[00:00:00] Linzy: Hello and welcome back to another Feelings and Finances episode of the Money Skills for Therapist Podcast. These are our short and sweet friday episodes Where I answer questions from you the listeners of the Money Skills for Therapists Podcast, the wonderful therapists, and coaches, and health practitioners that make up our community today.

[00:00:18] We have a question from a returning guest, so to speak, on the podcast, Dr. Charissa Pizzaro. Charissa, we had a coaching episode. And since that coaching episode, she’s also been taking the Money Skills for Therapists course. And here is her question today for our Feelings and Finances episode.

[00:00:35] Charissa: Hi Linzy, my name is Charissa Pizarro. I am submitting a question because I am struggling with my scarcity mindset. I’ve been actually taking your course and discovered a lot of insights, and one of them is that during stressful times I tend to go to that scarcity mindset. So I wanted to know if you have any feedback on how I can work on that.

[00:01:01] Thank you.

[00:01:02] Linzy: Okay, this is a great question, Charissa, and I think in your question itself, there is such a helpful insight that you have developed, you know, through doing your work on your money stories in Money Skills for Therapists, which is that when you are stressed, that trigger brings up scarcity for you, right?

[00:01:20] So that’s the first thing to notice that there’s two different things happening here, right? There’s stress in your life, and then you move into a scarcity mindset. From what I’m understanding from your question, it’s almost like the scarcity mindset is a response to the stress, right? And so the first thing that I would encourage you to explore is, is the stress that you’re experiencing.

[00:01:42] actually indicating that there will be some sort of scarcity, right? So for instance, when we have stress around job insecurity or instability, right? When you’re in an organization that’s being downsized, or maybe your private practice is going through an extremely quiet time and that’s the stressor, then there is actually a potential financial implication from that.

[00:02:00] It does mean that there could be less money if you’re laid off for, you know, some time until you, you get a new job or you grow your private practice more. Having less clients, if that’s a stress, then there is less money coming into the practice, which means there is less money to manage. So there is actually less.

[00:02:14] That doesn’t mean that scarcity needs to be our response, but it does certainly mean that, this is actually a financial stressor, right? But what I’m taking from your question is that it’s not necessarily just financial stressors that are putting you into scarcity. It’s when you are stressed, you move into scarcity.

[00:02:28] And that gives us so much space to be curious about what is that response about, right? Going into kind of the trauma therapist parts work part of my brain, my question would be, What is that scarcity part of you trying to accomplish when you are under stress, right? Is there an attempt there to gain control over an area that you feel like you can control?

[00:02:52] Because money is an area of our life where we make decisions every single day, right? We have a lot of opportunity to exert control over money just like we do over food, right? When folks are under stress, this is where, you know, disordered eating can be kicked up more, because we have a space where we are constantly making decisions and where we can exert control, sometimes control that is harmful to us, but we see ourself doing something, right?

[00:03:18] So is there some sort of mission like that, that this scarcity part has for you? Is this an attempt to control something? Is the tightness of scarcity, is the fear of not enough, and maybe the lack of spending that comes with that, is it an attempt at control? That would be a curiosity that I have. And if it’s not an attempt at control to offset the stress, what is that scarcity part of you trying to accomplish?

[00:03:42] Right? What is the goal of that part of you? So that’s the first thing that I would be curious about is: what is the function? Why is it helpful for your system that when you are stressed to put you into a scarcity space around money specifically, right? So bringing that curiosity to this circuit, you know, that’s running inside of your body. The next piece that I would encourage you to take some time with is, is there a specific trigger that’s being activated? You know, I know from our conversation in our previous podcast episode that there is a very real history in your family of scarcity and what that scarcity is about. I’m sure you’ve, you’ve explored and done more

[00:04:21] work on that since our conversation. Is there a specific trigger there that’s coming up that, you know, the scarcity is trying to keep you safe, that there’s confusion for that part about where you are in time and space, right? Is stress in general bringing you back to, you know, those certain family histories of needing to have control around money to be safe?

[00:04:40] Is that part of what’s being triggered? And if that is the case, or even regardless of what the actual trigger is, noticing that you are triggered. Right? When you are stressed, there’s a trigger there. There’s an intensity there that’s putting your system into probably a series of responses. And one of those responses is scarcity around money.

