190: Healing Money Shame After High-Control Religion

Have you ever noticed old messages about money, morality, or success still lingering—long after you’ve left a faith community or belief system that once shaped your world? In this episode, I sit down with licensed marriage and family therapist Emily Maynard to explore how growing up in or leaving a high-control religious environment can deeply influence your relationship with money. 

We talk about how these systems teach people—often from childhood—to view money through a moral lens: poverty as virtue, wealth as greed, or sacrifice as proof of goodness. For therapists who grew up in these spaces, those lessons can make it especially difficult to set boundaries, charge appropriately, or believe that rest and success are safe. 

Emily brings such grounded insight to this conversation. Together, we unpack what defines a high-control religion—not as a specific theology, but as a structure of control, shame, and rigidity that can leave lasting marks on how we see ourselves, our worth, and what we deserve. 

Healing Money Shame for Therapists with Religious Trauma Histories

This episode is for you if you’ve ever wrestled with feeling selfish for wanting more stability, questioned your right to rest, or found yourself hustling to “earn” worthiness. 

(00:06:17) Religion Shapes Early Views on Money 

(00:09:31) Subtle Conditioning in Belief Systems 

(00:10:37) Healing After Leaving a Group 

(00:15:41) Sustainability in Healthcare Messaging 

(00:17:18) Money, Morality, and Control 

(00:23:16) Building a Sustainable Healing Practice 

(00:27:03) Money, Religion, and Belonging 

Breaking Free from Money Shame Rooted in High Control Religious Backgrounds

Emily shares what she sees in her work with clients recovering from religious trauma: the body’s lingering responses to old patterns, even years after intellectually moving on. We also explore how healing involves learning to make your own choices, rewriting your “job description” in private practice, and creating boundaries that allow sustainability without guilt. 

Here are a few action steps you can take toward breaking free: 

  • Notice the messages you absorbed early on. What stories about money, morality, or sacrifice still influence your financial decisions today? 
  • Practice autonomy with compassion. Try writing your own “job description” for private practice. What would feel fair, sustainable, and ethical for you? 
  • Challenge inherited shame. When guilt or fear shows up around charging for your work or taking rest, remind yourself: You are allowed to be well. 
  • Build new financial safety. Explore ways to connect money with care, not control—so your business can reflect your current values, not your old programming. 

If you’ve ever questioned your relationship with money after growing up in faith-based or high-control environments, this episode will help you begin healing the shame, rebuilding trust in yourself, and crafting a business that feels both grounded and free. 

Get to Know Emily Maynard:

Emily Maynard is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist in California. She works with adults with trauma, particularly religious trauma and high control religion backgrounds. Emily has a small private practice and is certified in EMDR. She loves Jeopardy and talking about things that make other people uncomfortable, like money! 

Follow Emily Maynard: 

Email: emily@emilymaynardtherapy.com 

Website: www.emilymaynardtherapy.com 

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/emilymaynardlmft/ 

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Episode Transcript

Emily Maynard [00:00:00]: 

I think a big piece of it in the US Is a huge amount of personal financial education. Happens in one specific conservative or kind of fundamentalist Christian affiliated program and it’s marketed through churches. So not only are you getting moral education around money and wealth, but often churches are offering classes in one particular system that does tend to promote one size fits all. There is one way to manage money and it’s very shame based. It’s your fault you’re not achieving advancement or success. 

Linzy Bonham [00:00:36]: 

Welcome to Money Skills for Therapists, the podcast that helps therapists and health practitioners in private practice go from money confusion and shame to calm, clarity and confidence with their finances. If you’ve ever felt overwhelmed by numbers or avoided looking at your business money, you’re in the right place. I’m Linzy Bonham, therapist turned money coach and creator of Money Skills for Therapists. Before we jump in, check out my free On Demand masterclass. You’ll find the link in the show notes or@moneynutsandbolts.com under masterclass. It’s the best first step to finally feeling empowered with money in your private practice. Let’s get started. Hello and welcome back to the podcast. 

