Healing Your Financial Shame An Audio by Joan Sotkin
Introduction:
This is Joan Sotkin and for over 25 years, I’ve been examining the relationship between money and feelings. I’ve come to understand that there are five main feelings that people act out through their finances, aloneness, shame, anger, deprivation, and a sense of being trapped.
On this audio we are going to focus specifically on shame and how and why it can be affecting your finances. Shame is often acted out through underearning, chronic debting, compulsive shopping, late bill paying and poor investment decisions. And low-self esteem, guilt, feeling invisible, inadequate, or defective often accompany shame.
We are also going to examine some simple tested techniques for overcoming and releasing shame because Incorporating these techniques can propel you to a new financial position.
Your going to learn about some basic reasons why you may be carrying shame, how to recognize whatever habitual shame you may have and how to shift your emotions so that shame is no longer one of the key motivating forces behind your financial behavior.
Track 2
Before we get into the specifics of how shame is affecting your finances, let’s talk about how you create your life stories, which includes your financial condition.
First of all, your life stories are an extension of your thoughts, beliefs, and emotions. In other words, how you think, what you believe, and your emotional response to life is what stimulates your behaviors and determines the nature of your reality. Shame: Page 2
As an example, let’s look at a fellow named Jim whose father was extremely critical and never satisfied with what Jim did, and his mother, although sympathetic, never stood up for Jim during her husband’s tirades against his son.
As an adult, Jim was always chasing one of his many dreams, but never realized any of them. At age 40, he felt burdened by his credit card debt and lived paycheck to paycheck, always worrying about his finances. On the rare occasions when he and his wife were able to build a little savings, something would happen like the car breaking down or one of their kids getting sick and they would have to use their savings and add to their credit card debt.
Jim felt like a failure. He wanted to be a responsible husband and father, but he always felt like he was living life on the edge.
Was Jim a victim of life’s circumstances? He often thought so. But, when Jim looked at his thoughts and emotions, he was able to see that, based on how he was brought up, he expected to fail and was living up to his own expectations. He came to understand that his father was still with him in his head, always criticizing and stimulating feelings of failure and shame.
Jim lived in a shamed state of being and his finances were congruent with this state of being. In order for the outcome of his life stories to change, he would have to alter his state of being, which would mean letting go of his habitual critical thoughts, his beliefs about himself as a failure, and his negative expectations.
Jim learned that the emotions that were hidden inside of him were the energetic force behind his life stories, and that shame was one of the core emotions he carried with him.
By using techniques such as those you are going to learn here, Jim was able to gradually modify his self-concept and begin to value himself. This was reflected by an improved financial condition and generally feeling better Shame: Page 3 about himself and his life, and at the same time his home life became considerably more peaceful and rewarding emotionally.
In a nutshell, here’s the theory that Jim’s story illustrates: You create your life stories in order to express hidden emotions. If your life stories often end in disappointment, then you are harboring unexpressed feelings of disappointment that keep expressing themselves through your life stories. If betrayal is one of your emotional themes, then you will experience a series of interactions where betrayal is the payoff.
And if shame is one of your core feelings, many of your life stories will have elements that allow you to feel the shame and you’ll draw in the people you need to perpetrate the shame. This could be in the form of a critical spouse, boss, coworker, or someone in your social circle.
And your life stories will be peppered with shame-based elements such as underearning, carrying endless credit card debt, bouncing checks, and getting fired. Or, you may experience a series of failed relationships, people gossiping about you, or any situation that causes you embarrassment.
It’s as if you have treads of emotion around which the fabric of your life is woven and these threads of emotion exist, on one level or another, in all of your stories.
Once you understand this, then when you wonder why something appears to be happening to you, you can ask, “What is it that this situation is allowing me to express?” By examining the feelings that a situation stimulates for you, you can identify the force behind the story and take steps to express the feelings rather than holding them in and having them recycle over and over again through your life stories.
At this point, you might say, “But I have a hard time recognizing my feelings and I’ve never been very good at expressing them.” If shame is one of your motivating emotions, that’s most likely true, because one of the ways that children are shamed is by having their feelings invalidated.
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Most people have trouble expressing their true emotions because they have never learned how to safely and authentically feel their feelings. But with the techniques you are going to learn here, you’ll be able to get in touch with long repressed emotions, express them, and move on with your life.
Track 3
We all have shame. Actually we need some shame. It’s what keeps us from running around naked, lying about everything, or behaving in unsociable ways. This kind of shame is called healthy shame.
Toxic shame, on the other hand, hurts us and keeps us from expressing ourselves creatively and living up to our potential. Toxic shame is a painful feeling about oneself as a person, stemming from the belief that there is something inherently wrong with who you are.
Toxic shame is not the same as guilt. Guilt is the result of feeling bad about something you did, while shame results from feeling bad about who you are.
Shame begins early in life and has many causes. You most likely carry shame if you are • A child or grandchild of an alcoholic • A victim of physical, emotional, or sexual abuse • A member of a minority group including ethnic, religious, or racial, groups, or if you are gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender
Being a woman in a culture that places a higher value on men or being a man in a culture that values women leads to shame.
If you were out of the ordinary in any way as a child—really short or tall, very poor or very rich, disabled—anything that made you stand out from a crowd, then you most likely harbor feelings of shame.
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You’ll also carry shame if your parents were narcissistic and expected you to meet their needs. Or if, like Jim, you had a very critical parent for whom you were never good enough. Or if you were rarely touched as a child.
Shame also comes from negative family rules that stifle or prohibit healthy expression of emotions, like boys don’t cry. In my family, my father often would say, “Sotkins don’t feel.” That was a tough one, since I wanted to be part of the Sotkin family yet I knew I was feeling a lot, even though I couldn’t express my feelings.
