I still feel a wave of shame before I feel a plan

Dear Delyara, That order is what exhausts me. A bill arrives, an expense appears, a number is larger than I hoped, and before any practical thought has time to form, shame gets there first. Shame about not having prepared better. Shame about being this age and still feeling vulnerable to ordinary costs. Shame about how money stress can still alter the emotional atmosphere of my whole body in under a minute. Only after that does the planning brain show up. That is so unfair. I want facts to remain facts long enough for me to think clearly. Instead they still arrive tangled with old moral stories about being behind, being careless, being less secure than I should be by now. I know these are learned responses. That doesn’t stop them from being fast.