The Why of the Buy

A new sports bra. Another pair of black running shorts so I don’t have to do laundry as frequently. A pretty, silk pillowcase that promises to reduce my chances of a pimple. That mesh bodysuit that I’ll wear out to a bar (when is the last time I went to a bar? Great question).

These are all ads on Instagram I’ve received, or items that have been marketed to me in emails over the last week or so.

And I’ve gone on websites scrolling through cute activewear and actually put things in my cart…and then didn’t buy any of it.

The thing that has been most helpful for me on my money healing journey has been questioning the “why of the buy” as the Trauma of Money describes.

Why is this cute, mesh bodysuit in my cart?

Now, listen, I’m alllll about buying something cute just because! But I’m also a fan of questioning the deeper reasons as to why we’re buying something.

For me, I know that lately I’ve been struggling on a slight and subtle level with a sense of sadness when I reflect on how I’m not in a relationship.

I really want to say that I’m so totally and completely happy with my singledom as a feminist killjoy, but I know being feminist doesn’t mean I can’t be sad when I run through the park like I always do, and I run by a couple hugging each other and being tender and wish that I had that.

I’ve also been feeling a little grief, anger, and frustration because the mediocrity of men is so apparent.

I’ve attempted to “put myself out there” by creating a dating profile, and have swiped through all potential matches several times now. Like, literally. I’ve swiped to the literal bottom of the barrel in the vicinity of where I live…

What can I say? A feminist killjoy never compromises her standards.

It’s confirmed as if we needed confirmation: men are mediocre.

Sometimes I think about when I was 28 years old. It was a glorious and delicious time when I was truly, wholly so in love with being single.

It was a big revelation of healing for me to feel that way. 

But things were different. The context was different.

I lived in a house with three other beautiful, amazing women who were my friends. One of them is my best friend. I felt connected, resourced, and co-regulated.

These days, I live alone in my apartment, and while I wouldn’t change that for anything (I LOVE living alone), I don’t have that same human connection on a daily basis as I did when I was living with friends.

The pandemic also has made it difficult to make friends since I moved back to so-called St. Louis from so-called Portland, Oregon right before COVID hit.

Co-regulation is harder to come by these days, which is why I make more frequent trips to my parents’ house 30 minutes away despite us not always getting along…lol.

I share this not to throw a pity party for me, but hey, you’re invited if you want to come!

I share this because I know that when I’m feeling sad, lonely, frustrated, forlorn that I’ll go shopping.

Shopping!! A Libra’s favorite coping mechanism (I’m a Libra sun).

So, my biggest money crux has been interrupting my pattern of seeking that dopamine hit when I’m feeling down by swiping my card at Target to get more pointless home goods I don’t need, or typing in my card details to buy an overpriced sweater online.

And guess what?! I’ve been pretty successful at clicking that “x” in the window before I give away my card details to the consumerism gods.

So, I’ve been laughing at myself because Parade recently had a big sale and I scrolled through the sale stuff, read the reviews of things I thought were cute, added them to cart, and then looked at the total, thought about how often I wear the things I bought from Parade last year, and then hit the “x” to close out of the website.

I was proud of myself and instantly felt relief actually.

It can be stressful to decide what to buy and if it’ll be worth it – especially online when you haven’t even tried the thing on!

I imagined the heartache and soul-crushing pain of ordering something that doesn’t even end up fitting me and having to commit to returning it, knowing that realistically I’ll never actually go to Fed Ex and do that. 

Even more reason for me to close the browser.

And then I reflected on how I was feeling.

I made the connection that my feelings of dis-ease, of listlessness, of the energetic impulse to just buy something, is my body telling me that it needs acknowledgment. 

Instead of anxiously trying to suppress, erase, avoid, FIX, or obscure what I’m really feeling by shopping my grief and pain away, my body needs acknowledgement that I’m sometimes sad and lonely. 

It needs me to acknowledge the grief and pain of the last relationship.

The grief and pain of former friendships.

Part of healing is knowing that life is, in so many ways, so, fucking mundane.

If our lives aren’t sparkly rainbows all the time, (which is the truth for the majority of us, if not all of us), instead of thinking that there’s something wrong with us, we instead need to find acceptance. 

Acceptance of the mundane and finding the magic there.

Because there is magic in the mundane. That’s where “glimmers” come in, which I talked about in a previous post.

There isn’t anything you’re doing wrong if you don’t feel constantly over-the-moon happy all the time.

We live inside a traumatizing cisheteropatriarchal, capitalist society. 

It would be weird if you were over-the-moon happy all the time.

The honeymoon phase of a new relationship might make you feel this way, but it’s completely unsustainable, which is why it’s referred to as a stage.

Eventually, our bodies need to come down and find regulation.

It might sound so cliche, but one of the keys to healing money trauma is allowing yourself to feel your feelings and acknowledge that they exist.

How can you expand your capacity to acknowledge how you’re feeling today?

This is a great abundance practice: little by little widening and deepening your capacity to feel your feelings and just be with them instead of trying to fix them.

One way to anchor this practice is by engaging in the H.A.L.T. method.

Before you buy something, or really, make any kind of decision, first ask yourself:

Am I hungry, angry, lonely, or tired?

Sometimes, I’m all of them!

I hope this helps you feel a little less alone and a little more resourced and supported, so you can make more conscious and self-aware decisions with your money and in your business.

Please feel free to send me an email at erin@erinkmonahan.com and let me know what comes up for you after reading this.

I’d love to receive a message from you (did you know it actually counts as co-regulation?!)

Sending lots of love,

Erin