Making Friends with Your Money

Rosemary cunningham Reflexology, Emmett Technique, Bowen Therapy in Hadleigh, Benfleet February 13, 2014

Tonight I did an exercise with seven ladies about creating a happy, healthy relationship with money. It goes like this.

You choose someone in your life, dead or alive, with whom you have or had a happy, healthy relationship. You write their name at the top of your paper.

You answer various questions about what you both bring to this special relationship, what you give to each other, what you can rely on from this person etc. Most people choose a close friend or sibling. I chose my grandmother who was a great friend and all round lovely lady and amazing role model.

Then we substitute your friend’s name for “Money”.

Reading through your answers, as if money was your friend, you realise what it could be like to have a strong, healthy, respectful, dependable relationship with money.

My seven ladies in my group were very thoughtful and very excited too, amazed by the feelings this brought up for them. The thought of having fun, trust and laughter with money was a totally new concept and very mind opening. One can’t help having a different way of thinking afterwards!

You see money is just a means of exchange on one level. We used to exchange animals, bags of salt and grain. Then we substituted coins and notes to make the exchange easier. Money is neutral but have we put so much emotion, guilt, shame, anger, resentment, mistrust. “Money is the root of all evil”. “It is harder for a rich man to pass through the eye of a needle than to enter the kingdom of Heaven” and so much more.

We tend to remember all the negative stuff that we heard as young children. So many women have memories of parents publicly (or secretly) rowing about money. We remember being told “money doesn’t grow on trees” and feeling guilty for asking for and ice cream or toy, something for yourself. These feelings can make our adult selves scared to ask for what we want in case we’re rejected.

Unbelievably almost 80% of British women have never asked for a wage rise, (Yougov survey 2013).

These beliefs from childhood can keep us stuck in a child’s mindset about money. To grow up and be a real adult, those beliefs need airing and clearing and something healthy, up to date and useful in its place.

So, what can you do?

It is very easy to start developing a happy, healthy, adult relationship with money!

You can start right now by thinking about YOUR money story; that is what you heard about money when you were growing up. Spend a few minutes writing down what you heard and saw from parents, grandparents, friends, maybe the church or your teachers. Then think about how these beliefs have shown up in your life to date. I guarantee you’ll see a connection.

In my coaching I help my clients write a new money story. I was stuck as a frightened 8-year old, running a home, a business, with several credit cards and a mortgage and feeling so out of control. Money coaching and writing a new story helped me grow up and be a responsible adult, albeit a work in progress!

The liberation, lightness and happiness that come from freeing yourself from your financial past are immeasurable and the effect on your finances is limitless!

If you would like to know more about your relationship with money, contact me for a complimentary 30 Minute Discovery session. I help women build strong healthy relationships with money so they can be great role models for their family, go for what they want in life and run happy homes and independent businesses.

I am a registered nurse and have run my own complementary therapy business for 21 years.