Money is my favourite concept to talk about, So why is Money my favourite thing to talk, because it has been the most challenging thing for me to deal with most of my life. This is also why I indulged myself to learn a lot more about Money when I started my Upcycling business a year ago.
I read books, I watched videos of billionaires on their Money Mindset, I listened to Podcasts, I followed an infinite number of coaches’ advice, I even hired a coach-you name it, I have done it. All of it, for me to expand and learn about Money as I was so freaking bad with it.
But just learning isn’t enough right, you will have to integrate whatever you learn. And also, if you learn from 1000 sources like I did, there are 1000 perspectives. You will not be able to integrate every perspective, if you do so, you are losing yourself in the process and you are just trying to be like someone else and you are doing all of this only because-“If I do this then I will be able to earn more money”!
This is exactly what I was doing and nothing was working out, and that’s when I started to look deeper into my life and the kind of stories I had created for myself with respect to Money. There are many factors that affect your relationship with money, to make it simpler for you all to understand, I have broken it down into these 3 major factors:
- Family, you were raised in.
- Society.
- Generational Patterns.
- Family, you were raised in.
Now, the family you have been raised in plays a huge role, even from the time you were in your Mother’s womb. From ages 0-8 our Subconscious Mind is super active, we do not have a developed rational mind. This is what I call the sponge state, where we absorb everything that we see, hear, smell, touch, and feel. If your parents fought over money, you would have absorbed that and formed a story that Money brings in fights in the family, if you were raised in a family where money was just enough for survival needs, you would have formed a story that Money will not bring in happiness.
So I want you to go back, and see if you can recollect if you can remember any memories from your childhood that had to do with Money. You may not remember it also and that’s fine. So here’s how I recently discovered how I carried on exact same patterns as my Mother did.
In my adult life, I was always the one who would be generous and give people Money, even when I didn’t have any, I would borrow from others and give to people. Ofcourse, it always got me into trouble. But I just wouldn’t stop, definitely, this is a people-pleasing behaviour where I just wanted that person to be with me and I did not want to tell NO.
Recently I had this realisation, that my Mother would do exactly the same thing. As a kid, I always saw her helping my Uncle-her brother with Money, she use to borrow from neighbours and give him money and then the neighbours would come asking for it.
So, do you see the connection? I was shocked when I had this realisation, ofcourse I was aware I was a People Pleaser but what I did not know was how I took it all from my mom.
Make a note of all the common behaviours you have in your life with Money and Journal about it, and wait and see if something comes up. Since it is all subconscious mind, it takes a while for it to pop up so don’t force it. It happens in the most unusual times, like when you are washing vessels or cleaning your house.
And it is still okay, even if you don’t remember anything. As long as you are aware that you have a behavioural pattern, that can be changed.
2. Society
We all grow up, and we are of course part of society. We hear stories from others, we watch movies, we are told to live a certain way, we are told Rich people are Evil, and we are told Money brings unhappiness. Societal conditioning is very much deeply rooted to be on the Survival mode, this is how we evolved right? And that Survival mode, our fight and flight mode loves drama. Loves staying in the victim mindset and loves to loathe self-pity.
I have been here, I would always gain attraction from people saying “I do not have Money”, so that they feel pity and help me. This may be triggering to some of you, but this is how it is. This is why I am being transparent and telling you, that I have also lived in this mindset most of my life. Ofcourse, I was doing it all subconsciously and when I realised it, I felt very ashamed and had to work on being compassionate about myself and showing love to my inner self.
So now, I want you to ask yourself, what kind of stories I have formed from the influence of society?
Where did you pick these stories from, was it from your neighbours or friends or colleagues or movies, Movies surely do influence us. Especially when most of our movies have Villains who are super rich, I find this very funny. I have no idea how all evil characters are so rich! I think I saw a meme about this, making fun of evil characters being rich hahahaha
3. Generational Conditioning
So here, you will have to go deeper into your family history. For example, on My Father’s side, they were very poor, I have heard stories where they would just eat rice with water. My Grandfather really struggled a lot as a farmer to raise 8 children. God knows how it was when my Grandfather was a kid, and this was the time when India was ruled by the British and most of the farmers were deeply affected. So the Money struggle is in my family for generations. My father moved from the village to the city for a very low-wage paying job, even though it was a government job, it was not paying him well. I am pretty much like a first-generation educated child, so my Father always passed on that conditioning to me that “Money comes only with the struggle” explicitly and also genetically.
Now, I am not a scientist to talk about Genes, there are some theories that say Generational trauma is real and some theories say it is not. It is a debatable topic, but from what I have personally experienced and what I have seen, generational trauma does seem real.
So now, see if you can find out about your family history. If you are on good terms with your family and you feel safe with them, this might be easy. If you are not on good terms, there is a way for that too. Map all the political movements that your ancestors might have gone through, like in India British rule did affect a lot of people. Any religious or cultural parties, that may have affected how your family has shaped the stories around money, see if you can pull up any information around all that you think may have affected your ancestors.
And most importantly, be compassionate to yourself while you do the work, I do know all of these stories can be triggering. It was for me, and it still is for me on many levels. Take your time and do it in a relaxed way. I also do want to iterate on this, that there is nothing wrong with you if you do not know how to deal with Money. There is nothing wrong with you if you have made bad choices in the past about Money. There is nothing wrong with you if you are broke.
And don’t ever tie your Self Worth and Value to the Money you have, that’s just how society defines it, unfortunately. Culturally, we have just been those people who want to label everyone based on their societal status and that status is mostly judged on how much money they have.
Hope all of this gave you some insights into your relationship with money, this will be a series of many blog posts so watch out for more.
I am also conducting a workshop on how to strengthen your relationship with Money, Initially, I was keeping it open only for Entrepreneurs as I saw a lot of people struggling with pricing their products. While we will cover that as well, it is open for everyone if you would want to uncover all these whacky stories and live the free life that you deserve.
Click here to register for the workshop.
The same post is available as a Podcast, available on all platforms-Conscious Stories with Sneha!
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