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In the self-development world and the financial industry, we are taught what to do with our money, yet not many of us are talking about how to feel about our money and be in a relationship with it. From what I have learned and experienced myself, as well as when I support clients, how we feel about money has a greater impact than what we do with it or how much we accumulate. We have been taught that there are finances and then there are emotions, but for so many people that I have supported and spoken with, those 2 are intertwined so intricately, and it has us making decisions from places of fear versus joy and expansion. So let’s dive into my thoughts and beliefs on our money mindset and our money state of being.
Understanding Your Relationship with Money
Each of us carries a unique story of how money has shaped our lives. From childhood events, lessons learned, and beliefs passed down from generations to our own adult experiences, these narratives mould our money mindset and how we feel in our body when it comes to money. For me, growing up, money was often seen as a source of stress, scarcity, and conflict. I grew up believing that I had to work hard for money. I had to sacrifice my family and my well-being for money. I could have success or a family life, but definitely not both simultaneously. And because I believed this, this is the exact reality I created with my life. Until there came a point where I had more than enough money in our investment accounts, our child’s college education was paid for, we were going on vacations, and I still wasn’t fulfilled. It was because I was selling my soul for money. I had learned to put money on a pedestal; I would go as far as to say to worship it.
Over the last 5 years, I have been on a journey to completely change my relationship with money. Now I see it as a tool, an extension of who I am, a form of love and empowerment, not something that I use to beat myself up with and don’t allow myself to enjoy. I feel like so many of us use money against us. We generate it and save/invest it, but we don’t allow ourselves to enjoy it. We use money as a whipping stick that we beat ourselves up with and use as motivation towards our goals, and we don’t allow ourselves the pleasure of having it and using it along our journey. I believe we do this because many of us have low self-worth and image. We don’t feel like we deserve to rest and play. We believe we have to earn those things first. And so we keep hustling and stressing out our bodies to get to a financial number we have in our minds, only to change the number when we reach it. If this resonates with you, I want you to know that you aren’t alone. I have spoken to hundreds of people who feel this way. The wonderful thing about relationships is that we get to change them and evolve them as often as we want to.
Take some time to ponder what your relationship is like with money. If it were a person, what would it say to you? You can journal some of these thoughts down to get more clarity.
Cultivating Abundant Thinking
Abundant thinking is not just about financial wealth; it’s recognizing where you already have abundance in your life. So often, we equate abundance with money, and while that is true and for many of us, we already are abundant (our brains and bodies don’t believe it), abundance refers to all areas of our lives. Think about where you are already abundant. I had to start by finding things in my life where abundance already existed. And I had to start with the basics. For example, our bodies have over 30 trillion cells. Trillion. That’s a lot of cells. Think about all the trees that are in the world; there is an abundance of trees. Or sand on the beaches. How many grains of sand are there in the world? How much love exists within you and with your family? We’ve grown up in a society and news media that teach us to live in fear and scarcity, and when you get away from that way of thinking, you really start to see all the abundance that is within you and, consequently, in the world.
Something else you can play with is recognizing all the things you have already done. So often we look at our goals and think of “how far we have to go,” but we don’t give ourselves credit or notice how far we have come. When we focus on what we have and express gratitude for our financial blessings, our health, and the love that we have within us and can give to others, we naturally attract more of those things. It’s a universal law. We are all energy. We vibrate at a frequency, and when we start to notice and feel gratitude for how far we have come, that vibration is what creates more of the same. Surround yourself with people who support and encourage you. Study people who think and live abundantly. They feel gratitude for what they have and how far they have come, and they didn’t start feeling that way once they achieved what they were after; they felt it first. The same is true for us.
Evolving our Scarcity Mentality
Our brains are naturally wired to scan for things in our environment that might be a threat. It’s literally what got us here today. The brain has served its purpose; it has kept us alive. And although we have made huge strides with technology and humanity over the last 200 years, our brains haven’t kept up with the pace. In the book Hardwired for Happiness, the author Rick Hanson talks about how our brains are like teflon for the positive things in our lives and velcro for the negative. It makes sense because, as I mentioned above, that is what has kept us alive and got us here. The good news is that we get to change this. Our brains are highly malleable (thanks to our neural pathways), and what we train our brain to do, it will do.
