by Renee leNobel | Mar 15, 2016 | Finances
I have a few friends that are in the dating stage of their lives right now. It is a fascinating topic of conversation. Of course, being me, I find the money part particularly interesting.
How come? Well, pretty much every girlfriend I have claims that it is the guy’s obligation to pay for dinner and drinks on a date. And one friend told me she was out recently where she tried to pay and the guy told her “come on, let me be a man” and insisted on paying. Another friend of a friend uses dating to fund her dinners out. Whenever she is low on funds, she goes online and finds some random guy to take her out for drinks or dinner. The guy always seems to pay.
This is interesting. I have asked if there is any discussion around this when it comes time to pay the bill but from my limited polling of friends they say there is not. The woman may make some half-hearted attempt to pay, but that is generally to be polite.
How is this still the norm? I should mention that my friends are all in their 40s and they are all at least as well off as the men they are dating.
What does this payment dynamic do?
Well, another friend went out on two dates with someone who paid for both and after the second one, she decided that they were just not suited to each other. He emailed to ask her out again and she spent two entire days agonizing over how to tell him this. She felt like she owed him something more for the $40 he had shelled out on her behalf instead of the standard “I don’t think we are on the same page – see you later,” email that she did eventually end up sending him. As we discussed this, she said it would have been way easier to break it off if she didn’t feel like she was in dinner debt!
A more extreme example of this involves a friend that went out with a guy some years ago. He took her out for a fancy dinner and when she did not “put out” at the end of the night, he made his displeasure known and never contacted her again. Good riddance in that case is all she could say. That said, it was an unpleasant experience. Fortunately, she is a strong and independent person and does not let people wield power over her, but not everyone is as strong as her.
So, my opinion on all of this? Guys get to buy power for the cost of a cheap dinner. Pretty good deal. Women are handing over their sovereignty for dinner and drinks. Am I being a bit extreme? Maybe. After all, some women are using it to fund their nights out as noted above and may know exactly what they are doing but they are helping perpetuate a system that does not serve anyone.
This dating and paying system is establishing a pattern where women are asking men to take care of them. This dating and money pattern potentially sets the precedent going forward if the relationship between these two people continues. When you are suddenly being supported and taken care of by someone else it changes the entire dynamic of the power in the relationship. Just ask my kids. I pay for them and I am the decision maker in the household.
Do women need to be taken care of? What do they really need out of a relationship? They need to be loved and respected and in my opinion, automatically assuming that a woman cannot pay and take care of herself is not showing respect.
I have met a number of widows in my capacity as a volunteer income tax preparer for seniors. These women outlived their husbands and in every case, they have were not the financial decision makers in their households. It is challenging to say the least to start learning how to deal with money as a senior citizen.
How do stop this pattern? Well, I believe it begins right at the beginning. Going on a coffee date? Pay for you own coffee.
by Renee leNobel | Feb 3, 2016 | Divorce
I think our beliefs and the stories we tell ourselves drive our lives. It is what your head is telling you that determines if you will have a good day or bad day. Yes, I believe we manifest our destiny by our beliefs.
I came to this realization after a lot of self-reflection. What is it that makes one person happier than another? It is basically that the happier person believes that they are happy.
I know this from my own experience.
When I first separated from my husband, I sank into a depression. The only thing that got me out of bed everyday was just my mom strength. I couldn’t crater completely because what would happen to my kids? So I managed to put one foot in front of the other and keep going. I remember wondering how I had ever gotten to that place. I had always considered myself to be a happy person. In fact, that was my persona. I used to love reading depressing books because I wanted to experience that emotion because I did not have it in my life!
Every morning I woke up and felt terrible. The stories started playing in my head and the big one at that time was “what is the point?” I imagined just putting in time until my kids were old enough to look after themselves. This story played in my head for about a year. It sucked in all sorts of evidence to confirm that life sucks and it got bigger and bigger until one day I realized I did not want to go on.
That was not a good thought. What would happen to my kids then? I am so grateful that at that point I had a wonderful coach in my life who came to me through the Minerva Foundation. She understood what was going on and asked me the right questions to get me to the point where I could start shifting the story that I was telling myself.
The amazing thing was after a short time of telling myself a different story I started to feel better. This incremental difference in feeling felt so amazing that it was like a revelation. I started reading again (no, not depressing books). I started reading all those self-help books that I had mocked in the past. You know the ones and if you don’t, here is a list of my favourites:
Are You Ready to Succeed? Unconventional Strategies to Achieving Personal Mastery in Business and Life – Srikumar Rao
The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom – Don Miguel Ruiz
The Gifts of Imperfection: Let Go of Who You Think You’re Supposed to Be and Embrace Who You Are – Brene Brown
Loving What Is: Four Questions That Can Change Your Life – Byron Katie
Some of my friends noticed the change in me and asked me how I had done it. I said I just decided I was going to make myself better. When I said it that way, it didn’t seem possible and I think a few people raised more than one eyebrow and thought – yeah, right.
