Remember the Money Traps? They are those things where you are just bopping along and it seems like you suddenly fall through a hole around money stuff. Sometimes, when we are trying to make a decision, all sorts of things can get confusing and money traps really don’t help with that process—they impede it! Let me show you an effective way out of one of those traps using an exchange with a current client (with her permission, of course!)
Recently a client, who is in real estate, emailed me between our scheduled calls with a somewhat urgent conundrum. She had the opportunity to take a major real estate workshop through a different company than the one she works for. She needed to make the decision to take the course or not within two days time. She wrote: “Anyway, I need to decide today or tomorrow to enroll. The ONLY thing holding me back is the fee $799. But otherwise I have gotten confirmation after confirmation that it will propel me into the numbers I want in real estate. How do I make this decision?”
Since she was tangled in this, and it seemed like the thing holding her back was perhaps the Money Trap of the actual cost I emailed her with this:
“Let’s ask the ‘deeper’ part of you, how’s that? Stand up, find a spot in the room to stand in, close your eyes, imagine, ‘You have just finished the class’. Really get that sense of that experience. Now scan your body and just notice what sensations you get, and where.
“Okay, now do the same process with other perspectives, moving to a different spot on the floor with each perspective—like, ‘You don’t take the class,’ and, ‘You take another, different class.’ Make sure you try it with at least three different options. Notice what the exercise is pointing to.
“Now if it is about the money (which is likely) do the same thing again but this time it’s, ‘You spend the money on the class,’ ‘You don’t spend the money,’ ‘You put it on a credit card,’ and other options you may think of. Let me know what you discover in the different perspectives.”
She wrote back with: “Okay, I did the exercise. When I took the class my body felt like my feet and legs were secure and grounded to the floor—my head and shoulders light. When I didn’t take the class my body felt very heavy and tight in the shoulders. When I took another class my body felt nothing really. When I spent the money and when I didn’t spend the money my body felt exactly the same.“
Continuing, I wrote back: “Ah, so what does that tell you? (I love this stuff !)”
To which she answered: “It tells me my life will not be drastically changed whether I spend the money or not. It tells me that I will have a more solid foundation in real estate without stress if I take the class, and if I don’t take it I will have stress in my shoulders.”
Translation? It’s not about the money!
By sorting through this in a body way, instead of a brain way, she was able to bypass her inner critic voice that doesn’t want her to try anything new and gain clarity for herself. Hot stuff, heh?
Only one caveat here: don’t ask yourself, “How does it feel?” Instead scan your body and see what you notice. The feeling word asks for an interpretation which sends us back into our heads. I was using this with another client on the phone the other day and she said, “My stomach feels guilty.” I encouraged her to go back to a more descriptive, non-emotional word like jumpy, or achy. After you’ve done all the perspectives then you can make the emotional interpretations—doing it in the middle muddies the water.
So the next time you find yourself in a money trap, find those different spots to stand so you can talk to your deeper self, notice what’s happening, and see what your inner wisdom has to tell you! It’s cool stuff!
Ka-ching
Shell Tain, The Untangler
Want to explore this technique a bit more? Give me a call at 503-258-1630 or check out my website at www.sensiblecoaching.com