First of all, let me bust a myth: you are not alone in the financial situation you find yourself in, and you did not get here by yourself.
There is so much shame and guilt placed on not having your shit 100% together when it comes to finances. Simultaneously, many of our societal systems and financial structures were never designed to support YOU as a living being, doing life in the way that you do.
This post is not, however about those systems and structures. While they exist and do create sometimes challenging environments through which we must navigate our lives, there are many realities that exist in the field of potential that we all have access to.
When we align ourselves with the potentials we most desire AND take intentional action towards creating those potentials in our reality, we empower ourselves to move beyond those structures and systems and align with a new reality.
The part of this scenario that often gets overlooked in the world of all things energetic and spiritual is that we are still managing the reality that exists in the physical world (both within our bodies via our nervous system and in our bank account, etc.).
So here are 5 tools that I use personally and recommend highly that do not cost any money, but do require your time and energy. In other words, they require you to take action. It is from this action that the magic of transformation occurs.
1. EFT – A.K.A Tapping
I like to think of tapping as a bridge between the physical and the metaphysical. It is often shared in the metaphysical world that words have power. So do thoughts. We often hear advice telling us to focus on the positive and speak only words of affirmation, but if we do not address the negative thoughts then they live on in our subconscious and grow into toxic environments.
A healthy garden needs weeding. When we eat, we absorb nutrients and our body disposes of the waste that is not needed. When we breathe, we both inhale and exhale. It is a very natural process for us to release what is not serving us. The emphasis here must be placed on the word focus—meaning to stay in this area. If we allow our focus to remain in one area, we empower it.
There are many free resources on the internet that will help you learn about and practice incorporating tapping into your self-care routines. My favorite resource is Steph Dodds - The Emotional Freedom Academy. She has a wealth of free resources on her YouTube Channel. I have included a link to her playlist below that is dedicated to success, money, prosperity, and abundance.
Our nervous systems are amazing and powerful allies. They notify us when danger is afoot or when something needs our attention. We can be compassionate allies for our nervous system as well. Tapping is one way that we can help to create a balanced and healthy environment within this complex functionality of our being.
Steph is actually going to be a guest on my vodcast—The Soul Wisdom Exchange— on 4/4/22! definitely check it out live if you are reading this before that date, and it will be available on my YouTube Channel as a replay if you are reading this at a later date.
2. Sacred Money Archetypes
Awareness is an essential key to creating transformation in any area of our lives. We often know there is something we are attempting to change, but are terrified of exploring it out of fear that it will be worse than we expected.
We can empower ourselves by understanding not only what it is that we are actually facing, but also by understanding our own natural tendencies and needs. One of the tools that I have found to be enlightening in all areas of my life is the study of self. Self-development tools that range from personality quizzes based in psychology to ancient tools and complex systems that combine spirituality and metaphysics have been a constant source of exploration for me throughout my life.
A tool that I have found to be specifically useful recently—in my own experience as well as a tool that I've utilized within my business—is the exploration of Sacred Money Archetypes.
There are again, many tools on the internet where you can explore these archetypes. The person who personally resonates most for me is Denise Deffield-Thomas. You can take her quiz here which will help you identify your top archetype and she will email you a pre-recorded training specifically focused on this profile type.
It is important to recognize that we all have a bit of each archetype infused within our personality. The top 3 contain the aspects that we most identify with. I recommend that you look at the sore that you received for each archetype and explore your top 3 in more depth. They often work in conjunction with each other in ways that you may recognize as you learn about them.
Within these archetypes, you can find both the keys to opening your channel of prosperity as well as clues about how you can better understand or could experience the potential shadow side.
Find the keys (strengths and opportunities) and lean into those while giving compassion to the shadow aspects and know that they are a part of you as well. If you can hold them lightly while focusing your energy on empowering the need that is asking to be met through this shadow, then you can work with this in healthy collaboration.
Here's a tangible example of what I mean. My top 3 archetypes are Nurturer, Connector, and Alchemist. When I can create experiences that bring people together with the intention of helping to make life better for those involved, I empower my ability to turn experiences into prosperity for myself (and ultimately all who are involved). If I were to work these in an unhealthy way, I may find myself overgiving and depleted of resources, while leaning on others to support me and hoping for a miracle without actually believing it possible.
