Money Shadows & Beliefs Stopping you from Financial Abundance

Hey there! Welcome back to the Mind School Podcast! In today’s episode, we’re talking about something that might sound a bit mysterious—money shadows. These are those sneaky subconscious beliefs that might be keeping you from the financial freedom you deserve. But first, have you ever thought about what financial abundance really means to you? It’s different for everyone, and getting clear on your definition is the first step to ditching those limiting beliefs.

We’ll chat about how our feelings of safety can get all mixed up with money, causing us to feel stuck or even a little scared about growing our wealth. Don’t worry—we’ve got tips and insights to help you spot these shadows, shift your mindset, and get you moving toward the abundance you’re craving.

What We’ll Cover:

💰Figuring out what financial abundance means to YOU
💰How money stress can throw you into survival mode (fight or flight)
💰How to rethink your money mindset so you can work smarter, not harder
💰How your judgments about others can be a mirror for your own money beliefs


If money has ever made you feel stuck or you find yourself avoiding those tough financial conversations, this episode is exactly what you need!  We're tearing down those mental blocks and giving you practical, empowering steps to take charge of your financial future. 

What are your biggest money shadows? How do you see financial abundance? Let’s keep the conversation going—share your thoughts and tag me @iambreannamay

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Transcript

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Music. Welcome to the mind school, the classroom for your mind and soul, where we design our lives from the inside out. Here you will find a human first approach to life, business and relationships, to create freedom, growth and constant evolution through mindset, emotional intelligence, leadership and connection to self. I'm your host, Breanna may educator, CEO mindset and business mentor, and my mission is to teach the things we were never taught at school so that no dream is left on the pillow and no purpose left unfulfilled. Here, you can expect a lot of laughs and thought provoking conversations as we squeeze every drop of juice from this beautiful, precious, crazy thing called life. Welcome back to the mind school podcast. I want to talk today about money shadows. That sounds so it sounds so dark, but it's where it's not money shadows. And you'll notice from the podcast episode title, I'm talking about money shadows that are stopping you from financial abundance. So let me rewind. Let's start because it's always important that we define key terms, what is financial abundance that is different for everybody. So before we even go forward in this conversation, I'm going to encourage you to actually think about what is financial abundance to you, because financial abundance to me, is different to another person, and it could be different to another person. And we want to get really clear and start to think about because everything in the realm of goal setting and achieving and creating financial abundance requires us to be very clear about what that actually means, so that you know when you're moving in the right direction. So first of all, figure out what financial abundance looks like to you and what it would mean for you, really, really, really important. So it's usually not even the amount, but maybe it's a feeling, and that can be a really first of all, that can be a nice way to attract money is to attach a meaning to the amount that you are after. That's a whole nother conversation, but let's talk about what I have noticed. And the reason that I love talking about money mindset and money shadows and money beliefs is because truly it was where I had the most work to do the most when I started a business. Even since I've been growing my company, it's like the money stuff has always been something that I have to consistently clock. And in the beginning, it would have been the thing that stopped me from even growing a business, because my money mindset was honestly so shit. And now that I understand shadow work, I realized that I had a lot of shadowy, shady stuff going on that I hadn't actually dealt with, which is why I was finding it so hard to talk about money. I didn't want to show up and do sales. I didn't want to, you know, be someone who even had money goals, because I wasn't that person. La, la, la. So I have done the work, and I've also I've got a money mindset. Course, I've helped lots of clients get through their money stuff. I work with mindset and subconscious reprogramming so I can just see really clearly what's going on when people have got things that they need to address in their relationship with money. So firstly, I want to make it very clear that money actually is and can be quite a stressful topic of conversation, not just because of the taboos in society, and that's a whole nother conversation. Why we find money such a taboo thing is weird to me, because literally, it's like sex, let's let's stop pretending we don't all use it, have it, want it. But there's the emotional side, where money can be awkward to talk about, and there's the first clue that you've got some mindset or shadow work to do. But also money actually can be difficult or stressful to talk about because it genuinely is attached to our sense of safety. And our sense of safety is what activates our fight, flight or freeze response. And if we don't feel safe, we will go into that fight, flight or freeze we can't think straight and all the things. But the reason that we have attached money to safety on a practical level is because we actually do, in this day and age, need money to survive. It actually is attached to our survival. If we don't have money, we don't eat. And if you look at Maslow's hierarchy, the first thing at the bottom of the pyramid is our safety, is shelter, is food, is water, is resources. We cannot thrive, we cannot self actualize. We cannot move up Maslow's hierarchy if we don't have that first part of the pyramid addressed, and that is food, safety, shelter, survive. Level, right? And money is attached to all of those things. If you don't