Ep. 13- It's Not About The Money, Honey: Exploring Your Hidden Emotions Behind The Dollar Signs
EPISODE 13-
It's Not About The Money, Honey: Exploring Your Hidden Emotions Behind The Dollar Signs
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Can you talk about money with your significant other?
Is it an open conversation or a touchy subject?
How do you feel about money?
In this episode, I am joined by my good friend and Money Coach, Resa Shore.
Together, we get into what your financial struggles are really telling you.
And discuss how to...
Cultivate honest communication about money and the hidden emotions behind the dollar signs.
Find harmony with income differences and reach a fair compromise without making someone feel small or unworthy.
Create more intimacy and trust in your relationship.
Resa shares about your 'money scripts' and enlightens us on how to confront limiting beliefs, negative self-talk, and fears about money so you can move toward financial empowerment.
In the final stretch of our conversation, we share tips on handling the emotional aspects of money, leading up to our powerful wrap-up segment on manifesting money and healing money mindsets.
So, tune into this engaging discussion because it's not really about the money… It's about something much deeper that affects how you connect with those closest to you.
Resa Shore/ Your Money Health Website:
https://yourmoneyhealth.com
Website: mrs-hard.com
Click here to book your FREE 30 Minute Coaching Session
Instagram: @mrs.hard_timesnomore
Fabcebook: Mrs.Hard
Looking for tools to transform challenging relationships into fulfilling and meaningful connections?
Check out The Healthy Relationship Toolkit
This is a FREE 5-day Coaching series where I share the tools I use with my clients to create healthy relationships.
Full Transcript:
Speaker 1: 0:01
Hi, I'm Allesanda Tolomei-Hard, aka Mrs. Hard, and this is Hard Times no More, a podcast for people who are tired of struggling with boundaries, people-pleasing and relationship problems. I have overcome some hard times. Within three years, I stopped drinking, my mom died of cancer and my house burnt down in a California wildfire, and those are just the highlights. I have a lot of reasons to be miserable, but I'm not. The truth is, life was more challenging before these events happened. If you are tired of waiting for your circumstances to change to find happiness and peace of mind, you are in the right place. Join me as I share the tools I use and love to transform challenges into assets and interview others about their relationship journeys. Together, let's learn how to have a happy life full of healthy, meaningful relationships and say goodbye to hard times for good. Hey everyone, welcome to the Hard Times no More Relationship Podcast. I'm Allesanda Tolomei-Hard, your host. Today. I have a very special guest with me. Her name is Resa Shore. She's a money coach and helps people navigate financial challenges in their relationships and personal money struggles, and so welcome to the show, Resa.
Speaker 2: 1:24
I'm so happy to have you here. Thank you, Alessandra. It's such a delight to be here. There's nobody I would rather talk to than you, Aww you're so sweet, thanks.
Speaker 1: 1:35
And so tell us a little bit about how you got into money coaching and your past work experience.
Speaker 2: 1:42
Okay, actually, my original believe it or not, my original career was in marketing and design. I was involved at my college, degree was in art, and then I got an MBA and I ended up having a graphic design firm and a marketing firm and became just a business person for many years like 25 years and then I decided well, actually I had always been very interested in the money coaching. I learned about it which most people don't know that people exist that are money coaches. But some very close friends of mine who were horrible with money ended up being referred to a money coach by their marriage counselor many years ago and I saw them make incredible changes in their financial life because they were just, you know, on a very bad trajectory. And I connected up with this money coach and started learning about it and thought it would be a wonderful thing to do. But I had a successful business, a design firm and people that I employed and I didn't want to make any changes until it got a pivotal time in my life and I just decided it was time for a change and I went back and got trained and I just love doing this. It's such a helpful thing for people. It just changes lives, and it's very different from what I did before, which was help big companies sell products and services, and now I get to help actual people.
Speaker 1: 3:28
That's awesome. That's awesome, and I remember how we met was when I scheduled my mom to see you. That was very impactful for my mom, very validating to see you because she has struggled financially for a long time and she worked for herself in her own business and when she saw you, you validated that there was nothing really left she could do unless she raised her rates. She was doing everything she could, right, right.
Speaker 2: 4:01
It takes sometimes an outside person to help somebody with their money, because we all come to money with our own baggage, just like we have our psychological baggage. We have baggage that we learned as children or through trauma. They call it money scripts that would be the term, because we do come to our adult life with scripts about money. I've seen all kinds of situations People that are raised without any money. They are so fearful of deprivation that they work really hard and make a lot of money and it's never enough. And so they have fear there. No matter how much money they have, that's their money script there's never going to be enough. Other people who have been raised with a lot of money just their script is oh, there's always going to be money. So regardless of if they're earning money or not, which oftentimes they're not, they still live like they'll have money. And then they're the ones that end up in severe debt because they can't change their script, like, oh, I did have money, but things have changed now. Or my parents had money, but I don't.
Speaker 1: 5:29
Yeah.
Speaker 2: 5:30
So everybody has different issues around money.