It wasn’t easy and it has taken some time; two years in fact, and I still tell myself some stories that are not helpful. That is what is so incredible. I have first hand evidence that the main thing that determines how my day goes is what thought I buy into when I wake up in the morning. Is it going to be a good day or a bad day? It’s as simple as that. What is not simple is letting go of those stories that make us feel terrible. They can get a hold of you and it can sometimes take a while to shake them. I rely on certain things to help me shake those stories, but that is a different blog post.
Why am I writing this post today? I was recently reminded of this by someone who wakes up everyday and says “Life is awesome!”
I had noticed that some of the stories I was starting to tell myself these days were starting to impact my day-to-day living again. I decided to adopt the “life is awesome, I’m going to crush it today” thought and for the last couple of days it has helped me get through the overwhelming thought of “HOW AM I GOING TO GET THROUGH TAX SEASON” that has been playing in my head for the last month. Life is awesome – I just will. That is my story today.
I want this blog to be the start of a series on stories we tell ourselves.
Next week’s topic? Stories we tell ourselves about money and how that affects our spending.
In that vein I would love love to have some feedback on a story that you tell yourself about money. I know mine. Mine is I’m broke, I cannot spend. What’s yours?
by Renee leNobel | Jan 27, 2016 | Finances
Do you have your own business? Are you contemplating starting your own business? I recommend you think about putting structures into place to maintain work-life balance.
Or not.
Yeah, I’m conflicted about this. I love my job. I love it so much that other things have basically flown out the window. Today someone asked me what my hobbies are. Hobbies? Uh…I guess work does not count? I was too embarrassed to admit that Netflix is a hobby. I felt bad all afternoon as I have no hobbies anymore!
When I couldn’t come up with hobbies, I started to beat myself up more. How did this happen? How did I become a workaholic when in my prior life I had the tag phrase: “Renee, the only thing she is passionate about is her leisure time?”
One of the main things that happened is that I started to practice gratitude. When I look at my life now, I look at everything that I am grateful for. When you spend your day thinking about how grateful you are to have the work that you are doing, it suddenly takes on a different hue. You want to be doing it.
I also feel like I have chosen all my work. No one is making me do it.
But there is something else. A sole proprietor who works from home has no clear divides between when the working day starts and when it ends. As soon as you get up and are awake, you are potentially at work.
A friend put it to me this way:
The difference between someone that works a nine to five job and a sole proprietor is that the person who works nine to five has clearly defined non working hours that they do not get paid for but the sole proprietor can work anytime and anywhere. As there are no clear “personal life hours” it is easy to slide into a pattern where you simply work if you have nothing else going on. Especially if you love it!
I have discovered that I do everything that I need to get done in my life (feed the kids, do laundry, shop) and the time that is not spent taking care of kids and household, I spend on work. If nothing is scheduled, I start working.
So as much as I like my work, I recognize that not having some other interests could potentially lead to burnout and general unhealthiness as I sit in front of my computer all day.
I’ve come to the conclusion that as a sole proprietor or entrepreneur, one has to schedule leisure time. Simply having free time does not work. It is like a vacuum into which work rushes in.
Time to book that weekly exercise class. To ensure I go, I’ll pay up front. Accountants hate wasting money!
I have decided. I need to start scheduling my time off. Just like you have to be sitting at your desk as an employee for certain hours, I will have to create a non-work schedule and punch the old in and out timecard to make sure I adhere to it.
by Renee leNobel | Jan 10, 2016 | Divorce
I have a good friend who is very insightful and she has done it again. She has inspired this week’s post.
We hadn’t talked in awhile and we started talking about how we are each doing in life. She has Lupus – a chronic inflammatory disease that occurs when your body’s immune system attacks your own tissues and organs and I have an ex. Now it wasn’t me that made this connection, she did. She said “Renee, your ex is like a chronic disease you have no control over. Just like a disease that flares up unexpectedly in life, so does your ex.”
He has recently “flared up” as she so succinctly put it.
Another friend noted that ex flare ups tend to happen around stressful times of the year, birthdays, Christmas… yup, right again.
I especially liked the part where she said I have no control over it, just like she has no control over when her Lupus hits.
Now, some people might object to this comparison because after all I made the choice of marrying my ex and it really is only my perception that he is flaring up. It’s simply a matter of opinion that something he has said or done is stressful to me. That is the difference here. It is mostly my reaction to my ex that causes me stress and pain whereas with my friend, her lupus is a concrete disease that she has to deal with.
That said, she has noticed that if she modifies her diet and tries to maintain a healthy lifestyle, it helps decrease the severity of her Lupus flare ups. I too have implemented strategies that prevent severe reactions to ex flare ups.
I have cut back on coffee (sigh), I exercise (well, not lately, but that’s my goal) and I have built my ex flare up response system.
My ex flare ups come on suddenly. Out of nowhere. They are infrequent but severe. I don’t see them coming. They just hit.
