Category Archives: Untangling Ideas

Doable Change

Changing a habit can be more doable than you think! We get mired in habits, and we get stuck in behaviors that are actually habits. The stuckness seems unchangeable…kind of the definition of stuck, isn’t it? I think there is a way to gain more traction on change that you might not have thought of or applied. But first, let me point out some things about habits and how they work – just a bit of information.

‘The Power of Habit’ by Charles Duhigg, is a great resource about how habits work and affect us. The author’s main point is that you can’t stop the cue or trigger from happening — ‘What you CAN do is change the routine or actions you take!’ Instead of having that piece of Dutch apple pie you are craving, you can have an apple.

The second thing to consider is: What are your habits? What do you do that is so routine you don’t even think about it? Habits are how you fold your socks or biting your nails. Sometimes we set them up on purpose to keep us feeling safe or prepared. I personally have a well-established routine each morning that includes tasks like making the bed, cleaning the cat box, and putting away the dishes left to dry overnight. It’s a groove that works very well and has served me for years.

A less effective one I have is saving the special food I like best for my last bite. I really noticed it a while back when I took myself to lunch at my favorite Sushi place. I truly loved everything I ordered and was really stuck trying to figure out what to eat first and what to save for last!

So we have habits of all kinds – bad ones, good ones, silly ones, neutral ones…on and on it goes. Start noticing what is behind the habit — Did you start it based on something that happened in your life? What was its original purpose? and do you still want/need that habit?

What is a habit you really wish you could change? Perhaps, one that you have tried and tried to shift but are still stuck in, or even think there is just no way out of it? Maybe you really aren’t ready to break it, or really down deep like repeating it?

Either way, I’d like you to consider this new idea I’ve been exploring with some clients. The thought process has to do with confidence. This involves truly believing that you actually can change if you truly want to. You don’t have to bare-knuckle your way through! By combining and exchanging the routine or actions you take with the added knowledge that you absolutely can change!

What?!! Change? Impossible! That’s probably what your ever-present ‘Inner Critic‘ is telling you. I contend that you can remodel your thinking because you have absolutely changed before! It turns out that reminding yourself of a habit you managed to shift sometime earlier in your life actually bolsters your ability to change now. In addition, the habit you previously modified doesn’t have to be in any way related to the pattern you are trying to change now!

Realizing that if you quit smoking years ago, you could also change the penchant for buying way too many shoes now. You can shift from ‘It’s not possible!’ to ‘Change is possible because I did it before…and I’m more effective now.’ Of course, I can!

You might need more support around building your confidence than just noticing that you succeeded before. If so what do you know really helps you change your thinking and actions? It might be talking to a good friend, or maybe listening to a hypnotherapy recording based on what you want to change.

So revision just might be more doable than you thought. Not necessarily easy. It may just be that you choose to not change. And if that’s the case isn’t it better to actually choose not to change than to feel like you just can’t change?

Things often come down to refocusing our perspective. Transforming habits, including ones around money, is doable. Figure out what you really want and own it!

Ka-ching

Shell Tain, The Untangler

Mind the Horses

When I first learned about Dr. John Gottman’s work around the ‘Four Horsemen’ I was so impressed. By doing extensive research he had discovered four behaviors that are crucial for us all to both understand and to learn from. He based it on the ‘Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse’ and his message was clear — We need to mind these horses!

Dr. Gottman, after spending countless hours with couples, applies his work surrounding the story of the “Four Horsemen” to the marriage relationship. My take on the matter is that these principles can be applied to ALL of our relationships, including the one with money — Yes, you do actually have a relationship with money! And the horses can give you insight on how that relationship is going.

As long as there have been horses, people have been tasked to mind their horse, meaning to pay attention to what it’s doing. I think understanding and minding these particular horses is essential to all our relationships and interactions. Dr. Gottman has given us four of them to be attentive to:

Blaming or Criticism: We know this one, right? It’s all about judgment and more snarky than a complaint. We may complain about something, but when we add a bit of character assassination, it turns into blaming.
Defending: This one really got my attention when I read what Dr. Gottman said about it. You see, defending is really veiled blaming. “The dog ate my homework” shifts the responsibility away from you and to the dog. It just tends to add more blaming, instead of calming things down.
Contempt: This one is more about tone and intent than the actual words. It includes things like sarcasm, mockery, eye-rolling, and name-calling. The best example is Dan Aykroyd’s classic opening Point/Counter-Point line on Saturday Night Live with Jane Curtin: “Jane, you ignorant slut…” Literally anything can be said in a contemptuous manner.
Stonewalling: This one is all about distancing and disengaging. It’s the ultimate cold-shoulder. It increases the frustration of the person who is talking to you if you don’t respond or even look at the person. The word really says it. Originally it was a noun, meaning “an act of obstruction.”

It probably won’t come as a surprise to you that these ‘horses’ tend to travel in pairs. Blaming and Defending trot along together, as do Contempt and Stonewalling. And they both stir up a bunch of dust. I liken this to the Wild Horse Race at the Rodeo. If there an issue worth paying attention to in the center of the arena — Like an important topic to be discussed — it will be invisible and ignored, shrouded in all the dust and fury of the horses galloping around.

Okay, so there they are — four horses. And what do we do about them? It’s really a three-step process:

First, when you find yourself facing a ‘horse’ you repeat this mantra as many times as needed: ‘It’s not about me, it’s not about me, it’s NOT about me….’
Second, you avoid getting on a ‘horse’. Stop, don’t ride at all. Dismount.
Third, in order to help the other person dismount their ‘horse’ try this:
- Instead of joining them on a ‘horse’, try acknowledging the ‘feeling’ underneath the uneasiness by saying something like: “Wow, I get when that happens it really bothers you.” Notice that you aren’t agreeing, or surrendering, or apologizing — you are acknowledging and affirming that they are in a tough spot. It just might slow the ‘horse’.

I know, I know, easier said than done. We all experience ‘riding horses’ in our lives. They are in our heads and in our relationships. Dr. Gottamn’s work can show us something deeper about your relationships. Try this small experiment if you will. Think of a horrible relationship from your past…we all have at least one of those to ponder. Got one in mind? Okay, now which specific ‘horses’ were present in your interactions with each other? Which ‘horses’ did you ride and which ones did the other person gallop into the arena? Now let’s ponder a different relationship. One where you and the other person got along really well. A ‘good’ one. Any ‘horses’ there? How does that positive interaction compare with the first one? Finally, just for grins think about how you are with money — any ‘horses’ trotting around there?

Intriguing, isn’t it? You can see why the concept of the ‘horses’ is something I cover early on with my clients!

What’s really going on with these ‘horses’? What’s underneath all this? And why do I say it’s “not actually about you” when the other person is on a ‘horse’? The answer is the most important thing for you to know about ‘horses’!

We get on a horse to quite literally, get a leg up. We trot out a horse when we feel diminished — when our sense of self-worth is low or is challenged, especially when we feel powerless. ‘Horses’ are a distracting way to pull ourselves up by laying the responsibility elsewhere. We see it constantly. A prime example today is road rage. Even children can be seen getting on ‘horses’ to navigate their emotions— but they usually do it more cleanly. It’s not hard to see when children are on a ‘horse’ because they have hurt feelings. It’s harder as an adult to be vulnerable and admit that we feel diminished or put down — so instead we mount up and charge in!

Understanding and taming ‘horses’ matters now more than ever. They are no longer just running around in our personal lives but are stampeding all over! It’s time to learn to mind our own ‘horses’ with care and diligence.

Ka-ching

Shell Tain, the Untangler

Want some help getting off a ‘horse’, or avoiding each other’s horses’? Give me a call at 503-258-1630 or leave a comment.

The In-crowd and Money

Remember your teenage years? It seems to me that Junior High, which is today’s Middle School, was where it really became clear. There were the cool kids, the in-crowd, and there were the rest of us. Most of us weren’t in the in-crowd. That’s part of the value of a clique: exclusivity. There were different forms of cliques. Some were for the athletic types, some for the nerds. Tough kids, surfers, hippies — all had their own groups with specific rules around dress, language, and behavior. They worked hard to stay in their group and to exclude others. Without excluding others there isn’t anything to feel special about.

Many of us didn’t meet the criteria. We weren’t good enough for whatever reason. We weren’t pretty, or thin enough. We weren’t smart enough—or were too smart. We didn’t have the right clothes. It hurt and made us feel ‘less than’.

This is not new for humans. We have been doing it forever. And the solution is in a very old fairy tale: ‘The Ugly Duckling’ written by Hans Christian Andersen in 1843. You all know the story, and the point was and remains to be — stop hanging out with ducks! Go where you are appreciated.

Now there is a particular reason I’m bringing this up. I’ve noticed over the years that many of my clients get Money tangled up in this ‘do I belong’ conundrum. It goes something like this:

If I was rich I could fit in with the ‘in-crowd’
I’m jealous and envious of those who have more than I do
It’s not fair that I don’t have more money
I messed up because I didn’t save when I was young, or get a degree, or…
I feel like I’m always being judged as ‘less than’ others

Somehow we make up that it’s all about money. Money is the problem. It caused it. I don’t have it. On and on it goes. And here’s the rub. Yes, money may be a factor in this tangle, but not in the way people think. You may be tired of hearing it, and here it is again: “Money is reflective, not causative!” You made choices, some good, some not so good. And sad to say, you may still be stuck in those choices. Going over them and over them. Letting them consume you.

This idea of making it all about money is a giant distraction! It keeps you from living your life now. It has you trying to fit into places you likely won’t like when you get there. It’s the Duck/Swan thing again. I remember once putting an offer down on a house in a particular neighborhood. I had this weird thought in my head. It went like this: “If I lived in this neighborhood I’d have to put on make-up to get the mail!” I liked the house, the price was fine, yet it didn’t feel right. I was not going to be with my peeps if I lived there. Luckily there turned out to be a siding issue that had us not buy the house.

The thing that has you not be in with the ‘cool kids’ is not money—really! And if you keep thinking it is, and fussing with it around money, you will just keep spinning in circles.

The problem is that the real issue is harder to deal with. It’s what’s under the money stuff, and it’s likely about your own feelings of ‘worth’. It takes courage and fortitude to dig in there, but it’s well worth it.

I’ve recently been on my own journey around this tangle about ‘where do I fit’ and realized that I was hanging around with people who were not nice to me, and I was trying hard to get them to like me. Finally, I figured out that they just weren’t my peeps! I set some new boundaries and am hanging with swans instead! And there is a huge weight off my heart and soul. See, hanging around with other swans is easy. They laugh at your jokes, they like you, they respect you… you can be yourself.

Please give yourself the gift of hanging with your own particular in-crowd!

Ka-ching

Shell Tain, the Untangler

Want some help getting out of this tangle? Give me a call at 503-258-1630 or leave a comment.

Kid or Grownup?

What part of you manages your money? The kid or the grownup? Let’s take a look at that.

What do most people do when they get stuck, don’t understand, are baffled, or overwhelmed, about money? Often they:

Avoid or ignore money, hoping it will solve itself
Get angry
Makeup excuses
Spend more to “feel” better
Hoard
Worry and obsess about it
Try to act like they know what they are doing with it

There is something all those choices have in common: They are the actions of children, not grownups. That’s right! We all have little kids managing our money!

We were little kids when we learned what little we know about money. The first thing we learned was that we ‘don’t talk about it, ever!’ How do you learn about something you can’t talk about? By observation. And the thing that most kids learn by observing their parents around money, is that it’s a very ‘hinky’ thing! There often are more conversations about what not to do with it than how to actually manage it. If you got any training about it in school it was likely from a teacher who didn’t like dealing with it. We fumble around thinking everyone else looks like they are doing well with this, and we are the only ones who are clueless.

Thus our thinking and skillsets around money never got revised, improved, or shifted.

Frankly, if any of us were to pick a part of us to run our money, I don’t think we’d pick our little kid part. Personally, I want my money run by the part of me that is thoughtful, adept, balanced, calm, and curious. What part of you do you want to run your money? What part do you think is running it now?

What is money’s role in this? Was any of this money’s fault? Maybe we should have scolded money, given it a good talking to, frightened it? It all sounds pretty funny, doesn’t it? We often treat money as if it was a person. And act as if it’s money’s job, to protect us and possibly even parent us. More of that little kid stuff, huh?