Speaker 1: 5:33
Yeah, and that was really interesting to learn from you because you're saying the season changes in their life but their mindset around it doesn't, and so some really successful people still act and live from a place of not enough, even though they've accomplished all of their success in their life. And so I loved working with you. You not only helped me create a lot of ease around money, but you also helped me see that like if I don't change my mindset around it, I'm going to struggle with the same things, and I loved how you helped me change my mindset was like a very simple but felt very uncomfortable at the time process which was just recording and tracking my spending, and I thought of a budget as like incredibly restrictive when I first started working with you. But you've changed my perspective on that as well, To like if I know how much is coming in and how much is going out, then there's actually a lot more freedom and a lot more ease instead of feeling restricted or creating like more deprivation by having a budget, Because when I was growing up, budget meant restriction you can't spend, you can't enjoy your life. But working with you has changed that for me.
Speaker 2: 6:45
Right, and that's not unusual, because most people that work with me are just terrified to look at reality, to look at a budget, and what I tell everybody is that actually seeing things concretely in black and white changes everything. Because if you're, if you don't know what's going on with your money, walk around with this free, floating anxiety and fear, like oh man, what you know what's gonna happen and I'm not gonna have enough. And Once you actually see the reality of what's going on, then you have the Opportunity to do something about it, change it or not change it or, like you were talking about the deprivation thing. I have worked with people, people. People always think, always think that the more if I have more money, all will be okay if I have more money and I have worked with people with so much money I, I somebody came to me who she was, a. She was earning two million dollars a year and she was fearful that she wasn't gonna have enough in retirement. They owned three properties. They there was so much money, but it didn't matter, because she was raised in an environment when money was not plentiful and she was just fearful. So it took the same process of budgeting and looking to be able to realize that. No, it's, that's. That's a belief, it's not a truth, and I talk about that a lot. We we have these beliefs that aren't necessarily true. So there won't be enough is a belief. It's not necessarily true. Or there will always be enough, that's not necessarily true either. So it's so. Money is not just about numbers. If it was about numbers, most people could figure it out.
Speaker 1: 8:41
Yeah, that's something else that I learned from you how emotional it is. Oh yeah because I didn't connect that before. I thought money was all about logic and math and you showed me that there's way more emotion in it and you helped me find tools to navigate through that emotional block. And it was very simple, it was through just doing the work even though it was uncomfortable, which meant just tracking the money, especially in the beginning, because you have people just track in the beginning for the first month. And see what they're spending and that was terrifying to me and I was a person who was living from like a more Frugal state, in the sense that I would like hide money for myself because I thought if I knew how much money I had, then I'd stop working and I've always had like two or three jobs and I was so terrified that I'd end up like my parents who had severe, severe financial problems and I thought that creating clarity around how much money I actually did have would make me poor and Instead it actually relieved anxiety. And so, like if you have somebody who has a money script and they just are so terrified of really looking at it, like how do you talk to them, how do you help them through that other than what we've just talked about?
Speaker 2: 9:56
Yeah. I a lot of what I do is Talking to people about their past. Where did these ideas come from? What is going on for them? People don't always see the connection like compulsive spending. That's a good one. How many people? It's not that different from compulsive eating. I can tell you that it's like okay if I get bummed out or I'm anxious. I had right for the cookies. Well, some people and that's just a. We all know that that's just to Kind of deny the pain or deny the anxiety. People compulsively spend because they want to Shut down feelings. A Lot of people don't realize they're doing it if they end up with all this debt and they don't understand it. But then, when it's funny, because tracking it sounds like most people are like oh my god, I don't want track what I spend, but it gives us so much information. So even if someone starts tracking and you and you it's not even tracking, but it's talking through what you're doing, planning. If we sit down and talk about well, what is it that you actually need this month and do you need clothes? No, don't need any clothes, okay, well, then two weeks later, if I'm sitting there with my client and they've spent $600 on clothes, we're able to have a conversation Well, why is that what happened? And then through that, I start getting information about well, you know, some event happened in their life that caused them stress and anxiety, and that's what happened. So, actually, the monitoring of the money Helps tell the story and helps get through to the people what's going on for them.
Speaker 1: 11:58
Do you suggest that they do something else instead of spending money the next time, or is it just the awareness enough that Helps them take that leap to doing something different?
Speaker 2: 12:09
I think it's a combination. I think the awareness is really important and then Suggest to them Okay, if you're feeling anxious, if you're feeling sad, if you're feeling, what else can you do instead of that? It's just like drinking or taking drugs or eating it. It's like if you're anxious, you can go eat cookies or you could take a walk, you know, but the first thing you have to do is have awareness as to why you're doing it. A lot of people don't realize that spending is a compulsive thing. The other really big component of Understanding our money issues is to understand the concept of needs versus wants. There's a difference between needs and wants. We want a lot of stuff, but what do we actually need? And not very many people sit there and think about that. Particularly if you've got you know funny might financial issues where you're spending too much, then it's way easy to talk about is this something you really need? And you need to go out and spend five or six hundred dollars on clothes Right now. Is that something necessary? And then start prior to prioritizing your life, you know, because Money is not separate from life. It's a really. It's an intimate thing between Couples, it's an intimate thing in your own life. You have to prioritize the important things in life and for us in this society, money impacts that. If it's most important for you to Buy a house and save for a house and you're going out to dinner and spending two hundred dollars every you know, twice a week on dinner, that's not going to get you where you want. But you have to be willing to really look at what's important in life.
Speaker 1: 14:06
Yeah, and then I love how you talked about couples. I know you work with a lot of couples. What advice do you give people when somebody's super frugal and the other one's more of a free spirit and is the spender?
Speaker 2: 14:19
Yeah, that's always a hard one, but you know what's critical with couples it sounds pretty, you know, simple, but it's hard is communication. That is really it, as I said just. I just said that money is a really an intimate thing between couples. I mean, there's couples that can talk about sex easier than they can talk about money. If you can't talk about money with your significant other, you're in trouble, you just are. You've got to be able to force yourself to talk to each other, and when you're able to talk to each other, you're able to understand more fully where the other person's coming from. You know you love somebody. You have to be able to get into their shoes and you have to learn to compromise. So that's very typical the saver, the spender, and it's usually like I had. I had a couple and, oh my gosh, there was so much conflict and they'd been married for years, but they just became Angrier and angrier at each other as a person, as opposed to talking about it. One wanted to save and every time the husband wanted to spend something, she just would be angry. Shockingly, they never really discussed where it came from, and so once we were together, he was able to discuss how horrible it was for in his childhood and how he had to help his family Pay the bills. They'd have a paper route or whatever, and so money was never his and he could never have a family. And so money was never his and he could never spend it the way he wanted to. And so as an adult, he just needed to feel like he had control of his money. And she didn't really understand that at the time and just wanted to save it and not spend it. But the more we discussed it and the more he was able to become vulnerable with her, she started to understand it. And that's when it's kind of a holistic thing, when you have a budget because you can sit down together and say, okay, here's my priority and here's your priority. So where do we compromise in this? And in any relationship, in any, in any category, you're not going to always get what you want, but Hopefully, with couples, if you can communicate, you have joint Goals and joint priorities. So if you're working toward, say, saving for a vacation and somebody wants to spend money going out to dinner, you you have to say, okay, well, are we agreed that this is what we want to do, say for vacation? If so, this is how much money we need to save. Therefore, you can't spend x amount of dollars on some other thing, so it's all about Looking at it back to. You got to look at it.
Speaker 1: 17:13
Yeah, and what if one person has a higher income than the other person? If those are, if that isn't equal, how do you help people work through that?
Speaker 2: 17:24
well I have. I actually have a real bias about about couples and incomes, because I've worked with many couples who keep things very separate. I earn more money, you earn less. Well, I can't go on this vacation even though you can afford it. I mean it's, it's a. It can get really ugly. I I feel like if you are a couple and you are together, you have to look at your financial life as part of the relationship and I do believe everybody should have some separate money. You know, in a couple, but I, the way I try to organize it with all my clients, is that for the couple to figure out what they spend, what their joint expenses are, and have all of that coming out of one account. So both partners contribute to the account and all of the joint expenses come out of that. If one person earns a lot more than you look at it, percentage wise is you don't want to. It's not. Even if someone's making $200,000 a year and someone's making $50,000 a year and you're together and you want to be together. That's ridiculous to think that you can be, even it's just. and if you're with somebody who's earning three or four times as much as you and they want you only to spend an equal amount, I would question that, yeah, what do you? And I'm gonna say something personally, I I can speak for that because I was always the higher income earner in my marriage.
Speaker 1: 19:12
Yeah, and that brings to mind resentment, because if a couple isn't communicating, I could see how easily the higher earner could have resentment towards the person who can't spend as much or isn't earning as much. And it seems like a little tricky because, like, maybe that person who's making $50,000 a year is doing what they love and maybe they're an artist or a school teacher and that's just where they're at in life right now and sometimes that can cause people insecurity. That then trickles into the relationship in other ways when it's really about money or about pride, especially like if, let's say, in a heterosexual couple where the female is earning $200,000 and the male is earning $50,000, maybe the male feels really insecure and it affects his pride because he isn't able to show up as quote, unquote the man and be the provider. Have you seen a situation like that?
Speaker 2: 20:17
Yeah, absolutely. And it goes back to in relationships, you have to be able to communicate and you have to be vulnerable and those issues have to come up. So, for example, in the example you just spoke about, the man has to be able to say I feel uncomfortable because I don't feel like I'm providing enough for my family. I love my job, it's good, but you're making all this money. And the wife has to be able to say, yeah, but that's okay, I don't feel you're less than Now. If she does feel that he's less than, that's a whole nother issue. That's when you really have maybe. That's when, if you can't work that kind of stuff out, that's when you're in therapy. But for the most part, I've had situations where one person will feel like. I had one situation where it was the woman who earned quite a bit less than her husband and she insisted on paying an equal share because she didn't. She felt like she had to. She had to take care of herself and they had kids and she was paying for daycare. She was always struggling, she was self-employed, she was a hairdresser, she was always struggling with money and finally and I was seeing her alone when we had a conversation about her husband. Her husband was perfectly fine to not have it equal. He wanted to be able to pay for this stuff, but it was her that was determined to just do it on her own. And then finally, when they actually talked about it, she was able to express that to him. She was so much freer because he's like I'll pay for the daycare, I'll do this, and so she had to let go of her whatever emotional issue she had about having to take care of herself. So I think it's all about communication for people.
Speaker 1: 22:28
Yeah, and it sounds like money sometimes works as the gateway to access the deeper issue, because on the surface, a couple can think, oh, we have financial problems. Or one person can think, oh, we have a financial problem, but really, when they start to uncover what the financial problem is really about, it's about a deeper emotional issue that has to do with their history.
Speaker 2: 22:50
Right, right, right, because you are talking about money, scripts everybody's got them. So imagine you've got one person with their script. You've got another person with their script. They come together, they're in a relationship and they don't talk about it, but they both are doing behaviors that might be completely opposite of each other. They talk about causing problems, but if you're not discussing with each other what you're doing, why you're doing it, and I've seen people I've had clients who've been married for 25 years come in to me and I swear they never talked about money other than be angry or resentful of each other, but never actually talked about it in a useful way. And once we go through this process, their whole relationship changes. And then they have empathy for the other person. But if you don't express what's going on for yourself, there's no way you're gonna be able to get the other person to understand it. It doesn't mean that you're always gonna agree, but you have to be able to be open with each other.
Speaker 1: 24:09
I love that, and what would you say if somebody has either inherited money or they have money coming in from a family member and the other person in the relationship has struggled financially and feels envy towards the person who's receiving money from their family? What would you say in that situation?
Speaker 2: 24:34
Well, that's a hard one, because I can understand somebody being envious. If you're working really hard and someone just gets given money, that's kind of a hard one. But if you're in a relationship, once again it goes back to being able to express yourself. If, I mean, you're never gonna stop feeling like geez, I wish somebody would just give me money. I mean, really I would love it if someone just gave me money. But I think that you've gotta be able to express it to your partner and hopefully your partner is gonna understand that. And if you're living together in your relationship, then you have to come to grips with what does that money mean for you as a couple? I mean legally, if you inherit money, it's not the other person. You could keep it separate. How would that feel to the spouse or the other person? That's something that would really have to be discussed. But I don't think you can stop being envious. I think you can talk about it with the other person and see what you can do to feel like that person isn't withholding from you. Or if you're, you know, if you are a couple, money that comes into the relationship is really for the both of you. It would be, and unless you agree. I mean, you could certainly say that is your money, it's coming in for you, and if you want to buy a Mercedes, I guess that's your choice. But it doesn't make me feel good if you do that and I'm driving a you know 1993 Toyota, so you know. That's where the relationship issues come in.
Speaker 1: 26:30
Yeah, the withholding once again could feel like it's. It feels like it's attached to a deeper issue and also like to resentment and most likely. If somebody is withholding money, they're also like withholding in other areas of the relationship and money is just like a way to get into that conversation as well and explore that.
Speaker 2: 26:54
Yeah, I had a couple once very short lived because they obviously had problems beforehand but she was an attorney making a ton of money and he was not at all and she wanted to travel and do all this stuff and but she didn't want to pay for his and they were married. It's like okay, this isn't going to work. They ended up getting divorced because they couldn't work it out and she was so withholding and I don't think he was so much resentful is that it just doesn't work. If you are in a relationship, you have to give and take some. Some people happen to make more money. It doesn't mean that the other person isn't working just as hard. So you have to be respectful and appreciative of that person, no matter what their job is. If someone is just a total slacker and they're not doing their part, that's a whole nother. That's a whole nother thing. So but but again it goes back to communication, which seems like such a simple thing, but it isn't that easy to do for people.
Speaker 1: 28:02
Yeah, I agree, because people, I think, sometimes have so much stress and other things going on in their life that they just want things to be okay or they don't have the energy or the time to work through another problem and they get stuck in a narrative that this person needs to change and figure their stuff out. Or maybe they make an assumption that the other person should know what their needs are and read their mind, and it's that awareness that you're talking about that really creates the openness for change in a relationship and gets you back to enjoying time with the person again. But you have to talk about the hard things.
Speaker 2: 28:43
Yeah, it's just really uncomfortable. And everything that you do around money it can be uncomfortable. I tell all of my clients you're going to have to be in a place of discomfort for a while and talking about it when you're not used to talking about it, or talking about it if you have shame around it or whatever you're feeling, is not going to be easy, but it's just going to get worse if you don't do it especially with couples. And the other piece of this is and we talked about it a little bit earlier you have got to look at it. I think the biggest problem I see with people that come to me is that they just stick their head in the sand. They don't look at it, they're afraid to look at it, they don't even want to know the truth about it to some extent, but they're getting deeper, deeper in debt or it's causing more anxiety, and it's just so critical to actually look at it.
Speaker 1: 29:43
Yeah, and it's not as scary when you actually look at it as you think it is. It's like the idea of it is scarier than actually moving through it, and I have a client that I've worked with and I know that this client has like a ton of fear around money and budgeting because of seeing it as a lack as putting restrictions on their life and then them not being able to do what they want to do in life and live the life they want to live and possibly, underneath the surface, is like a conflict with deserving the life that they really want.
Speaker 2: 30:19
Totally yeah. So it's not just about money, it's about deeper things, and that's some of the things that we uncover when I'm working with clients is to open up their perspective, because when it comes to money, really there's two basic issues there's income and there's expenses. Sometimes people feel like income is well, they can't do anything about it, but oftentimes they're just under earning. I don't mean under earning in that they're not making enough. They aren't making enough, but under earning means more like you're not earning up to your potential.
Speaker 1: 30:58
Yeah.
Speaker 2: 30:59
And then you have to confront well, what? Why am I not? Am I not asking for a raise? Am I not going to try to get a different job that pays more? Why would I not try to get a different job that pays more? That's what you're talking about. Then you get into the real reasons why somebody is afraid to get to move forward.
Speaker 1: 31:24
Yeah, negative self-talk and limiting beliefs.
Speaker 2: 31:28
That's exactly right. That's all the stuff you work with.
Speaker 1: 31:31
Yeah, and really coming down, it comes down to self-esteem, especially if you own your own business. I know that one of the hardest things I had to do as a business owner was decide how much I was going to charge for my services, because it felt so directly tied to my worth. And I have seen and worked with other people who struggle with that same thing and they feel like they're being kind by undercharging and they're being humble and they're being better by undercharging, but really they're not taking care of themselves and their basic needs, so that they can't be all they can be to their clients or their business.
Speaker 2: 32:07
Right and I work a lot with business owners small business owners. One of the things I see a lot of is that it all stems from not feeling okay feeling of value of people who are owed money. They have a client that owes them money and they feel so uncomfortable to ask for it if it's late payment or whatever, and it's like, no, you deserve it. It's not like they're doing you a favor and then they're paying you. You've given them something for payment, they get something for it. You're of value to them. I'm always amazed that people are so uncomfortable and that happens a lot to people. They're so uncomfortable to tell somebody well, wait, your payment's overdue. You got to pay me.
Speaker 1: 33:02
Yeah, and I feel like in that situation the advice I'd give somebody is to go into robot mode yeah, where, like you, robotically know what you need to do or say, and so you need to write the email or make the phone call and just do it, and do it even if it's uncomfortable. And then if you do those reps over and over again, then at some point it becomes easier.
Speaker 2: 33:26
Well, that's not that. Fake it till you, make it kind of thing which is really true, it's not comfortable, but doesn't mean that you can't do it and that you should do it. And then you start feeling and it's a different perspective. Instead of feeling like, well, I'm going to charge that person, but it's uncomfortable, it's more like okay, look at what a great job I've done. That person's getting a great product from me, whatever the product or service is, and yeah, I'm worthy of that. It's a different mindset completely. But again, so many people come to the financial thing with so many issues. It's just not about the numbers.
Speaker 1: 34:04
Yeah, yeah. And that makes me think about how some people feel like they're getting a raise once they start tracking their money, because then they can make those decisions and bring more awareness to where they're wasting money or like money is not bringing them joy, but they're spending in the certain area and then, once they cut that out, they feel like they make more money. And it also makes me think about how, like self employed people, sometimes they run into a problem where they're spending an enormous amount of time working and then all of the money seems to just go out the window, like they don't feel like they're making as much money. Do you know what I mean?
Speaker 2: 34:52
by that.
Speaker 1: 34:52
Yeah, yeah. What do you tell people who are doing that?
Speaker 2: 34:56
Well, again it goes back to paying attention to what you're doing. One of the things, especially with small entrepreneurs people that are massage therapists or therapists or any number of jobs that You're earning money. It's a business, but oftentimes people will kind of mix their income or mix their money, so they've got their rent, their personal expenses and they're just drawing right out of their business. So there's not a lot of clarity around what is a business expense, what is a personal expense. And that's the first thing I do is you've got to put a firewall between the business and the personal, because you have to understand and know what you're earning in your business, what your business is costing you and if it's really a worthwhile endeavor for you and if you're making enough to satisfy your personal costs. So the first thing you have to do is actually look at it and see, and then, once you start tracking that and looking at it and then looking at your personal spending, then you're able to make those decisions so much more easily. Because if you don't have that clarity around what your business is costing you, you could easily well, I don't know, I'm working so hard and I'm not, you know, I don't understand it, but then you might be using your money from your business to pay all personal stuff that go shopping, you know, buy clothes, do whatever. So you need to get real clarity around that.
