A few days ago, I walked into a room to start another Financial Literacy project and, looking at the wall, I was surprised to see a sheet of paper stuck to it with the word EMOTIONARY written in colour and, underneath, the phrase ‘say what you feel’. Around this sheet, many others were stuck with a veritable alphabet of emotions.
I started the training session and, due to some issues with the equipment, I had to change what I had planned for those hours. That's when I thought: why not ask the trainees to talk about the emotions they feel when they think about money?
When they heard my request, the trainees were surprised, but then they agreed and spent a few minutes thinking about the emotions that money arouses in them.
At first, everyone had many emotions to share, but the exercise became more demanding because each person had to choose only one emotion when it was their turn to speak and, at that stage, had to think about which emotion overrode all the others.
It was interesting to hear what each person said about their ‘financial’ emotions, which ranged from Joy and Pride because money allows them to get what they need and want, Happiness and Satisfaction because they can help others, Sadness because they cannot always have what they want.
When it was my turn to share, I also had to reflect and think about what emotion describes how I feel when I think about money.
Serenity is the emotion that best describes my financial state of mind at the moment. And when explaining to those in the room why I felt this way, I recalled and shared the times when money made me feel desperate and sad because I was unable to meet my financial, personal and professional commitments. That phase of my life led me to work outside Portugal and seek new opportunities. It was these opportunities that made me feel gratitude, happiness, pride, and satisfaction because I managed to overcome a difficult phase. If I feel serenity today, it is because I have managed to find the financial balance for a financially healthy life.
While writing this article, I also recalled some of the young graduates I accompanied when I participated in financial literacy projects at a prison school. Many of the crimes that led them to prison were financial (armed robbery, petty theft, financial fraud, among others) and I thought about the emotions they must have felt at those moments. Euphoria? Excitement? Impunity? Revolt? Sadness? These, and perhaps many others, were the different emotions that led them to that reality.
From A to Z, we all feel different emotions when we think about money. Each of us feels these same emotions at different times in our lives. So here's the challenge: what emotions do you feel when you think about money?
English 
Portuguese