Money’s actual job, as I see it, is to tell us what is going on WITHOUT the emotion, criticism or judgment. Money has been doing that all along. It’s been saying “there are no savings”, “you don’t have insurance”, “you are spending a lot on bright shiny things”, etc. Money tells us all that and more. It does it quietly. We have to actually look and listen if we are going to know what money is telling us. The evidence of what is going on will pile up. It’s all there. We can all be forensic accountants of our own spending habits. And money will never have an opinion.

Money is reflective, not causative. It shows you what you are up to—in how you make it and how you spend it. Money won’t fix your life or solve your problems just by having it. It will tell you what you are up to around your problems and life if you look. You’ll find that looking at what money is reflecting will be an effective way of solving the mystery of where you are. Give it a try with that grownup part of you, and see what you find.

Ka-ching

Shell Tain, the Untangler

If you need support in figuring out what money is telling you, give me a call at 503-258-1630 or leave a comment.

Present In This Moment

As part of my summer blogs, I just couldn’t resist sharing this with you! Meet Marcus Elliot. He is an amazing Sax player and Composer in Detroit, Michigan. He has recently written and performed an fascinating piece of music dedicated to his mother. One of the most beautiful parts of his journey with this challenging time in his life is his recognition of the value of really being present in the moment. He’s someone I’m honored to know. Please read what he has written and listen to “Aesthetically Present”

“April 27th, 2019, my mother was diagnosed with cancer, multiple myeloma. This news really shook me at my core. As time went on I begin to find myself trying to distract myself from the reality that I was faced with. One of those distractions that I fell into was hoping for “more time”. I found myself hoping and praying for more time with my mother, and hoping that all of the treatments that she will receive will work, and hoping that things would be better than they were at that time.

I did all of this hoping with the thought that doing so could only better the situation. I was wrong. It did not better the situation. If anything, it created a distance between myself and the reality of where my mother was at. It was not allowing me to be present with her at this moment and time. The “more time” that I was hoping for was already happening. I was missing the exact thing that I was hoping for because I took for granted the fact that every single moment that we are alive and we are with one another is the “more time”.

Our lives are not a given, every moment is truly a gift. For me, music is an exercise in this principle of being present. Music allows us for a brief second to realize just how beautiful, precious, and fragile these moments that have been entrusted to us are. “Aesthetically Present” was written during the time that all of this was happening in my life. It was not originally written with this theme in mind, but it felt appropriate and necessary to dedicate the music to the time that it was written inside of.

Thank you to my mother, Jo-Lynn Miller, for your love, strength, wisdom, and encouragement. If I already don’t say it enough then please, let me say it again, I love you.

Sincerely, Marcus Elliot”

Such a joy to know such talented people!!!

Ka-ching

Shell Tain, the Untangler

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.

Donning the Mantle

How do you get ‘ready’ for work? What do you do to prepare yourself to give a presentation? Or to have a challenging conversation? How do you don the mantle of your career?

I got intrigued with some of the creative ways we do this while reading a recent blog by my friend, Rachel Boehm. In The Clothes Make the Man she talked about the subtle messages our clothes send to others and ourselves. Part of her sharing was this great story about how she felt more strong and capable when wearing high heels, so she donned some to plunge into fixing the clogged kitchen sink. The heels helped her get the job done!

What we wear doesn’t just send signals to others, it helps us ‘don the mantle’, doesn’t it? We take on the authority of the position. We step into it.

Of course all this is metaphor. The symbols help us ‘stand’ in the role. No wonder It’s often about shoes and feet. It sure was for Dorothy—from following the yellow brick road to clicking the heels of her ruby slippers together. We feel different in flip-flops than heels.

For some of us it’s a conscious act. Long ago in the ’80s I had a co-worker named Martha. Part of her job as the Finance Manager in that company was to make collection calls. Trust me, that can be a daunting thing for both parties on the call. The way she gathered her personal power to make those calls was by wearing her pearls.

What we are really doing with all this is both making a declaration, and gathering talents and strengths together. The shoes, or jewelry, or whatever just help to remind us. Additionally by using them, seeing them, feeling them we open those neural pathways in our brains where all the positive association around them live.