Speaker 1: 36:41
Yeah, that clarity, those boundaries help so much, because then you can really take an audit of where you're putting your time to and is it worth it? Right, like I talked about, yeah yeah.
Speaker 2: 36:52
And is it worth it? Like, if you're spending a ton of time in your business doing something that you're not good at or you don't really need to do, would you be better off? I mean, if you can earn $100 an hour as a say, say, as a massage you can earn $100 an hour doing a massage and then you're spending five hours a day doing laundry. That might not be the best use of your time, but you have to really analyze your business and look at it that way.
Speaker 1: 37:21
Yeah, yeah. And then I had some listener questions and one of the listener questions was about parents, and can a child step in and talk to a parent about their financial spending?
Speaker 2: 37:38
That is super hard. That is super hard. I think the best way to talk to a parent and it depends. It's like, if you're, it's very problematic when you have elderly parents you want to find out how they're doing and do they have a will and all that. That's also very difficult, but for both and then you've got someone, maybe, where your parents are just irresponsible with money and you're an adult, but they're not that old, but they're being irresponsible I think the only thing that you can do is to find a topic that is something that they can relate to, that you can relate to. So say, for example, you can go to them and say you know, I've been really working on making sure that I'm saving for my future and saving for retirement and I've discovered that. Or I found that I'm overspending because my credit cards keep building and I've noticed that this debt load is getting bigger. I am trying to figure out how to do that and I'm realizing how much stress it costs, it's causing and I wanted to talk to you about it. You know like, do you have some thoughts about that? Can you give me some input? How are you know, how do you do it in your life so that you have to bring up a topic. You can't go in there and say, oh my God, I'm noticing that you guys are doing the stupidest things in the world. Don't do that. You know you're not going to get a good response for that. But if you can just go in and say the problems that you're having and see if you can engage them in a real conversation, that's the starter point for that it sounds like you're bringing your parent into awareness.
Speaker 1: 39:35
Right and that this whole money thing is just about awareness.
Speaker 2: 39:39
Right, like the first step? Yeah, totally, because you don't really know what's going on with your parents. You know, but and that's a hard thing too, because it's not you know if you're the kid it's not your problem. But it is hard to separate when you see people doing things that are surely going to cause them problems in the end.
Speaker 1: 40:04
Yeah, and I love how you're suggesting people go in with questions, because that is a great way to deescalate a situation, and that's something I suggest clients do when they have a conflict with somebody or somebody triggers them and they want to talk about what's going on is to try to understand the other person's point of view and see where their awareness level is at, because you know you might think that your family member or significant other is having the same experience you are, but once you start asking these questions, you're going to be like, oh, I'm going to be like you realize they're coming from a completely different space and they might not even know that they're coming off however they are or that they're making decisions that are impacting you in a negative way.
Speaker 2: 40:47
Right, right, and you know it's easy to be judgmental. I know that I struggle with that sometimes, but you really don't know what's in someone's head too. You know it could be that you're thinking, oh my gosh, you know my parents are overspending and blah, blah, blah. And in talking with them they might feel like you know my life is. You know, only have a few years of you know activity in my life and I'm perfectly happy to spend the money doing what I want. It's more important for me to travel or to do this or whatever, and have some debt than not to. And they maybe they have thought about it and they're choosing it.
Speaker 1: 41:28
Yeah, and that makes me think of another question that somebody wanted to ask, or somebody that somebody asked can you inherit your parents debt?
Speaker 2: 41:39
Actually, no, you can't. Well, let's put it this way If they have an estate, the debt will come out of the estate, but if your parents die with credit card debt, it is. It's not your debt.
Speaker 1: 41:54
Yes, but if they don't.
Speaker 2: 41:56
Unless your name is on it. You want to make sure your name isn't on it. You know, like if you're a joint credit card holder or something.
Speaker 1: 42:03
Yeah, but like to clarify if they own a home and they pass away and they have a bunch of debt, then the debt collectors will come take that out of the home If you sell the home or and then you'll have to pay them off before you collect from selling the home.
Speaker 2: 42:18
Yes, yes, but they can't come after you, you know, for credit card debt.
Speaker 1: 42:22
Yeah, and then what do you think about people who talk about manifesting money? You are very practical.
Speaker 2: 42:32
Yes.
Speaker 1: 42:34
And I dance between the practical and the energetic, because I know you've had the experience where you're going through your month, you think you're only going to earn a certain amount of money and then the universe surprises you with a thousand extra dollars.
Speaker 2: 42:48
You're the one. You're the one who can manifest money, so I didn't believe anything until I met you, and somehow you're able to do it.
Speaker 1: 42:54
Maybe the universe had this plan of like we're going to introduce Risa and Alessandra so that she can see it's possible. But what are your thoughts? When do you ever have clients that talk about that with you?
