My Relationship with Money Changed When I started Focusing on My Nervous System
One of the things I keep learning on this money journey is to allow myself not to know and to have compassion with my learning process.
The truth is a lot of things that are normal to most people were hard for me, especially when it comes to money.
I've had to learn to do a lot of things that people consider normal:
♦️ Simple things like going to an ATM to withdraw money without panicking and struggling to breathe
♦️ I definitely couldn't look at my bank account and tell you my monthly expenses. My monthly expenses were a mystery to me
♦️ I couldn't talk about money with anyone - friends, family, coaches, lovers. I mean I couldn't even discuss how much things cost. If it was a topic that involved money, you could’ve marked me absent
♦️ I was petrified of starting any investment portfolio or even saving money because it felt unsafe. I lived in fear of people asking me for money and having to say no to them
♦️ I didn't know how to use money to look after myself like - paying my bills, buying myself food and paying rent. That just made me die from shame, especially because I gave away most of my money and others got to enjoy it and then I’d go borrow money from other people so I could pay my bills
What higher grade witchcraft was this?
I had lots of debt with nothing to show for it. What the F was I spending my money on?
Honestly, I still ask myself this because it’s a mystery…
And because my spending habits were all over the place, it was difficult for me to invest my money in business ventures that would lead to extra streams of income.
I thought there was something wrong with me.
Actually, I thought I was bewitched.
I mean how else could I explain some of these behaviors?
I already had my finance degree and MBA, so I knew it wasn't the practical stuff like budgeting or tracking expenses that was the problem.
What I didn't understand at the time is that trauma affects our finances and the way we make money and spend it
[Studies have shown that trauma actually affects our ability to make rational decisions. You can Google it.]
My money trauma (which was/is intergenerational) kept me in survival mode and in a constant state of hypervigilance, which meant my focus was on remaining safe and protected, not on saving and having money in the bank.
To my brain and the parts of me that were stuck in the trauma - survival meant doing what had kept me and my maternal family alive - not having money in my bank account.
Having money felt unsafe, because growing up I saw how the person/people who had money in the family were expected to look after everyone else and if they said no, they were rejected or even physically or verbally attacked.
To me safety and survival meant NOT having money so I wouldn't be a target
The practical stuff didn't work for me because it wasn't addressing my trauma, Blacktax, my hypervigilance (my nervous system), my fears or deep feelings of unsafety.
So I started a journey to integrate my trauma around money in my nervous, to calm my nervous system whenever I dealt with money and I saw a shift:
🟡 I paid off US$60,000 (R700k at the time) in debt in 4 years
🟡 I stopped freaking out whenever I had to withdraw money from the ATM and now look at my bank statements and expenses once a month. I know where my money goes
🟡 I don't just talk about money with friends, I also talk about money all day every day as part of my work and with clients. I even send invoices and remind people to pay me without a second thought. Some days I can't believe I am this person
🟡 I definitely use money to nourish myself and to take care of myself. I get weekly massages, acupuncture, have a personal chef and a fitness trainer. And all that fits into my budget. I don't have to deny myself the things I want
🟡 I have an investment portfolio and even bought a property in Joburg, South Africa, cash in 2020, because I had money saved. Me - the woman who was always in overdraft 👀
If you'd told me years ago that I would be able to change so much in my finances, I wouldn't have believed it - the fact that I could get to month end with money in my bank account?
No freaking way!
This is why I created the 5 Day Fall In Love With Your Bank Account Challenge to help people start changing their spending habits with ease so they can start building up their savings.
If you feel ready to change your relationship with your bank account and:
🌟 Always know where your money is going
🌟 Save consistently with ease every month
🌟 Get your money right and produce tangible evidence of what you did with your money
🌟 Heal ancestral money trauma so you start feeling calm with money in your bank account and no longer fight yourself not to spend it
🌟 Work on your savings goal with a money tribe in a secret Facebook group, using the power of collective energy to reach your goals
I invite you to check out and sign up for my 5 Day #BankAccountChallenge course.
>>>Click here to register for the #BankAccountChallenge
Once registered in the course, you get access to all course worksheets, meditations and recordings of live I have done over the last year sessions.
❗BONUS: When you enroll in the course, you get access to a private Facebook group (only available to those registered for the #BankAccountChallenge), where you get to do the challenge with a tribe and I get to answer your questions and offer suggestions on lessons and exercises to do.