Then there are the messages from adults that children often get, like “Shame on you,” or “I’m disappointed in you.”
And, of course, there is the shame perpetrated by religion. The whole concept of sin stimulates feelings of shame.
In Healing the Shame that Binds You, John Bradshaw says that shame comes from separation from our authentic selves. Each time a child’s authentic feelings are invalidated, the authentic self is shamed. And each time you people please or give in to someone because you are afraid to make waves, that causes internal shame because you are invalidating yourself.
The list of situations that lead to shame goes on and on. It’s no wonder that a large percentage of our population is shame-based, and this acts itself out in many ways.
Because shame is a painful experience, people will self-medicate feelings of shame through compulsive behaviors and addictions. I’d venture to say that there is no such thing as a compulsive spender or debtor or alcoholic, drug addict or rageaholic who isn’t shame based. Shame also forms the foundation for habitual violence and treachery.
Shame: Page 6
Track 4 Remember I said that you create your life stories to act out hidden emotions. Well, if shame is one of those hidden emotions, it’s going to find expression, one way or another, and one of the most common ways is through your finances.
Why is this? Because money has no meaning or power by itself. Its energy comes when it passes between two people or entities. Therefore, you can say that money is a symbol of the energy of relationship, and how you deal with money is how you deal with your relationship with yourself and others.
If you are ashamed of yourself and your position in life, that is going to show itself through your finances in many possible ways. Underearning, late bill paying, habitually losing money through investments, lending money that isn’t paid back, and, of course chronic debting and compulsive spending are all examples of financial behaviors stimulated by shame.
Bankruptcy, foreclosure, poverty, using food stamps or being on welfare, high credit card interest rates and penalty fees, and a low credit score all allow one to express shame. The sub-prime credit crunch of 2007 and 2008 and the subsequent rash of foreclosures in the United States expressed the mass shame of Americans, possibly as a result of the government’s foreign policies that negatively affected America’s position in the world. America was, in effect, ashamed of itself and this was reflected in an economic downturn.
I’ve done a lot of reading about shame and how to let go of it, but I have never seen anything substantial about the connection between shame and financial discomfort. Yet, after years of working with clients, it is obvious to me that shame is one of the main feelings acted out through money.
You can be sure that your financial behaviors have a shame base if: • You cringe every time you look at your bank balance • You avoid balancing your checkbook or keeping track of your cash flow. Shame: Page 7
• When bills arrive, you feel a rush of emotion as you open the envelope or you just push the envelop aside and conveniently forget about it. • You feel inadequate because you can’t buy what you would like for yourself and your family.
You are also dealing with shame if: • You have to call creditors to make payment arrangements • Collection agencies call you often • You have issues with the IRS • You create financial rescue dramas where family or friends have to give or lend you money • You live from paycheck to paycheck (as 70% of American’s do) • You often compare your financial position to that of your friends or neighbors • You need to control your spouses spending or often judge their earning ability
Here’s one that may surprise you: People who are focused on making millions of dollars, when millions of dollars are way beyond their financial experience, are usually expressing shame. What they are saying is, if I have a lot of money, I’ll have value and I’ll be worth something. Money, it seems, is their cure for feeling defective. The underlying belief might be, if I have more money than other people I know, they won’t be able to criticize or shame me.
It’s amazing to me, when I ask people why they want millions of dollars, how many will answer that they want the money to give it away. This is a way of saying if I’m really good, people will love me and I can be good (and not ashamed) if I help the unfortunate.
Then there is the situation where people often say that they need money to solve their problems. That’s really a way of saying, I’m not having my needs met, a situation that often coexists with shame.
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Or for those who crave material goods and can only feel good with designer labels when they have to stretch way beyond their means to buy designer goods, there is the hope that these expensive items will make them seem valuable in the eyes of the world.
On the opposite end of the spectrum are people who are stingy with their money, rarely sharing it with others and always obsessing about paying the least amount of money for anything they buy.
Does this mean that everyone who is frugal is shame based? No. But virtually all financial behaviors CAN be a protection against shame or an expression of shame. For those fortunate few who were brought up in emotionally healthy homes, financial behaviors may not be stimulated by shame. But such people are rare.
Track 5 – The Fantasy Bond
There’s one more issue that I’d like to introduce before we proceed to techniques for releasing shame, and that is what is called by psychiatrist Robert Firestone The Fantasy Bond, an illusion of connectedness that a child creates in relation to a caregiver who is shaming the child.
The fantasy bond is formed early in childhood when one or both parents do not, or don’t have the capacity to, treat the child in a loving way. It can start as early as feeding time for the new infant if the mother is unable to give the child the intimate contact it needs. It continues when there is little or no affection. Instinctively, the child feels that something is wrong with it because the parent or parents can’t love him or her.
When children are abused in any way, they tend to blame themselves for the abuser’s behavior, feeling that there is something wrong the them and that’s why they are being abused. They do this because blaming the parent is too dangerous because the child perceives that it could be abandoned and knows it can’t survive alone. So, because of the shame induced by the abuse, the child creates a fantasy bond, clinging to the illusion that someone who loves and protects them is there for them. Shame: Page 9
People who are victims of spousal abuse often explain away their abusers behavior with statements like “I know he treats me badly, but he loves me.”
When I first read about the fantasy bond, the thought that went through my mind was that people create a fantasy bond with their creditors. They think that the credit card companies are doing them a favor by letting them use credit, and keep coming back for abuse in the form of high fees and interest rates and an unforgiving attitude towards temporary financial troubles. With most cards, if you make one payment late, your interest rates can go sky high.
One of my clients, who was deep in debt, said to me one day, “My angels sent me another credit card.” She was sure that getting the credit card, which would only increase her debt burden, was something positive. This was a fantasy bond.