Linzy Bonham [00:01:15]: 

Today’s guest is Emily Maynard. Emily is an LMFT in California and she particularly focuses her work on religious trauma and high control religious backgrounds. Today, Emily and I talk about high control religion. We talk about what it is, how it impacts people’s relationship with money, its connection to money shame, how those stories can continue to show up for you even after you maybe left a high control religious context. And we also talk about how high control religion specifically impacts our relationship to private practice and being in private practice and kind of the huge gap that exists between those kind of high control religious cultural contexts and the messaging you get there in private practice and the skills and the mindset that we need to develop to be successful in private practice. Here is my conversation with Emily Maynard. So, Emily, welcome to the podcast. 

Emily Maynard [00:02:16]: 

Thanks for having me. I’m excited to chat. 

Linzy Bonham [00:02:18]: 

Yes, I’m excited to chat too. I know that what you live and breathe every day, what you teach about and talk about and put out into the world is actually a topic that I have very little personal experience with. But I know a lot of students, a lot of therapists who have had come through Money Skills for therapists have come from experiences of high control religions. And that definitely shows up in our conversation. So I’m excited today to dig into, you know, kind of the overlap between our worlds of like, you know, I think you talk about money all the time you think and talk about high control religion and its impacts. So we’re gonna, we’re gonna jam today and talk about how these things come together. So let’s start by defining these terms, like, what is high control religion? 

Emily Maynard [00:02:58]: 

Yes. So high control religion doesn’t refer to any specific church or theology or religious group, but it’s a structure of relationships. And cult scholars will talk about the spectrum of high control groups where there’s certain behaviors and organizations that are healthy. And then as we go along the spectrum towards a cult or high control group, you’ll see more rigidity, more. More fear of outsiders looking down on others, authoritarian structures, total compliance with a leader’s ideas, with the authority of God or scripture backing them up. And that comes with secrecy, abuse, harm, a lot of things behind the scenes for insiders in these organizations that might be perfect and polished on the outside. So we’re not talking about any specific religion, but a type of religious harm that occurs. 

Linzy Bonham [00:03:51]: 

Yeah, it’s almost like the structure of a way that a group is being run. Yeah. And as you’re talking about that, like, I’m thinking about students I’ve had who’ve had experiences that with the Christian religions, but I’m also thinking about kind of pseudo cults that are like, in the city that I live in, where you’re like, that’s, that’s weird that they would, you know, ask you to participate in something like multiple evenings a week. It seems like they’re kind of trying to control your time, like. Yeah, I think that I’m curious because cults I know a little bit about and I find quite fascinating the psychology of cults. From what you’re saying, I’m understanding there’d be quite a spectrum of how many of these kind of behaviors are being implemented or built into the system. Tell me a little bit more about how you think about this. When does something become high control, I guess is the question. 

Emily Maynard [00:04:35]: 

Yeah, that’s a really specific. That’s usually a difficult point to manage. Usually when the leader, I mean, we see it. If you watch cult documentaries, there’s usually a point where it becomes. Comes from more of a mainstream group where people are free to come and go and interact with other people, with other belief systems. There’s usually a point where there’s a sort of lockdown and a certain sect of those people, a certain segment will become more isolated and really limited in their interactions with the outside world. There’s suddenly only one way to live, and it requires you being in the group and following all Those rules. And there’s usually a lot of shame that starts forming around there if you can’t live up to those ideals or you don’t decide to follow the leader further down the road. 

Emily Maynard [00:05:22]: 

So again, this can happen in any kind of organization. Right. We work in family systems for marriage and family therapists, and it’s a little bit of the same. There’s unhealthy behaviors even in unhealthy families, and we’re there to help the system become healthier. So a lot of my work is helping people understand which parts of their experience were harmful to them and contributing to their current symptoms and which parts of those experiences or values that they were raised with they want to keep with them. 

Linzy Bonham [00:05:50]: 

Right, yeah. Because generally it’s not all bad. 

Emily Maynard [00:05:53]: 

There’s going to be never all or. 

Linzy Bonham [00:05:54]: 

Nothing in any group. Yes, of course. So, you know, shame, like something that I have been talking about and thinking about a lot with my community in the last couple years, is money shame. Right. Like this idea that sometimes our relationship with money is, is so heavy that there really is like a shame component. How do you see high control religion impacting money shame specifically? 

