MONEY is Not the Issue - Money Stress & How to Cope

 Today I talk about money and how our thoughts about money affect us. I mention money problems from the past and ask questions to help you think about your own money beliefs and influences. I conclude that it's important to take care of yourself on the inside.  I also talk about overeating on holiday.

Citations
The Money Panel
The Soul of Money 'Reclaiming the Wealth of Our Inner Resources' - Lynne Twist

Another podcast to try: Reset Your Autonomic Nervous System - for Anxiety or Depression

Want to see if we're a good fit for working together?
Let's book a complimentary telephone call to talk.

SCHEDULE A COMPLIMENTARY CONSULTATION – with no obligation. 

If this podcast helped you, please leave a review on Apple Podcasts

Transcript

 I want to tell you something interesting that happened to me while I was on holiday with my eating. I went on a holiday with a cold, and I was so determined to have a good holiday that I did all the right things. I did some exercise, I did some breathing exercises, I ate tons of vitamin C fruits, I didn't overeat, I didn't eat sugar, I didn't drink alcohol or caffeine.

I did it all.  The symptoms of the cold lasted throughout the holiday and as you can hear, I've still got them. Towards the middle of the holiday, something upset me and almost without realising it, I had a pudding. And it wasn't until after that I thought, Who?  Something upset me, so obviously that's why I had the pudding.

That's why my resolve was different. This, very quickly, even though I resolved the upset and was feeling great again, led to a habit of having puddings. I'm happy to say it never went completely out of control. I was mindful of what I was putting in my body and I still wanted to be feeling well. But something had shifted, something had given me permission to have puddings.

So it was more difficult for me to say no. And then by the last morning, when I still had these cold symptoms, I was so angry that my good behaviour hadn't healed me, that I had two chocolate doughnuts for breakfast.  Because on top of the dopamine addiction that had been forming, and the habit that had been forming, And the open door to healing my wounds with sugar.

I also lost my reason. My reason for not eating. Thankfully, this was only a week's holiday, and now I'm back home. And knowing all the little skills and techniques that I know... I'm back to mindful, healthy eating. One of the biggest things that I think is helping me to do that right now is change. The shift from being in Spain to coming home to England is a great thing for me to piggyback my new habit.

And so pretty quickly, my brain and my body are remembering how I used to eat before the holiday. If I'd given myself a day or two's grace to eat sugar, it would have been a lot harder for me to stop. So I just wanted to share that with you. There's a lot of things going on in your body and brain surrounding addiction or compulsion.

Hopefully you can use this knowledge to create what you want. Thanks for listening.  Today I'm talking about our attitudes towards money.  Hi, I'm Shelley Treacher from Underground Confidence.  I help people who know that emotions cause their eating. Nope.  I help people who know that their emotions or their stress levels cause them to come for eat. 

I help people who comfort eat understand what the emotion and the stress is behind the comfort eating.  I help people who comfort eat understand what the emotions and the stress are behind the comfort eating.  This means we talk about how to manage lots of different kinds of stressors.  Money has been a hot topic for the last year or so. 

So I'll be talking about ways that you can challenge your attitudes around money.  But before I do that, I want to share with you a real... hang on.  But before I do that, I want to share with you...  But before I do that, I want to share with you an audio that I made  about holiday eating and my...  about holiday eating. 

I know most of you are buckling down to work. Maybe you've been on...  Maybe you've been on holiday during half term,  or perhaps the eating theme on holiday is not relevant to you. However,  this little story of mine  shows you exactly what's going on.  Shows you some of what's going on with comfort eating, and what's behind it,  what's behind it, and what is,  what's behind it,  and what you're dealing with. 

So here's that audio.  Now let's talk about money.  Much like eating and food, our unconscious is projected onto money.  Much like with eating and a lot like with food,  our unconscious is projected onto money.  We often feel that if we have more of it, we'll be happy, right?  Just like if we lose weight, we'll be happy. 

But our happiness isn't really aligned with the money or with our weight.  Money is, however, a really good representation of what we're actually interested in.  Therefore, money is a carrier of your purpose, your intention, and your energy.  This in itself, I think, is an interesting perspective on what money is in our lives.

What do you do with your money?  Perhaps something to become conscious of is the flow of money in your life. How you spend it, how it comes to you,  and how it relates to your life. Is it generative or is it,  what does it create for you? 