People also create fantasy bonds with stores, charities, and sales people. Their lack of self-esteem and need for love is so strong, that they will stretch themselves financially to please the person or entity with whom they have a fantasy bond.
People who are compulsive shoppers often form fantasy bonds with the stores where they do their shopping, specific clothing lines, or the credit card companies who support their addiction.
And at the base of each of these fantasy bonds is shame.
Track 6
I hope you can see how, if you have any financial discomforts that shame can be one of the core emotions that you are acting out through your money.
Shame: Page 10
So now it’s time to look at the solution—how you can heal the shame and begin to build a solid financial foundation. By following the steps that I’m going to walk you through, you will be able to recognize when shame is affecting your finances then take specific actions to let go of the shame and develop a healthier self-concept which will be reflected in healthier finances.
I suggest that you listen to this audio all the way through once, then come back to each of the techniques and learn to use them one at a time.
Keep in mind that letting go of deeply rooted shame takes time as you develop levels of awareness and understanding followed by the release and replacement of long-standing thinking and feeling habits.
It would be great if all you needed to do was follow a few simple instructions, then suddenly your life would change, money would come rushing in, and all of your financial fears and discomforts would magically dissolve.
But that’s not how it works. If you react like most human beings do, you are going to resist any kind of significant change. We all do it. Most people would rather hold on to what they know, no matter how uncomfortable, than to step into the unknown and establish a new state of being.
As you let go of your shame, your life is going to change in unpredictable ways. People will respond to you differently and, in return, you will have to develop new responses to them.
For example, if you’ve been somewhat shy or distant in order to protect yourself from being shamed, there’s a good chance that you are going to feel more confident with people and want to establish stronger social ties. As a result, people are bound to respond to you in a positive way, something you may not be accustomed to. You’ll be moving into unfamiliar territory.
At this point, forming fantasy bonds with new people you meet would be natural, so it’s a good idea to be aware of this tendency and make an effort to establish authentic relationships with people. Shame: Page 11
In another scenario, if you have been somewhat controlling as a way of protecting yourself, you’ll have to learn how to develop team skills and overcome your fear of connecting to people in an authentic way.
At the same time, family or friends may not understand your new way of being and they may try to push you back to your old familiar self. They will do this unconsciously in order to protect their own position. Being aware of this possibility will help you work through the various stages of your healing.
Your attitude towards altering your state of being is important. If you understand that you are going through a process and that there is a learning curve, then perhaps you will be willing to take some chances and try new behaviors. People who are shame-based are often afraid of making mistakes. As you heal, it helps to realize that there are no mistakes, there are only learning opportunities and that you have the ability, if you give yourself a chance, to step out of your past and into a comfortable, prosperous future.
Track 7
Healing your shame involves four basic steps. The first is to recognize the emotion and when it is triggered for you. There will be some obvious moments, such as when an authority figure criticizes you or you bounce a check, and some more subtle one, such as when you see an envelope that you know contains a bill.
The second step in healing the shame is to expresses it. Emotions, by their nature, want to be expressed. John Bradshaw calls them e-motions or energy in motion. Like it or not, everyone responds emotionally multiple times a day, every day. And if the feelings aren’t expressed, but are pushed down and held in or buried by drinking alcohol, smoking, doing drugs, shopping or some other mood altering activity, then they get stuck in the body/mind Shame: Page 12 system. Try to imagine that there are little bits of shame stuck in each of your trillions of cells waiting for the opportunity to express themselves.
As the shame builds up in your cells, you’ll create life stories that provide the opportunity for expression of the shame, such as causing an accident, bouncing checks, or getting fired from a job.
If you keep holding in the shame, it continues to build up. Eventually, it can explode via a physical symptom such as pain, high blood pressure, or digestive disturbances, or emotionally as chronic depression, manic behavior, or rage.
If you’ve been holding in your shame for a long time, you’ll probably resist expressing it. After all, it’s your habit to hold it in. You know how to do that a whole lot better than you know how to express it. So I’m going to walk you through this process, one tiny step at a time.
The third step in healing your shame is to develop new emotional responses to familiar situations that habitually generate shame for you.
For example, if, when talking about money with an authority figure or with your spouse, internally you feel like a child expecting to be criticized, with practice you can alter that response and feel like an intelligent adult when discussing money.
Or, when someone close to you behaves in an irresponsible manner or acts out through addictive behaviors such as drinking, gambling, or overspending, you don’t have to feel responsible for their dysfunction and you can learn not to take what they say or do personally.
The fourth step involves developing financial management skills and discipline. By taking care of your money and making wise financial decisions, you can feel good about yourself and your behaviors.
That’s a condensed version of how to transform and release your need to hold on shame – awareness, expression, new emotional responses, and Shame: Page 13 learning financial management skills, and we are going to apply the steps in a moment.
But first, there’s something I’d like you to understand. Because your shame has been building up for a long time, once it is given an avenue of expression, some of it may come rushing out. In my mind, I see the image of people waiting in line for the opening of a store that is offering a fantastic price on a prized item. When the doors finally open, the people rush into the store like a giant wave coming on shore. After the initial wave, things quite down a bit and people continue to come into the store, but without the chaos and rush.
The first rush of the shame exiting your body/mind system can feel intense, especially if you tend to hold in your feelings as a general rule. Your first instinct will probably be to stop the rush of feeling by drinking, eating, shopping, smoking, or all of the above. The longer you can resist this kind of behavior, the sooner the initial wave of emotion will pass and the release of shame can proceed in a more orderly manner.
As you become more adept at one or more of the shame release techniques you are going to learn shortly, you will most likely find that you automatically begin to express additional feelings. You might even start crying, screaming, or pounding on something, hopefully something soft, like a pillow. Emotions have a lot of force and the first wave can be strong.
The good news is that when the feelings start coming, even if they are uncomfortable feelings, you can experience a sense of aliveness because you are being authentic and not holding in your true expression.