Speaker 2: 43:10
You know a little bit not so much anymore, but in the past but you know what I feel about that, about manifesting, manifesting anything but manifesting money. I think you can manifest money. I think people manifest money by doing the things that create abundance in their life. It's like if you feel like, okay, I need to earn more, I mean if you sit in your living room and say, okay, I'm going to manifest more money, it's just going to come into my account Some people perhaps that might happen to you, but not that often. But if you're thinking, yes, I want to manifest more money, you know I'm not really getting paid enough in this job. What other career could I do to make more money in my life? So I think, people, if you're thinking, you know with affirmatively in a certain direction, then you do the right things to create action in that direction.
Speaker 1: 44:13
Yeah, and you're paying attention to the opportunities that come up around that and so that's how you're being drawn to, that Like it's not just woo-woo stuff. Right, it isn't just woo-woo stuff.
Speaker 2: 44:23
Yeah, I mean I don't think you can sit here. I mean, if you could, I think a lot of people have a lot more money. But I do think that you're making the decisions in your life to figure out how to do it. You know, it's like I just had a new client and there's a lot of complexities, but they need more income. And she was first saying, ah, there's just no way, there's no way. And then, like four days later, she said, oh yeah, I found out I could get another day a month on my job. And you know, because she asked, she's like so it's like, if you're really looking and before that there was just you just oh, we're not gonna, there's not enough, there's no way I could do it. And so once you open up your creative thinking to well, how else could I make money? Or, you know, I can manifest money with my dog walk extra for a few days a week. You know, I mean that's so, that's how I feel like if you're thinking in that direction, it can happen.
Speaker 1: 45:32
Yeah, that's very practical. But also I love how you're leaning into the other topic.
Speaker 2: 45:40
And sometimes it just comes, yeah, and it's amazing. Well, do things too. You know it is interesting, though I mean I go along with you, alcindor, because sometimes weird things happen. You know, it's like you know you get laid off at your job and then all of a sudden you get a thing from you know the IRS saying, oh, we made a mistake five years ago. And here you go, here's $5,000. You know, stuff like that happens, yeah.
Speaker 1: 46:07
Yeah, yes. And then would you be willing to talk about how you used to relate to money, because you have helped me so much by talking about your old money mindset, where you are very frugal and a great saver, but there is never enough right. What helped you the most transition out of that state of mind.
Speaker 2: 46:28
Yeah, I can relate to you a lot like that, because I grew up in a household where money was an issue and so I grew up pretty fearful about not having enough and I worked my way through college and worked my way through graduate school and always lived with even though I was actually really just intuitively was pretty good with money, I had to struggle to make sure that I could afford everything. So I had that mindset. I mean, I was like I didn't really care how much money I made. It was more important how much I could save. I was always putting in savings and so I was aware of it, but not as aware as I should have been, and I think I have this on my website and it was really this epiphany, amongst other things. But I was doing very well in my design firm and money was good. And I was at a restaurant and I was irritated when my husband would order something expensive and I was like, oh, this shouldn't be. And it's like who cares? We're out to dinner, you know. But I didn't think that was like, oh, it got to be frugal, got to be frugal. And I was wanted to order something and I thought, oh, I shouldn't get that because it's too expensive. And then I just I don't know, this is epiphany like oh my God, I've got like hundreds of thousands of dollars in the bank and I'm not going to get what I want to eat because it's $5 more than something else. This is freaking nuts. And that was kind of like oh my God, I really have to do something about this. Yeah, so that was kind of a you know, that was the beginning, and so I really had worked on again this awareness of what's real, what's my belief and what's real. You know, it's like okay, it's $5, you're going to make a difference if I've got an extra $10,000 in my bank account. No, that's just stupid. But so I've had to work through that.
Speaker 1: 48:35
Yeah, and I love how this is just touching on that. It's not really about the money, right. It's about something deeper, right, and that money is just energy, but it's a great tool, because if in your relationship it's a trigger point, that means something else is going on, right. It's not just about the money, right.
Speaker 2: 48:57
And you're absolutely right. I think people think of money superficially, as numbers you know how much is this and that, but there's so much more to it and if you don't really look more deeply at yourself and your relationship, it's really about your relationship to money and not the other person's relationship to money, and then the relationship you have with each other. All three of those things have to be dealt with. If you're going to have a positive financial life in a relationship as well as if just alone, you have to deal with it. But in a relationship when we're talking about relationships and better relationships you have to be open and communicate, and it's to everyone's benefit. I mean even with parents. And I'll tell you a story which was just really jettisoned me into this change in my career and doing this is that my parents always had issues with money and my father, but not something you talk about, and that's the thing too. Most parents don't talk about it with kids. I am absolutely adamant about discussing with my clients the necessity of talking about money with kids. Now, that's not to put the fear of God in them that, oh no, we're not going to be able to pay a rent that's not what I'm talking about, but to have them understand. If there's a problem, well, we're going to try to fix it, or you know we're going to cut back because you know someone's unemployed or whatever. But you have to explain to a kid and to people what's going on for you, but to your kid and your family. But my father was. He had a huge baggage around money. He didn't grow up with money. He had a lot of self-esteem issues. He came from difficult childhood so he had a lot of shame If he wasn't earning a lot of money. He felt shame. And when he felt shame he didn't talk about it. And my father? He was diagnosed with a strange, rare form of leukemia in his 50s and he couldn't work a lot and I used to kind of say, hey, is everything okay Financial? Everything's fine, everything's fine. Two weeks before he died, when he was 66, two weeks before he died, he called me in to his room to tell me that he had already started filing money. He started filing for bankruptcy. My mother didn't know, nobody knew. It was just horrible. So he died and I was left, my mother was left dealing with this nightmare and it was because he couldn't talk about it.