[00:05:01] When we can separate that, then it becomes more clear that it’s not about the money, The response is focusing in on the money. And I see this in my own life sometimes, Theresa. This is something that I’ve worked on over the last few years, is noticing, Hey, when I’m stressed in general, suddenly I’m checking my budget a whole bunch more.

[00:05:17] That’s weird. What is that about? And it’s like, well, this is an area of my life where I can try to exert control, right? When maybe I don’t have control over how wellmy sales launch is going to do for, you know, this round of the course, or there’s other things that are outside of my control. But you know, keeping my money organized and counting my pennies is something that I do feel like I can control.

[00:05:36] And when I can notice, oh, I’m stressed about this bigger thing that’s out of my control, so I’m trying to exert control over this smaller thing, then I can separate those and just focus on. the original stressor, right? What does my system need? So when you’re stressed, if you can even separate out the scarcity and almost let that just be a symptom of the stress, how do you actually take care of your stress?

[00:05:59] What can you do that might have nothing to do with money to take care of yourself? Is it that you take yourself to therapy, to work on the triggers that are coming up? Do you start going to yoga classes more often? Do you meditate? Do you schedule more time to go for walks with friends and just talk about what’s happening?

[00:06:16] How do you take care of your stress in a global way that’s about your well being as a person? Right? Because I think, from what I’m gathering from your question, is it’s not actually about the money. Right. It’s about the stress and it’s a system response that makes the stress about money by putting into a scarcity, but you’re just talking about stress, right?

[00:06:35] So how do you actually take care of your stress in a global way? If we didn’t buy into the story that there is actually a financial problem here that needs to be solved and managed… If this is actually about you being under emotional stress, your nervous system being in hyper arousal, how do you take care of your nervous system?

[00:06:51] How do you take care of yourself? And then once you have done that self care, once you have given yourself the space to ground and done a really good yoga class or gotten together with some old friends and had some good laughs, or, you know, taken a long bath and listened to music and let yourself be really, really quiet for a while, whatever it is for you…

[00:07:12] once you’ve actually done things to downcycle your nervous system, then how true does that scarcity feel, right? Let yourself be curious and notice: do I still feel like there isn’t enough when my stress has subsided, or is that just a secondary response to the stress? Right? So going to the actual root of the problem, whether that is a trigger that you identify or whether it’s just taking care of your body and your nervous system and your need for connection and care, as we all do as people.

[00:07:42] You know, I’m basically suggesting that be curious about the other ways to take care of this with the idea that this might not actually be about money at all. Right? I think the money, it sounds like, is a secondary effect. It’s a response, to the original stressor and stopping to take care of yourself as a whole person and dealing with that stress and not buying into the story that there’s actually less money because you’re stressed lets you take care of yourself without kind of making a new problem that might not actually be a problem.

[00:08:11] I think the real problem is that there’s a stressor that needs to be attended to, and the story that comes out of that is that there isn’t enough money, but the story is just a story. Right? So that would be my offering is to really let those two things be separate, really attend to the stress, and then see what’s left of the scarcity stories and the scarcity mindset after you let yourself truly attend to the stress.

[00:08:34] And there’s a part of me that has some grief that you’ve just finished up Money Skills for Therapists, so I’m not going to get to hear how this question lands and what happens when you explore this. But I’m excited for you to keep exploring this, Charissa, and holding it out at arm’s length and turning it over and being curious about it, and seeing how it can start to unravel and loosen as you give yourself more and more space for it.

[00:08:56] Thank you so much, Charissa, for sharing your question today. If you have your own question for me for a Feelings and Finances episode, we have only a couple spots left this season to answer your questions. So head over to the podcast page now. Just scroll down just a little.

[00:09:12] You’ll see a link that says, do you have a question for LInzy? We’ll also put a direct link to that, in the show notes. All you need to do, like Charissa, is press record, introduce yourself, introduce your question, and I will answer it on an upcoming Feelings and Finances episode of the Money Skills for Therapists podcast.

[00:09:26] Thank you so much for joining me today.