fear but Fear Itself

Kate Phillips — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 11:07:16 +0000

I was so moved by the words of FDR at his inaugural address, and struck by the timeliness of what he wrote for our own time as well, I wanted to share this excerpt. Given March 4, 1933, this speech was delivered in the depth of the Depression. “This is preeminently the time to speak the truth, the whole truth, frankly and boldly. Nor need we shrink from honestly facing conditions in our country today. This great Nation will endure as it has endured, will revive and will prosper. “So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself—nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance. In every dark hour of our national life a leadership of frankness and vigor has met with that understanding and support of the people themselves which is essential to victory. I am convinced that you will again give that support to leadership in these critical days. “In such a spirit on my part and on yours we face our common difficulties. They concern, thank God, only material things. Values have shrunken to fantastic levels; taxes have risen; our ability to pay has fallen; government of all kinds is faced by serious curtailment of income; the means of exchange are frozen in the currents of trade; the withered leaves of industrial enterprise lie on every side; farmers find no markets for their produce; the savings of many years in thousands of families are gone. “More important, a host of unemployed citizens face the grim problem of existence, and an equally great number toil with little return. Only a foolish optimist can deny the dark realities of the moment. “Yet our distress comes from no failure of substance. We are…

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“Financial Therapy”

Kate Phillips — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 09:19:31 +0000

“What do you do?” It’s the simplest, most basic question, one we might be asked on a daily basis. I know exactly what I do, but I’m still trying to figure out how to answer that question in a way that people can understand. In a nutshell, I help people think and feel differently about money. I help people create wealth, but not with stocks, bonds, real estate and budgets with built-in automatic saving plans. (Yes, one must have a plan, but it’s the wrong starting place.) I help people create wealth from the inside out, through transforming beliefs, attitudes, and emotions. But what am I? Sometimes I define it by describing what I’m not. We all probably know what a Financial Planner is, or perhaps we have had experience with a Financial Advisor, Financial Services Representative, or similar animal. Some work on commission, some work for fees. All have tools to help you assess your current financial situation and panic properly as you grasp the enormity of the canyon over which you must leap in order to one day retire. Most sell financial products (investments, insurance, etc.) that might assist you in reaching your goals. I took a CFP course once. I got my life insurance license. I interviewed in the financial services field. I was well on my way to a life of using tools and charts and calculators to help people plan their financial futures. But I wasn’t sleeping well. It wasn’t my calling. I knew the world didn’t need another financial planner (with all due respect to the thousands of fine financial planners who serve a genuine need to their grateful clients). I knew what I was. I couldn’t deny it. I had been one for years. It was time to just admit it. I was… A Financial Therapist. Since no self-respecting therapist would ever call themselves…

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The Cure for the Recession (article)

Kate Phillips — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 05:39:54 +0000

“The quality of our life is the quality of our emotions.” Gas is over $4 a gallon, meanwhile foreclosures are up, workers are being laid off, and business owners are tightening their belts. The word “recession” is bandied about, sometimes in whispers (as if we’re afraid the economy might hear us), other times in not-so-soft complaints. I’m a prosperity coach, not an all-powerful genie who can cure this country of what ails it. However, I may have some “cures” that may help our individual suffering in a measurable way. We all have feelings about the current economic climate. Maybe we feel fear, frustration, worry, or resignation. Perhaps we feel relief that our job is safe, and guilt that our neighbor’s was not. Typically, the more we are personally and physically affected, the more intense our negative emotions are likely to be. And from a sheer “happiness” perspective, I would suggest that these emotions, and not the recession itself, are the cause of any pain we might feel. Understandably, when unemployment, foreclosure, illness or death comes to your household, it presents challenges, often challenges we have not yet learned to face. But who has not known or heard of a person with incurable cancer who was as peaceful as the Dalai Lama? Illness is not a reliable predictor of negative emotions (though much research indicates that laughter and optimism aid in healing). Being wronged does not preclude forgiveness and inner peace. Bad traffic doesn’t necessitate road rage. And call me crazy, but I don’t think a recession (whether personal or national) means we must succumb to gloom, doom, and fearful fretting. I once heard an intriguing statement: “The quality of our life is the quality of our emotions.” In other words, whatever we are feeling…

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