How the Fear of Depending on Others for Money Keeps Us Stuck
Two fears that we focus on in the #BankAccountChallenge are:
🔴 The fear of depending on others for money and our needs
🔴 The fear of people seeing that we don't have money
I know (from childhood) what it’s like to be the poor family member and how people treat you because of that.
I decided from a young age to deny my wants and needs and to contract myself because I didn't want to ask the adults around me for anything.
I could see that my parents were struggling to support me and my sister and I felt bad for adding strain by asking for things, so it was just best for me to ignore my desires.
As I got older I called this ability to deny our needs, wants and desires, financial management and praised myself for being able to deny our basic needs (food, sleep, rest) and called it adulting, when what it really was, was a trauma response and a low pleasure set point.
Being the poor family member
For years I carried the scars of being shamed or made to feel ashamed or ridiculed because I didn't have money and my mom didn't have money in my teens.
I spent years over spending and trying to look like I have money, in an effort to protect myself from that humiliation and shame of not having anything and being constantly reminded that I don't have or feeling like everyone could see I don’t have any money.
My inner teen was always in control of my finances and was determined to have me look well put together.
People look at us as adults and talk about how we just spend and can't hold onto money, when in reality - we are just being hijacked by our inner child or teen who are trying to protect us from the shame, humiliation and/or abuse that comes from not having money.
I know this very well.
My mom left her job when I was in grade 7 and gave all her assets to my uncle because she didn't want to look after her family any more, didn't know how to set boundaries and didn’t have the language to explain that she’d done enough.
So she handed over her assets to her brother and with that the financial responsibility for the whole family, including her parenting responsibility (the responsibility completely broke him).
My mom finished all her money from investments in the first year of resigning and then she was unemployed and had no money/income coming in.
So we became the poor relatives and let's say you learn a lot about people when you have nothing and they have more than you.
The shaming and humiliation, because they know you have nothing and nowhere to go and they remind you of that in subtle ways, plus you’re just a teenager so you have no job and they can beat you up, shout at you, tell you you will never amount to anything.
I know people's back hands, shouting and constant humiliations too well.
Your mom no longer has a home or money.
What are you gonna do?
The trauma of growing up with no money and depending on others
Given my teen experience with not having money, is it any wonder that I spent the first part of my adult years overspending and overgiving to hide the truth of my financial situation because I was scared that when people learned the truth, I'd be ill treated again?
After all that is what I had seen - that people abuse those with less than them.
My inner teen was traumatized from years of verbal, emotional and physical abuse so all she knew was: I need to protect myself at all costs and that means never showing vulnerability, never letting people see that I don't have money because that is dangerous, it makes me powerless.
Is it any wonder that I couldn't even talk about money in my romantic relationships?
Because I was scared that the other person would use my financial situation to abuse me.
My behaviors were focused on protecting myself, not connecting with people or expanding.
Spending money was how I showed others that I had money, which was important because the traumatized teen part of me felt that the appearance of being rich or financially stable, kept me/her safe.
So can you see why I could be a finance and MBA graduate with tons of debt?
My need to be safe and to survive always overrode all my fancy MBA knowledge, because like all humans, I'm hardwired to survive.
I'd beat myself up for not being able to save and for lacking discipline, not understanding that my entire nervous system was on edge and on high alert and spending money was actually one way that my psyche was trying to keep me safe.
People look at people who overspend and just see reckless humans, they don't see the trauma and the scars that drive them to spend money.
I only started changing my spending habits and saving money when I started integrating and healing my trauma and calming my nervous system so I could find other ways, besides spending money to create the illusion of wealth, to feel safe.
Trauma is layered and money trauma is nuanced
If we can calm our nervous systems so we start to feel safe with money, we can start to change our behavior with money, which can help us save more.
This is why I moved away from traditional ways of teaching personal finance and created the Fall In Love With Your Bank Account Challenge.
The focus of this course is NOT your typical budgeting and spending less course, it is focused on healing our trauma around spending money and giving practical ways to deal with money in a way that soothes the nervous system.
You can check out the Bank Account Challenge here: wealthy-money.com/bankaccount
THIS COURSE IS FOR YOU, IF YOU FEEL LIKE YOU ARE DONE WITH:
💥 Feeling like money is like water through their hands and has no clue where their money is going
💥 Feeling overwhelmed by their financial expenses and responsibilities and never feels like they have enough money
💥 Feeling like they never get to do fun things with their money
💥 Being scared/frustrated about their bank account
💥 Being terrified of emergencies because they don't know how they are going to cover them
💥 The unease that comes with HAVING money and savings and feeling like they are constantly giving to others