Emily Maynard [00:06:17]: 

Well, I think religion or religious experiences are often some of the first moral education we get as people. So not just from our families. You know, our families all have norms around money and resources. But if you’re involved in a church as a child, that’s some of the first ideas that you get around. Is it good to have money? Is it bad to have money? What ways do you. Should you show that you have money? Is money a blessing from God? Is money a trap that could cause you to sin? Ideas like greed, ideas like poverty, where there’s this explicit moral understanding of money, I think often really gets shaped in our early religious exposures or experiences. And for high control groups, there’s always very specific rules about money. High control groups always involve financial exploitation, labor exploitation, time exploitation, whether or not that’s somebody, you know, requiring that you give most of your money to the group and the leader also lives very simply. 

Emily Maynard [00:07:17]: 

We shun money in the outside world, or whether you give money to the group and the leader gets to live very lavishly to promote, you know, the ideas of the group. 

  

Linzy Bonham [00:07:25]: 

Right. 

Emily Maynard [00:07:25]: 

Both are pretty harmful. 

Linzy Bonham [00:07:27]: 

Yeah, yeah. Because I think about money and power and how money is a way of having power in the world. It’s, it’s kind of a. An embodiment of power in a certain way. When you have money, you’re able to make choices, you’re able to exchange that money for different things, access, experiences. And it makes sense to me that in a high control religion context, money would always be involved. Because if people have control over their own money, they also have control over their own lives. 

Emily Maynard [00:07:52]: 

Exactly. They have freedom. 

Linzy Bonham [00:07:54]: 

Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, I could see how inevitably somebody, if there is that tipping point in a group that wasn’t high control before, if they’re going to switch into a high control mode, money is going to be part of that. It sounds like, I would think, almost without exception. 

Emily Maynard [00:08:09]: 

Yes. Yeah. That’s one of the markers of a high control group. Is there going to evolve exploitation in some way of resources that people have? 

Linzy Bonham [00:08:16]: 

Yes. 

Emily Maynard [00:08:17]: 

When you mentioned shame, I think what comes up for me is that high control religion always involves shame, whether that’s around sexual purity. There’s a lot of people that I work with who grew up in purity culture, and they have shame around their relationships and sexuality or whether that’s, you know, what they want, their dreams. They have a lot of shame around that. Or there’s this idea of not living up to some perfection and that brings a lot of shame that I’m bad inside or there’s something wrong with me. And that can come up around any resource that we have, you know, any tool that we use. But I think it, it often comes up around money, too. That comes up in my work with people. 

  

Linzy Bonham [00:08:56]: 

Yeah. And shame, just as a, as a tool of control, it occurs to me that, you know, shame is a very powerful tool of control because if you can convince other people that there’s something inherently wrong with them, it’s going to be hard for them to get grounded and confident and clear of like, no, this is wrong. Right. Like, it almost seems to me like, you know, there’s going to be an assignment of blame in abusive situations in general. And if you can convince the people who are being abused that they are wrong, inherently wrong, then they’re going to have a really hard time questioning what’s happening to them. Is that, is that accurate or would you think about that differently? Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. 

Emily Maynard [00:09:31]: 

There’s also a lot of these groups that they don’t, they don’t explicitly say a lot of these beliefs. Like the way that I grew up in very fundamentalist, conservative Christianity in the US There weren’t a lot of things that were explicitly told to me, but there were a lot of norms that I internalized just by seeing who was elevated in the group, who kind of had issues and left. That taught me a lot about how I should behave, what it meant to be a good person. What it meant to be a part of this group. And so a lot of these messages, especially around money, aren’t necessarily explicit. They’re really subtle. But this sense of shame indicates to me there’s something there that happened that made you feel like if you continued on this path, you wouldn’t be able to be a part of the group either now or, you know, eternally in heaven. If that’s part of the group’s belief, yes. 

Linzy Bonham [00:10:20]: 

Okay, so how then can high control religion impact people’s ideas about money? Like, how do you see that kind of playing out for people’s individual relationship with money when they’ve had these experiences, like, maybe even, you know, like you’re talking about after they’ve left that community? 

