top of page

How Mindfulness Stopped Me from Losing My Mind After Being Scammed

Writer: Tim LeachTim Leach
Mar 104 min read



There is nothing quite like the gut punch of realising you have been scammed. One minute, you are a savvy investor, making moves and planning for the future. The next, you are staring at your screen, heart sinking, as the horrifying truth dawns on you: your money is gone, and some faceless con artist is laughing all the way to their ill-gotten gains.


If this had happened to me a few years ago, before I had mindfulness in my toolkit, I would have spiralled into a pit of fury, self-loathing, and an all-consuming desire to hunt these scammers down and demand justice through sheer force of will. But that was old me. New me - The Mindful Baker, reflective, somewhat wiser but also undeniably irritated me - knew that my first step was not to let the emotional avalanche bury me alive.


The Immediate Aftermath: Fighting the Urge to Smash Things


The moment I realised that I had been conned, my brain went into overdrive. Anger. Shame. Frustration. That special kind of self-hatred that only comes from willingly handing your money over to someone who you now know was a fraud. It is a visceral, all-consuming cocktail of emotions, and every single one of them was screaming at me to react.


This is where mindfulness swooped in like the hero of the hour. Instead of immediately spiralling, I sat with the feelings. I acknowledged them. I let them rage, thrash, and claw at my insides. But I did not act on them. This was crucial. Because acting on them - be it by firing off furious emails, berating myself for my stupidity, or letting stress consume me -would have been like trying to put out a fire with petrol.


Instead, I paused. I breathed. I leaned into my mindfulness training and reminded myself that while my money was gone (hopefully momentarily), my peace of mind did not have to go with it.


Accepting Reality (Even When It Feels Impossible)


Acceptance is a deceptively simple concept. People think it means rolling over and letting life walk all over you. It does not. True acceptance is about acknowledging what is rather than wasting energy fighting against what should have been.\


I should not have been scammed. I should have seen the warning signs. I should have been smarter, more cynical, less trusting. But none of that changes reality. The money was gone. I could either stew in regret or focus on what was within my control.


So, I chose the latter. And, as annoying as it is to admit, it actually worked. The more I accepted what had happened without resistance, the clearer my mind became. I started thinking rationally rather than emotionally. I moved from victim mode to problem-solving mode. I could see the next steps I needed to take - reporting the scam, exploring avenues for compensation, and making sure this never happened again.


Mindfulness and the Path to Getting My Money Back (Hopefully)


Once I had processed the emotional fallout, I was ready to take action. But here is the key difference - my actions were now rooted in clarity rather than chaos. Mindfulness had given me the ability to detach from the emotional weight of the situation and focus on the practical steps ahead.


I started gathering evidence. I contacted the relevant authorities. I reached out to people who had been through similar experiences. And, because I was coming from a place of calm rather than frantic desperation, I was able to communicate clearly, keep records meticulously, and pursue every available avenue without burning myself out.


Will I get my money back? I do not know but I bloody hope so. The odds aren't looking too favourable, but I have done everything in my power to give myself a fighting chance. And in the process, I have learned a valuable lesson about the intersection of mindfulness and resilience.


Why This Blog Has Been Delayed (and Why That’s Okay)


For those of you (some, I Hope) who have been wondering why there has been a suspiciously long gap between my last blog in February, now you know. I was busy not losing my mind while dealing with the aftermath of being scammed. You might also remember that I took a pretty hard fall on the ice, which was my last blog, where I ended up breaking my ribs and that took a long time to recover from and was VERY painful but I am almost back to running and living again.


This experience reinforced something I have always believed - mindfulness is not about pretending bad things do not happen. It is not about blind optimism or toxic positivity. It is about meeting life exactly as it is, in all its frustrating, gut-wrenching glory, and responding in a way that does not destroy your inner peace.


Would I have preferred to learn this lesson without losing a chunk of money? Absolutely. But life does not work that way. And if nothing else, at least I got a blog out of it.


 
 
 

Comments

© 2024 by The Mindful Baker

bottom of page