For many years, my mindset was focused on consumption, associating earning money with instant spending. Obviously, if consumption is your lifestyle, not having enough money will bring misery and distress.
My motivation behind overconsumption stemmed from an emotional void created by my disconnection from myself and my creativity. I can trace the roots of this disconnection to the struggles I faced in school due to my undiagnosed dyspraxia and dyslexia. I had to navigate a system in primary and secondary schools that didn’t recognise my needs, forcing me to mask much of who I was. Over time, I became quite skilled at masking my true self. However, as I grew older, it became increasingly difficult to hide the emotions and unmet needs that were bubbling beneath the surface. However, my neurodiverse needs were only part of the larger picture; the societal conditioning of the 1990s played a significant role in shaping my consumption mindset as well.
This story begins in 1980s Poland. Living in an oppressive regime wasn’t easy for anyone. But as it turned out for a sensitive kid like me, the daily struggles, fear and anxiety impacted me more profoundly than I wanted to believe. Everything in the 80s felt like a battle to me; despite my grandparents’ best efforts to shield me from reality, I still saw, felt, and understood what was happening around me. The 80s were fuelled by uncertainty, food shortages, strikes, arrests, martial law, and the never-ending greyness of the daily existence that swallowed all of us. In the 80s, no one spoke about money as the name of the game was to survive, not to live or experience life, simply have enough food to feed your family. The 80s reality evaporated almost instantly when Poland once again became an independent, democratic country. (Between WWI and WWII, Poland experienced 20 years of freedom and relative democracy.) The ’90s were all about getting to the top of the financial pyramid while absorbing the luxuries and bitterness capitalism offered. The downside of having to learn quickly while trying to catch up with the West was the erosion of the social fabric of the tightly knitted community I knew in the 80s. All the family gatherings dissolved almost instantly; we also stopped visiting our neighbours and playing with the kids next door. Something had to give in to make way for a wealth-building on steroids lifestyle.
One of my neurodiverse traits, aka “superpowers”, is “the power of observation.” I watched people carefully as they changed in pursuit of wealth and saw how unattainable pressure and a lack of experience destroyed so many of them. Many of them became distant, preoccupied, forever busy and often unkind to those with less. I quickly recognised that the relationship between money, power, and influence was tightly intertwined and often connected to the levels of happiness people I knew felt. This new reality I was thrown into wasn’t something I could easily understand. But what I understood for sure was that this new reality was also filled with fear and anxiety. Different kind of fear and anxiety than I experienced in the previous decade, but nevertheless, it was still fear and anxiety.
In the mid-90s, when the Polish economy stabilised a bit more (the first years of transition were, though), I began attaching my happiness to the amount of money my parents had. (I didn’t have a job back then; my parents moved from a city to a small town, which I hated. Having money in that town was everything, and I hated that, too.)
When my parents had the money, they were happy, relaxed, and able to buy whatever the capitalist Gods bestowed on them. This was precisely what they did, and I copied their behaviour for years to come. I also felt depressed, just like they did; each time, I didn’t have enough money to spend freely on things that brought no lasting value to my life but undeniably left a rather sizeable carbon footprint behind and a hole in my finances.
For years, I thought the essence of my life was to consume in any form, and I assumed everyone was the same. The belief that I needed to consume was also reinforced by teenage magazines, teenage TV shows, and, later in life, women’s magazines and pop culture, which have cleverly been encouraging women to spend. Of course, the credit also has to go to the fantastic work marketers do to screw up young people’s self-esteem and perception of reality.
For a long time in my adult life, every time I had money, extra savings, or passive income from my projects, I felt the most irresistible need to spend it, not invest or save, but BUY STUFF, which most likely would end up in a charity shop in a few months. (Back then, I was naïve enough to believe that charity shops were able to “deal” with our unwanted crap.)
My dysfunctional relationship with money, led by confusion and misunderstanding of finances, lasted until the first Covid lockdown, which in the UK was in March 2020. The pandemic brought out the uncontrolled fear and anxiety I felt while growing up to the surface. As a child, I couldn’t do anything about the situation, but as an adult, I decided to learn about finances, as I didn’t want fear to control my life. Besides, I was tired of repeating the same mistakes over and over again. Luckily, this time around (I did try to learn about investments in the past, but I asked all the wrong people), I found resources from people who were fiscally responsible and believed in the power of savings and investments more than in the power of debt. For women, especially women in the arts and creative sectors, debt can end their independence or creative careers and seriously derail their lives.
Reading about other people’s finances and journeys towards financial independence helped me understand my needs, wants, and desires. In the course of my research, a picture of my very tangled emotional connection to money emerged. Over time, and through expanding my understanding of finances and allocating money towards investments and savings, I managed to separate myself from my emotional dependency on fear and anxiety of having and not having money. You see, FEAR was the key emotion for me that I kept seeking: fear that I wouldn’t have the money to spend, as well as fear that having money would turn me into some kind of monster person (I didn’t want to be a dickhead to others), guided my actions and choices.
From someone who felt such a strong urge to spend money all the time, I became someone who can go weeks without buying anything that isn’t essential or family- or household-related. Luckily, the “market” Gods can no longer influence my thinking and choices. It has taken a lot of time and practice, and, in my case, avoiding temptations and always sticking to the lists of things I need to buy because they need to be replaced. This system works for me and keeps me on top of my spending. I also set a £100 monthly disposable budget. When I started my journey, I used that £100 to introduce sustainable swaps into my daily life. Those choices turned out to be great long-term investments.
When I was back at the university, I bought books, takeaway coffees, and occasional takeaway food or art supplies.
As of this writing, I’m using my £100 allowance (this £100 doesn’t include my business expenses) to submit my artwork to competitions and film festivals, attend workshops or talks, and buy clothes if I need to.
Early childhood programming that connects certain emotions with spending money or not having enough money can program and screw us up for life. Since I was programmed to spend money as soon as it reached my account, that was the pattern I followed most of my adult life.
In the bizarre world, I was seeking fear and anxiety in my daily life to recreate those feelings I experienced while growing up surrounded by fear and anxiety in the 80s and ‘90s. We all look for security in life; however, we can. In my case, spending money, as well as having money, made me feel anxious and fearful, and that was the “security blanket” I created around myself without realising how much harm it was causing. I was caught up in this cycle for years until one day, the world stopped, and I also stopped.
During the first lockdown, I kept reading everything and anything I could find about the
FIRE movement. It wasn’t difficult to find accessible information. I’m not saying this is the best or the only movement with answers to financial literacy. However, the accessibility and simplicity of the writing, unlike the official financial talk, which keeps many people out of the conversation, showed me how to take care of myself financially in a truly grown-up way. Through understanding the connection between working, earning, spending and investing, I began to reprogram my toxic conditioning. It’s an ongoing process, but I’m much more adaptable to financial changes now than ever. I have my security blanket in the form of investments and savings, which aren’t dysfunctional or driven by fear and anxiety.
However, my most significant shift happened about two years into my financial journey when I finally stopped thinking about money all the time. Prior to that, I would spend hours thinking about how to make money and how to spend it. It was such a relief to free up my energy and brain space and start living Another Way.
Everyone’s journey is different, and what has worked for one person doesn’t necessarily work for someone else. But personally, I think it’s worth embarking on that journey of discovery because it might make your life happier, simpler, and easier, and pave the way for a life with less baggage and more understanding.
I’m #MadeByDyslexia – expect big thinking & small typos.
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