Monday, December 26, 2016

Financial Pain In The Neck

One of the things that I’ve struggled with over the years is finances.  Even when I’ve had money in my bank account, I get nervous about tomorrow.  I get nervous if it will be there.  I get the feeling that it will all be gone and there will be no more and I’ll be hungry and homeless. 

While all of those fears may be irrational and they don’t happen, they almost did at one time in my life.  That’s a part of my past, I’ll withhold from more detail because it is a dark part that I wish would have never happened. 

Then there is the part that when I was growing up, food was scarce.  I remember the free school lunches that sometimes were the main meal for my day.  I remember the government handouts of dried powder milk, dried eggs, and peanut butter.  No, they didn’t taste good but hunger outranked taste.

We went to bed hungry many times.  We shivered in the cold rural farm houses we lived.  Our boots that we trudged through the cold frozen snowy ground had holes in them.  Our mittens were thin.  Probably at one time, I could have packed all the clothes I had in one suitcase.  So some of the fears are real, even if they are from the past.

Abundance and financial security...

Abundance and financial security are concepts I still struggle with no matter what I do.  I’ve made progress, but then I got hit front and center with this latest trigger that messed with my head.

As I finally got up the courage to check my bank account and pay bills that I knew were coming due, the anxiety was so high.  In fact, I almost had an anxiety attack just getting myself to do the regular financial routine.  I wasn’t able to do too much because it was just overwhelming, so I did what I could and closed things down.  I didn’t think any more of it – until I went to bed.

My neck began to hurt...

Laying my head on my pillow and drifting off to sleep or trying to sleep, my neck began to hurt.  Now, as I’ve went through tremendous healing, there is one part of me that I still struggle with and that is my neck.  Often I have a lot of neck pain and if it isn’t every day, then it occurs frequently in the week depending on my physical activity.  At times, it is better.  At other times, it is worse.

Dr. Canali has a difficult time working with my neck and trying to get it and my shoulders to release.  Even if he distracts me, the minute he gets close to touching my neck, my entire body freezes on the treatment table.  At times, he has been able to work with it, but most of the time, it is hands off or I freeze approach.

So, as I was laying in bed, my neck began to hurt.  Often I can breathe a little and work on some relaxation and it will go away.  Tonight, nothing worked for me!  A few hours earlier, I struggled through the anxiety of the finances, but had not even considered the connection at this point.

The pain was escalating... 

Finally after I was not able to get the pain and tension to reduce, I ended up getting up out of bed.  The pain was escalating and the headache was increasing.  My neck muscle area felt cold and lifeless.  Yet, I could feel the intensity of the pain in a way I had never felt before.  I gave up and took an Aleve to try to bring the pain down a little.  I’m not a person that likes to take pills for pain.  For me, its about solving the issue – not masking the issue.  In this case, I could not alleviate the pain.

The Aleve did help and some more attempts to relaxing this area and breathing into it started to ease things a bit that allowed me to go back to bed.  I slept for several hours before waking up, but the pain and tension were still prevalent.  I was so hoping that with some sleep, they would improve.

After I got up, I almost took another Aleve, but I didn’t want to do that.  I knew that masking the pain was not going to help.  Most people turn towards the pain relievers, but I’m not one of those that do this.

I plugged in the Resperate...

So I finally got on my own treatment table, plugged the Resperate in and started to do the deep breathing connection with my body.  I went through two full cycles of this.  It was interesting to note that my pulse was actually lower, almost as if the anxiety and stress were weighing hard on my nervous system.  As I continued with the Reperate, I saw my pulse drop down, my breath slow way down and I felt the tension leave my body.

It was in that moment that I saw the little boy cowering in the corner of the room with his head down and his arms covering his head.  As things flew overhead, I was ducking and trying to keep myself from getting hurt.  My parents were at it again, fighting and screaming and throwing things – all over the family finances or what my Dad had spent when we had no money.  It felt like a war zone in those moments.  It seemed like it went on forever.  It seemed like it went on every day.  I cringe at the thought of what that little boy went through.  That little boy was me.

I saw the connection between what happened in my neck with the pain and tension and having to hunker down and duck from the things being thrown across the room.  I’ve never remember this one until now.  I wish I could forget.  I wish it never happened. 

At this moment, I’m really not sure what I do with this.  How do you recover from something that happened so long ago, but yet this most likely has a strong impact on how I view finances.  Finances are a war zone to me, where you just try to avoid them and duck so you don’t get hurt.  This isn’t really a good message to attract abundance or financial stability into my life.  In fact, the obvious statement is that it is the complete opposite.

http://mindbodythoughts.blogspot.com/2012/08/financial-struggles.html

I’ve struggled for a long time with neck issues.  Maybe I’m beginning to see what is fueling them.  Maybe it is more than just normal tension and stress.  If I had to sit down and create a movie about these experiences, it would not be hard to do.  The images and scenes feel so vivid and real.  They feel like one right after another.

I know they are challenges that I’ll find a way to overcome the financial pain in my neck.  I don’t get swept up into feeling like there is no way out and I don’t just do the doom and gloom.  I write these words so I can learn and process and find my way through it so that maybe they have less impact upon me.

I know of no other way to heal from them at this moment.  It is the beginning of trying to find healing and I’ve got a feeling that as I heal, so many other things in my life will stabilize more.

 #FinancialStruggles






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