have money, you don't have rent. If you don't have money, you can't pay your mortgage. If you don't have money, you can't eat. So on the one hand, on a practical level, it is totally normal. If money feels stressful because you've attached it to your safety. However, most of the time, and from what I've observed, it's not a physical or a practical safety that is actually at risk nine times out of 10 when somebody's got scarcity coming up and they're feeling contracted and they're feeling resistant. It's not actually because they don't know if they're going to eat next week. It's not actually because they don't know where they're going to sleep. For most people, it's an emotional safety that feels like it is being threatened, and that is more of a mindset thing or a shadow thing, which we'll talk about in a moment. But usually it's not your actual physical safety. It's your emotional safety, because you may have attached meaning to money, that it means something about you, or from an emotional safety standpoint, you've got a story or a program running that in some way, shape or form, creates the belief that without this money, I won't belong, or I won't be good enough, or I won't be loved. That's how deep it actually goes. For example, really, really, really successful business owners. I've seen this with business owners who I know have multi millions or hundreds of 1000s of dollars of income coming in. They still have scarcity come up. They still have contraction and fear and all of this stuff lurking when it comes to money, not because their survival needs are being threatened, but because their emotional needs for safety are being threatened because they believe if I let go of this money and I don't have X amount in my account, that would mean that I'm not x, and therefore I'm not lovable, or I'm not x, and therefore I'm not good at this. I'm not good enough. There's so many stories that are actually more of an emotional safety, and that's why you need to be addressing your mindset, your shadows, and those deep, lurking things that are impacting your ability to have a relationship to money and to scarcity. So what I want to say there's, there's a few pieces here that we need to pull out scarcity and fear or resistance around money usually, isn't actually about money itself. It's about our relationship to our self. What we believe money means about us, what we believe money means about our identity, what we believe money means about our level of achievement or our level of success. And so it's not necessarily to do with money. I, like I said, I've seen rich people who have terrible money mindsets and lots of leaky, shadowy stuff going on in that realm. And to the flip, I've seen people with very little money who are not in scarcity at all. They're not and so it's an internal thing, but money is a great mirror for where our work is to do, to address our relationship with ourselves. And money just brings that up. And so the other piece to that is, as you can probably tell, even people that have lots of money still have scarcity, still have worries, still have fears. The fears the worries the scarcity. That's not the problem. The problem is how you react to it. The problem can be how you respond to the scarcity or the resistance, right? So say, for example, you are going to make an investment into your business or something that you know is actually an investment. It's going to help you, elevate you take time, give you your time back. It's going to teach you something. You're going to get something from it. And you actually do have the money there. You actually really do. Your survival needs aren't being threatened. You can pay for your mortgage. You can pay for your kids to eat. There's actually no issue. It's an emotional thing, right? And so you go to invest and then you land and hover over the sales page, and then you're like, oh, no, oh, can't do it. Can't do it, can't do it. And with that fear, present with that scarcity, present, with that resistance present, you've got two options, and this is why I'm saying it's not the fear or the resistance that's the problem. It's often your response to that emotion. So option one is you hover over the page and you're like, Oh no, this feels too scary. This feels so much resistance. This feels a lot of fear. I'm not going to do it. I'm going to go back and I'm going to go back to safety. That's option one. Option two is I feel this fear. I feel this resistance. I feel that this is there, and my rational mind knows that it's safe. I know that this is expansive. I know that this is actually just me being scared because I'm going out of my comfort zone, and therefore I'm going to do the thing anyway. So before I get into the main shadows and the main mindset that I have, mindsets that I have seen holding people back from their version of either financial abundance or like personal abundance, personal growth, personal expansion, before I go into the main things that I've observed, i. Want to make it very clear, money fears and money scarcities, they don't just go away. Even when you have money, it's not that they just go away, because it's an emotional thing. And humans are emotional. We have all sorts of stories and narratives and egos in our heads, and so you're always going to feel some sort of resistance or fear, but it's your response to the scarcity, your response to the resistance, your response to the fear that changes over time and that you can get better at regulating to make decisions that align with where you're going. So that's the sort of pre frame there. Now I want to go into the shadows and the beliefs that I have seen, and this is within myself and within clients that really I see as a massive block to taking them closer to where they want to be, like I said, personally or financially. And so the first thing is the belief. And this is a mindset thing. This is a belief thing, the more money, the more work, the more money I have, the more stress I'll have. And this really impacts a lot of people, particularly in business, because they will sabotage growth, because they have got an underlying belief system that says, For me to make more money, I need to work more. For me to make more money, I need to hustle. Or maybe they've