I talk a lot on my blog about money mindset, and it’s something that is circulated in the entrepreneurship community a lot because it directly affects how much money you can generate in your business. Money mindset isn’t just for entrepreneurs though, it is for anyone who is not having the relationship with money they want.
If it feels hard, you are constantly struggling to make ends meet, you never feel like you have enough you have unresolved money trauma.
The origin of many of our money stories is around some sort of negative experience with money or a culmination of negative experiences.
Money trauma is a profound negative experience or many negative experiences that revolve around money that shapes our perception of it.
This looks like a lot of different things.
It could be listening to your parents constantly fight about bills and not having enough money to pay them
It could be hearing your dad complain about having to go to work because it was difficult work that made him unhappy
It could be hearing conversations about how the economy collapsing and everyone is losing their homes.
In some cases, it is even more dramatic like homelessness, parental divorce over money, being a single-parent household and being on food assistance, etc.
This doesn’t mean that your guardians meant to give you anxiety about money and keep you limited from earning, it means that they were well intentioned adults who passed down their limiting beliefs and negative outlook on money to you.
Now, you might be thinking, “I’m an adult. There’s no way this stuff controls me now!”
However, from the time you are born until you are 7, you are a walking subconscious mind. Your conscious mind has not even fully formed yet. Your subconscious mind does not know the difference between a lie and the truth. Meaning, if mom says that people like us have never made a lot of money, you accept it as the truth.
You act it out as the truth.
As an adult with a developed conscious mind, you want to make money obviously. The last thing you want to do is repel it, but then there is still your subconscious mind. All the stuff it has observed and accepted it as the truth.
There is still apart of you that sees money as evil because it was the cause of your parents divorce.
There is still apart of you that sees money as a limited resource because one of your parents lived paycheck to paycheck your entire life.
There is still apart of you that thinks something awful will happen to you if you make a certain income because you are terrified of abundance.
This is all money trauma.
Most of us have it to some degree. The good news is that acknowledging it is by far the hardest step. Self awareness is a super power. When you dig up the reasons behind your behavior, you are able to reframe and shift into a more supportive money story. One that supports abundance, financial freedom, and opportunity.
Because it’s all just stories. None of it was ever ultimately true. Money isn’t anything. It’s energy. A neutral resource with no agenda. It is not good, it is not evil, and depending on the hands it’s in, it can do either.
All of our experiences with money have been dictated by our money story, and now that I have brought your attention to it, you can examine it, dismantle it, and write a new one.
Money trauma like any trauma, must be worked through in order to experience a healthy relationship with money. If not, it can keep you broke and small, especially in business. I have a post on this, 7 Ways Your Money Mindset Is Sabotaging Your Business. So the question now is what do we do about it?
1. Examine And Identify
Did you grow up hearing stuff like:
“Money doesn’t grow on trees”
“You have to work hard to be successful”
“You have to go to college if you want a good job”
“You’ll never pay the bills doing that”
“Credit cards get you into trouble”
“Rich people are greedy”
These are some of my own examples, but anything along these lines creates your money story. It creates your outlook on what you can have, make, create, and succeed at.
A good exercise to do is write the phrase “Money is…” down. What are the first things that come to mind? When I first did this, stuff that came up included:
money is unstable
money is hard to come by
money is limited
money is the result of back breaking work
I had to look at those things and ask myself: is the ultimately true? Is money unstable for everyone? Is money hard to come by for everyone? Did everyone who is wealthy do back breaking-soul crushing work to make their money?
The answer was a resounding no.
These are all beliefs that will control how much money you call in and ultimately how much money you have. If you feel unworthy of money, there is no way you can keep it. Bills will pop up. You will over spend. You will sabotage your own financial success. It is so important that you get familiar with your story in order for you to change it.
This can bring up a lot of emotions and you might feel defeated at first. It can be a very intense experience. That’s okay. But it’s important that you question what you heard growing up. If your parents, teachers, neighbors don’t have the kind of wealth you want or live the kind of life you want, it is unhelpful to listen to them or take their advice.
Take a microscope to the stuff you were taught as a kid. What serves you? What doesn’t? If you have a belief that says rich people are all greedy and money is dirty, chances are you’re going to have a hard time amassing wealth and becoming one of those rich people yourself.
2. Forgive And Let Go
Now, chances are if you’re working on your money trauma, it’s going to lead back to your childhood. Our guardians are our first money teachers. Which means you will need to forgive them and let go of the things that come up.
Adults can only teach what they know, and what they know is limited based on a lot of factors. A lot of the time, they were trying to protect us and keep us from making their same mistakes.
If they weren’t living their own dreams, there is no way they could adequately support you to live yours.
When I was younger my parents wanted me to be a nurse because every woman in my family had been one. It was reliable and steady. It payed well. It was always in demand. They were terrified of my creativity. I had absolutely 0 desire to do that and I never tried to despite what they told me. They thought they were trying to protect me, but really they were passing on their own negative and limiting beliefs onto me and keeping me small.
Chances are, your parents did some of the same.
Create your own list of people you need to forgive. Write down every single memory you can remember of your parents discussing money from a place of fear, lack, or anger. Sit with it. Then let it go. Be willing to see it differently and create a new story.
3. Create A New Money Story
Your money story is simply things you heard repeatedly that created a belief system. Which means you can create a new belief system by telling yourself new things.
The first thing I would urge you to ask is how do you want money to be for you?
Do you want it to feel easy?
Do you want to feel abundant?
Do you want to feel supported by it?
If so, start telling yourself things that are in line with these desires. Affirmations are great for this.
I used to think affirmations were cheesy, but they’re literally creating new neural paths in your brain. You are rewiring your mind. Literally.
A belief is simply something you hear repeatedly, so you need to be hearing positive, uplifting, supportive, abundant things about money all the live long day. Focus on motivational content. One of my favorite teachers on money is Amanda Frances. She is a thought leader on financial abundance for women and her work is truly something special. I have taken some of her courses herself including her signature course Money Mentality Makeover and it changed my life. She is @xoamandafrances on Instagram. I’m not sponsored of affiliated with her course FYI. Another favorite of mine is Elise McDowell at houseofbrazen.com. Her work on money mindset is accessible, amazing, and really helped me think about money differently. She even has a HUGE freebie vault with amazing content.
You can listen to inspirational podcasts, watch masterclasses on youtube about wealth creation, and even read books on money mindset. Whatever it is, it is important to saturate your mind with inspiring and inspirational content. You are trying to change YEARS of emotional and intellectual hardwiring and beliefs so the more you listen to stuff that shifts you into feeling abundant and empowered around money, the better.
Because the truth is, you can manifest anything. You just have to
The Universe is always saying “Yes” but it cannot override your freewill.
Which means no matter how hard you try if you have unsolved money trauma that says “people like us don’t have money like that” or “you’re not worthy of money” it cannot come into your existence.
Heal your sh*t. Make more money. Live a wildly abundant life.
As always,
don’t give up on your daydreams.
PS: Like this post? Wanna work on it together so you can start manifesting your own dream life? Check out my Work With Me page.
