The Need to Prove Ourselves and its Impact on Our Finances

A while back, in the middle of a full body workout with my personal trainer, I felt all this fear and sadness in my body (especially my womb) and stopped the session to scream into pillows, went back to the workout, paused, did some womb breathwork and then fire breathing. 

I closed my eyes and called on my ancestors, and asked them to lend me their courage and strength to feel and release what needed releasing because I was too scared to feel it. 

I told them I am blood of their blood and I needed to be held in this moment as I processed and worked out what was happening 

In a matter of minutes, I had all these memories of when I lived in Boston, MA and how my first business failed and how I would refuse to spend any money on myself for anything because I thought that was the only way to hold onto money.

And for the first time I cried for the me (not the situation I found myself in, but me) that was too scared to get out of bed and would sit staring out the window, trying to figure out the best way to end her life.

For the first time, I saw how this wasn't about the money but the need to get validation from my mom and everyone around me.

This deep need to prove myself and how awesome I was by being perfect and being seen only as perfect. 

Every action I took back then, was to prove myself, to prove to my mother that she was wrong about me. To prove that I was a great daughter/human despite everything she believed about me.

To prove to the world that I was great. To prove that the business wasn’t failing and that I was doing well financially. 

I was in a silent battle to prove my "naysayers and enemies" wrong.

I see now that I didn't have enemies but I created a reality where I was fighting said enemies and so was never able to face the truth of my life.

At some point, I was crying because I realized I was so busy proving myself, I wasn't living or enjoying my business or the process of entrepreneurship.

I was so desperate to get to the destination and was fronting so much that I lived in fear of people truly seeing the truth about my situation and my life. 

I was living for other people and not myself.

And the more I tried to prove myself, the more I did, the more others’ opinions mattered and the more things fell apart and eventually dealing with money was too much and too scary

The perfectionism was a trap - it stopped me from getting the help I needed for my life and business so I could heal what I didn't know, I didn't know.

I had crazy expectations for myself in business and financially - but who had taught me how to run a business and how to deal with my financial trauma?

I believed I should just know how to build a business and judged myself for not being able to.

I forced myself to live up to these expectations and every time things didn't work out, I used that as proof that I wasn't good enough and would go into a proving rampage and try to push through. 

Ironically, the only way to get to my financial and other life goals was to allow myself to be imperfect.

I started getting help - I hired a team and hired coaches to hold space for me and teach me the things I didn’t even know, I didn’t know.

I started showing all of myself, not just the perfect parts of me.

I allowed people to see me - I became visible and with that visibility I learned self compassion and started shedding the shame.

The more I shed the shame, the more my life and finances shifted. 

This is why I am so passionate about helping other women of color heal ancestral trauma because I know what it's like to be trapped in an image that is different to your reality

And I know how that holds us back from trying things in case we fail and the image comes undone.

And how that affects our finances because, what if we fail in the side hustle/business?

What will people say? 

Will our "enemies" rejoice? 

Phew!

I remember telling my fitness trainer that that workout session felt like a ceremony for me and she laughed and said she should just stop trying to create a workout plan for me because in every session she gets guided to do totally different things with me. 

My ancestors just laughed, they liked her effort, even though they disrupted every session.