And what are your...  And what's your attitude towards money? How do you feel around it?  We are influenced just as with everything else in life, with our relational life, with our comfort eating development, we're influenced by our upbringing and the things that happen to us in our attitudes towards money. 

And many of us have money trauma,  which is something that's only just beginning to be talked about, really.  Money trauma can be defined as a belief or an influence that affects the way that you feel or behave around money.  Putting it really simply, it expresses whether you feel you are enough or not. 

Common attitudes or beliefs around money is that there is a lack of it, a limitation, a scarcity.  And this can lead to being really frugal or to overspending.  Either one of these could be labelled as an addiction.  Likewise, you could be hoarding money.  Just like with comfort eating, these can be ways to manage how you feel. 

Often, comfort no. Often the people that I work with feel a lack of money.  And interestingly, this often aligns with having a limited amount of food as they were growing up.  But either way, it's all about how much of a victim you feel or how much you feel your blah blah blah. But either way, it's all about our security or insecurity around money, or using money to express that. 

My money story is, it's pretty bad.  My money story is a bit ridiculous.  My money story is actually a bit shocking.  Part of my story is that my mother was actually an accountant, would you believe? And she was,  she was self employed, but she had such a lack of boundaries that she undercharged severely for her work. 

So much so that she became completely bankrupt when there was a recession. 

We never lacked for anything because this happened in my adulthood.  Before that, she worked really hard  because her childhood involved a lack.  But somehow all of this came down to me because I remember she always, before she went bankrupt, she always wanted to take me shopping to buy me clothes.  And I wanted those clothes. 

But I felt incredibly guilty taking my mother's money. It's like I inherently knew or believed that money was difficult to come by.  So I already felt that before she went bankrupt.  And then the shock of her going bankrupt, and what I now know of the rest of her life, which was in severe poverty,  which was in relative poverty,  all of this has left me really confused about money. 

All of this left me really insecure around money,  like I've told you so much about my childhood.  My mother communicated her lack of self care,  her lack of boundaries, her fear of conflict, and of claiming her own authority,  her feeling of not being good enough,  to me. And one of the ways she did this was in her attitudes and her life with money. 

I don't blame her, of course.  But I have had to address my money trauma.  And I'll be honest, I haven't even told you the most exciting parts of her relationship with money.  Forget that sentence. Because the way it showed up for me  was being hooked on improving myself.  So much so,  so much so that I've spent a lot of money on education and courses. 

My mother left me with a  My mother left me with a hard work ethic.  I also felt determined not to be taken advantage of in the way she was as a self employed person. I imagine some of my clients think I'm a little bit too vigilant about getting them to pay me.  But also, fundamental to this story was the feeling that I could never get enough. 

And that I wouldn't survive if I didn't,  which I'm sad to say is kind of my mother's story.  When she lost everything, she became so depressed and anxious that she never really recovered from it.  And so this left me with an unconscious fear that I would do the same.  This is really sad,  and I imagine a lot of you are feeling empathy for me, or maybe you even identify with this. 

But in uncovering all of this, I know what I'm dealing with, and I've managed to...  And I am redesigning my relationship with money.  So,  um, pardon me. So just like I ask you about your comfort eating, what messages were around you about money that might have affected you? What unconscious associations do you have? 

Because even though you might have a lot of stress around money, it's not actually the money that's the cause of your stress. Money isn't the problem.  It's the fear or the belief, the negativity that's surrounding it.  Like for me, it was actually about happily surviving.  So here are some questions that can help you explore your attitude and your feelings around money. 

Number one,  ask yourself how you rea wait.  Number one,  if I ask you to make a financial transaction right now, notice how you feel.  Number two, if you recognize that you are hoarding money, or you're overspending money, or you,  or you feel a s  or you feel a scarcity of money,  and you have some stress around this,  ask yourself what's causing this stress,  or this pattern of behavior. 

Dig into it and see if there is emotion underneath it. Did something just happen that upset you?  Is there some other,  is there some other familiar emotion that you have underneath it? Is there some other familiar repeated emotion that you have underneath it?  Question three, ask yourself whether you really need to be doing this behavior. 

Do you need to make that next purchase on eBay?  Do you need to buy this item? No wait, and just be curious about. 

