“Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery, none but ourselves can free our minds.” Bob Marley

This week, as Jamaicans commemorate our emancipation from slavery and the birth of our independent nation, some of us might reflect on what it means to be free. Financial freedom can represent different things to different people, but there is a universal desire in most persons to be free from fear about money. Unfortunately, many of us are in bondage to our financial fears, and have no idea how to emancipate ourselves.

Bestselling author and personal finance guru, Suze Orman, looks at the role that fear plays in denying us the financial success we desire. In her book, The 9 Steps to Financial Freedom, she declares that “Almost all of us have fears or anxieties about money – but we rarely admit them to those around us. We may not admit them to ourselves.“

Orman points out that “because (our fears) are holding us back, preventing us from taking control of our financial lives, looking these fears in the eye is an essential step toward freedom.”

Fear is a powerful emotion that can expand to immense proportions if we don’t find ways to remove its negative control on our lives. As Orman says “The trouble with fears is that when we keep them inside and refuse to deal with them, they grow, like weeds left alone in a garden.”

She describes what happens when someone with a fear of not being able to meet the bills for one month, allows that fear to balloon out of proportion with reality. Eventually his mind will begin to fear that he will never have enough money in general, and then he will begin to rationalize that he may lose somehow lose everything he has. If that fear is taken one step further, it will grow into a fear of being worthless.

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Think about the things that you fear about money, the things you refuse to acknowledge to yourselves, much less to friends and family. How many of us have received bills that we have left unopened because we’re afraid to know how much we really owe? How many of refuse to do a budget because we really don’t want to face the reality of our out-of-control spending habits?

How many of us have the outward trappings of wealth, but can’t sleep at nights because we fear that it will all disappear because it’s really the bank that own them? How many of us refuse to think about impending retirement because we have nothing saved and we fear that we will have to work until we die?

Refusing to face our fears can do more that give us sleepless nights and miserable days; it can actually ruin us financially. I have a client who originally approached me for help when his business debt became unreasonable.

After examining his concerns, he confessed that he really was not very interested in the industry in which he was involved, but he chose to hang on to the business in order to sell it and clear his debts. We were able to renegotiate his loans and make a plan to get the business to a more profitable level.

However, because he was not involved in a career that he was passionate about, he eventually made more mistakes which have put him in more debt than before. Although he is painfully aware that he is facing the possibility of total financial ruin, he continually avoids trying to discuss strategies to solve the problem. His fear of what lies ahead is actually maintaining his financial crisis.

So how do you tackle your fears head on when you’re really afraid of what your honesty will reveal? Sometimes we wait until our financial situation is so drastic that we no longer have a choice – the bailiff is at the door, or the repossession ad came out in last Sunday’s newspaper. However, don’t delay looking at your problems until they reach crisis proportion; you have the choice to be honest with yourself right now.

Take a piece of paper and write down what you are afraid of financially. Examples of money fears are:

– If I became very sick, there would be no money to take care of me
– One day the landlord will put me out, and I won’t be able to find a place I can afford
– My credit card bills will keep growing and never get paid off
– I won’t make my sales quota at work and I’ll get fired

Next, examine your fears to see if they are reasonable. Sometimes we will realize that our fears are only based on past events or memories we had as children. These irrational fears can be dismissed by being positive about our financial future. Other real fears, like debt that won’t go away, can be destroyed by admitting that we need help. Go see an expert financial advisor who will be able to show you options to turn around your finances.

Remember- fear is a mental block, and we alone can free our minds.