Category Archives: money beliefs

Follow the Money

We’ve all watched and enjoyed mysteries, and one of the tried-and-true adages of a mystery is: Follow the Money. In the case of a mystery it has to do with motive. But where else does Follow the Money ring true?

Actually, Follow The Money applies almost anywhere. In most instances, money is reflective, not causative. It points to the issues and problems. It marks and reports them. It doesn’t create them.

Wait, what?! Money doesn’t create problems? No, it doesn’t. What we choose to do or not do with money creates the problems, not the actual money itself. Money doesn’t have free will or volition. It goes where you tell it to. It gets used and spent and earned and saved strictly by the actions of people.

All money can really do is tell you what happened.

And it does a really good job of that. And it certainly does it in more circumstances than we tend to initially realize. Let’s look at where money talks and tells.

Business: This one is pretty obvious. Looking at a company’s financial statements tells you what’s going on in the company. The way I look at those statements goes deeper than just the sales and expenses though.

For me, the money in a company tells me where the people issues are. If all the employees in one department are complaining about not being paid enough, that tells me something. It tells me something is going on in that department that needs to be addressed. The money is reflective. If people aren’t paying the company on time, that says something too; it may be about the invoices going out too late, about the product not being right, or about a lax follow-up procedure.

The money can be talking about a lot of different things, but it is certainly reflecting information.

Personal: I also think money is reflective in our personal lives. What does your money say about you? Where do you spend it? What kind of attention do you pay to it? What is it reflecting? If you really look at your money, you can learn a lot.

I once worked with someone who said they had money all over the house, tucked here and there. They didn’t really know where it was. They didn’t know how much they had. That’s a reflection of this person’s money perspective. The fact that the money is all over, and not “organized” is reflective of something. Follow that money mystery and you’ll get somewhere interesting, somewhere important.

Sometimes following the personal money leads to some pretty predictable places. The money might go toward a collection, it might go for a child’s education, it might go for a car. It is most likely to reflect the person’s interests and passions. It also will reflect the person’s money prejudices—those beliefs they fund without even knowing it. It might go to buy everything “on sale” because that’s just what you are supposed to do. Or it might buy jewelry because it makes you feel good. Where ever it goes, there’s some meaning or symbolism behind it.

Remember, money isn’t about money—it’s about our sense of worth. What we spend it on is reflective of how we see ourselves and our world. It reflects our values, passions and dreams.

I think we can learn a lot about people by looking at different aspects of their lives. Think about it: Look in someone’s refrigerator, what does it tell you? Lots of weird sauces, or is there just a six pack and a cold pizza? Reflective, right? Money is the same way. So, spend some time noticing what your money is telling you. Where do you spend it? What do you do with it? Where do you keep it? How do those actions sometimes reflect things you hadn’t realized before? You can learn a lot. Just follow the money.

Ka-ching

Shell Tain, the Untangler

Want to chat about what your money might be trying to tell you? Give me a call at 503-258-1630 or leave a comment.

Balancing Loyalty

Loyalty is a good thing. We seek it in all our relationships, and we practice it in return. We want to be loyal and we want others to be loyal to us. The question to ponder here is where might loyalty actually work against you? Specifically where does it have you spending money to be ‘loyal‘ that doesn’t actually align with balancing your self-care with your desire to care for others? And where are you possibly being taken advantage of by companies and associations that rely on your loyalty, even when they haven’t ‘earned‘ it?

It’s a tricky thing. I had a client once who was a major shopper. In truth she was in it for the ‘hunt‘, and had a whole room full of bags of things she’d bought and never used. Many of them she had bought at a particular department store that had ‘given‘ her a credit card with their name on it. She felt really honored and special that they had given her the card. It made her one of the ‘in crowd‘. She went there often, really loved their customer service, and piled up many charges on the card. The card had a much higher interest rate than her other credit cards. She was great at the buying… not so much at paying on time. Oh, and she didn’t want to ‘insult‘ the store by returning things, so she didn’t. It was all about a ‘personal‘ relationship she was imagining she was having with a store. The store was doing its job well. She just wasn’t noticing that she was confusing her personal desire—for relationship—with their techniques of building loyalty. She was stunned when I pointed out that the clerk that was helping her didn’t actually know she had a store credit card until it was time to pay. The clerk was giving good service regardless. And she also missed that no actual person would feel hurt and disappointed if she returned things that she didn’t use.