Emily Maynard [00:10:37]: 

So a lot of the people that I work with are deeply feeling, deeply caring people, and they had some reason why they needed to leave the group or shift their belief systems. And often I work with people who are years out of the group intellectually, but their bodies are still responding to certain things, whether that’s relationships, sexuality, or money, purpose in life, vocation, where they’re like, I don’t know why I’m still having this problem, but I am like, why do I freak out around these conversations? You know, why do I still have this scarcity mindset, even if my needs are met and I have some savings? And that’s often the work that we do is figure out, like, well, what were you really taught about this? What did you observe? Not just what did someone teach you, but what did you learn? Which is a very different kind of question. And really focusing on what did you see elevated? What. And then how do you bring your current moral or ethical positions into those conversations too? 

Linzy Bonham [00:11:40]: 

Yeah, yeah. That trauma piece is so powerful. And I see that with therapists that I work with too, where even if, you know intellectually you’ve moved on from something, these things are still so deeply embedded in our nervous systems. And as you’ve said, sometimes they’re not words like, there aren’t necessarily explicit things that we were taught, but we know we knew what was rewarded and we knew what would get us, like, in trouble or, you know, make us belong less. And so, yeah, that. That imprinting is so, so deep, you know, with trauma in general, but certainly with money, too. And like, what do you see as some of the common. The common ideas that people are still carrying years later around? Money? What are some of maybe the themes that come out of high control religion about money for people? 

Emily Maynard [00:12:25]: 

I sort of see two tracks in this one of Them is this idea of the suffering servant. So that the right way to be moral or good is to live very simply and to continue to give to a mission, whether that’s mental health. Right. And saying like, well, people really need my services and they don’t have access to it, so I must be the one to fix that. And it would be good and right for me to take on a bigger caseload than I have or continue to work with insurances that are not respecting my time, things like that. Or I see people, there’s this idea in high control religion of this prosperity gospel. So the idea that if I do good, I will receive blessing and ease in my life and I will have all these financial resources. And when that’s not happening, that must mean that I’m failing morally or that there’s some sort of misalignment in my spirituality rather than sort of understanding. 

Emily Maynard [00:13:26]: 

There are systems of power around money. There are systems, you know, capitalism has certain goals. White supremacy has certain goals about the exploitation of people and labor. And really I see people sort of stuck in these ideas that, you know, well, I should have financial ease or I should remain suffering and, and not get honest about what my family needs or what my business needs in order to be a good person. 

Linzy Bonham [00:13:55]: 

Yeah. And that’s quite a gap between those two tracks. And obviously we’re talking about a whole range here of groups that have all sorts of different ways of thinking and talking. But certainly that sacrifice one I see a lot because I think already too, folks who are drawn to therapy and other forms of health care. 

  

Emily Maynard [00:14:18]: 

Right. 

Linzy Bonham [00:14:18]: 

Already tend to be giving, caring, over giving types. So I can see how that trait combined with a religion that really. Or a belief system that really preaches to you that martyr role. It’s a lot to unwind there. Yeah, it’s a lot of the same message in different ways. Right. 

Emily Maynard [00:14:39]: 

I’ve met so many people who’ve left formal religious or church ministry and then they become therapists or mental health clinicians and they’re like, well, at least I’m only working six days a week instead of seven days a week. Or you know, they’re used to working till 7, 8pm and being on call in all these ways and they’re used to maybe overworking for underpay. And it’s easy to bring some of those ideas with us and be like, well, at least it’s not as bad as this other situation I’m in. Rather than figuring out like, well, what is healthy and sustainable for me and how do I build the Practices to achieve that in. In my business or in my group practice. 

Linzy Bonham [00:15:17]: 

Yeah, it’s kind of funny. This is, this is a little bit of a joke, but maybe it’s not a joke. It does make me think about. There’s almost like, maybe this hierarchy is not the right word, but a scale of like high control religions, cults. You’re being exploited. Your time and energy is being exploited at all times. Agency, your time and energy is being exploited quite a lot. Private practice, we tend to start by exploiting ourselves, if that’s what we’ve known before. 

