Friday, April 1, 2011

How do you reward yourself?

It strikes me that culling down your spending is a bit like dieting. . . . not long ago I read a diet book where the author stated that working out how much to eat is the easy part . . . for people who have a problem with emotional eating the problem is why they eat the things they eat and then breaking those habits.  For those of us who have a problem with spending more than we can afford, or with hoarding, or just spending more than we need to, the problem is working out why we do that.  I think that often, for me at least, it is emotional spending, for example, to reward myself, perhaps when I think I'm not getting the reward from anywhere else, or to cheer myself up when I'm feeling down.  We seem to have this belief that the acquiring of a new item will (however temporarily) will fill some sort of void we feel inside.
I'm enjoying my resolution to cull my craft spending (and my stash) but the secret fear is that the desire to spend will manifest itself in other areas.  Having lost over 4kg this year, I'm very keen not to replace emotional spending with emotional eating!  So that question again: how do we reward ourselves? How can we do it in a way that is healthy for the mind and body, and provides more long-lasting  satisfaction?

1 comment: