[00:00:00] Linzy: Hello and welcome back to the Feelings and Finances mini podcast series on the Money Skills for Therapists podcast. This podcast series is all about answering listener questions, questions from you, the folks who listen to the Money Skills for Therapists podcast, and giving you the chance to have your question answered.

[00:00:19] And it’s fun for me too, to just answer questions, like this is kind of what I do all the time in Money Skills for Therapists and Money Skills for Group Practice Owner calls. I kind of have this feeling of like, okay, bring it. What’s the question going to be? And lets me, you know, show you what I do.

[00:00:31] And gives me the chance to support the folks who listen to this podcast. So today I do have very much this feeling of like, okay, what’s the question going to be? I’m ready. Because I’ve not listened to this question yet. Today’s question is from Linds. She is our marketing coordinator here at Money, Nuts and Bolts.

[00:00:48] She has submitted a question, and I haven’t heard it yet. So let’s listen to Linds’s question together.

[00:00:53] Lindsay: Hi, Linzy. This is also Lindsay, just spelled differently. First off, I just want to say that I love your podcast. I think that you have such a soothing voice, and I feel like I could just listen to you talk all day, so thank you for putting that out into the world for all of us. My question pertains to my relationship with money.

[00:01:14] I’m always scared that I’m going to run out of it. Now, I don’t know when exactly this started. I mean, in high school, I had absolutely no problem with spending money. My teen years, it was a non issue. But now, I don’t know, somewhere along the way, I feel like I’ve started to almost hoard it in a way. And while I want to be conscious of where my money is going, I don’t want the act of spending money to feel so heavy on me.

[00:01:39] So I was just wondering if you had any advice for me that could, you know, help shift my mindset from this scarcity mindset to one of more abundance?Thank you so much for listening, and I’m excited to hear you hopefully answer this on an upcoming podcast episode. Thanks.

[00:01:55] Linzy: Okay. So. This is a great question, Linds. And this is something that over, I think over the last few years in Money Skills for Therapists, I’ve seen this happening more and more. Like, when I started doing my work on Money Skills for Therapists, like when I created this course in 2018, was our first round.

[00:02:15] I was really focused on folks who, overspent, who like couldn’t stop spending money and felt like really, like money always disappeared. And I used to like talk about that a lot. And I still do, you know, in terms of helping folks understand who the course is for. But over the last few years, Linds, I’ve had more and more folks in the course talking about what you’re talking about, which is the other side of the spectrum, right?

[00:02:35] Which is like clinging and hoarding. And something that I want to reflect is like, that is also a dysregulated relationship with money, right? Like that shows a relationship that is out of balance, but rather than this kind of like out of control, can’t hold onto it, it’s like the opposite where it’s like, can’t let go of it, right?

[00:02:54] There’s this clinging around money. So, you know, since this is something that you’re aware of, but haven’t dug into too much yet, the first thing that I always encourage is curiosity, right? Like start to notice around this fear of spending money, spending money being heavy. Like what is that heaviness?

[00:03:15] Is there a story that goes with it? Is there a specific fear that you have? Is there a belief about yourself or belief around money itself? Like the first. The first step, Linds, that I would encourage is to really be with this experience to start to kind of turn it over in your hands, and be curious about like, what is this?

[00:03:37] What is this? Right? Is this a fear of running out of money and like not having stability? Is this about security and safety? Is this about like not deserving? I know for me, for instance, like some of my anxieties about spending over the years when I reflect on them now, were about not really feeling entitled to take up space in the world or kind of like general existential anxiety about like consumerism.

[00:04:04] These kinds of things I know for me have made it like hard to spend and like accumulate things. So it’s like, what is that for you? Right? Like, what is making it difficult to enjoy spending money? Because what I’m hearing is in the past, in your, your teens, your younger years, you, you were able to spend money freely.

[00:04:22] I don’t know if it was too freely. Like, I don’t know if there’s maybe a pendulum swing that’s happened here, but I would be curious about what changed, right? Like what has brought you to this place that you are now? Did it change when you had kids? Did it change after a certain financial experience that you had?