Linzy Bonham [00:15:41]: 

And then eventually we have to figure, as you say, like, what is sustainable energetically and financially, what do we actually need? But yeah, there is that martyr kind of messaging is already strong in the healthcare space, even without high control religious messages. So I can also see that being quite comfortable and familiar for folks who come into this field. It’s like, oh, this aligns with what I know and is, as you say, slightly better. I have a day off or I’m not working 60 hours a week. I’m only working 40 for doing, you know, seeing clients. So yeah. And then that other side, the prosperity track, this is something that I’m not as familiar with because I think that this is. That kind of messaging tends to be more prevalent in the United States. 

Linzy Bonham [00:16:23]: 

I’m Canadian and I don’t see or hear that as much here. So tell me a little bit more about that messaging and when it’s left, like, if you’re not prosperous, then. And again, these are beliefs that wouldn’t be necessarily conscious intellectual beliefs, but just like a deeply. You know, again, if this is your original kind of programming around money is the idea is that if you are not prosperous, something is wrong with you. You’re doing something wrong. Like what would be how that plays out for somebody if the money’s not. Not coming to them? 

Emily Maynard [00:16:55]: 

Yeah. So there are certainly religious groups and churches that make this very explicit. They are prosperity gospel churches. This is where you see pastors in the US Particularly, I’m sure it’s in Canada as well. But where you see people who have private jets and they’re like, God has blessed me so much. And also you need to send me a hundred dollars. 

Linzy Bonham [00:17:13]: 

Of course, God will bless you too. Yes, yeah, yeah. 

Emily Maynard [00:17:18]: 

Very explicit about that. And then I think there’s a lot more subtlety. I mean, we could talk about sort of the American individualism and some of the principles that continue to shape our nation, but I think a big piece of it in the US Is a huge amount of personal financial education happens in one specific conservative or kind of fundamentalist Christian affiliated program and it’s marketed through churches. So not only are you getting moral education around money and wealth, but often churches are offering classes in one particular system that does tend to promote, you know, one size fits all. There is one way to manage money and it’s very shame based. You know, it’s your, your fault is you’re not achieving advancement or success by following these rules rather than sort of teaching people principles and helping them understand their current situation and how to apply some of those principles like high control groups or high control organizations or philosophies don’t want you to think for yourself. They’re not going to give you principles to guide you. They’re going to give you specific actions to follow and when those don’t work, they will blame you. 

Emily Maynard [00:18:33]: 

It must be your fault. 

Linzy Bonham [00:18:36]: 

Right. And I do see and we will not name and I, you know the exact educational organization that you are referring to. But I certainly see a lot of shame specifically around debt, which would be kind of like the opposite of being prosperous. 

Emily Maynard [00:18:50]: 

Right. 

  

Linzy Bonham [00:18:50]: 

Like having debt is a very shameful thing. And this is something that I see therapists coming into my program into money skills for therapists sometimes struggling with is they have become so focused on paying down debt that it’s so bad that they have debt. And specifically that’s usually like consumer debt, student loans. We tend, there tends to be less shame and charge around. But any kind of consumer debt folks are so focused on trying to make that go away because it must say XYZ about them. Like it’s so embarrassing and shameful that they have this debt that they do so kind of at their own financial peril today and focus so hard on paying down that debt that then they end up having to put money back on that credit card because they’re not giving themselves any breathing room. Right. Like it’s this kind of intense project to try to get out of debt and therefore get out of shame. 

Linzy Bonham [00:19:36]: 

That is often at their own detriment. And is this part of kind of prosperity doctrine that like debt would be shameful like, or is this kind of a different, different school? I’m assuming these things go together. 

Emily Maynard [00:19:49]: 

Yes, it’s absolutely included in this idea that if you are following the rules, if you’re doing well morally, spiritually, that’s going to come with financial stability as well. Right. That really, if you’re doing the right things, right. You won’t have these problems like needing to use a credit card to provide for your family or have some basic resources or even a little bit of fun in your life. 