Together we did get her out of this pattern, but the bigger question this raises is something like “Where are you assuming more ‘caring’ from a company or professional than is really there?”

Yes, every company or pro you work with wants you to keep coming back and using them, myself included! And you need to figure out whether the ‘relationship‘ is really going both ways, or if it is one-sided.

There is something in this mix of our need for actual human connection that is being hindered by the constant pseudo connection of Social Media and cell phones. I recently sat across from a family having lunch at my local Sushi place: Mom, Dad and an about-9-year-old child. All three were on their phones instead of talking to each other. They stopped the phones when the food came, but still didn’t talk.

Maybe it’s just that there is so little actual connection going on that we don’t recognize that the ‘connection‘ we have with the person who cuts our hair isn’t the same as the one with our friend we went to the movies with.

I’m extremely loyal to companies that give me good service for a fair price. And I’m not tolerant and won’t do business with those that are rude. I ‘vote with my feet‘—and do it as a reflection of my values… what I care about. I care about how we all treat each other. I care about fairness. And where I spend my money really does reflect what I’m up to. Am I trying to fulfill some need in a place where it really can’t happen? Or am I really having an exchange that enriches both of us?

The answer is different for each of us. There are things I care about—and might even be ‘extravagant’ with—that mean nothing to you, and visa versa. I’m just wanting to make sure that you are getting what you are seeking, and finding the balancing point—that your time, energy, and money are going toward what you truly care about. Give it a ponder and see what you notice…

Ka-ching

Shell Tain, the Untangler

If you’d like some support with the pondering give me a call at 503-258-1630 or leave a comment.

Is It Money’s Fault?

We sure act like it is. And we’ve been of that opinion for centuries. Money, in and of itself, is somehow bad and evil. And yet, is it really?

I did a bit of digging for biblical verses about money. There are quite a few. Timothy, who got tagged with the ‘Money is the root of all evil’ thing actually said: ‘For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil.’ That’s a bit different, isn’t it? Mostly the biblical references about money are really about what people do—or don’t do—with it.

Money, being that it’s actually just a ‘place holder’ of value, has gone through all sorts of changes throughout the ages. It’s been made of gold, paper, and now just numbers in the air. It has had kings and presidents on it, slogans about trusting in God, and pictures of monuments. It has been a symbol of all sorts of things—worthiness, power, ego, generosity, security, endurance—actually a never-ending list. It’s never-ending because all of it is made up.

Money has the value we give it. Whether it be the bigger bit of the ‘Economy’ or your own personal money, it’s all stuff we make up. It was initially a good idea: Rather than trading hay for a goat, and then the goat for cloth, and then the cloth for wheat, it was much easier to use a token with a value assigned to it. It started as a stand in for value. We now have attached a ton of meaning to the symbol of money that is just what we, and our culture has laid on it—not the actual Truth.

Money inherently has no value, or opinion, or goal. It only has the value we assign it. Notice that the value of the dollar moves and shifts? Money reflects the shift. Money doesn’t actually cause the shift. People set a value.

We say we want a house in this neighborhood, or a job that pays that, or a car that has this. Money reflects what we care about, what we want, what’s important to us.

Okay, by now you may be thinking: “Why does all this stuff Shell’s often saying—about money being what she call ‘reflective’ not ‘causative’—matter?” It matters because the way you think and feel about money has a direct effect on you! If you believe that rich people are bad, you will make sure not to become one. You are constantly telling and training your brain what to believe, all the time, every time you think or speak.

I have seen this over and over again. I’ve experienced it myself. Those words you use with yourself have power, and your brain will take them as Truth, and protect you from letting them ‘hurt’ you. The ONLY thing that is true about money is that it reflects what you choose to think about it and do with it.

What do you think and feel about money? Really, answer that question. It’s important, because money will reflect those thoughts back to you. If down deep you think it’s a big struggle and you can never win at it, you will be right!

Changing that thinking isn’t easy. You and the entire planet have been making up things about money forever. However there is an easy way to start the process. Get clear on what you actually, deep down, believe about money. What are those statements that just pop into your head about it? Like ‘it doesn’t grow on trees!’ What does that even mean to you? The first step is always to acknowledge the problem.

Once you get clear on those deep-seated beliefs, the next questions to ponder are: “What is the cost of that belief? What am I missing by thinking that way? How could this be different?”

Changing the way you think about money may be the best gift you ever give yourself. Give it a try! Maybe you’ll find out that it’s not really money’s fault afterall.

Ka-ching

Shell Tain, the Untangler

Want to chat about changing your money thinking? Give me a call at 503-258-1630 or leave a comment.

Playing with Virtual Money

It’s summer! Time to be a bit more playful. Personally I’ve been doing more playing and less blogging. How about a way for you to ‘play’ with your money this summer that is fun, whimsical, and doesn’t actually spend any of it … because it’s virtual?

It’s my twist of the Prosperity Game, which has been around for years—so long that there are apps and even printed checks you can buy to play the game. None of that is actually needed to play the game. All you need is some place to track what’s happening , like a journal.

It’s a game you play with yourself by spending virtual money everyday. You start with $100 and double it each day ($100, $200, $400, $800, etc). One of the rules is that you have to spend all the money each day. Sometimes people want to save up for something, but that’s not necessary. Since it doubles every day you will be close to spending a million a day in just two weeks ($819,200) Another rule is that you have to spend it on yourself. You can take people with you on trips, or the like, but you must spend the money on yourself. The point is to explore and clarify your relationship and thoughts about money—not just give it away. While playing the game you will shop, make lists, spend imaginary money on imaginary things. I suggest you don’t get tied up in the fiddly bits of things like sales tax. Rounding off is fine. It’s not about record keeping! No actual money is used.

It’s a very interesting game. Over the years, I’ve encouraged many of my clients to play this game. It does several intriguing things. One thing it does is pretty effectively show you where your “money ceiling” is. Your “money ceiling” is the amount of money you just can’t understand—the amount that is beyond your personal limit. It’s a good thing to know. If you approach your money ceiling without knowing where it is, it can suddenly open up and sweep you away.

The game also helps you reframe your ideas of:

What is expensive
What is cheap
The value of things
What you really want
How much stuff you can handle

All very intriguing concepts to play with and understand.

Okay, now that you know the basics of how the game works, let’s look at the part of the game that I’m most intrigued with. Your brain actually thinks it is real money. Your head doesn’t know the difference between your spending the money virtually or in reality. I know this by personal experience.

When I played first this game, I lived in a house where the washing machine drained into a deep sink. It was a very old, very heavy sink with a small drain. I had a furry spaniel dog, Decaf, who contributed lots of hair to the laundry, and frequently that hair would come out of the washer hose in a way that would plug the sink, and cause it to overflow on to the floor. Not a fun thing to clean up.

Naturally, early in playing the money game I decided to “pay” some of my virtual money to get that sink fixed. Yipee! Problem solved. About a week later I did some laundry, and the sink overflowed. There I was, standing in water, with my hands on my hips saying “Damn it! I paid to get that sink fixed and it’s overflowing!” and then it struck me. I had paid to get the sink fixed with virtual money! It wasn’t really fixed.

Other people I know have had similar experiences with this game. One person offered to loan a friend $25,000 until it occurred to her that it was virtual money she was offering.

I learned a bunch of other things playing the game. Some of my ideas of what was ‘expensive’ and what was ‘cheap’ shifted. And then there was the place where I just felt overwhelmed. The place where I had hit my money ceiling. A very good thing to know. I suggest that you play at least one day past that place, because just beyond that point often lurks some really amazing dreams.

The real point is that your thoughts about money are fluid and can change. That’s good news. You can change your money thinking. You can provide some different experiences of money for your brain, even virtual ones, and your brain will accept them as real even when they aren’t. That’s good news. It’s also odd news. It would seem to be telling us that it’s important that you pay attention to the messages that you send your brain about money, wouldn’t it?

How about playing this money game to explore what’s going on in your head around money, and learn about some new possibilities. At the very least it’s a bit of a fun summer lark!

Ka-ching

Shell Tain, the Untangler

I’d love to hear how the game worked for you. Give me a call at 503-258-1630 or leave a comment. Happy spending!

Money Self-Talk

Did you happen to see this quote on Facebook? ‘Being taught to avoid talking about politics and religion has led to a lack of understanding of politics and religion. What we should have been taught was how to have a civil conversation about a difficult topic.’

You probably won’t be surprised that my brain went right to: ‘…and when it comes to money, it’s an even more taboo topic!’ Mostly we don’t even talk about that we don’t talk about it, and the aforementioned ‘lack of understanding’ around money is monumental. I truly do think it’s the MOST taboo topic on the planet.

And the person we talk to the least about money is actually ourself. Sure we have money conversations in our head. Most often they are rants about what we are doing wrong — judgements of our short comings. These aren’t actual conversations where we listen — really listen — to what we are saying about money. This is unexplored money self-talk.

The important thing here, is that what we say is what we believe. Our internal dialog rules our brain. If the primary belief we have is that money is this awful, scary stuff that we can’t actually get a handle on and don’t understand, we will make that the truth and act accordingly.

A large part of my job is to really hear what people are saying, both out loud and in their heads. I try to clue in on when I hear someone using internal and external language-based judgement, criticism, and just not feeling good about ourselves. Some of the words that we use around money that tip me off to this are: enough, earned, value, deserve, frugal, broke, wasteful. Other words that strike even deeper show how we judge what we are doing — how we ‘should’, ‘must’, ‘have to’, and ‘got to’. It’s often pretty subtle stuff. And I’m pretty much all over my clients, encouraging them to thinking in terms of ‘wanting’ or ‘choosing’ to do things instead of all those other options.

The real reason for that is that coming from that more self-directed positive place is just plain more effective. All that negative nattering distracts us from the task at hand, and that limits our abilities.

How about you find a way to have a couple of heart-to-heart money conversations with yourself? I know it sounds a bit ‘out there’ but why not? Tune in and notice when you say a negative thing about yourself, about you and money, even about your expectations of what is possible in your life. Why not start by making a simple list of your self-talk phrases and then noting if they are positive, negative, or even neutral.

What’s going on there in your head? You can absolutely shift it. You can learn new words and hold new ideas. You even can learn to ‘correct’ yourself when you say something like, “I’ll never make it!” You can choose to follow it with “…unless, of course, I do!”

There is a bit of sneaky science behind this idea. It’s all about neural pathways. The ones that get more use get stronger, the ones with little use diminish. You get to choose. What are you reinforcing? See what you can learn about what you really say about money. And how, with just a bit of noticing and language focus, you can change your money thinking — really, you can!

Ka-ching

Shell Tain, the Untangler

If you’d like to some support in hearing your internal messages and making these change give me a call at 503-258-1630 or check out my website at www.sensiblecoaching.com.

Money Strata

We all have beliefs about money that we cling to, and when those beliefs get challenged, our reality also gets challenged. One of the fundamental, and in many ways “unspoken” beliefs about money has to do with the “socio-economic strata” that you and your family belong to.

There are places in the world where which level of society you belong to is crucial. For example, England still has the House of Lords. Other places practice less obvious but equally strident categorizing. I noticed when I lived in the South that the first question I was asked by new acquaintances was what housing development I lived in. The answer to this question told people what strata to put me in.

We like to think of ourselves as a “democratic” society, and in many ways we are. But when it comes to neighborhoods—and money—we have many levels.

There is an exceptionally strong internal compass to stay in our lane, and certainly to not rock the boat!

What if the only thing that actually kept us in our class or strata was the belief that a given strata was somehow where we belonged? Guess what? That belief is the only thing that really does keep us there, and it’s incredibly powerful. There are amazing statistics about people who win the lottery being back to the financial status they were in before winning within just a few years. Mismanagement and lack of financial acumen can be part of that, but I think it’s much more about being pushed into a money “strata” you don’t understand and aren’t sure how to fit into. These people somehow feel they don’t belong in the new place, so they find ways to sabotage themselves right back to where the came from, to where they think they “belong”. I remember once being reluctant to buy a house in a particular neighborhood. The voice inside my head said: “You’d have to get dressed and put on makeup to get the mail!” Definitely a step above my comfort zone.

Mostly, when we step outside of the norm, what comes with that stepping is a disruption of the old systems. Part of what holds many families together are common beliefs and practices around money. Many Depression Era families are proud of their ability to “keep body and soul together”. Being able to “get through the hard times” is a part of how they see and value their family. If someone in the family goes off and suddenly “makes good”, what does that say about the ones left behind? It might just say that they could have chosen differently too! And wouldn’t that be awkward? What if everyone had a choice?

In what ways does your “strata” keep you stuck, and what would you choose if you could? Have you even thought about how your clan and class keep you from pursuing new ideas? What if you could decide what you wanted, and go after it?

Ka’ching

Shell Tain, the Untangler

If you’d like to explore the challenge of your Money Strata give me a call 503-258-1630 or check out my website at www.sensiblecoaching.com

Perfection is a Money Trap

Money is one of those areas where we have all made some mistakes.

We have bought things that didn’t work.
We have spent too much money on stuff we never used.
We have given people presents they didn’t like.
We have lost money on the sale of a house
We have gotten “taken to the cleaners” in a divorce.
We have run up charges and interest on our credit cards.

And yet we are mostly still here, and kicking!

Sure some of these things were and are avoidable. And yet they also still serve to give our Inner Critic great fodder for berating us!

There are a couple of things I want to clear up about these ‘errors in judgement‘ and ‘mistakes‘ we all make with our money.

First, you got through them ! The problems may have been messy and costly, but you survived them! It’s one of the things I think our ancestors that went through the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl got trapped in. They somehow missed that they made it through the troubles, and that they didn’t happen again in the same way. We tend to practice “one trial learning” with many things. We tend to either try and hide our head in the sand or decide it will always be like it was, and avoid getting anywhere near the part we think is scary. We stay trapped.

The other thing I’d really like my readers to consider is the value of the messing up. Huh, you say! How can there be value in having gone through that terrible time, that mess?

It’s all about learning! As humans we actually learn by making mistakes, by being imperfect. You don’t just get on a bike and ride it the first time. You wobble and pedal and fall off. The same process happens a bunch in other aspects of our lives, including money. We screw up, make mistakes, and learn. If we don’t make mistakes we don’t learn!

But instead of accepting that we make mistakes, sometimes in order to try and avoid “errors”, we try to be — or appear to be — perfect… yipes! Just how patient are you with yourself? Do you keep trying to attain something close to perfection to avoid judgement? And do you notice that most of the judgement come from your inner critic, instead of the people around you?

Many of us have this thing in our heads about trying to be ‘perfect‘. I truly think it’s one of the traps our Inner Critics use to keep us stuck in a rut. Somehow we think we are supposed to be perfect without practice, failing, or learning. Instead I really like the perspective that Maya Angelou put forth: “Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.”

We do recover, we do persevere, and we do learn.

Money is just one of the assets that we ‘spend’ while we are learning. Money, Time, and Energy all get spent. And I’d like to suggest that Money is really just a reflection of the other two: Time and Energy.

Here’s the really interesting question. How much time, energy, and maybe even money do you spend trying to be perfect, protecting the idea that you are almost perfect, or even hiding that you aren’t perfect? What if instead of getting trapped by perfection, you actually celebrated your mistakes as ways to learn? What if it’s really about focusing on the learning, and not beating yourself up about that mistake you made?

It’s really likely that your attempt at perfection is a reaction to some really ‘old stuff’ that actually is no longer present in your life, right? Like avoiding being judged or lectured.

Seems to me trying to be perfect has us holding on to, and getting stuck in, our errors in judgement, instead of learning from them, perhaps laughing them off, and most certainly moving on… what say you?

Ka’ching

Shell Tain, the Untanlger

If you’d like some support letting go of trying for perfection, just give me a call at 503-258-1630 or check out my website at www.sensiblecoaching.com.

“Money Doesn’t Grow on Trees”

We’ve all heard that one, haven’t we? It’s an example of a money belief—an idea that we have about money. We all have beliefs around money, yet somehow we don’t actually try to untangle them. We shy away from looking at the beliefs.

Instead we tend to try some method of crunching numbers or budgeting. We put money in envelopes, we watch our spending on our cell phones. Some even play with my handy dandy “GOSH” model. (Which by the way is very cool and useful!)

And here’s the truth: None of that really works until you figure out what your money beliefs are, and if you want to keep them! Your money behavior is driven by your money beliefs.

