Every time I hear self-care, what comes to my mind is a weekend yoga retreat, a massage, or a round of golf. These activities are relaxing. But they barely scratch the surface of real personal well-being. Authentic self-care is about protecting and enhancing your physical, mental, and emotional health. But there’s a blind spot in this type of self-care — money. Financial stress is ranked as one of the leading causes of anxiety around the world. Thus, true self-care involves taking control of your money. Can financial counseling self-care?
The main component of our Financial Wellness Through Mindful Living guide includes exploring how talking to a financial counselor isn’t just a chore. It’s one of the highest forms of self-care you can practice.
Can Financial Counseling Self-Care — Moving Beyond the Thai Massage
The ads on social media about self-care have led us to believe that wellness is something that you can buy. The reality is that the most important form of self-care is less glamorous. That’s because it involves setting boundaries, scheduling medical checkups, and facing your financial reality.
When you ignore your finances, it can be considered self-neglect. Tending to your finances is how you take care of your future self. It involves paying off your debts, planting seeds for your retirement, and adding money to your savings account.
If you’re wondering why financial wellness is important, the answer is tied to your physiological health. Unfortunately, chronic financial anxiety increases cortisol levels, disrupts sleep patterns, and causes headaches. It can even lead to severe depression. When you address the causes of this stress, you can prevent further financial anxiety.
What is Financial Counseling?
Before you can fully understand how financial counseling is self-care, you must learn what it entails.
Most of us are confused financial counseling with wealth management. A wealth manager works with clients who have significant assets and wish to grow them in the stock market. A financial counselor focuses on the foundational part of money management.
Financial counselors assist clients with crisis management. They can help you navigate bankruptcy, sudden job loss, or overwhelming credit card debt. Furthermore, they can help you create a realistic spending plan that aligns with your income. Then, identify your emotional spending triggers so you can finally reframe your relationship with money.
A great example of financial wellness is when a counselor helps a client transition from a state of total financial avoidance to a state of calm.
Why You Need Support?
Money isn’t just about math. Rather, it involves emotions. Your spending habits are tied to your self-worth, childhood trauma, social expectations, and your coping mechanisms.
Have you gone out and bought something you didn’t need because you had a terrible day at work? Have you ever felt overwhelmed by your student loans that you stopped looking at the balances? This is financial denial.
They are behaviors that are quite common. They’re also damaging to your mental health. A financial counselor acts as a third-party who doesn’t judge. This counselor doesn’t shame you for your past mistakes. Rather, he/she provides a safe space for you to unpack the reasons you make certain financial decisions. This approach to money is what elevates financial counseling from a math exercise to an act of self-care.
Ways Financial Counseling Acts as Self-Care
Treating financial counseling as a vital part of your wellness routine can transform your life. Here are ways that counseling with a financial expert is an act of self-care.
It Makes You More Aware
Not knowing about your overall finances is the most exhausting part of financial stress. The dread that you are running out of money takes a lot of your cognitive load. You might avoid your bank account to protect your peace. Unfortunately, your subconscious knows the truth.
A counselor can help you look at the actual numbers. You might feel scared for the first few minutes. However, clarity can bring relief. This is exactly the reason you need awareness, so you can have financial wellness. When you know the scope of the problem, it can transform into a math equation that can be easily solved.
It Helps You Build Routines
Self-care thrives on routine. Financial health requires that you have a financial routine. The best financial counselor helps you establish mindfulness habits to boost your financial wellness.
When you work with a financial counselor, you don’t have to wait for an alert to check your balance. Your counselor can help you set up a routine. For instance, you can have 15 minutes a week where you can sit down, review your spending, and adjust your budget for the week. When you have this habit, you can remove the panic from managing your money and replace it with calm intention.
It Lowers Decision Fatigue
We’re plagued by decision fatigue. This is one of the reasons many CEOs are now opting to wear the same clothes each day. You make thousands of choices and calculate whether or not you can afford something. Unfortunately, it can surely drain your mental battery.