Linzy Bonham [00:20:12]: 

Right? Yeah. Yeah. So how do you see it as, like, particularly challenging for folks to come from these high control religion contexts into, like, private practice? Right. Like, I see that we kind of. I was kind of joking earlier about this maybe path or hierarchy of, you know, control and private practice is a very different thing where we have to be making our own choices. What do you see as challenging about making the transition from this, like, high control background into being your own boss in a private practice? 

Emily Maynard [00:20:44]: 

I think even that making your own decisions is really hard for people who grew up in a system where they were told the right thing to do, always where that came through an authority structure. You know, from pastor to parents to children, they’re used to believing that there’s one right way and that somebody else is going to help them do that. Rather than starting from the ground up and developing the skills and values to be able to say, no, I can’t adjust my time schedule to fit in this client. Even when I really connect with them, I need to make sure they get to another clinician who can meet their scheduling needs. It’s really easy to, in these tiny little increments, to compromise your values. And that’s how you end up building yourself your own terrible agency. 

Linzy Bonham [00:21:32]: 

Yes. 

Emily Maynard [00:21:33]: 

Because you’re waiting for somebody else to save you, when really the thing that will help you is to deal with the grief of saying, no, I can’t accommodate that fee. But let me get you to somebody who can to do the practice of the challenging relational practice of stating your fee and saying, you know, I really need to increase my fee. Let’s figure out how to do that. These are really tough decisions, and they’re constant. In private practice, they happen all the time because you’re the one doing everything. Or in a group practice, you are helping people make decisions that will help them function well in your business or not. 

Linzy Bonham [00:22:13]: 

Yes. Yeah. In private practice, you are the one who’s in control. But yeah, I’m hearing for folks who’ve had these experiences that might be a very uncomfortable, unfamiliar place to be. 

Emily Maynard [00:22:23]: 

Yeah. And often we hear from people who are a little further ahead on the road who are like, yeah, my caseload’s full. You know, it’s pretty. It’s pretty great. And if you’re not in that place yet, it’s going to bring up a lot of those feelings of what’s wrong with me that I’m not there yet. Why don’t I have an Easy practice that you talk about or why is my marketing, like, so terrifying to me? Because marketing is all about being visible and telling people like, hey, I’m here and I can help with this specific thing. And that is frightening for people who grew up in communities where being singled out means you’re in trouble. 

Linzy Bonham [00:23:01]: 

Yes, yes. So for folks who are listening right now who are like, yes, that is me, hands up, I came from that place. What would you suggest to them to start to heal from these experiences that they had? What are some starting places? 

Emily Maynard [00:23:16]: 

I think part of my healing and what’s helped me in, you know, personally and build my practice is that I had to get really realistic about what I can actually do. Again, I was raised with this idea, like, through Christ, I can do all things. And I had to, in building my practice, figure out how many clients can I actually see and be an ethical clinician and keep myself well back from the brink of making ethical or technical mistakes by working too much. That actually helped me make some of those decisions is I knew I didn’t want to hurt people in this work. I’ve met plenty of people who were hurt by their therapist or, you know, a spiritual leader or counselor before, and I knew I didn’t want to do that. So then I had to get really realistic about, like, well, how do I do that? That means I can’t be on the edge of burnout. That means I can’t be frustrated when a client, you know, cancels right before the window and I don’t get their fee that week. Like, I have to build a practice that doesn’t keep me needing something for my clients so I can be available to them. 

Emily Maynard [00:24:19]: 

So one thing that I think is really helpful, and it’s a little bit silly, is writing out your job description. Even if you’re in private practice, like, what tasks are you responsible for? What hours will you work, what salary will you get? And you can sort of do a before and after. Like, do that, what is it currently? And that’s going to reveal a lot about, would you accept this if somebody else was paying you this little money to work this many hours to do all these, like, high level responsibilities and deep clinical work and then figure out what job description and salary, what’s your offer that you would accept? And then figuring out with any programs like yours, how do you actually build some of those practices into your business? 

Linzy Bonham [00:25:03]: 

Yeah, I’m quite struck by that motivator of kind of not doing harm, because I’ve certainly thought and chatted with folks over the years about being honest, about the impact of overworking. You’re not showing up as your best self. And, and I talk about that because I think that’s a motivator for me is like, I always want to be doing my best. Right. Like, you know, making sure that that client at the end of the day is. Is getting as good of a session as a client at the beginning of the day as much as possible. Right. But that’s a very powerful motivator to also make sure you’re not hurting people. 