You will create and perpetuate your beliefs around money. You just will! Frankly we do that with all our beliefs. We find the information that supports them, and we ignore the information that refutes them. It’s part of all that lovely pattern making that goes on in our heads.

Of course, with money it’s more complex than with other things because of that whole money being a taboo topic thing! Since we don’t talk with others or even ourselves about our money beliefs that just keep influencing our choices over and over.

Which of these have you ever heard, thought or found yourself believing?

Money doesn’t grow on trees.
You’ll have to work really hard and you’ll still never make any money.
There is never enough!
Rich people aren’t as nice as poor people.
Money is the root of all evil.
I am not good with money.
I can’t do math, so I can’t do money.
I feel like I must have been out sick the day they actually explained money.
Having debt means I’m a bad person.

Those are just some of the most common ones. There are no doubt thousands of possible money beliefs that will hinder or hold back your effectiveness with the stuff.

And just to be clear, I’m not talking about how much of it you have, I’m talking about what is your relationship with money? Do you see it as a tool and ally, or as an enemy?

What do you make up about money? Really, what do you make up about money? Make a list! Now look at each one of those beliefs and ask yourself a couple of questions, like:

Is this really true? Like 100{d17d1c7cbc79c3528c645ea839b9b4dcb45f699f05bb148e76e09641ba980643} of the time TRUE?
Is this my belief? Or is it my family’s belief? Or even, is it my cultures belief?
What might be different if I changed this belief?

That’s one of the cool things about beliefs: we can change them. It takes noticing that you want to change the belief. Then it takes both patience and maybe even humor to work on changing it.

One of my favorite ways to accomplish the change in beliefs is to throw in another option every time I hear myself either thinking or saying the belief. It works like this: You follow the belief statement with something like, “…except when it’s not!” (Examples: Money’s hard to come by… except when it’s not. Rich people aren’t as nice as poor people… except when they are!)

So ‘Money Doesn’t Grow on Trees‘ — except it can grow. It can be different. And you can do better with it. It all starts with choosing how you want to think about it. As humans we are really committed to proving our beliefs. We see it all the time. So figure out what your beliefs are, and, if continuing to prove your current beliefs to be true actually makes your life worse, try understanding and re-framing the belief.

Just imagine how much easier all this money stuff would be if you had some positive thoughts about it!

Ka-ching

Shell Tain, The Untangler

If you’d like to play with this belief changing idea more, just give me a call at 503-258-1630 or check out my website at www.sensiblecoaching.com.

Misplaced Loyalty

Loyalty can be a truly wonderful thing—on both the giving and receiving side—and like most things, being loyal can lead to some negative results. The misplaced loyalty knot I’d like to talk about is all tangled up with biology and anthropology.

It starts before we are born. On the biology side it really stems from those big brains we have—or rather how much more growing they need to do after we are born. We have to be cared for by the parent for a much longer time compared to many other species. It’s not just about walking and talking, it’s also about the complexity of human society. We need to learn how to communicate and behave. All very complex things going on in a brain that isn’t really ‘grown’ until early adulthood—despite our strong teenage opinions!

We have tons of things to learn, and we learn those things from our parents. To make that learning more effective we are biologically hard-wired to be loyal to the parent. We take whatever they say or do as the “gospel truth” when we are little. We HAVE to! They are our protection from danger, our source of food, and our primary source of knowledge. We absolutely cannot afford to piss them off—they might abandon us! And if they did that, we would die. That is as true for us today as it was when we humans were hunter/gatherers long ago.

That hard-wired loyalty has a bit of a dark side though. When it comes to money it gets messy. And around money, all that loyalty creates huge problems for generation after generation. It’s that thing where we don’t talk about money since it’s so taboo! We learn about money without any actual training, by observation only and thus we absorb and create many odd ideas. Not only are the ideas a bit strange but they are hidden—we aren’t conscious of them.

This misplaced loyalty creates a bunch of strange results:

If your parents fought about money you will likely fight with your spouse about money.
If your parents fought about money you may very well decide that money is evil and bad, and make sure to have as little of it as possible.
Women will often unconsciously make sure they do not make more money than they perceived their fathers did as some kind of loyalty.
Perhaps the only way your parents expressed affection was with money, so that’s the currency for you to give or receive affection.