When you contemplate how to improve your financial wellness, one of the most effective ways a counselor can implement is automation. When you set up automated transfers for your savings, automated bill pay, and a strict budget for nonessential spending, you can remove the burden of financial decision-making. You don’t have to stress over whether you can afford a purchase or not. Your budget has made that decision for you.
It Aligns With Your Values
One of the sources of internal conflict happens when you don’t align with your values. You might want to travel and have a family time. However, if you look at your savings account, you might find that you’re spending hundreds or thousands of dollars a month on subscriptions you don’t even use or takeout food that you don’t even enjoy.
Financial counseling will help you determine what truly matters to you. It’s a process of intentional living. A counselor can help you lower the spending for things that don’t bring joy. Instead, you can fund things that you do. Spending money on guilt-free things is the best self-care.
It Protects Your Future
Self-care isn’t just about making yourself feel good today, but it’s also about taking care of your future self. If you’re curious about how financial wellness affect wealth, the connection is directly linked. Financial wellness builds the necessary foundation to help you accumulate wealth. You can’t invest consistently if you are trapped in a huge amount of debt. When you work with a counselor to stabilize your foundation, you can free up some money to invest in your future.
People often ask whether or not financial literacy makes one rich. Rich is a subjective term. Financial literacy provides the tools needed to build generational wealth. It helps you achieve financial independence and buy back your time. Having the freedom to leave your toxic job is the best form of self-care you can imagine.
How to Approach Financial Counseling
If you’re ready to hire a financial counselor to help yourself, it’s vital to approach it with the right mindset.
Stop Feeling Embarrassed
Remember that you’re doing it to help your future self. You’re hiring a counselor to heal and not to be judged. Thus, forgive yourself now for your past financial mistakes. You made the best choices you could with the resources you had at the time.
Consider It a Therapy
Scheduling your counseling sessions just as you would a personal training session. Protect that time. Don’t take it for granted.
Be More Patient
You didn’t develop your financial habits overnight. You can’t get rid of your mindless spending habits in a single session. Always remember that financial wellness is not a sprint. Rather, it’s a marathon. It takes time. Celebrate small victories. For instance, you can stick to your grocery budget for at least two weeks in a row.
Be Honest
No counselor can help you if you hide your debts or aren’t honest about your spending habits. To help you grow, you need to embrace your vulnerability. Lay all your cards on the table so your counselor can help you.
True Financial Wellness
The wellness industry separates physical and mental health from financial health. But you can’t separate these two. If your finances are sick, your body and mind will feel the symptoms.
Can financial counseling self-care? Yes, it’s considered. Seeking professional help isn’t a punishment for being bad with money. Rather, it’s a proactive choice to take back control of your life.
Thus, the next time you’re scheduled to have self-care activities, don’t just think of going to a spa clinic or downloading meditation apps. Instead, reach out to a financial counselor. It might not offer the same comfort as having a hot bath, but the lasting peace of mind it provides will benefit you for the rest of your life.
Can Financial Counseling Self-Care: Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
What are examples of financial self-care?
Financial self-care involves taking actions to reduce stress related to money so you can protect your future well-being. Examples would include automating your finances, guilt-free budgeting, routine check-ins and building an emergency fund, as well as seeking professional support.
What are the different types of self-care?
True wellbeing requires a holistic approach. The most common types of self-care include physical, emotional, mental, social, and spiritual, as well as financial.
What is the 3 6 9 rule of money?
The 3 6 9 rule of money is a practical guide to help you determine how much you must keep in your emergency savings fund. The number depends on your job stability and income structure. 3 is three months of living expenses. 6 is six months of living expenses if you’re a single-income household. 9 is for months of living expenses if you’re a freelancer or a business owner.
What are the 5 Cs of self-care?
The 5 Cs provide a simple framework for building a balanced daily routine. The 5Cs include calm, care, connect, create, and compassion.
Jane is a licensed medical technologist who bridges the gap between clinical precision and digital innovation. While her formal background is rooted in the meticulous world of laboratory science, her passion lies in the logic of software development. When she isn’t analyzing data or writing clean, efficient code, you can find her on the golf course, applying that same focus and discipline to her swing.
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