Linzy Bonham [00:25:30]: 

Right. That you are not, you know, as you say, making like, ethical mistakes or technical mistakes. Because I think that’s something that as a profession that’s already prone to. To martyrdom, even before this complex layer that you’re talking about, it can be easy for us to not really be honest about the impact of not holding our boundaries. Right. And so that’s very powerful. It’s kind of like it feels like it could be like a little bit of a gut punch for some people who have been hurt, you know, and don’t want to hurt. But that’s really motivating is like, you don’t want to be causing harm in the world to really be honest about. 

Linzy Bonham [00:26:02]: 

Yeah, what is the cost of overworking and saying, yes, too much and yeah, having to work so many sessions a week and having that resentment. If somebody’s life comes up, there is going to be actually negative impact interpersonally from you not actually taking care of yourself. Emily, thank you so much for joining me today. This was, like, very, very illuminating. It’s got my wheels turning in all sorts of ways. I’m thinking about all sorts of folks I’ve known over the years or folks that we’ve had in money skills for therapists. Can you tell us more about what you do? If people are listening and they’re like, oh, my gosh, I need to learn more. I need to be around this person. 

Linzy Bonham [00:26:39]: 

Where can they find you? 

Emily Maynard [00:26:40]: 

Absolutely. The best way to find me is on Instagram. I’mardlmft. I’m a licensed marriage and family therapist in California. I have a private practice, but it’s full right now. So you can also find me@emilymaynardtherapy.com and I’m starting to do some more speaking and training on a lot of these topics. So when I have those opportunities available, I’ll put them on my Instagram. 

Linzy Bonham [00:27:03]: 

Wonderful. Great. Thank you so much for joining me today, Emily. I really learned a lot in this conversation with Emily today. As I mentioned, this is not an area that I have Personal experience, but certainly an area that I do see come up for therapists in money skills for therapists and in different ways in which high control religion has shaped their relationship with money. And I loved Emily’s point about how the messaging we receive is not always accepted. Explicit messaging about money in general is not always explicit, you know, but we absorb the information about what is going to be approved of, what is going to get us like love and belonging and status in these kinds of groups. And we absorb what is going to get us ostracized, right, or cast aside or maybe even make us have to, to leave the group that we are part of. 

Linzy Bonham [00:28:00]: 

And, and the same can be true in families too, right? Even in families, as Emily mentioned, there can be high control aspects and we internalize and understand what is going to get us in trouble, right? What is going to make us belong less. So all these imprints on our nervous systems, all these deeply, deeply held beliefs that maybe were not ever verbalized, but we’re still absorbed and received. You know, we’re all walking around with a bunch of these. So if the information that Emily shared today has got you thinking about some of the messaging that you’ve received, this is a great chance for you to just sit and be with that and be curious about some of the stories that, that you’ve absorbed and question whether or not those are stories that you still want to believe. Now, do those align with your values today? Does that align with how you think life should actually work? Because so often these imprints that we have far outlive our actual current beliefs. So there’s always a gap, you know, between what we’ve absorbed and what’s sitting in our nervous system and where we are now intellectually. So lots and lots to explore here. Do check out Emily on Instagram. 

Linzy Bonham [00:29:10]: 

We will put the link for her Instagram bio in our show notes so it’s easy for you to find. And thank you so much for joining me today. I’m Linzy Bonham, therapist turned money coach and the creator of Money Skills for Therapists. If you are ready to go from money confusion and shame to feeling calm and clear and empowered about money, my free on demand masterclass is the best place for you to start. You’re going to learn my four step framework to get your private practice finances totally working for you. You can register today using the link in the show notes or you can go to moneynutsandbolts.com and click on Masterclass. I look forward to supporting you. 

Picture of Hi, I'm Linzy

Hi, I'm Linzy

I’m a therapist in private practice turned money coach, and the creator of Money Skills for Therapists. I help therapists and health practitioners in private practice feel calm and in control of their finances.

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