When you are dealing with financial hardship, life can really suck. Financial scarcity, mounting debt, feeling overwhelmed by your under-earning ability and unable to meet your necessary expenses can bring about an enormous amount of fear, anxiety and stress.  What’s more, financial hardship places so many restrictions on experiencing all life has to offer. Your world can become so very small and closed in. You feel as though you have fewer choices.  Fewer choices and much less freedom.

Causes

A sudden job loss, a severe illness, the death of a partner, the failure of a business venture, or in my case, a divorce, and before you know it, you find yourself experiencing financial scarcity.  Financial security  suddenly seems to be a thing of the past and now unattainable.

Inner Work

When faced with any sort of crisis, the soul searching often begins.  The inner work can be so important to healing and the recovery of the emotional scars. The inner journey is all well and good, you might say, but everyday life goes on. You can also have children to provide for, or the responsibility for others so you do need to take a practical action.

Any of this sound familiar?  I must say, all of the above was a  huge concern for me following my separation leading to my divorce. Financial affairs need to be sorted and everyday financial responsibilities needed to be addressed. As more and more time passed, I was keeping my head above water, just, but long term financial security was a long way off.

Quest

I was fully aware, that I was not the first woman, nor would I be the last, to struggle in this area.  There had to be women out there like me.  I just didn’t have any real first-hand experience on how women recover financially after a crisis.  If a woman didn’t receive a generous property settlement, if she didn’t have a huge income,  if she had been blindsided by her divorce, if she didn’t remain in the family home, if she chooses not to re-partner and if she had children to consider, how could she do it?  Did she have choices?

The quest began. I searched for information.  I tracked down interesting writers. I went in search of  books. There would be four books which would resonate deeply with me.  I would read each one, from cover to cover, highlighting text, folding over corners of pages and learning invaluable lessons along the way.

Lessons

For me, it really became a case of when the student is ready, the teacher would appear.  Each author really became a teacher to me.  In each of the books I would discover a common theme and a similar journey. In each of the books, the journey would begin, following from the end of a marriage.  Extreme financial hardship would be the common theme .   In most cases the hardship experienced, seemed to me, to be insurmountable.  The ability to overcome such hardship, in my opinion,  just seemed impossible.

As for each of the inspirational authors, she was a woman and in each case, a mother.  She was responsible for her own needs and  those of her children.   She would begin her post-divorce life as a serious under-earner, pretty much living in a constant state of financial fear.  Faced with not only having to meet the costs of day to day living, she carried the burden of repaying mounting debt.  In at least one case, this was massive debt inherited from her ex-husband.

Happy Ending

Much to my absolute delight, I would learn, by the end of the books, that each woman would be rescued – by herself.  She would slay the dragon and experience her own ‘happy ending’, or should I say her own ‘happy beginning’.  Triumphant in overcoming her ‘under-earning’, she would become financially independent and secure.  She would enjoy success and happiness in many areas of her life.

A Star Is Born

In my daydreams, each author could be cast in a role as the heroine of her own life.  She could easily play a modern day Scarlett O’Hara in the classic film, ‘Gone With The Wind’.  I could see her now, in one of my favourite scenes from the movie, where Scarlett, facing her own financial struggles, defiantly pledges that “As God is my witness, I’ll never be hungry again”.

Conscious Creator

In reality and in everyday life, each woman would become financially  independent.  She didn’t need a script or a producer to create a masterpiece for her. Her wisdom came from knowing that she is responsible for writing her own script. No-one else could possibly be assigned that responsibility. She does the important inner work, she faces her fears, in some situations she surrenders and she takes the necessary action.  After all, she knows that she and she alone, is the conscious creator of her life.

 

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To be continued in Part 2 of Women Overcoming Under-Earning.

The books and authors featured are:-

‘Thriving After Divorce’ – Tonja Evetts Weimer

‘Overcoming Underearning’ – Barbara Stanny

‘The Map’ – Boni Lonnsburry

‘How To Be Wildly Wealthy Fast’ – Sandy Forster

In the next part,  I will explore the insights and lessons gained from each of the above books.