Speaker 1: 51:42
That's so intense.
Speaker 2: 51:45
And it was so sad for me to know that and horrible for my mother and I just thought no one should be in that position. It was terrible for him because he couldn't, because had he been able to talk about it to me and my brothers, we might have been able to do something. And it wasn't his fault. He had, you know, this illness, but he didn't even talk about it with my mother. So that is something I feel very strongly about. Is that hiding money issues only causes problems for people. It doesn't make anything better, and that's why I think it's so important for couples to join their money to some extent. I think everybody should have some of their own money, but to join it Could you have to have transparency. I've been in situations where clients will come to me and they're not transparent. It's the wife or the husband has developed this whole problem with debt. They've got, you know, 20,000 in credit card debt that the spouse doesn't know. That's horrible. You might love somebody, but, boy, does that piss somebody off.
Speaker 1: 52:56
Yeah, and that's such an intense story that you shared with your family, yeah. And that probably facilitated your experience with money, like it changed your relationship with money, absolutely. And you had to heal that, because I've seen in my own experience and through other people that, like, we take on what our parents' experience was and then we either live out that experience or we heal that experience and then that releases us from that baggage Right. And I loved what you have shared with me about how, when you share money with your spouse and you are very transparent, it's actually another level of intimacy Absolutely. And I have experienced that with my husband where we have like a monthly financial meeting where I keep track of everything on the spreadsheet now, for I don't know, four years it's been, or maybe five years, since I worked with you and I give and we have like a business meeting and it lasts 20 minutes to an hour and I give him a report of what's been going on financially for us and we make a decision if we want to like save more, cutback, or if we're fine where we're at, and it creates so much peace of mind and then it creates an openness and then, like he's, I mean I share my financial, I am very open about my finances with you, but there's very few people that you're open about with your finances Right, and that's an okay thing, I think. But, like when it's your significant other that you're open with, that is like one of the few people in your life that you're going to make decisions together to like achieve your goals or it's. It can be a building experience rather than a shameful experience like you're talking about.
Speaker 2: 54:39
Right, right, because shame is such a part of people's experience around money, so many people suffer from it. They feel like they should be able to do it better, make it better, figure it out better. And it's hard, I mean, we're not. People aren't taught often about how to handle money. They come to it with, you know, trauma from their backgrounds or whatever. So it's just such a critical thing and it makes life better. I know, I know with you, you know the difference in how you relate to money and in your life. There's such a freer way of approaching life when you're not consumed with the anxiety around money yeah. It's better for everybody.
Speaker 1: 55:24
Yeah, and that reminds me of like how our challenges, when we walk through them, can then turn into assets. Because for me, like every time, my dad's health would become iffy or he'd have a flare up or he would decide to do something drastic all of that nervous, scared, anxious energy would go towards money for me. Because, there is so much loaded money around my parents' history, and you helped me work through that, which then helped me let go of my dad's situation even more and allow him to do whatever he needs to do Right right, but like that, working on my money problems facilitated my healing with my relationship with my dad.
Speaker 2: 56:06
Yeah, that's just so great. But it's because you got it, it's just all interwoven. You know money, money is just not numbers, not in the culture that we live in and not in our lives. And it behooves everybody to talk about it, to look at it, to make their life, their relationship with their money, much healthier. You know, that's just the way it is, and I love to see how you change with it. It's great.
Speaker 1: 56:35
Yeah, and I'm so grateful I met you and ran into you at Dr Debbie's office that one day. Do you have any parting wisdom that? We haven't talked about yet I think we talked about a lot. We did. We talked about a lot.
Speaker 2: 56:51
Now I think I'm just going to repeat what I said is that you know your relationship with money is so important and integral to your relationship with people and yourself, and don't be afraid to approach it and look at it. It's really important.
Speaker 1: 57:11
Yes, that's well said, and if somebody wants to reach out to you, how can they best connect with you?
Speaker 2: 57:17
They can just look me up on my website at yourmoneyhealthcom or email me at risa at yourmoneyhealthcom. Great, and I'll put those links in the show notes. Okay, thank you, so great to talk to you, alessandra it was great talking with you too.
Speaker 1: 57:34
Risa, thanks so much for taking the time to. You're welcome, give us your wisdom. You're welcome. All right, thank you.