even got a memory from the past, or they've had experience where maybe they did make lots of money for a little while there, but they were pushing. They were hustling. It didn't feel good. They were doing it from the wrong energy. And therefore they're like, I do not want that again. So they're going to sabotage more money, because that's the program. The program says more money is more stress, more burnout. So again, we'll sabotage because the belief there is more money, more work, more money, more stress. And that's a problem, because if you believe that, you will sabotage and really, if I can offer or invite a different perspective, when you're clever, you will work smarter, not harder, and you will understand that really scaling money is often about scaling your time, scaling your skill set, scaling yourself out in more intelligent ways. And if you're looking at the most successful, wealthy, abundant people in the world, oftentimes they're working the least. They've got a team around them. They've delegated. There's so many other things that are can be your truth if you choose a different way. So the first thing is more money, more work. And if that's the thing that you have already decided, I will encourage you to go to war with that belief system. Now, find evidence for people who have lots of money and work very little, or do it in a really nice way. Find people who you can see that are making money and they have a great life, they're not burnt out, they're aligned with their values, and it's really important that you find those mentors and you do the work to break your own belief systems, because that can really block people from even wanting more, because, like I said, unconsciously, they're like, why would I want more? If that just means stress? I've been there. I've definitely been there, and I've been like, no, no. I'm happy now because I'm so like, My lifestyle is really great. I don't know if I want to really be, you know, hustling, but my business, and let me be an example of this, my business, has always done very like, not always. That's a lie. In the last few years, has done very well, and I have never, ever, ever, because I was trained in mindset and all of that. First, I was very clear about my values and my business has never sacrificed my values. I've traveled extensively. My relationships are incredible. I've got more friends than ever before. And so if I can be an example to you that you can make more money without giving your heart, your time, without sacrificing the most important things to you, let me be the example. And of course, there'll always be seasons. You might have a hustle season, but if you're doing it intentionally, that's fine, but really the belief there that I want you to think about is more money, more work. Now let's move into some shadowy stuff. Let's move into the shadows that I see lurking that are really blocking people from creating more money. Now it will be whatever follows. And this is like a tip for you to start to find what your shadows are. You will be saying things like, I don't want to be insert your word. I don't want to be salesy. I've heard that a million times. I don't want to be salesy. I don't want to be annoying. I don't want to be wrong. I don't want to get it wrong. I don't want to look stupid. What are the things that follow for you? I don't want to be that right. There is your shadow work to do. And what you would need to do is find the thing that you are so afraid of being and then there's mindset and shadow work that we can do here. First of all, what is that thing that you're saying, salesy, okay, what does that actually mean when you say, I don't want to be salesy, go to town on your definition of that. What does salesy mean to you? Okay, it means I don't want to be pushy. Okay, so don't be pushy. Find your own definitions for things and stop saying things where you can change. Change definitions, you can go and investigate what your definitions are that are making you feel a little bit uncomfortable, and redefine things. I'm happy to be salesy, and I'll give you this example. I love sales but I would never be pushy, ever. I would never force a client into something or get them to take out their credit card when I could see that they were in a real, genuine response that would feel gross to me, but I'm okay with sales because I have my own integrity map. I know what I am okay with and what I'm not okay with and so and I've done the work to I had a fear around being salesy, but what it really was is my map of the world said that salespeople were pushy and sleazy and not honest, and that felt gross to me. So when you've got a definition of something you don't want to be, first define what is it about that thing that you don't want to be, and let that be your integrity map. Let that be your north star to guide how you want to show up and to create your own definitions. Now the other things could be from a more shadowy lens here, if you've got a story, I don't want to be annoying. That, to me, is very interesting from a shadow work lens. Why don't you want to be annoying? Is that the thing that you're most ashamed of? Were you called annoying as a child? Were you the too much kid? Are you REALLY secretly ashamed of how in your face that you might be, or how, whatever it is, what is the thing that you really couldn't you hold some shame around you hold shame around being annoying. You hold shame around being loud. You hold shame around being taking up too much space. Whatever it is that's probably your work to do, and you're probably going to need to accept those parts of yourself, because by shunning parts of you that may actually be exactly who you are and probably are, you're actually going to just keep burying it and trying to avoid it in really cooked ways. So I don't want to be XYZ. Figure out what your thing is and do a bit of investigative work. Do you need to look at the definitions and see what it actually means that you don't want to be and use that as your guide, or are there parts of yourself that you're actually embarrassed about, ashamed about, and that you actually need to do some shame work, some shadow work, and you need to make peace with parts of yourself that you're trying to hide because