Catchy title right? For all of you ABBA fans, that one’s for you. If ABBA is too old for you or not your thing, let me know what’s the first song that comes to your mind about money?

Before I get into it today, Happy New Year! I’ve come into January energized and inspired after 2 weeks off with many topics I want to write about. Which one to write about first? December is often a time of spending and then the January reaction to all of that spending.. so I am going to start this year off with a conversation about Money.

2023 – A Year Long Exploration Into Money

Last year was the year I dove deep into my own money beliefs.  I did a year long course for psychotherapists and learned a lot about myself along the way. Am I now perfectly at ease in my relationship with money? No. Do I still love a good deal? Yes. But I’ve come a long way.

Why Money?

Therapy is such an interesting world. We talk about so many topics in sessions in such a candid way. What becomes interesting is noticing the topics that aren’t talked about, and money was was one of those topics for me.

I noticed with my own therapist (who was charging less than me) that I couldn’t broach the topic either. She might’ve been perfectly fine with this topic, but I never did say anything because of all of my internal beliefs about this situation. I found a new therapist who charged more than me and started to dive into this topic.

This made me wonder about my own clients too – why don’t I talk about money? We all need it and use it as a tool in our lives. We all have relationships with money. Why weren’t we talking about it?

The Common Denominator

The common denominator with my clients is me. And so I realized that this was on me to create a space to have more dialogue around this charged topic.

Unfortunately, most therapists also do not talk about money with their clients.  It’s a very weird and interesting thing. And that’s why someone decided to create a program about helping therapists dive deep and get better at becoming aware of their money stuff, owning it, and then making bold shifts in our lives. This ultimately then helps me as a psychotherapist to help you start talking about money and get even better results from therapy.

Your Relationship with Money is Connected to Everything

If you read my last post The Universe As a Hologram, you might have noticed that one of the theories around this topic is that everything is connected to everything. The micro matches onto the macro and vise-versa.

Years ago I attended a money seminar by Harv Eker. One of his mantras was, “How you do anything is how you do everything”. I thought it was overly simplistic, yet over time I have found some uncomfortable truths in this statement.

If you look at your relationship with money, how does it match the other areas in your life?

The Benefits of Talking About Money

Over the course of the year I had conversations and witnessed the benefits of other therapists talking about money with their clients. Universally it was profound.

Healing

Many people noticed that when money beliefs were addressed, then other areas started to heal in people’s lives too. Sex, love, work, you name it. Whenever things are not addressed within oneself or in a relationship, this requires energy.  There is a vast amount of energy we use to keep hot topics quiet. Start talking about money and healing that relationship means benefits to every other area in your life.

Social Justice

The program I did talked about social justice and the very common belief of charging less to help people in need. This program helped me unpack why this was a fallacy and actually enabled people to stay in poverty.  Does that mean there shouldn’t be accessible therapy? No. But going into each session with the energy that all clients are victimized by higher prices doesn’t do them any benefit either.  Energetically it says, “Yes, you are stuck here. And I’ll make sure to never challenge that belief.” I hold 2 spaces for clients who need a reduced fee, because money problems are real. And at the same time this reduction is not held forever.

Over the course of the year I had more conversations with clients and could see how transformative it was to hold boundaries AND dive deeper around the topic of money.

The Patriarchy & Racism

It needs to be acknowledged over and over again the impact of the patriarchy on women & racism on the BIPOC community and their relationship with money.  A lot of beliefs are hard-baked into us. It is a multi-generational trauma. Whenever someone says that the issue is that women & BIPOC need to be more assertive in their needs, it also needs to be acknowledged that it’s not a light-switch action after years of patriarchal and/or racial oppression.  The key is both acknowledgement AND working through money beliefs. Both are important to heal these  wounds.

Spirituality

There is a interesting belief that being spiritual and having money do not go together. If we start to neutralize the topic of money and relate to it more as a tool & an energetic relationship in life, these two topics can start to blend. Of course old wounds about this topic also arise and it’s important to name where these beliefs about spirituality & money come from so we can bring light to them and make changes.

Healing Multi-Generational Beliefs About Money

Everyone has family beliefs about money. As children we live in a world of adults who interacted with money – maybe in healthy or unhealthy ways. As we become adults we take a lot of these beliefs and experiences and often subconsciously carry them forward. Then if you decide to partner with someone, you then get to interact with their own money beliefs and experiences.

What are your family beliefs about money? What are your experiences with money? Was money ever talked about in your family?

Your inner work and changes around money have positive impacts that ripple towards your kids, friends, community & so much more.

Respect The Nervous System

All change requires us to respect our nervous system.  The money program I joined was a year long for a reason.  If it was 6 weeks long, I doubt I’d be writing this email today.

It’s easy for us to bring awareness to areas that need change in our lives, but we need to listen to our nervous system, explore our blocks and it’s helpful to have support aka voices outside our own head telling us that this process is worth it.  Everyone in the money program was working at their own pace. Some people made huge transformations very quickly. Others quit. Some left for months and then came back.  I was somewhere in the middle.  

When we learn to listen to our nervous system but are not owned by our nervous system, change can come very quickly.

Support Is Important

I am so grateful that I wasn’t sitting all alone reflecting on this issue by myself.  It’s amazing how easy it is to take 3 steps forward and 4 steps back. But then sometimes 1 step forward would feel like 12 steps forward and life was never the same. It was also helpful to have people cheering me on as I made changes and tried to ride the wave of those emotions and also challenging me to dig deeper when I felt strong resistance.  It felt energizing to be in a place that said, “I’ll take you as far you want to go to transform your relationship with money, but it’s up to you to decide how far you want to take it.”

Summary

I’d love to hear about your thoughts on money. Do you like to watch shows or read books about people with money? Tell me your favourites!