S: Is for Serenity

Optimism. For months, it’s been in short supply. Like a lingering cold you can’t shake off, the economic blues play those sad refrain as our psyches, are getting battered. The news is filled every day with losses of jobs, foreclosure and suicides and its hard to feel good. We can’t change the market’s ricocheting ride nor can we instantly Botox our bank accounts, but we can change how we take it all in. Here’s how:

Be grateful: If your paycheck’s lower and your job’s disappeared, it’s hard to feel thankful, but look around: Things are looking up. California banking giant Wells Fargo reported — gasp — a profit. Mortgage rates have fallen to historic lows. Maybe these aren’t reasons to rejoice, but hey, they’re hints that a recovery could be coming... someday if we get involved and make our voices heard. Being thankful for what we have in life is good personally, as well as financially. For so long we have gone after the quick fix and chased after greed.

Start each day with quiet time: meditation, prayer or reading. Write in a “gratitude journal,” jotting down things for which you are grateful for. We all have something even if it is small.

Let it go: It’s easy to go into mourning over what we’ve lost. Its time to move forward, it’s time to move on. Let go of the anger, the anxiety, the resentment, the baggage. Let go of the coulda, shoulda, woulda's that run through your head.

Get out doors: Fight the tendency to burrow under the covers.

Volenteer: It gives you a sense of purpose, self-worth, self-fulfillment. Just because you’re not getting paid for work, doesn’t mean you can’t be doing work that’s important. It’s a good place to network: You never know who you’ll meet.

If we define our existence by money, it can be a fairly shallow existence and that is a inexpensive F.A.C.T.