Healthy Wealth, Body & Mind – What comes first?

Healthy Wealth, Body & Mind

I have been musing over my new strapline these past few weeks, healthy wealth, body and mind. Everything it stands for is what I love and I have literally thousands of ideas for content and collaborations.

I met my mastermind friend Anita for a soda water and lime (see the healthy option) this week and we were discussing the concept of wealth, body and mind. If you can get all three of those factors to a good place then you are set up for happiness. But what do you need first?

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs

I have studied Maslow many times in my life. He established a key psychology concept of the hierarchy of needs. It starts with basic needs such as food, water and shelter at the base of the pyramid. Reaching self-actualisation at the top of the pyramid. The dizzy heights of life being at peace, balanced and actualised.

What comes first in the hierarchy, wealth, body or mind? Having enough money to maintain your life is low down the hierarchy. We all know that money doesn’t buy you happiness but it does make life comfortable and gives you choices.

The uncontrollable feeling of being in debt

Many of us have experienced this feeling. The spiralling down feeling of being out of control. The £10k becomes £15k as the interest stacks up and your expenses exceed your income. In desperation, you might take out a loan, but the only loan you can get is a nasty payday loan with 200% interest charges per year. These feelings are so destructive to both your mental health and physical health.

Ignoring money problems will only prolong the effects on your mental and physical health. So now is the time to face facts. Be brave and write it all down. How much debt have you got on credit cards, store cards, loans, oney owed to friends. Think of everything (except mortgage, lets keep that separate for the moment) Add it all up and face the reality of your situation. Once you know how much there is, be that 10k, 20k or 30k you can start to plan on how to deal with that debt.

Every method of dealing with debt is different dependant on your personal circumstances and it isn’t going to go away. It is money that is not yours so it needs to be repaid. Read advice from people like me who are going through it (£15k), or Ricky at Skint dad who has been through it (40k) or Sara, a CAB advisor for a wealth of sound debt advice.

Speak to Debt Charities

You can speak to charities like StepChange for debt solutions, National Debtline for phone advice and everything to to do with the courts eg CCJs, Citizens Advice for help with priority debts (rent/mortgage arrears, council tax etc) and also benefits. Also there is CAP who do home visits, often to very vulnerable people, and Business Debtline for people who are self employed.

To start off, try a little exercise yourself. Write everything down. This can be on a bit of paper or on a computer. It might be easier to use a spreadsheet. I can send you a brilliant one to help you out. That will add everything up for you. You need to work out your regular consistent income and your expenses and costs. You will need to think of everything from the biggies like mortgage payments and bills down to birthday pressies, holidays, takeaways, haircuts. My spreadsheet lists everything and using my expenses with numbers as an example. Also include your current debt repayments.

Your income less your expenses will give you your monthly position, hopefully it’s a positive number. But there so much more to be done. Think about every line now, what can you cancel, where can you save, where can you make more money. You need to make that bottom number of income less expenses as big as possible. This will mean you can increase your debt repayments.

If this all sounds too much, don’t despair because the charities I mentioned can help you out with this.

Financial Freedom

Once you have gotten rid of debt, or are in that amazing position to not have any debt you can look forward to the future and focus on financial planning. I love this part of my blog where I simplify all sorts of personal finance subjects like pensions, investments, savings, wills, insurance, equity, bonds, funds. The list goes on and on. These are the kind of subject areas that I write about now and more coming.

Healthy wealth

Once you are in control of your wealth your mind will be in a much better place. Think of the weight that will be lifted. There is so much to be said for a healthy mindset. Here are a few things I have tried out and use as tools to keep my mind healthy. I am by no means perfect but I feel balanced and happy most of the time.

• Writing – I love how the act of writing gets the thoughts out of my head onto a screen or a notebook.
• Talking it out – a problem shared is a problem halved. It really does help. Choose a positive person who will listen.
• Crying it out, I love a good cry.
• Exercise – Walking, running, yoga, cycling, whatever it may be it’s so good for the mind
• Meditation – Guided meditation is so powerful and often generates the most amazing balance and ideas from the heart.
• Hypnotherapy – I have done this and it has 100% helped me with the mind side of weight loss. Also focus and balance.
• Cognitive Behavioural Therapy CBT – I have done this a few times, it’s given me coping tools and helped me to understand deep routed mind issues concerning grief, control, love.
• Counselling – a lighter version of therapy talking to someone you don’t know. Or maybe you can look into couples counselling with Betterhelp?
• Mentoring – More used in the business world but a mentor will also help with your mental health by giving advice, business coping strategies.
• Courses – I have done many courses in my life, many paid for by previous companies I have worked for. Women’s development, leadership skills, negotiation skills, PR from the hear that I am doing right now. All have given me invaluable life skills and helped with the mind

Healthy Body

Once you have your wealth and mind sorted it’s a great time to move onto the body. And try to sort that out before it’s too late. We only have one life, so make the damn most of it. My parents didn’t get that chance.

Another list of things I do, have tried and how they have helped me out

• Hypnotherapy – A huge help with the emotional eating problems I have had my whole life.
• Nutritional Advice – Coupled with the hypnotherapy this has worked so well. June 2015, I was 14 stone, by June 2016 I was just under 11 stone. I have maintained that for 1 year. I ate clean for two months and managed to deal with my issues with alcohol being used as a coping mechanism.
• Personal Training – A newer experiment which I am loving. I have been working with Kane Allardyce of No-Bull Fitness since mid-May every week. I am the fittest, leanest and healthiest that I have ever been. My running pace is at its best and I can lift weight like you wouldn’t believe (am up to 50kg dead lift).
• Yoga – Yoga has been my exercise of choice for the past 5 years, taught by Helena Bingham also my nutritional advisor. I also use the free classes from Psyche Truth on YouTube.
• Yoga retreat – One of my manifestations/wish list things is an Ibiza yoga retreat. In the meantime, I am going on a three-day retreat to Devon again with Helena in early September. I cannot wait.
• Running – I run around once a week. Its normally a 7/8ish km run where I can burn a good few calories and clear my mind. Or maybe try keto fit.