This may all seem like a lengthy introduction when you are anxious to get rid of your shame, but necessary so you understand the process and what you are most likely to experience.
Shame: Page 14
Track 8
As I said, the first step in healing your shame is to recognize it. To develop your awareness. Long-standing shame has most likely been integrated into your entire being, making it, at times, difficult to recognize when it is trying to express itself.
Let’s start by learning to recognize the feeling of shame as it expresses itself through your body mind. Feelings don’t just happen in your head. There are actually physical substances called neuropeptides that latch themselves on to cellular receptors that are located throughout your body. This allows you to feel your feelings in many places throughout your body.
So having an emotion is not the same as a thought. It is actually a kinesthetic experience that can be located anywhere in your body. Anxiety is a perfect example. When you are anxious, there are physical sensations such as rapid heart beat, an overall feeling of discomfort or jitteriness, or actual shaking that can be found in your arms, legs, and other body parts.
Love is an emotion that is often experienced in the heart area. There can also be rushes of emotion felt throughout the body. Those are the physical, kinesthetic experience of love.
Shame too is something that you experience throughout your body mind and now we are going to actually stimulate the feeling of shame so you can familiarize yourself with its presence within your physical system.
Let’s start by picking something relating to your money that makes you uncomfortable. Perhaps one of the following will do this for you: • Looking at your bank statement or the balance in your checking account • Paying your bills or not paying your bills • Paying your credit card bill late and getting slammed with late fees. • Bouncing a check • Thinking about the money you owe • Thinking about bad investments you have made
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Ok. Do you relate to one of these? Or perhaps you thought of something else. Choose one.
Close your eyes and get a clear picture in your mind of the financial situation. Now scan your body looking for any discomfort. Pay attention to your chest, your abdomen, your shoulders, and your head. Do you feel a heaviness, tension, a gripping feeling or other form of discomfort. Perhaps you can recognize a sense of sadness or even depression. Perhaps you feel as if you want to hide or that your body is contracting. You may feel a physical ache or pain. Notice where in your body you are having these sensations.
Are the sensations localized or is there a general, overall experience of discomfort?
What you are experiencing is emotion and most likely it’s shame or has a component of shame, as it is expressing itself through your body/mind.
To illustrate how you can change emotional states, I’m going to give you a quick way to alter the feeling so you wwon’t be afraid to become aware of your feelings. Focus on one of the areas where you are feeling the heaviness or other discomforts.
Put your hand over the area and say aloud with me, I am so uncomfortable. I am so uncomfortable. I am so uncomfortable. Now take a deep breath in and out. And another. And another. Now say three times, I am releasing my discomfort, I am releasing my discomfort, and take three more breaths. Scan your body again and see if there has been a shift. Most likely there has been. How much of a shift will vary from person to person.
Notice that I’m not even identifying the feeling, just acknowledging that something is going on. This noticing of the feeling actually alters its intensity.
Often, in order to avoid acknowledging their discomfort, people will self- medicate by overeating, drinking, gambling, or overspending. If you tend to do any of these, then when you feel the urge to indulge, stop, if possible, and Shame: Page 16 scan your body to become aware of what is going on and say aloud, I am so uncomfortable or I’m so afraid, or I feel so ashamed.
In order to avoid destructive behavior or just to release some feelings, you can shift the feeling by making a sound to express the feeling. For example, if the feeling is in your belly, put your hand there and just make the sound of the feeling. It might be something like this. Make sound.
If you are experiencing feelings throughout your body, place your hand over your solar plexus, which is the seat of emotions, and make the sound.
At first the sound may come out very weakly. Keep at it and try to do it louder and longer until you are actually doing it with some force and gusto. Something like this . . . .
We will examine additional methods for releasing the feelings in a few moments. For now, I want to focus on developing the awareness of the emotions.
To enhance your awareness of your feelings states, during the day, start noticing your kinesthetic reactions for various situations at work and at home. How do you respond to people talking to you or asking you to do something. What is you kinesthetic experience of doing your everyday tasks either at work or at home. How is your reaction to people at work different from people with whom you have personal interactions?
Notice what you experience in your chest and solar plexus and if you tense up in your shoulders, neck, or lower back. Or perhaps you will notice that you really feel like screaming.
Is there something that pushes your buttons, so to speak? When a button is pushed, what is the kinesthetic experience in your body. In order to do this, you have to make a commitment to getting in touch with your feelings because it’s easier to just do what you’ve been doing than to do something new.
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Recently, a client who I’ll call Liz told me that she became aware of how defensive she became when a strong male friend would make suggestions as to how she could improve her business skills. He is a successful businessman and Liz appreciated his advice, but was aware that he reminded her of her father and each time he made a suggestion, Liz would react as if he was criticizing her and would become very defensive and she would feel tears welling up inside.
Once Liz became aware of how she felt during the interactions with her friend, she wanted to stop the defensiveness and become more open to what he had to say. The next time she met with her friend and he made a suggestion, as he was talking, Liz scanned her body and could feel the tension she was experiencing. She took a few deep breaths, and said to herself, “you’re fine, just listen” and waited until he finished, then thanked him for his suggestion.
Remember, whenever you scan your body to evaluate what you are feeling, you don’t have to give the feelings a name, the idea is to increase your awareness of various feeling states.
And you don’t even have to try to release the feelings, just noticing them and acknowledging that you are feeling something has a positive effect. It’s as if your feelings have been buried inside of you waiting to be noticed so they can move on. Imagine them as little children hoping someone will pay attention to them. As soon as you do, that’s actually an avenue of expression.
Think of what happens to you when someone acknowledges something you’ve done. Even though you may not show anything externally, there is an internal shift. That’s what happens when you notice your feelings. You are acknowledging them, which accelerates them towards a new state.
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Track 9
Now that you have a basic understanding of how to develop emotional awareness and before we get to additional techniques for safely expressing your emotions. I’d like to briefly introduce you to the power word technique which can help alter your emotional state, remove old emotional blocks, and develop new emotional responses.
I talk about the power word at length in my book Build Your Money Muscles and many people have found it to be very helpful as they move towards a new financial position.
The power word technique is an abbreviated version of Be Set Free Fast, or BSFF, developed by clinical psychologist Larry Nims. It’s based on the theory that your subconscious mind is a faithful servant and will do whatever you tell it, and what you tell it is that when you use a specific word, which I’m calling a power word, it will shift old beliefs, alter emotional states, and help you work through resistance to change.
I’m going to incorporate the power word into some of the techniques you will learn here, so I’m going to quickly walk you through the setup and we’ll talk about it more as we move along.
The first step is to choose a power word, which is a word or phrase that doesn’t have a lot of charge to it, like the word money does. Words some of my clients have used include Shazam, Go Girl, or freedom. The word I use is terrific. For now, let’s all use the word terrific. You can always change the word at a later time. .
The second thing we are going to do is to give your subconscious the instructions. I’m going to read the instructions, a phrase at a time, and I’d like you to repeat what I read when I pause, aloud if you can. Here goes:
Subconscious mind, every time I notice a problem, discomfort, belief, or behavior I intend to release, you will employ the following power word to eliminate all the roots of the problem, emotional Shame: Page 19 discomfort, belief, or behavior. You will also apply this power word to install any statement of intention, affirmation, or new belief that I make. The power word I am going to use is ______.
If you later decide to change your power word, merely say, “Subconscious mind, I am now going to use the power word ______.”
Ok. Now that you have your power word, we can move on.
Track10
The key, when consciously working to remove shame from your financial expression, is to never criticize yourself for not altering your shame levels enough or doing it right or anything else you might criticize. The critical voice in your head just perpetrates shame.
The fact is that there is nothing for you to be ashamed of. If you make mistakes or have done things in the past that didn’t work out very well, that’s just what you did. It isn’t who you are.
Humans learn by making mistakes. When you do something and really screw up, once you find a way out, there’s a good chance you aren’t going to repeat your mistakes.
People who are so careful that they never make mistakes rarely get very far in life. Did you know that people who succeed fail more than people who fail? That’s because if they do something that doesn’t work out well, they can pick themselves up and try again. Like a baby learning to walk, they take the chance and don’t worry about falling down.
The critical messages in your head are variations and repetitions of words you heard from your parents or other authority figures who never knew how to empower you to be your best. Shame: Page 20
If you keep shaming yourself through critical self-talk, not matter what release techniques you use, the shame will continue to fester inside of you, always looking for expression, and often finding that expression through your finances.
So right now, you can decide that whatever your financial condition might be at this moment, that is what it is and you haven’t done anything that you need to be ashamed of. The decisions you made and actions you took, like spending too much or accumulating too much debt, may not have been wise, but they do not reflect a deficiency in your beings. They were just decisions you made. Any judgment you make about your behavior is your choice. Whatever you have done and whatever you are doing is just what you have done or what you are doing and you have the option of continuing your old behaviors or not. That’s the bottom line.
If you have spent too freely, are carrying credit card or student loan debt, have bought a house you can’t afford, have bounced checks, make less money than you need, or any other uncomfortable situation that you are ashamed of, if you stop beating yourself up, you can take control of the situation and work out a strategy for altering your position.
As long as you indulge in self-criticism, you are perpetrating the shame and keeping yourself stuck in a familiar habitual position.
Once you create a strategy, you may have to go through some uncomfortable restructuring, but unless you take some action and unless you behave differently than you have in the past, then you are probably going to wallow in the shame and never move forward.
What we are talking about is your giving up internal shaming dialogue and replacing it with a loving voice that unconditionally supports you.
So right now, I’d like you to say outloud with me I have the right to treat myself in a loving way. Say it now Shame: Page 21
I have the right to treat myself in a loving way. Now let’s say it again, except this time, let’s say the power word at the end of the statement. I have the right to treat myself in a loving way. Terrific. One more time. I have the right to treat myself in a loving way. Terrific.
I’m going to say a few more statements that I’d like you to repeat after I say them, then we’ll follow each with the power word. • I am willing to let go of my shame. Terrific • I give myself permission to let go of my shame. Terrific • I want to let go of my shame. Terrific. • I am a loveable person learning how to thrive financially. Terrific.
Right in line with this is the idea that your shame is nothing to be ashamed of. You have it because of all of the reasons we talked about in the beginning of this recording and developing shame was a natural response to how you were treated or what you were taught at an early age. And learning to alter your self-concept enough so that you aren’t expressing shame through your finances is not undertaken because the shame is bad. It’s because it’s uncomfortable and you want to live your life differently. In reality, you aren’t going to get rid of your shame, you are merely going to express it and learn a new set of emotional responses to familiar situations.
Track 11
Now that we have that straight, I’d like to show you a technique for developing new habitual emotional responses. Done over a period of time, it can help you develop new neural pathways in your brain so that when something happens, you have a new kind of response. Instead of feeling shame, you can either feel neutral or feel good about what you are doing.
You’ve already learned how to develop awareness of your feelings and to express them through simple sounds, and to take the first step towards altering your emotional responses by reperceiving your past behaviors and Shame: Page 22 your financial condition as just something that is, not something that is right or wrong, good or bad.
This next step is quite simple, although to be effective it needs to be done repeatedly over an extended period of time so that it becomes a habit. And to get started, all you have to do is choose a feeling that you’d like to experience instead of shame. In other words, when you do something, like opening a bill, that usually stimulates shame, what would you rather feel instead.
To illustrate this, I’m going to use the example of self-satisfaction, but you can do it with any feeling that you want to experience instead of shame. And the idea is to actually practice self-satisfaction, or whatever feeling you choose, as many times during the day as possible so that it becomes one of your prevailing emotions.
Think about self-satisfaction for a moment and think back to a time in your life when you had that feeling. Perhaps it was when you rode a two-wheeled bike yourself, or when you did a great job on a project for school. Or perhaps, as an adult, you’ve done something at work that you’re really proud of.
Get a clear picture in your mind of the event that you are remembering and as you do this, scan your body and see what you are feeling. Become aware of the feeling in your various body parts. As you think of self-satisfaction, do you find yourself kind of lifting your shoulders a bit or standing a bit taller? How does self-satisfaction affect how you walk?
For the next few days I’d like you to focus on feeling self-satisfaction. To remember to do this exercise, you might want to put a rubber band around your wrist or wear a particular shirt or hat.
The idea is to generate the feeling as many times during the day as possible. Each time, think of something you did either recently or in the past and consciously generate the feeling of self-satisfaction. As I said, this takes some practice if this feeling is not habitual for you. Shame: Page 23
After generating the feeling over the course of a few days, do something with your money that usually generates discomfort for you. Open or pay a bill, check your credit card or checking account balance online, or write down what you spent in the last two days.
As you do the activity, scan your body, become aware of the feeling, then think about the feeling of self-satisfaction. Be satisfied with yourself for doing the exercise or for completing the activity that you usually avoid.
Let’s assume you’ve chosen paying a bill as your activity. As you are writing the check, or however you make the payment, scan your body, then take a deep breath, and say to yourself, “I’m really satisfied with myself for paying this bill.” Or “I’m really satisfied with myself for paying this bill on time. “
To implant the idea in your subconscious, use your power word at the end of the sentence. So it might be I’m really satisfied with myself for paying my bills. Terrific.
In a few moments, I’m going to talk about writing in a journal. You can use the journal at the end of each day to write down everything you did that day that you felt satisfied with yourself about.
After you practice one emotion, you can do this exercise with a variety of feelings such as gratitude, joy, self-love, or compassion. The more emotions you become familiar with, the richer your life experience will be.
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Track 12
There is a good possibility that after you listen to this recording, you’ll try one or more of the exercises once or a few times, then stop. That’s because of the natural resistance to change.
Resistance happens because of what I call the Identity Factor, a mechanism that kicks in any time you begin to make major changes in your life. It kicks in because change is a threat to your concept of who your are and your position in the world.
At the same time, when you start changing, you can pose a threat to your position in your peer group or family of origin. If, for example, you’ve always been the people pleaser in your peer group or family, doing what others want you to do, and suddenly you start asserting yourself and expressing what you want and need, people in your peer group or family might -- actually are most likely to -- push back and say things to keep you in your usual position, like teasing you or shaming you in some way.
Humans instinctively know that we can’t survive alone, and because of this fear of being alone, people will do just about anything not to upset the people who are around them, no matter how dysfunctional the relationships might be. That’s why we form the fantasy bonds that I spoke about earlier. And that’s why we resist change. When people tell me that they did something to sabotage themselves, I tell them that sabotage is actually self- protection. Protecting your identity and your position in your peer group or family of origin so you won’t be alone.
Overcoming your natural resistance, which has built into it the fear of being alone, requires that you take a chance and believe that when you move forward with your life, there will be new people.
Actually, the new people will be a reflection of your new sense of self and will support you in being who you’re becoming. But it does take a leap of faith. You have to be willing to believe that as you walk through the tunnel of transition, when you get to the end of the tunnel, there will be plenty of Shame: Page 25 people there to love and support you. All you have to do is love and support yourself. And although this may seem like a difficult thing to do, it is the key to transforming the shame that is holding you back financially.
On top of this, in order to really transform your relationship with money so that shame is not one of the defining factors, you’ll have to go through a period of disorientation where you experience what I call the moving stupids. You’ll recognize the moving stupids if you have ever moved from one house to another. You really want to be in the new house, but when you get there, you don’t know where anything is and you get kind of stupid, dropping things, walking into walls, losing your keys, and that sort of things.
And the same thing happens when you move from one state of consciousness to another. The fact is, you know how to do shame really well. You’ve internalized it and much of your interaction with life has a shame base. Now, as you start transforming the shame-based reactions to other people and to life’s happenings, it’s going to feel unfamiliar. You’ll have to develop a whole new set of behaviors in order to sustain a strong, positive image of yourself. And all of that critical chatter in your head needs to be replaced by positive self-talk and expectations of success.
No wonder you’re going to resist. So give yourself some leeway. When you walk forward a few steps, then step back a bit, be easy on yourself and understand that what you are doing is perfectly normal and that it does take time to adapt to each new rung of the ladder as you climb out of your old position and into a new one.
Rather than being hard on yourself when you realize you are resisting, you can do some work with the power word, making statements followed by your power word such as: • I release my need for resistance. Terrific. • I acknowledge my tendency to resist. Terrific. • Whatever I’m doing is fine. Terrific • I release my fear of letting go of my resistance. Teriffic. • I release my fear of change. Terrific. • I’m willing to move through the discomfort of change. Terrific Shame: Page 26
And perhaps you can see the humor in the fact that you, who are really a divine being with the power of the Universe at your disposal, are being really tentative in moving forward and claiming the power that resides inside of you.
The shame is merely a learned feeling. A learned emotional response to life. You have the ability to transform it if you stick with the process and forgive yourself for falling backwards on occasion.
Track 13
A few minutes ago, I referred to people pleasing, which is a fairly common behavior pattern of people who carry a lot of shame. People pleasing behaviors often develop in response to being shamed. As a result, people will do or say what they believe others want them to do or say, not what is natural for them. They will also behave cautiously in order to avoid what they believe will hurt someone else’s feelings or upset someone else. At some point they might have been chastised and shamed for “making daddy angry,” or “making mommy sick” or upsetting you’re grandmother or, perhaps, being ungrateful . The message given to children is often not that they are doing something wrong, but there something wrong with them for doing what they are doing.
It’s perfectly natural for a child who is often criticized for behavior that reflects their authentic self to repress that creative part of themselves and behave in ways that please their parents, teachers, and other authority figures.
People pleasing behavior does two things: it alleviates the fear of being rejected and left alone as a result of shameful behavior and it seemingly protects a person from being shamed by others.
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The big problem is that when someone people pleases, it often causes internal shame for behaving in a way that invalidates him or herself.
Financially, people pleasing behavior can cause a person to make inappropriate purchases or to buy things because they want to look good in the eyes of others. This can lead to overspending and debting or making unnecessary financial sacrifices.
As with anything else, the first step in eliminating people pleasing behavior requires an awareness of the behavior and a commitment to changing the behavior.
One of my favorite sayings is “If one of us has to be uncomfortable, it doesn’t have to be me.” The corollary to this statement is, “No is a complete sentence.” When someone asks you to do something that your don’t want to do, you have the right to say no without any explanation.
So to stop the shame cycle perpetrated by people pleasing, you’ll want to learn how to set boundaries and declare what works for you and what doesn’t. There will be times when it can be advantageous for you to compromise and you may make a conscious decision to do this, but this is very different from doing things to please others rather than yourself or doing something that goes against your values in order to avoid being shamed or isolated.
In reality, when someone tries to shame you into doing something, you don’t have to take on the shame. Once you learn to stay centered in your truth, in your authentic self, then what someone else does or says can just be what they are doing or saying. You don’t have to take their words or behaviors personally. You can make conscious choices as to what you want to say or do so you can feel good about yourself.
This doesn’t mean that we can always do or say exactly what we want. We do have to weigh the consequences of our actions. But you do get to make conscious choices and weigh your options.
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Track 14
I’d like to spend a moment mow talking a little bit more about using sounds to release your uncomfortable feelings and writing as a release technique.
Although shame is most likely one of the most prevalent feelings that are behind the creation of your financial discomforts, no feelings ever exist in a vacuum. When you are having the kinetic experience of emotions, there can be a bunch of different emotions all balled up together. Shame can be mixed with fear, a sense of being betrayed, deprivation, anger, frustration, and more.
That’s why I like the technique of using sounds to express the feelings. You don’t need to identify what you are feeling, just that you are having an emotional experience that you choose to express.
The technique is so simple. Become aware of the feeling. Put your hand over the body part that is experiencing the feeling, and make the sound of the feeling.
You may feel the urge to do this a little bit every day. Or, you may find yourself spending an hour or so with it at some point. Let it come and know that it is helping you heal. If you are afraid someone will hear you, make the sounds with a towel over your mouth. Or do the sounds in the privacy of your car.
Once you start using this technique, you may become aware of feelings trying to come up. It won’t be a reaction to anything specific, just a pushing from within. On occasion, I have awakened in the middle of the night, filled with emotion. I know then that it is time to make the sounds. This used to happen a lot to me. Now it is quite rare and usually when I am involved with something that is bound to take me to a new level.
To help the release, writing can be very helpful. This is another way of expressing the feeling and getting it out from your system.
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I suggest writing in an unlined journal or sketchbook so your writing size is not determined by the page. Sometimes you’ll want to write tiny little, other times large, and still others at your normal size. When I do this kind of writing, I print rather than write so I only take time for the essence and I stay away from narratives, which just gets me out of the feeling and back into my head.
When you are ready to do some writing, make sure you are in a private place by yourself. Start by writing simple I feel statements. Such as • I feel ashamed when I look at my bank balance • I feel ashamed when I see how much more money other people make • I feel ashamed that I’m so poor • I feel so ashamed because I’m so (and you fill in the blank).
After you do a series of I feel statements, you can write some I felt so ashamed when statements such as • I felt so ashamed when my mother yelled at me • I felt so ashamed because my mother wouldn’t touch me • I felt so ashamed when my father punished me • I felt so ashamed when I lied • I felt so ashamed when I gave in to my brother
Keep writing these statements.
When doing any of these exercises, as I said, you may feel like crying, screaming, pounding on something soft. Let yourself do it.
What is inappropriate is to yell at someone else or to start blaming them for what you are feeling.
If, for any reason, you do decide to dull the feelings with something like alcohol, don’t punish yourself by condemning yourself for the behavior. That just perpetrates and reinstalls the shame. Forgive yourself and move on.
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There may be a moment when it feels like the shame and its pain will never be over. That’s when you are at the center of the feeling. You will get beyond it.
If the thought of doing this scares you in any way, tell someone you know and trust that you are going to be doing some emotional releases and you’d like to know that if it gets uncomfortable, you’d like to be able to call them just to connect.
I’ve taken quite a few of my clients through shame releases. The responses vary. I give them the option of calling me if things get too uncomfortable and only one person has taken advantage of that offer. All agree that when it is over—and this might take a few days—they feel much better and their lives always move in a new direction.
Track 15
Now let’s talk for a moment about debt, since most of you who are listening to this are probably dealing with some level of debt that is making you uncomfortable and about which you feel shame.
Feeling ashamed of the debt is not going to get it paid off or make it go away. Taking action is. Step one, is to develop awareness by facing the reality of your debt. Take a look at all of your credit cards and outstanding loans and write down how much you owe, what the interest rate on each is and what your monthly payments are for each debt.
What you will be looking at is a series of numbers. That’s all they are. Numbers. The emotion you attach to the numbers is coming from you, not the numbers.
