Does money really create safety?

There are two things the women I see feel the most worried about: Health (their own and their kids’) and money.

There are various other worries too.

But money is a big one. I see clients of all economic backgrounds and still no matter how much money they have there is usually some sort of emotional entanglement with it.

You can drive a really nice car and live in an expensive house and still worry about paying your bills or losing it all.

Do this with me: Take a quick moment. Notice your feet on the floor and feel your breath. Just notice it, don’t change it. Close your eyes and bring to mind your current money situation. You might think of your paycheck, your bank account, retirement plan (or lack of) or debt. Just let whatever it is that comes first to come into your mind. What do you notice in your body? What emotions arise?

Money is just a circumstance. It is your thoughts about money that actually make you feel whatever it is you feel about money.

Money itself doesn’t make you FEEL any one way, if that was the case, everyone would feel the same and your feelings would always be fixed….which they never are. 

For most people money means safety or security.  Yet money is just an energy that flows from one person to another.

But fear stops flow.

Fear stops the flow of energy, therefore, if you are worried or fearful around money, the flow will stop, become disrupted, or unreliable. If you are grasping for money to feel more secure, flow stops.

From an Ayurvedic standpoint, fear in your body stops the flow of lymph, digestion, and elimination.

My anxious clients are often also constipated, bloated, or inflamed.

Things don’t move.

Modern science shows that when you are in a fear state, or in your sympathetic nervous system AKA flight or fight, the blood stops flowing to your prefrontal cortex (the part of your brain behind your forehead where you do most of your adult thinking and decision making). Therefore, you can’t think and you can’t make good, mature decisions.

You decisions are made from a place of unconscious patterning, often based on things you picked up, learned, and created to feel safe before the age of 6.

This is not a bad thing, it is how your survived life.

But, when it comes to money, this means is that whatever your parents experienced and believed about money is imprinted on your nervous system. Your own experiences with money as a child are also imprinted on your nervous system.

You pick up on messages like: there is never enough money, we are going to run out of money, making money is stressful, you have to work hard for it, rich people are greedy, life in general is hard, money is for other people, people who don’t have money are less than, or money equals security.

Think back on your money story, you might have acquired similar beliefs or some others. Some people who have been born wealthy, resent the wealth. Everyone’s experience is their own.

Take a minute to write down your beliefs about money. Think about how your primary caregivers treated money, spoke about money, and what they believed about money. Write down the messages you received from those closest to you and even culture in general. It can be quite eye opening.

You know the story, you can remember it and you can easily reflect on the money messages from your caregivers. 

But knowing it doesn’t necessarily clear it. There is work to be done to instill new beliefs. Experts, like Bruce Lipton, say that with enough repetition, you can change the beliefs stored in your unconscious. But, that takes time and lots of focused effort.

Another way to feel safety and security about money is to accept your life and your bank account exactly as they are.

In fact, that is the key to releasing most anything in your life that you wish were different: accept and surrender to it…and do your best to be really be ok with it.

Acceptance and surrendering to your life circumstances (ie your bank account) is not about giving up and throwing in the towel. When you truly accept and surrender, you release fear and control which ignites flow.  

But acceptance is hard when you have your 6 -year old unconscious self running the show with all of those imprints from your parents and your life.

This is why I love to use Brainspotting, specifically Moneyspotting, a training I recently completed which focuses on using Brainspotting for financial well-being.

Brainspotting works more quickly than rehearsing new beliefs and changes your beliefs at a deeper level.

What I have discovered about brainspotting is that it takes the brain out of fight or flight and it clears up the old BS that is interfering with your current day decision making. So you are no longer in fight or flight, fear is greatly reduced which equates to FLOW.

When there is flow you can solve problems and come up with solutions that are from your adult brain.

You can respond to life, not react.

Namaste!

Nichole

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