Realizing I had a bad relationship with money took time. And it took even longer to heal it once I realized I had one. I had never looked at money as anything to have a relationship with. It was an inanimate object that seemed to be too taboo a topic for most conversations. It didn't matter if you were complaining about not having enough of it or singing its praises or even just mentioning it in a neutral way. Money was just something you didn't talk about in public. At home was a completely different story. I grew up in a household where it seemed all we talked about was money, more specifically not having enough of it. My parents would fight about money, complain about money, point out which of our friends had money in a seemingly negative tone. Money seemed to me, something that was ever elusive and seemed to find it's way to anyone and everyone but my family. Now this all may sound like the environment of a family who is on the verge of bankruptcy, living paycheck to paycheck, and hardly able to put food on the table. In reality, this was the cultivated environment of an upper middle class family living in suburbia, driving new cars, vacationing in Mexico and Hawaii, and never passing up on an opportunity to get the latest and greatest iPhone. So imagine my confusion when all that seemed to be discussed was how everyone else had more money than we did. Looking back on my time spent growing up at home, it really doesn't come as too big of a shock that I had a strained relationship with money. What was hard was figuring out how I was going to move forward and heal.
Let's start at the beginning, how to tell what your relationship with money is. As a general rule of thumb I would say if you feel a pit in your stomach at just the mention of money it's a pretty safe bet that you and money aren't on the best of terms. Even if you have a pretty good idea of where you stand with money, it's a good idea to investigate more and really get to the bottom of where your head's at when it comes to the topic of money. The first exercise I recommend comes from one of my all time favorite authors, Jen Sincero in her book You are a Badass at Making Money. If you're super serious about changing your money I highly recommend picking up her book. Anyways, in the book she discusses an exercise where you write a letter to money. Mine sounded a lot like "I love you when you're here and hate you when you leave. There never seems to be enough of you and I hate how you control my life. Please please come in huge amounts as soon as humanly possible." My relationship with money was very push and pull as most people's is. Having this energy surrounding money is going to block the heck out of it. Think of money like a person you're trying to have a relationship with. Would you come around someone who was constantly bad mouthing you, complaining about not having you, and then feeling guilty whenever you did come around so they got rid of you as quick as possible or hid you away? Hopefully the answer is no. Money is the same way. It will respond to the energy you have around it.
So you've established you have a bad or strained relationship with money. Where do we go from here? Healing your energetic relationship with money takes patience. It may sound crazy, but what really needs to happen is to get your nervous system feeling more safe around money. When I started on my journey to heal my relationship with money I could barely look at my bank account without feeling my chest tighten. It didn't matter how much money was in there when I did check, it never felt like enough. Or if it did happen to feel like enough I would go and spend it almost instantly. This sort of an interaction made it clear that as much as I wanted more money I felt as uncomfortable having it as not having it. I had to get my mind and body comfortable with having money if I was ever going to be able to bring any in.
So I started Money Mondays. This was an exercise that I would do every Monday where I would sit down and look at my finances. I would look at my bank account, credit card statements, and any finances I had and focused on where money was going out and coming in. I would then sit with my journal, look where the money was going and write a few sentences on why I was grateful my money had gone where it had. For example, when I saw money leave my account to pay rent I would write about how grateful I was to get to live in the house that I had, with roommates I loved. When I saw money come out for my gym membership I would write about how grateful I was to have access to workout equipment to stay in shape. Even with my student loans, I would write about how grateful I was to have been able to experience college and meet the people I met there. Sitting down with money in this way wasn't about budgeting or putting restrictions on spending. It wasn't about going through and adding up all I had spent in the past weeks. It wasn't about feeling guilty about what I had spent money on or feeling like I needed to be making more. It was simply about observing where money was going and being grateful for what I had received in return. This approach allowed me to get myself used to looking at my money and being around it more. It eased my stress when it came to money and started to get me approaching money with gratitude first. Almost immediately, money started flowing in. After struggling to sign clients for months I was able to start working with one in the next few days and brought in $840 in one day. And this was just the beginning.
It's important to understand that money reacts to how you feel, not what you say. If you are constantly talking about how much you want more money but you feel guilty or greedy when you get it, odds are money is going to run from you. Stop approaching money in a desperate needy way, which I know can be difficult when it feels like bills are piling up and you needed more money like, yesterday. But desperation comes from a sense of lack which is not the energetic frequency you can bring money in at. Try to quiet your mind, meditation and breath work are
a great start. Once the mind is more relaxed, look at your money. Just look at it. Find something in it to be grateful for. What are the bills paying for? What do you get to enjoy in return? Take baby steps to start and have patience with yourself if it seems like all you can do at first is complain and freak out. Let yourself have those feelings and then explore others of gratitude and happiness. Doing a little bit each day or even each week will slowly start to calm your nervous system around money and will provide the energetic space for abundance to come rushing in.
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