Progress

I spent most of the day working on my 2004 state and federal taxes (yes, I know they were supposed to be done last spring). When I tried submitting them electronically last April, they were rejected, and at the time my energy was too tied up in emotional stuff to deal with the real world. So it's been sitting on the top of my To Do list ever since. That's highly unlike me since I normally have my taxes done by Valentine's Day. Now that I'm on vacation and over the emotional stuff, I've made getting my life together on all the other fronts (spiritual, financial, etc.) my new priorities.

While I was in the process of my divorce, I took a 13 week seminar at a Thomasville Baptist Church in Tallahassee called Divorce Care. In the session on new relationships I learned about the 4 sectors of health: emotional, mental, physical, & spiritual. When someone is healthy, the energy devoted to each sector is balanced. When someone is not healthy (i.e. in the process of a divorce), more energy is devoted to one sector (i.e. emotional) leaving the others to suffer until that sector is healed. I think there's another piece of the health pie...financial.

If your finances are out of wack, it can affect your physical and mental health. If your physical, mental, or spiritual health is out of wack, it can affect the financial. And until an individual is healthy in all sectors, any intimate relationship they are in will suffer because of the lack in that (those) sector(s). A few examples:

1. My sister had brain surgery and was out of work for a significant period of time. Because her financial health was borderline prior to the aneurysm, she and her husband's financial health was nearly ruined.
2. There's been a scientific correlation between weight and debt. For every $1000 you accumulate in consumer debt, you gain 1 lb.
3. Who doesn't know someone who's spiritual life is nearly non-existent, which shows up in every sector (bad financial choices; bitterness about a relationship leads to physical ailments such as migraines; anxiety due to a lack of faith in God; etc.)

So when I finally came to the realization that "the most important relationship you have is the one you have with yourself" earlier this year (indicating the key to emotional health), I remembered that I need to be fully healthy to be ready for the intimate relationship I want. That includes my finances.

I spent the day catching up on my finances, just as I spent a better part of this year catching up on my emotional health. I'll tackle the others as they come. At least I'm making progress...I started setting up my taxes for 2005 as well ;-)