Hello! I’ve been having some interesting thoughts come up around spending money on a magazine. I love that I’m stopping to take a look at these thoughts and decide how I want to move forward. My impossible goal this year is to have $50,000 of income, so all my money thoughts are coming to the surface!

I feel urgency to go out and buy a magazine that features a story about someone I really admire. I want know what it says and what she talks about in the article. Here is my model about deciding about the magazine purchase.
Unintentional
C-12.99 on Darling Magazine
T- I’m a horrible, selfish person who can’t do anything responsible with her money.
F-Bad
A-Spend it anyway, beat myself up, spin in thoughts, not decide ahead of time to spend it or not and feel good about decision
R- Perceive myself to be that horrible, selfish person

I have other thoughts circulating such as I’m not responsible with my money. I’m the spender in the relationship. I spend a lot of money on myself vs my husband. I should be saving it. It’s wrong to spend money on yourself.

These thoughts are very “real” to me right now. They feel “true,” even though I know they aren’t. They also bring up guilt, shame, selfishness, unresponsible feelings.

I know I can get to the place where I can decide that I love that I spent $12.99 on a magazine or I love that I decided not to, but not because of guilt, shame, or selfishness. I can decide to spend money and save money while I’m working towards my goal. I just love how a small purchase like this can bring up so many thoughts. How can start detaching from those thoughts? What are some alternative ladder thoughts? I know I can practice a thought like “It’s wrong to spend money on yourself, but maybe I’m wrong about that. I could be wrong about that thought.”

I do want to spend the money on the magazine, but I want to feel good about it first and take out all the thoughts that I’m some terrible human for spending 12.99 or that I’m selfish.

Reasons for spending it – I love the person in the feature article. I love learning more about her and reading about her life.

How do you also get to a place of loving your reasons? Right now the thought “It’s wrong to spend it on yourself”is speaking pretty loudly in my head.

Thanks!