Do you need to resist doing something because it would be spending money, even though you really want to do it?  And ask yourself,  and be curious about why you need to do this thing.  And then finally, ask yourself, how do you feel after this behaviour?  Do you notice that you got a little release from it? A dopamine hit perhaps? 

You can also ask yourself what it is that you really need.  What do you really need to make you feel better, other than this behavior?  Often we have a little bit of a victim mentality around money.  It's very rarely something that we feel good about.  But when you engage your whole soul, your self, your me No. 

But actually, if you start embracing money,  engaging your soul, your meaning in life with money,  It can be really nourishing.  If you use money in your mind and both, no wait, if you use money both in the way that you think about it and the way you use money, if you use it as an expression of you,  your higher self, what's meaningful to you, It will light you up. 

I've talked many times about how investing in appreciation means that you get more to appreciate. Somehow in life, it just attracts good stuff.  The more you,  the more you practice appreciation, the more you feel appreciative of life, and the more life looks great.  This is something to do with the way our brain is structured. 

Because we can't actually tell the difference between reality and fantasy in one part of our brain.  But the same is true of your relationship with money.  I often think that there's quite an overlap betw b n na.  I often think that there's quite an overlap between manifestation and psychology.  Where in psychology, there's a mental state that's causing you a problem. 

In this case,  money trauma and negativity around money.  In this case, money trauma and stress around money.  And then in psychology, our job is to challenge and transform the beliefs that cause that stress.  Wherefrom, life looks very different.  So we start with a mental state, and then we watch our lives change around us. 

Incidentally, you can do the same with your weight,  and with comfort eating.  Recovery in all of these areas is about investing in embodying what you really want  and shifting your beliefs to fit that  and shifting your destructive beliefs  to embody something that makes you happier.  I see time and time again the weight fall off people, comfort eating get reduced  as they,  as they start to believe that they are worth something and their confidence grows. 

Your body and your relationship with money is an expression of your unconscious.  If you focus,  if you focus on scarcity or lack, this will overtake your experience.  And you will lose sight of your own abilities.  And the opposite is also true. If you create value and meaning and you invest yourself in an engaged way in your relationship with money, as with everything else in your life, you will experience prosperity. 

And it will magnify that experience.  I feel like, hang on,  where I'm at with my story  is investing in my passions.  The strangest thing has always happened to me in self employment.  Whenever I worry about money and feel I don't have enough money and start to get panicky about that. Start again. Whenever I have felt worried about money and felt like I didn't have enough work, felt like I was never going to meet the bills,  nothing seemed to shift for me. 

But whenever I've invested in my work and just got my head down, knowing that this is what I'm really invested in personally, internally, clients have just come.  There's such a subtle and such a vast difference between coming from stress and panic and worry.  And coming from an inner sense of knowing that this is my meaning. 

This is where I'm truly invested.  This is where I'm truly invested.  As I'm telling you about this right now, I've stood up in my body. Um, my posture is, wait.  I've uncurled my spine and I'm standing tall.  Because  I've  aligned with what I'm authentically...  Because I've aligned with what I'm really interested in. 

And where my power lies.  This is another plus point for investing in your own strengths and capabilities.  In order to prosper.  In order to prosper,  you really need to be able to invest in your own capabilities  and to feel that strength.  So I would suggest focusing on your inner resources rather than your outer. 

Because I believe that if you focus on your inner resources, this will grow the outer resources.  As Lynn Twist says in her book about money, when you are crushed by victim mentality, your ability to dream and envision is crushed too.  So assess your real worth. Who loves you unconditionally?  That story has nothing to do with money. 

What do they appreciate about you?  These are your assets. And money can't buy them.  Don't we all feel a little less empty if we share our wealth, or we share our food even?  Investing in your real worth,  and what brings you meaning,  changes you.  Focus on these things that you have to offer, and make a plan, a forward plan. 

And instead of worrying, make a future plan.  With what,  with what you really want  as focus.  With what you really want.  With what,  with what you really want in mind,  anchored in your value system.  As Lynn Twist says, in our culture, we come from lack, competition, and everything that's mutant. 

She explains that indigenous people see all the...  She explains that indigenous people see the world in a much more respectful and affirmation of life way. 

No, start again.  As Lynn Twist says, we come from a culture where...  As Lynn...  As Lynn Twist says, we come from a culture...  As Lynn Twist says, many of us come from a culture where lack, competition, and materialism are in highlight.  She explains that certain indigenous people see the world very differently.  She says that they see it totally sufficiently, animated with spirit, Intelligent, mystical, responsive, creative, and constantly generating and regenerating itself with the great diversity of resources that support and collaborate with one another through the mystery of life. 

