Afraid of poverty: what to do?

Being afraid of poverty is something that in itself is quite normal. The fear of being poor is a fear that almost everyone has at one time or another. You shouldn't think that one day you won't have enough money to pay for your food or even your rent. This fear in itself is not irrational, but it can be irrational if you have an irrational idea of what poverty means.

To make sure you have less fear of poverty, in this blog I will discuss what poverty is, how the fear can arise and how you can solve poverty.

What is poverty?

There are multiple meanings of poverty. According to the united nations, poverty is the state a person is in when they cannot provide the basic necessities of life. You then do not have enough money or other means of exchange to pay for clothing, food and shelter.

According to the Netherlands Social Cultural Planning Agency (SCP), poverty is when a person is unable for an extended period of time to provide goods and services that are considered minimally necessary in society.

Because the SCP links poverty to what a society deems as minimally necessary, poverty in the Netherlands is often different from poverty in a Third World country.

Poverty in the Netherlands

In the Netherlands, the SCP classifies you as poor if you have enough income to meet your basic needs but can’t afford anything extra. So you do have a place to live. Somehow you manage to provide yourself with clothing and food, but going out or buying more expensive clothes is out of the question.

For them, poverty is felt most acutely when you can’t send your child to a birthday party —at least not with a gift for the birthday child. This poverty is also felt when, for example, you yourself can’ t join a sports club because you can’t afford the membership fee.

Your social life is quite limited by poverty.

By this definition, about 1 million people in the Netherlands are poor. Of these, one-third are children who are poor.

Fear of poverty

The fear of poverty can be the fear of being in the same situation as those 1 million people or, on the contrary, the fear of being worse off than the minimum indicated by the SCP.

The fear of poverty is a fear that almost everyone has at some point in their lives. Of course, this is also because money and possessions are important in our culture and often say something about your social status. People with larger homes often seem to have a better social status than people who live in apartments.

Poverty, therefore, can be humbling.

For example, I recently read a story in a magazine of a woman who lived in a wealthy neighborhood. She and her husband had it good in itself. She could go on vacation and they both had a car, but apparently in that rich neighborhood you were supposed to go on vacation 4 times a year and buy a new car every 2 years. Because this was something she could not do, it felt to her like she was poor, when of course this is not the case at all and like she had to justify her financial expenses to her neighbors. She was ashamed of her situation.

The fear of poverty is more than just the fear of the humiliating feelings that can accompany it. This fear is quite complex because it involves more than just survival. It also says something about your identity, as in the story of the woman from the “wealthy” neighborhood. It says something about your identity—or, conversely, it can undermine your identity. It says something about your self-worth, and poverty can actually create dissonance when it comes to self-worth because you may value yourself more highly; poverty also has a significant impact on how happy people feel.

Effects of poverty

In any case, as mentioned earlier, poverty already has the effect of making it more difficult for you to participate in social life by not being able to attend a sports club, for example. Unfortunately, because of this poverty and because you cannot give input in social interaction, you can also be socially excluded.

Of course, if your child does go to a birthday party without a gift, it is "not sweet" and your child will never be invited again.

Children who live in poverty often remain poor into adulthood. In addition, they are more likely to drop out of school early, and teenage pregnancies are also more common among poor children. Furthermore, it is more difficult for these children to hold down a job, which may also explain their poverty in adulthood.

Among adults, poverty often leads to more divorces and domestic violence. This is often the result of the high levels of stress that poverty can cause.

In the process, poverty can lead to crime because it is also seen as an opportunity to make money. Poverty can lead people to commit theft and robberies.

Relative poverty

Fear, therefore, influences your beliefs about:

• Survival
• Id. at
• Self-Esteem
• Happiness

As a result, poverty is a relative concept for almost everyone. What one person already finds poverty, another may even find wealth.

To reduce the fear of poverty, it is important to look at your beliefs about poverty.

1. When do I find myself poor?
2. Does it make sense for me to find myself poor then?
3. Does this belief say something about me or actually about other people?
4. Should I care what other people think of me?

By answering these questions, you can check if your beliefs about poverty are true and if there is still room for perspective.

If you find it difficult to answer these questions, a hypnotherapist can help you with this.

Reducing the fear of poverty

By putting things into perspective and finding illogical beliefs causing the fear, you take a good step toward overcoming the fear of poverty.

In the process, you can strengthen other beliefs that reduce the fear of poverty as well. These beliefs make you see your bank account as separate from your identity, self-worth and happiness.

To strengthen those beliefs, you can use self-hypnosis in which you repeat suggestions. You then first sit or lie down in a place where you can completely relax. Close your eyes and focus first on your breathing. When you are relaxed repeat the following beliefs aloud.

"How much money I have says nothing about who and how I am."

"My identity is the result of my character, hobbies and talents, not my bank account."

"Just because I don't have a lot of money right now (yet) doesn't mean I'm not worth anything."

"My value cannot be monetized."

"Happiness is the sun coming out again after a rainstorm."

"Money is not a prerequisite for happiness."

These are just examples of hypnotic suggestions. If these suggestions don't work for you, you can go to a hypnotherapist who can bring "customized" suggestions to you.

Solutions to Poverty

It’s also important to know what solutions exist for poverty. For example, some people make a game out of living on as little as possible. This actually makes some people happier, because they avoid going to stores and are therefore not confronted with the fact that they cannot afford many things.

Fear can paralyze, which is why it can be difficult to start swapping clothes instead of buying them. To still get moving, you can use visualizations. People often need to see something before they will do it. You can then visualize techniques of consumerism to make the step smaller to actually do it.

For a visualization, you encourage yourself to take those steps and also gain confidence that you can take those steps.

As for repeating hypnotic suggestions, you first lie or sit in a nice place, close your eyes and focus on your breathing.

Next, you will visualize how such a clothing exchange goes. You visualize what clothes you are going to get rid of. How the fabrics feel when you pack them. How you take the clothes to the swap party and how you pick out new clothes. How the clothes feel, how you feel happy with people who are also swapping clothes (because swapping requires at least several people) and how you go home again with your new acquisitions.

If you find it difficult to visualize, a hypnotherapist can help you with a guided visualization. Then it will be a lot easier after that.

Through new beliefs and tools to combat poverty, you can do an awful lot to overcome the fear of poverty. In the process, overcoming this fear often actually helps you achieve more success, because you are less likely to be paralyzed by the fear when something threatens to go wrong.

Want to learn more about mental techniques, such as hypnosis, to overcome fears? Then come to a workshop or seminar and check out Hypnosis Institute Netherlands' courses.

Sources:

https://digitaal.scp.nl/armoedeinkaart2016/wat_is_armoede/

https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armoede

https://digitaal.scp.nl/armoedeinkaart2016/verwachte_armoede_in_2015-2017/

https://2012books.lardbucket.org/books/a-primer-on-social-problems/s05-04-the-consequences-of-poverty.html

http://www.hypnosisdownloads.com/fears-phobias/fear-poverty