1. Anxiety and Fear
Fear of the unknown. Fear of what will happen if they make a change. Fear that they don’t have the strength or wherewithal to make the move. But they will offer an oft-used excuse: “I don’t have enough money to make the moves I need to.”
2. Anger and Resentment
When we feel we didn’t get paid as promised, we feel angry. When there is a shortage of money, we get upset easily. When we see that others have more than we do or earn more than we do, we start to feel that we are being shortchanged somehow. Sometimes we get angry at people who we think are the cause of our money problems.
3. Sadness and Sorrow
We want to give so much to our kids or our families, and when we can’t because of our limited resources, we get down on ourselves. Then we look out at the world full of tragedies—corruption, war, death, and senseless horrors—and we think: This is all because of money. Our collective sorrow about injustice, pain, suffering, and heartbreaking loss can be debilitating if left unmanaged.
4. Hatred and Desperation
If you are taken advantage of, you may feel a general sense of outrage, but at some point you begin to feel hatred toward the person or entity that did this to you. If you feel the situation cannot be changed, you begin to turn that hatred inward—toward yourself—and become desperate or depressed.
5. Superiority and Inferiority
We spend money so we don’t have to feel inferior in front of others or so we can feel superior to those around us. It’s that simple. That is why members of the upper middle class are constantly struggling to buy expensive brands to look wealthier than they really are. They don’t want to feel inferior to their more affluent friends, and they want to feel superior to those lower-middle-class folks they are trying desperately to separate themselves from.