Ep 55 - Money Money Money
Hello everyone. Welcome to episode 55 of the EMDR Doctor podcast.
Firstly I need to apologise for leaving you all high and dry last week sometimes life gets in the way, even for podcasters! And of course now is a busy busy time for everyone in the late end of the year, and I have had a couple of challenges spring up in my life the last few weeks so the podcast had to take a little holiday last week. But I am back this week with the very juicy topic of Money… now I promise not to sing the Abba song to you, which is always the temptation when talking about this topic (yes I know I am showing my age here, only Gen x era would be tempted to sing an Abba song) but I thought I would talk about it as it is a fave with quite a few business podcasters who I follow and listen to, and of course money is so important to all of us, but when was the last time you spoke honestly about money to either friends, partners, or even your therapist! Money can be a bit of a taboo topic in general, let alone in therapy.
I actually don’t think I have ever had someone come in to see me to work on their prejudices or hangups or difficulties with money… But we all have them. And sometimes we have lots of contradictory messages we have absorbed from different places. Maybe we don’t feel worthy to spend money on ourselves. Maybe our money burns a hole in our pocket - I personally know people who literally cannot hold on to money.
And I know other people who fret over spending even $5 on a coffee. Although that’s probably now more like $6 in Melbourne. But both of those scenarios come from our early training in money, the messages we received as kids, or the experiences we had as young adults. I know a few women who have been the victim of ‘sexually transmitted debt’ - loans that they have signed for on behalf of their partners, because they haven’t felt able to hold that boundary or say no. No - if you want that car you buy it for yourself, I am not going to sign that document that lands me in debt just for your pleasure. Apparently financial abuse is present in 99% of family violence situations. If we look under what may be going on there, we may find early beliefs around I’m not deserving, I’m not as good at money as my partner is.
And if we look beneath the over spending - sometimes people spend up big on credit cards, or spend every cent of their pay checks, we might find beliefs like “I’m not good enough, I need to look better than everyone else at work so people will like me”.
Being a trauma therapist, I have often worked with people on various traumas that have affected them involving money - poverty as a child, never having what their schoolfriend had, being hungry with no way of getting food, having to do after school jobs just to eat, having to hide food from parents, to make sure their siblings got some food in their stomachs, going to school without breakfast or lunch every day, eating other peoples thrown away sandwiches. Promising themselves to never be without money again in their lives.
Or seeing Dad make himself popular by spending up big on his friends, and learning at that moment that spending all your money on friends is the way to be liked, being generous is more important that being stable or careful.
Now these early lessons in money may not be traumatic, but they certainly may stand in the way of later stability or opportunity. They may be a mixed blessing and provide a really good incentive to work hard, but also could be a source of fear and lack. Or maybe money is so scary that there is a lot of avoidance behaviour - we might avoid looking at bills, or checking the mortgage, we might put our head in the sand when we really need to be looking carefully at finances. We might just get another credit card and put the maxed out ones in the drawer for later, if we are really scared and avoidant about money.
One belief that seems to often get in the way of success for people, is this idea of rich=mean. Of some sort of dirtiness about being rich, which might be an Australian prejudice, dating back to the days of the convicts, which sort of idealises the struggling honest worker, the good aussie battler, and demonises the rich mean boss. We might find it hard to enjoy our wealth if we grew up with that prejudice, we might hide our success or hold ourselves back from earning more if we believe that it is more honourable in some way to be poor or struggling.
In the therapy world, I actually think that there is a bit of prejudice amongst therapists, against earning good money, as we may hold a belief that we ‘help’ people, so it is somehow dishonourable to take money for doing good work. That if we love our job, we should do it for peanuts. Or there may be Big T trauma - family violence involves financial abuse is about 99% of cases. That is a big number. Sexually transmitted debt is another form of financial abuse - loans for cars or instant money loans or gambling debts in the name of the partner, often leave women with massive debts and a credit rating that takes years to recover. Systemic trauma from legal family court matters is another weapon that men often use, being the higher income earner often, gives them an advantage in the court system that weaponises the system against the lower income earner. Or financial loss through natural disasters, or business failures.
So all of these beliefs and experiences are all great targets for EMDR. This is the money mindset type work that people talk about as the way forward with their businesses, and EMDR is a great way to fast track the changes that may be needed, to reduce the discomfort or distress around the money, to shift the beliefs to a more aspirational or more success oriented mode, so that the behaviour can follow with ease and alignment. Financial trauma does not have
to define your future. If we shift the emotional charge associated with the trauma around money, or the subtle, damaging prejudices, then we can more easily believe that its safe to have money, I am a good person, I can do more good with more money, I deserve to have and keep nice things, it’s safe to hold on to money, its safe to spend money. I can protect myself, I can make my own decisions around money, money is enjoyable.
If any of this resonates with you, maybe have a chat to your EMDR therapist about how to shift your negative beliefs, so you can feel more at ease with money. You deserve it.
I’d love to hear your experience of money and EMDR work, please feel free to comment below if you are watching on Youtube, or send me an email at admin @therapynest.com.au if you would like to explore this for yourself and work with me on your money beliefs, next year I will be starting up my online group program again, so watch this space for my next intake.
I am also about to open up some spots in my week for consultation for EMDR therapists, so if you happen to be an EMDR therapist and you are looking for consultation, perhaps shoot me an email and we can figure out a time to suit. Alright, I hope that's been helpful. I will talk to you again next week. In the meantime, take good care. Bye for now
