Are you ready to disrupt your money trauma?

Jul 22, 2021 | Being

African American woman holding dollars

We all have money trauma.

I know this word can be triggering, so let’s destigmatize it for a minute.

When I say ‘money trauma,’ I’m not necessarily meaning something catastrophic. I mean something that was negatively impactful on your relationship with money.

Money trauma can come from some element of how we grew up, or where we lived, or the pressure we feel was put on us that was money-related.

Regardless of what created the money trauma, it’s the way it continues to impact us in the present that makes it problematic.

The other thing about money trauma is that there’s no escaping what triggers it – money itself.

Money is a part of our daily experience, so we can be triggered by our interactions with money every day.

If we don’t heal the trauma or learn to respond differently to the triggers, we carry that weight around.

Plus, we need to be mindful that money trauma isn’t really about the money (because it never is).

And that it has the ability to influence our business decisions even if we aren’t aware of it – like whether to sign that client, produce that new product, try that new approach, etc.

What I know to be 100% true is that any roadblock we put up and allow to stay there will eventually start to interfere with every other aspect of our lives.

So if we have money trauma that is influencing our business decisions and we don’t disrupt it, that trauma will spread elsewhere.

We have to start being more conscious of how our money trauma is showing up now.

Here’s the 3-2-1 on money trauma.

 

3 TRUTHS

  1. If we’ve tried to resolve our money trauma before but it didn’t work, then it wasn’t the right solution for us. We don’t give up. We find the thing that works.
  2. Money trauma influences our decisions to push away new business ideas and opportunities, which means pushing away new money as well.
  3. Unhealed money trauma can cascade down into the rest of our lives. We have to look at it to resolve it and we have to resolve it to get different results.

2 ACTIONS

  1. Identify a positive experience you had with money and how you felt. Consider this proof that there’s a different way to experience money that isn’t all bad.
  2. Be on the lookout this week for making business decisions based on past negative money experiences and, when they occur, consider choosing a different way forward.

1 QUESTION

  1. If it’s never about the money, what’s this feeling I’m having towards money really about?

 This money conversation continues on YouTube. Check out Money Trauma’s Impact on Our Decision Making to join the discussion and make sure to subscribe while you’re there.

To your impact and legacy,