So if you are someone who currently practices a scarcity mentality more than an abundant one, it’s not a problem; you can change that. Having a scarcity mentality reeds fear and restricts our potential. It doesn’t have us in our creative brain; it has us thinking with our survival brain. It’s characterized by thoughts of lack and limitations. And in our bodies, when we feel scarcity, it feels restrictive. And from my experience, it keeps us in a loop. We feel scared, so we don’t take action, and then it keeps us feeling scared, so we continue to not take action. I don’t want to minimize how this feels in our bodies. It feels intense. It feels like we can’t get through it. It feels scary. And I know that if I can change my relationship with scarcity, so can you.
When we are in this state, we are in what is called “fight/flight,” so something as simple as focusing on your breathing can take us out of fight/flight. It sends signals to the brain and body that we are OK. Looking around the room and noticing things that you recognize is a grounding exercise that you can practice as well. Then notice and ponder: What are the scarcity-driven thoughts that you have? These are beliefs that we picked up in childhood. We don’t have to keep carrying them around as if they were ours. Simply writing down your beliefs on paper so you can see what they are is helpful because it brings awareness to them. Then you get to rewrite the beliefs that you want to have moving forward. Something else that I have found helpful when I have beliefs that feel sticky or a little more difficult to let go of is finding evidence of the belief that I want to create. This gives your brain something to do (which our brains love), and you get to see that the new belief is possible because there is someone already out there living that belief.
Embracing Financial Confidence
Financial confidence stems from knowledge and a positive outlook on money management. I’ve come from the financial industry, and I have to say we haven’t necessarily empowered humanity with finances. We make topics difficult to understand; we create new terms where there is already language that exists. I could go on for days about this, but I think this is a blog for another occasion.
One of the things that I am super passionate about is educating others and empowering ourselves about personal finance, from aligning our spending to our values to investments and taxes. We have to take ownership of our own finances. No one is going to care as much about your money as you do. It’s OK that you might not feel completely confident right now with your money and how to have it and grow it. Just like any other skill you have learned throughout your life, confidence and skill sets are fostered, not innate. Hire people who support you and are willing to take the time to educate you about your money and how you can grow it. Think of yourself like the quarterback on the team; you’re here to create a great team that supports, educates, and empowers you, not a team that pushes you to do things you don’t understand or talks down to you.
I have parted ways with several CPAs and Financial Advisors because we didn’t see eye to eye. I felt like it was a transactional relationship, and I didn’t want my money to feel this way. Interview several CPAs and Financial Advisors, and also let your intuition guide you. If it feels off, it probably is. Trust yourself.
Building a Healthy Relationship with Wealth
Many of my clients have felt guilty for the wealth they do have, and some have feared they were going to lose it because they are in a poverty-conscious mindset. Wherever you are on the spectrum, I want you to know that you aren’t alone and that it’s OK to feel how you do. Recognize that a lot of these beliefs and patterns that we are running are just programs from our childhood. I truly believe that the world could use more people who generate money from a fun, empowered, and loving place and use their money in ways that light up their souls. We need more of you who have a great relationship with money so that we can teach this to the rest of the world. Abraham Hicks states that people don’t help poor people by being poor.
We need people who are thriving emotionally, mentally, spiritually, and financially. It’s time we change how most of the world sees people with money, and it starts with each of us having an amazing relationship with money. And this happens when we are courageous enough to look at our old patterns and beliefs and willingly show up for ourselves and our bodies so that we can transcend those stories and powerfully choose how we want to be with money. I truly believe that money is meant to be enjoyed, shared, and used in ways that light our souls on fire and bring more awareness to humanity.
My Final Thoughts
I believe our money journey is like a love story. Money shows us all the parts of us that we have maybe neglected or judged, haven’t felt good about, and have denied ourselves fun and pleasure, and if we are willing to look at our relationship with money, we are effectively looking at our relationship with ourselves. We get to see that we were and are the love we were looking for all along. We get to see that nothing was ever “wrong” with us in the first place; we just believed there was. We get to honor our knowing and trust ourselves again. We get to reclaim the power that we have given away. And the most fun part is that we get to live the life that feels most authentic and nourishing to us.
As always, from my soul to yours,
Erin