On and on it goes, and we don’t actually consciously recognize we are caught in these old familial traps around money because they somehow just “are”—they are so ingrained in our brains we have never ventured to distinguish and analyze them.

That is exactly what I would invite you to do! Spend some time thinking about—maybe even journaling—about you and your money. Do some digging. See how what you are doing with money relates to how your family handled and talked about it. You’ll find that you are doing something very similar to what you perceived your parents did, or you are doing the opposite of what they did. The ‘perceived‘ word is in there because the topic is so taboo you probably don’t know what they actually did with money You only know how you percieved what you saw and heard around money.

It’s a knot well worth untangling because this misplaced loyalty has been influencing your relationship with money all your life. If you look more closely at it you can then make a choice to keep it or change it. That’s the problem with taboo things that never get discussed. We don’t even recognize we are caught in them, let alone that we have a choice. Give yourself the choice!

Ka-ching

Shell Tain, The Untangler

If you’d like some support understanding how this loyalty piece played out in your family, just give me a call at 503-258-1630 or check out my website at www.sensiblecoaching.com.

The Eclipse and Money – Something in Common?

I live in Oregon, just about 30 miles from the magic belt of ‘Totality’ so the eclipse stuff has been big here. Everyone has been talking about it. People gathered together to get closer, whether in a campsite or a festival. People all over the country made a special effort to be in it and see it. That’s a big change!

Centuries ago a solar eclipse was a message from the Gods, and not a fun one! the sky goes dark, the sun disappears and is left this weird ring around it. The stars in the heavens shine in the day time. The animals behave oddly. “Wow! Scary stuff. We’d better sacrifice a few virgins before this gets worse!”

It was a big, scary event. It made no sense. There was no ‘science’ about it. No one knew anything for sure. Some folks made up things, and they were mostly fear based. After all, these were generally tough times, what with plagues, droughts, and no plumbing.

And then along came science. Well, actually science came along, and humans in general resisted it. Hmm… that sounds familiar, doesn’t it? Around 500 b.c. some folks were beginning to embrace the idea that eclipses might be a natural phenomena. Edmund Halley and some others were very sure about that by 1715 a.d.

Today we lean toward it, instead of away — because we know what it really is: the moon crossing in front of our view of the sun. And those who ventured to see it in totality report it was amazing, emotional, and wonderful.

“Okay, lovely” you say: “What has that got to do with money?”

Well besides the fact that people are willing ‘spend’ a bunch of both time and money to go see the eclipse in all it’s glory, there is a lovely metaphor in this event.

What’s the most taboo topic in our culture? What’s the thing your parents used everyday and never actually taught you about? What’s that thing that it feels like everyone else has figured out, and you are just clueless about? What is the most bewildering, mysterious, and scary commodity on earth? Money!

For most people, the real problem with money isn’t money, it’s what we make up about the stuff. We often treat it as if it was an evil entity trying to keep us from our good — a spirit or god perhaps? We act as if it has a will of it’s own, like it somehow magically disappears or keeps us from our dreams.

The real issue is that we look at money as a weird, mysterious, almost mystical thing that we just don’t have the alchemical wisdom to decipher. We align with the taboo about the subject that our parents and ancestors have held for so long. It stems from the pile of ideas like:

The only people who talk about money are greedy people
Rich people aren’t as nice as poor people
You have to work really hard and you will still never make any money

These ideas limit us, and frankly aren’t the TRUTH. They are possibilities, but they aren’t absolute truths. What these thoughts actually do is keep you from actually looking at your money, noticing what you are doing and not doing with it, and changing your thinking and actions about it.

Money will tell you exactly what you are doing with it, if you just look. And it is you that are making the choices around your money. Money doesn’t actually cause things, it just reflects what you are choosing.

So how can you look at your money more like the modern day Solar Eclipse experience? Do you need special glasses (perhaps a bookkeeper?) to help you see what is going on? Can you think about it as a natural result of the Moon moving across the sun (you spending more than you make?) instead the will of an angry god?

How can money become the thing you actually want to spend time with and look at? How can you eclipse your past around money?

Ka-ching

Shell Tain, The Untangler

If you’d like to chat more about your own money eclipse possibilities , just give me a call at 503-258-1630 or check out my website at www.sensiblecoaching.com.