that just won't work. So the other thing that you can do to start to see your shadows or your projections around money is that you can start to look at how you judge others. What are your projections? What you assume about other people, the beliefs that you have about other people, tells us everything about your deep, unconscious beliefs and about what is actually available to you, for example, if you start to say things like, oh, that person with lots or even if it's internal, if you've got this internal you might not want to admit it, you might not say it. You might be someone who's like, yes, women, supporting women. And I love that. But on a deep level, if you were really honest with yourself, there might be a bit of jealousy, there might be like, Oh, she's so up herself. She's so what, like, what is the thing that you're saying about other people? Use your judgments of other people as a mirror for what your beliefs are around money and why you're not actually getting any further. Because subconsciously and energetically, if you are jealous, if you are saying that those people are materialistic or greedy, or all they care about is money or Yeah, but just because they have money, and then you make these other projections, like, yeah, she might have lots of money, but she probably has no friends. She might have lots of money, but I bet she doesn't have a life. If that is, that is, to me, a clear indicator of your projections or your beliefs. What that says is, I believe that to have lots of money, you can't have friends too. I believe that if I'm going to have lots of money, I'm going to sacrifice my relationship. If you're judging people that have lots of money and saying, but I bet they're not there for their kids. Okay, cool. That tells me that you've got some work to do around that belief you obviously believe, and you're projecting that onto her, that other person that you're judging, that she mustn't have XYZ that again, turn the mirror inwards and do some work, because all of those judgments are like a supercharged highway for you to figure out where your work is to do with your relationship to money. So look at how you judge others and look at your projections, or because she has money, she must be what, or because she has money, she mustn't do what, or because she has money, she's obviously what kind of person. That's what you need to eat up, because that is your work, and that is where you're blocking money and your growth. Now the other thing that you can look at is your projections that sound like, well, she can because she's XYZ, but I'm not what you are doing here is you are repressing a part of yourself, or you are in the shadow work world. You are highlighting what is called a golden shadow, things that you have, you admire, or you look up to in other people, and you think that that's because. It's not part of you. You believe that you don't have that. You don't possess that. But she is charismatic and I'm not, but she's good in front of the camera and I'm not, but she's really good with money, and I'm not. But what are the things that you have pedestalized? You've put somebody with money on a pedestal, and then you've made character or personality judgments or traits, you've decided that that person clearly has traits that you don't this again, tells me that you have a golden shadow and you have repressed and can't see parts of yourself. Shadow Work suggests that we are all all of it. We can all be all the things. We are all confident and mean and greedy and kind and unkind and cruel. We are all of those things. Some of us just over Express or repress parts and others, and we and others repress different parts and express different parts, but we are all all things. The second you say that somebody is something and you are not that thing, that tells me that there is a repression happening that you need to recover. You need to recover that part of yourself. And so if you are finding yourself saying things like, Yeah, but she has money because she is x and I am not that again, is part of your work to uncover, because it is there inside of you, and you've created a lie. You've created a lie based on years and years and years of repressing this part of yourself or not enhancing this part of yourself through practice and through skill development. Everyone can be all things. We can all possess those traits that you believe is eluding you. We can all possess those traits, those things that you believe you are not. But it's just first seeing where you think that you are not it. So again, where are you saying that person is something and I am not? That is your work to do. So these are really the main ones that I have observed, and I want to just refresh. Again, more money equals more work. I don't want to be salesy, I don't want to be annoying, I don't want to be whatever. The thing is that is a thing that is the thing that will be holding you back on some level. The other thing is your projections and judgments of others. So just because this person has money, how do you really, truly feel on the inside, and what do you believe that person possesses that you do not golden shadow at play here. So in summary, use your judgments of others and use your resistance to money to dive a little bit deeper, because this is going to showcase to you what you need to excavate and the belief. Work you need to do the mindset work you need to do the shame and shadow work you need to do to clear that, or at least to see it, accept it, choose a different story, choose a different response, choose a different action, and that is going to take you closer to the financial abundance that you are after. Thank you for tuning in to the mind school podcast. It is a massive intention of mine to continue to grow this show, because the more the show grows, the better the guests get, and I know that is going to be so powerful for you listening. So if I could ask this massive favor, it would mean the world if you could please leave a review, hit the Follow button, or leave a rating on Spotify, so that we can continue to grow this show and bring you the juiciest, most thought provoking and expansive conversations through incredible guests. Thank you so much for tuning in. I'll see you next week. You.