So yesterday I met with one of my free life coaching clients to discuss and update on her on going compulsive, out of control urges to shop even when her debts are spiralling out of control and was surprised to see some significant progress. It is not normally difficult to cure a shopping addiction because in reality, how can shopping be an illness when there are no pills available to cure it?
When you are addicted to something you cannot survive without it and eventually you find yourself isolated or spending your time with other addicts because you have hurt everyone who loves you or has tried to help you. Compulsive shopping is about the rush when you anticipate doing it, the imaginary life the shopping will bring, as promised by the big brands and the remorse, then the disappointment and debt you are left with.
I told my shopaholic client to go home the last time we met and sit down with her credit card bills and all the purchases she had made during a three month period, then tot up how much money she had spent and how much the stuff had been useful. By doing this simple exercise and facing the fact you are spending more than you have on stuff you don’t need that is making your life miserable between yo-yo shopping binges, you see some common sense.
My client is now clearing out and donating to local charities shops helping others with less, selling stuff on eBay, car boots and second-hand agencies to raise cash because she has decided she wants to save enough money to travel the world then decide her new life journey in the future. She has taken her focus off looking outward for an instant fix to make her happy short term and is now looking inward for the answer to what makes her truly happy in the long term.
Shopping Addiction is not an affliction or an addiction; it is what we are driven to do by big brands’ marketing and constant subliminal brain washing us into believing if we have the latest fashion, gadgets and material possessions, we will be happy.
Well sorry to disappoint and burst the bubble, shopping addiction is nothing more than mass misery on earth.
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