Now I don’t know what my friend does when a severe Lupus flare up occurs, but I have learned what to do when an extreme ex flare up hits as even though I don’t know when it is coming, I have lived through enough that I have had to develop a strategy.
The first thing I do is dump my first knee jerk emotional response into an email (making sure I remove his address first). I put in everything that is upsetting me at that very moment. I go for it. Then I hit SEND and send it to my dummy email account. I’m not sure how it works, but it calms me down.
Then I give myself time. I don’t run off to my support network to scream about the latest outrage being perpetrated by the ex (well, not for a few days anyway as I guess this blog post did come out of talking, ahem, ranting, to my network).
I take deep breaths, I meditate and I practice gratitude and remind myself that the future never turns out the way I imagine and certainly not the worst case scenario that I tend to gravitate towards in my thoughts.
Now, all these strategies don’t make the flare up go away but they do alleviate some of the symptoms such as lack of sleep and extreme grumpiness.
These strategies also get me to the best mood for dealing with my ex. Before managing myself, I would tend to fight or avoid my ex, but after time I get back to understanding I need to collaborate with my ex.
Because fighting it just exacerbates the flare up and avoiding it, well, that just puts me in into a waiting and apprehensive state.
So I sent my ex and email and proposed we talk in person with some collaborative ground rules set in place.
After a series of meetings and conversations, the flare up has subsided. We have settled back into a good routine and I will continue to work on strategies to decrease the frequency of ex flare ups in the future.
by Renee leNobel | Dec 10, 2015 | Finances
Last’s week’s post is missing. Where did it go?
It got decimated by the negative internal chatter and negative future focus that was going on in my brain for the last two weeks. When I finally got out from it, this week’s blog post presented itself:
Your victimhood perspective is making you stuck.
You know the victimhood perspective right? It’s those thoughts that life is harder for you , your circumstances are too challenging, you can’t do it, life is unfair, etc. , etc., etc.
Those are the thoughts that lead you to make less than ideal choices or simply not make choices at all and avoid, avoid, avoid.
Instead of addressing the things you need to do with hope and optimism, you get dragged into doing things because things have gotten so bad, you are forced to do them kicking and screaming all the way.
I can think of one thing that I see people avoiding time and time again – taxes anyone?
Not doing taxes is not my issue; I like doing those. I have other things I avoid when I thinking these thoughts:
I’m too busy
My life is harder than everyone else’s
There’s a big conspiracy to stop me from doing “this” (“this” being whatever you are stuck on).
I can’t do it, I’m not capable.
This was me last week when I was feeling like I was being forced to do something I didn’t want to do.
I started off by trying not to let it affect me. My last post was all about waiting to see what would be revealed.
That didn’t work for me at all and it turns out I’m not very patient when there is uncertainty in my life. It felt like there was a ticking time bomb about to go off in my life which I had no control over.
Then I started talking to people about it despite my other self-imposed rule not to do this. I did this anyway because I was feeling sorry for myself and wanted sympathy.
I got sympathy. Did that make me feel better? Nope. I just thought “my life is so unfair.” even more.
Other people advised me that I needed to be an adult and deal with it.
I listened to the people telling me this and I chose to add it to the “more proof that my life is unfair” file I had set up in my brain.
“Why do I have to be the adult? That’s not fair. I’m always the adult.”
So then I sat around some more for a couple of days and felt worse and worse.
I hadn’t felt this low for a while.
So I hauled out my self-help tools and I started to trick my brain into feeling better.
I started writing. I wrote a lot of angry emails that I sent to myself. I started many (blamey and angry) blog posts.
I started practicing gratitude by writing down three things I was grateful for when I woke up every morning. I even got my kids to practice gratitude and that morning there was no yelling…coincidence? I journaled and generally pretended I was Pollyanna. Remember her? The irony that I have to try to be Pollyanna these days is kinda funny to me because when I was in my twenties, I was accused of being too much like Pollyanna by a friend of mine . It was considered a bad thing with certain people and frankly it got buried in me because I used to hang out with a bunch Eeyores.
I then started repeating this to myself:
“I’m choosing not to be a victim. After all I can deal with whatever is thrown my way. I always have, I always will. That is life. Everyone deals with whatever comes their way. We all do. Yes, some of it is really terrible and yes, it could possibly be very unfair but we all deal with it. I get to choose how to deal with it.”
Then I sat down and became the adult.
I addressed the issue that was making me feel like a victim.
I addressed it the way I know best.
And you know what? I got to get on with my life again and I got to head in the direction that I wanted. Suddenly I became productive and unstuck again. I contacted people I had been avoiding, I got on with my work backlog and I felt good.
So if you are feeling stuck and unhappy, check in with your perspective. Are you feeling like life is unfair?
If yes, you need to do some work.
I have a few friends that are in the dating stage of their lives right now. It is a fascinating topic of conversation. Of course, being me, I find the money part particularly interesting.