I take my maternal grandmother with me everywhere I go in the form of a ring that was hers. As I do that I bring her qualities to life in me—things like fortitude, kindness, and even poise—which I need more of! When I’m doing a talk or presentation my other grandmother brings her feisty, fearless self to me. Together the talismans and ancestors all support us.

What do you don to set the tone and take up the mantle?

Oh, and just for grins, what talisman or item of clothing or jewelry might help you uncover and rely on a part of you that would be more helpful and effective with money? And please, don’t make it a green eye shade… that would likely have the opposite effect!

I invite you to become even more conscious of this idea of creating intention through symbols that serve you.

Ka-ching

Shell Tain, the Untangler

I’d love to hear what item works well for you. Give me a call at 503-258-1630 or leave a comment.

The Mystery Bet

In September of 1943, at the tender age of 18, my dad was drafted. At that point, my Grandmother, Dossie, started a ‘Scrap Book‘. She wrote about what was happening and gathered telegrams, letters, newspaper clippings—all sorts of information. Dossie was not exactly ‘organized’. She was a dynamic, wonderful whirlwind of a woman, who had a quirky nature. Often the description on the back of a family photo read something like “all of us“—which was true, but not necessarily helpful.

Even the book’s history is intriguing. Apparently the book and all the accompanying bits of paper, photos, and such were in a cardboard box. Early in my parents marriage, my mother started to throw out the box. To ‘make up’ for this egregious error, she took the whole mess to be ‘laminated’. That’s good news and bad news. The laminator paid little attention to chronology and backs of pages. I’ve tried several times to ‘fix’ it, and it’s determined to stay a bit chaotic… but then it is about the most chaotic thing to ever happen to my dad and his family.

He ended up in the Army Air Corps, serving as a tail gunner on a B17. On December 7, 1944 his plane was shot down after a bombing run over Germany. Parachuting out, he was eventually turned over by Hitler Youth who found him hiding in an elderly woman’s basement. He ended up in the Stalag Luft 1 POW camp in Northern Germany. The camp was liberated on May 1, 1945. My dad weighed 110 lbs.

I’m just giving you the basics. There are many stories to tell about his time in the war, and also about how it was for my family back home. What I really wanted to write about today is this fascinating tidbit I recently found in the book. And guess what? It’s about money!

On May 20, 1945 my dad wrote a letter home. It was his first letter since being liberated, and most of it was a recap starting with his being shot down. I think the reason for the rehash is that this was the first letter that he was able to write that was only censored by Americans, and not his captors.

At the end of the letter he wrote: “Deposit $100.00 in the Wyoming Loan and Trust for I lost a bet and wrote a check on that bank. All My Love, AC ‘Slug’ Stone” My first response to this was to laugh out loud! It’s so my dad.

Here he is, a young man of 20, who has only been ‘free’ nine days, and he wants to make sure he honors a debt! Amazing, and yet perfect.

So back in those days you could literally write a check on a cocktail napkin. Who knows, the one he wrote may have been on one! He wanted to make sure that his check didn’t bounce. It’s impressive.

And here’s the check. It was actually cashed at the bank on July 12, 1945 so it took some time. It’s a counter check. Just a blank typed form with the information hand written in. This is not the original check, it’s the bank making up a check for their records. The signatures are also not original.

There is also an intriguing piece in the way he made the request. It was a simple request, with little explanation. Which tells me (of course I kinda know this about my dad) that him making a bet was not a remarkable thing. Yet this was a large bet. $100 in 1945 was a major chunk of change. I did a bit of exploring and discovered that it would be about a $1,395 bet today. Yipes!

So here’s this 20-year-old kid, who has just been freed from a terrifying experience. I’m sure there were times he thought he’d never make it out of the camp. With all that, top of his list is honoring his bet? I can’t think of a clearer representation of what I mean when I say that Money is Reflective.

And here’s the kicker. There is no record as to what he bet on. It will forever remain a mystery. Trust me, if I do end up in some future existence where I get to see him again, one of my first questions will now be: “What DID you bet on, Dad?”

Ka-ching

Shell Tain, the Untangler

How is your money reflective? 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!