The next step is to keep track of your money. Most people who use money to act out their shame suffer from what I call financial vagueness syndrome. Shame: Page 31
They are vague about how much they spend or owe or need to get through the month.
Financial vagueness perpetrates shame. Underneath is often the fear that you may bounce a check or get into some kind of trouble. Knowing where you are financially gives you a strong base from which you can create strategies for increasing your income or reducing expenses, or both.
Unfortunately, when people are having financial difficulties they tend to get even more vague about their finances, ignoring bills, avoiding looking at bank statements, and not reconciling statements. This vagueness can lead to even more financial distress as money gets out of control, which usually leads to feelings of shame.
To keep control of your finances you can use software, such as Quicken or Microsoft Money, or Quickbooks if you have a business, to keep track of what you spend and earn. Some people use Excel spreadsheets to keep track of their money, but this doesn’t give you the ability to rapidly create reports, like cash flow statements for specific periods of time.
For spending, I suggest using checks or a debit card that you can track online and keep your check register up to date. Use a minimum of cash if it seems to slip through your fingers.
Once you see what you are spending and what you are earning, you can create a strategy for either making more money by selling some of the stuff you own, getting a better job, or doing something part time, or cutting back on your expenses. A practical strategy is empowering and can greatly reduce shame.
While you are going through this process, feelings are bound to come up. As they do, scan your body to see where the feelings are, take a deep breath and make the sound of the feelings or do some writing. Listen to your self-talk and if you are criticizing yourself, just say, there’s no need to talk like that. I’m doing the best I can.
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There’s a good chance that your debt will be with you for a while, no matter how good you are at paying it off. You have the opportunity to use it as a tool for getting in touch with your feelings and letting go of the shame.
Track 16
I’ve said a few times that criticizing yourself just perpetrates the shame. If I were to tell you to stop doing that, it wouldn’t do much good. What you need instead is something to do instead so you can create a whole new way of talking to yourself.
I suggest that you create a new character to live in your head. You might even want to do a ceremony of some sort to get rid of the critical parent who lives there now. You can imagine that you are packing its bags and sending it off to live with someone else. You could even have a goodbye party.
The new character can be representative of anyone who you admire and trust. I chose a goddess who is a benevolent mother figure who thinks I’m terrific. No matter what I do, she tells me I’m doing fine and that everything will work out.
I suggest that at least 20 times a day you have this character tell you that you are doing a great job. Whatever you do, praise yourself. You don’t have to do anything dramatic to generate praise. Making your bed, taking out the garbage, walking your dog, or eating a vegetable instead of something junky, all deserve praise.
In the beginning, when I first started doing this, I would say, outloud, Joanie’s a good girl and can have whatever she wants. Because I love applause, I’d clap my hands. Fabulous.
I had to keep this up for a long time until my thoughts permanently turned around. My theory was that if my thoughts, and the resultant feelings, were Shame: Page 33 positive 51% of the time, my life would move in a positive direction. It worked.
It may take a while for everything to work out for you, but if you can get through the tough parts with a positive expectation and understand that there is no rule that says you have to be ashamed of what you have done in the past, you will be fine and things will work out.
As you are learning to replace your own shaming thoughts, I suggest that you say your thoughts out loud so you can actually hear what you are saying. A good time to do this is when you are driving in your car, which is a time when many people pick on themselves. Say the thoughts out loud so you can clearly hear the way you talk to yourself and ask yourself, if someone were standing next to me saying the kinds of things I’m saying to myself, would I just stand there and take it or would I walk away. You are a grown up now and have free choice. Walk away and spend time with someone who treats you with love and never shames you. That’s how you’ll get rid of the shame.
Track 17
One of the choices you can make as your shame is diminishing is to increase your financial literacy--to learn about the world of money and to develop financial management skills. The more you learn about money and how to deal with it on a practical level, the more confident you will feel about your relationship with money and the greater the possibility of your earning more and making better financial decisions.
You can start by reading the financial or business section in your local newspaper, or occasionally reading a publication like the Wall Street Journal. Or, online, check out sites like money.com or fool.com, which is a site about investments. Start by just reading the headlines and if a story appeals to you, read it.
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Do a search for financial management skills or money management skills or personal finance and find a site that appeals to you.
If you have cable, tune in to CNBC, which is a financial news site. You don’t have to understand what they are talking about, just listen.
Do a search for personal finance blogs. There are lots of them.
If you don’t know how to use financial management software, sign up for a course at a local college or check learning resources online.
You can also choose to behave differently with your own money. Keep track of it, as I suggested earlier, put a little bit aside, even if it is dollar a week if you’ve never saved anything before. Cut up your credit cards, balance your check book, think clearly about your purchases.
Go on a spending fast for a week or more, buying only what you absolutely need like food and fuel.
If you are catalog buyer, when the catalogs come, just flag the pages that have things you want, and put the catalog aside for a few days until the urge to buy passes.
And each time you make a behavioral change with your money, praise yourself. Make a big deal of it.
Learning about money and taking care of your money is an essential part of healing your financial shame. When you take care of your money, you are taking care of yourself and your personal energy.
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Track 18
We have covered a lot of material on this recording and most people find that, when presented with this volume of information, that it can be used most effectively over an extended period of time.
After listening to the recording, the next step is yours. You get to decide when you’ll actually implement the techniques. I hope you’ll decide to make some real changes in how you treat yourself and how you think and feel about your money and yourself. The financial rewards can be significant.
On my site ProsperityPlace.com, you can find lots of information to help you improve your relationship with yourself. And my book Build Your Money Muscles: Nine Simple Exercises for Improving Your Relationship with Money can take you through a step-by-step program for establishing a prosperity state of being.
I wish you the best on your journey to a comfortable, satisfying life, and I hope you’ll make www.ProsperityPlace.com a stop on your journey.