[00:04:38] Just really being curious and digging into this and whether that’s through journaling, talking about it with your friends, talking about it with your partner. Something, too, that can be really helpful for all of us is just letting ourselves slow down and track what the experience is.

[00:04:52] Like if you know that you need to spend money on something and you are noticing that like, feeling around it. trying to stop and notice like, what is the emotion? What’s happening in my body? Like, what are the thoughts? All those kinds of like typical therapist y questions, go a long way to starting to uncover what it is for you, right?

[00:05:11] Because once you know what it is for you, then you can start to address it. You can shift it. If there’s parts of you that are stuck in the past, like if there’s a part of you that went through the experience of like, making a big financial mistake or like being broke, or maybe not having enough money in your life, not enough food to eat.

[00:05:28] Like there’s such a spectrum of experiences that we have around money. If there’s a part of you, a part of your brain, a part of yourself, that’s still stuck in that place. Sometimes it’s about helping that part of us catch up, you know, to where we are now to notice like, Oh, right. I’m scared of spending money because of this, But also letting yourself see like, but the conditions have changed, right?

[00:05:47] My life is different now. Helping yourself see why it can be okay to spend some money. And then with this as well, Linds, I would encourage you… There’s a couple more pieces that, you know, come to mind for me. One is that I would encourage you to think about how do you bring some more lightness into your relationship with money?

[00:06:05] Are there places that it feels good to spend money? Are there places that you could experiment with playing with money? Like, what if you give yourself $15, and you just get to think about, okay, how can this $15 bring the most joy into my life? I’m going to go out of my house and I’m going to take this 15 and I’m going to turn it into the lightest, most joyful experience that I can.

[00:06:23] And letting yourself notice that, like playing with almost the opposite experience of lightness and joy around money. So that’s one piece. And that’ll also let you start to really see like what comes up, what’s in the way, what is it like to spend money on things that you really enjoy? Can you take in that experience?

[00:06:39] Can you notice that you do that and it’s okay? Then the other piece is, you know, I know that you, uh, have a young daughter at home. I know you have another kiddo on the way, and that’s also a very financially stressful time of life. It’s very expensive to have little kids. And so it also makes me think about what can you put in place with your spouse so that you do feel like there’s a good stability.

[00:07:02] There is a good base. You know, you do know that you’re covered. You have set clear buffer goals with your spouse, or you’ve got a budget together that you know, okay, this gives us like safety and security. This is actually what we need to be okay. Because the reality is you can’t spend all the money you have, but to know, okay, once we have this much in the bank, or we keep our budget around this, then we have this room

[00:07:25] to play and spend and, you know, have more light experiences with money. Right? So it’s like a both/ and. We don’t want you swinging to the opposite extreme where you’re just going nuts and spending all your money. But we also don’t want you to be in this tight place because that’s also a very stressful place to be with money.

[00:07:41] So, to summarize, I suggest being with the experience: being curious about it, journaling about it, talking about it, tracking the feelings and emotions. I suggest experimenting with going the other way, and trying to play with bringing some lightness into your relationship with money. How can money feel light?

[00:07:58] Where are there times where there’s exceptions? And then, look at if stability or safety, which I think is often a part of this hoarding, and clutching around money is often about stability and safety. If that is part of your picture to talk with your partner about what is actually enough.

[00:08:14] You know, what do you need to put in place to know that you are covered and you do have enough and that can give you the space and permission to also just enjoy your money because you know you have actually taken care of those foundational pieces of your financial stability and security. So thank you so much, Linds, for your question.

[00:08:33] This is a great question. I really appreciate you asking it today. If you would like to have your own question answered on one of these Feelings and Finances podcasts, you just need to head over to our podcast page. You’re going to see a little icon for SpeakPipe. That’s where you can leave your name and your question.

[00:08:49] I would absolutely love to answer your question on one of these podcast episodes. Thank you so much to my team for getting us started. Ashley and Christelle and Linds getting us started with our first three questions on the podcast. And I’m so looking forward to answering other questions, listener questions, questions from students, in our future Feelings and Finances podcast episodes.

[00:09:12] Thank you so much for listening today.