She explains that each human in this indigenous culture has the capacity to create and collaborate and contribute.  Where most of us experience a culture that,  where most of us experience a culture where the resources are declining fast And we have to compete in order to survive  and we feel we have to compete in order to survive or be on top  My osteopath actually told me yesterday that his colleague went to Work in Africa, briefly. 

She said when she came back, she realised how stressed out and how much in trouble her Western clients are compared to the African people.  I'm not deliberately making a...  I'm not deliberately making a one is better than the other comparison. And I certainly wouldn't wish to undermine the suffering of anybody. 

But as Lynn Twisk... as... But as Gandhi said... There is enough for our need, but not for our greed.  Money is an expression of our integrity.  Scrap that, stop now. No, continue. Money can be an expression of our integrity.  Money can be an expression of our integrity. What if instead of investing in scarcity or fear,  we invest in wanting to make the world a better place? 

We know that other, deeper resources create a meaningful life.  So the trick here is learning to be happy with enough.  In a nutshell, what I'm advocating is inner nourishment, both with comfort eating and our relationship with money.  And I'll leave you with the question of what legacy do you want to create? 

For me, I want to help people be more comfortable with who they really are.  I'm very much invested  in allowing our human emotional experience be okay.  For me, I'm very much invested in helping people to be more comfortable with themselves.  For me, I want to help people be more comfortable within themselves. 

I'm very much invested in validating people's emotional experience.  And helping to shift their unconscious limiting beliefs.  So that they can experience all that this world has to offer in such a brief...  So that they can experience all the wonder that this life has to offer. In such a, in a...  So that they can experience all the wonder that this life has to offer. 

That's the aim of my program.  Fortunately, my addiction  Fortunately, my addiction to courses and learning  stands me in quite good stead here.  And now that I'm recovered and back from holiday Stop. And now that I'm back from holiday and fully recovered  I'm going to be putting together a very small group of people to beta test my program. 

This is gonna happen before Christmas.  This, I'm hoping, will happen before Christmas.  I'm,  I'm intent wait. I'm aiming for this to happen before Christmas.  I'm aiming this to start happening before the rush of Christmas.  Which I think is a no. Which is an important time to start getting something in place  before Christmas comfort eating takes loose. 

So if you'd like to hear more details about that, please respond to this.  Please send me a message saying winter recovery.  Today, the first thing I talked about was my...  Today, the first thing I talked about was my experience on holiday.  Today, the first thing I talked about  was my experience of overeating on holiday, and how I... 

and how I coped with that. In this little story, I showed you how comfort eating isn't just caused by a lack of willpower.  I talked about the emotion behind comfort eating.  How a craving and a habit kicks in. How a,  how a craving kicks in and turns into a habit.  I talked about how important it is to have a reason, a meaningful reason, to stop eating. 

And I showed you how change can help you make a change.  Then I talked about money.  I talked about how, I talked about how your attitude towards money, how you feel around money, really makes a difference.  I explained a few ways that,  I explained a few ways that we can act out with money.  And I talked about how you can be influenced by your childhood and things that happen to you. 

And I talked about how your attitude can be influenced by your background.  I talked about money trauma  and I gave you some questions to start uncovering what your beliefs are around money.  I told you about my money trauma and how I,  I told you about,  I told you about my money history and trauma  and I advocated  investing in inner nourishment rather than something external,  like weight or money, like money. 

I talked about money being an expression of our integrity. I talked about money being an ins  I talked about money being an expression of our passion, our meaning in life, and our integrity.  Next week, I'm going to be talking about perfection.  Next week, I'm going to be talking about perfectionism.  Thank you to the end.

This 

has been Underground Confidence with Shelley Treacher. I'll see you next Thursday.  If you are enjoying this podcast, can I ask you a teensy weensy little bit of a favour?  I don't have many reviews, and they really count for a lot. 

Could you possibly write a brief review for me about how you're enjoying the podcast? 

Could I ask you to write a brief review for me? 

Thank you so much. You'll certainly get a mention in the podcast if you do that. 

And, and  then let me know when you've done it? 

You'll certainly get a mention in the podcast if this happens. Thank you so much.