Do introspection modalities do the work for us? No. Are they able to help us find language to describe our ways of knowing and being giving us the ability to consciously engage these tools as we navigate our lives? Absolutely!
3. Decluttering
Go to the space in your house or place of business where you manage your money. What do you find there? Is it tidy and easy to find things? Do you have piles of bills or receipts that need attending?
The state of our physical space can reflect what is going on energetically. Imagine yourself at the bottom of a murky pond—it would not be easy to see your way out of this situation. This can be how it feels when you are overwhelmed by your financial situation. It may not be clear how to get out of the place where you find yourself. You can't breathe here and even if the answer were right in front of you, you may not be able to see it.
Cleaning up your workspace may feel like it is pulling your much-needed attention away from the matter at hand, but moving things in the physical realm actually helps to get things moving in the energetic realm.
There is also an added bonus! Often when we begin to do this work, we find abundance in unexpected forms. Perhaps you find some hidden change, paper money, or unused gift cards. Perhaps you find unfinished experiences or courses. It could come in the form of uncovering an old item that you really love and haven't seen in some time.
Abundance comes in many forms. The decluttering may open up physical space for you to be more active in your daily routines, inspire you to begin or revisit a beloved movement practice, or just breathe more fully. Your space may feel more welcoming or organized which can help you be more productive with your time and feel lighter in your body.
You do not need to do this to an extreme or impart a system so to speak in your space in order for it to benefit you. The idea here is that bringing awareness to your space and aligning it energetically with how you desire your relationship with your financial state to be, will support you in creating this reality on all levels of your existence.
My advice here is to start in a way that is manageable and let it build. As with most things, there are many tools and modalities available to support you in this work. If you work best with a guide or system, there are many experts in this field free and low cost resources ready to support you. Stephanie Bennett Vogt is someone I have encountered along my journey and I've found value in her way of navigating this space.
She is a well-known author and speaker. I attended a seminar with her at a summit a few years ago and her intuitive approach with the activity she presented helped me identify and take action with an area of my work space that was blocked. I had a drawer full of big, heavy, expensive books that I had purchased to help me study for a professional training that I was seeking to help me increase my salary and be received as more worthy in my industry. I had long-since abandoned that path, but kept the books out of guilt that I had spent so much money on them and shame in not completing the training.
Through the intuitive activity that Stephanie led us through that day, I identified this drawer as a place where my professional energy and channel of prosperity were blocked. I had not even opened this drawer in months as there was not anything in there that I was currently using, so it was a great surprise to me when I was drawn to it and opened it revealing this stack of books. The insight I had in that moment was that these books were not only heavy physically, but emotionally and that it was time for me to release them and make space for the work that I was doing currently. The very place I sat every day was filled with items from my old intentions and goals and I had not made space for the items I was using every day.
That day, I just removed the books from the drawer and created a stack in the back corner of my office where they could sit until I knew what to do with them. A few weeks went by and I began to get frustrated with them taking up even that space and was ready to let them go fully. In beautiful synchronicity, a friend of my partner called her within a day or two of that frustration creeping in to let her know that she had quit her job on the spot because she was tired of not being valued for her true worth. She was planning to seek out the very training that I had purchased these books for as it was more aligned with a path of empowerment for her. I shipped her the books the very next day. She used them, received the certificate, and shortly after found a more aligned position in her industry where she is valued—not because of this certificate, yet it helped her to take the steps she needed to align with her own value and present herself in that manner confidently.
4. Financial Literacy - Understanding Your Credit
I did not grow up in a household or a time where I was taught much about how to manage my finances. Most of my early training was through watching and listening. My grandmother taught me how to balance a checkbook which was the extent of my formal education on money management. I actually learned quite a lot through that one act and am grateful for it still today. It was the basis of my understanding of what a budget looks like.
With that education alone, I headed off to college and was suddenly completely accountable for my financial stability and management. I had worked a full time job my senior year of high school, so I had been used to managing more money than most of my peers, yet still had no real understanding of the responsibility that came with needing to plan for the evolving expenses of tuition, supplies, food, basic living... I got by, but made many mistakes and found myself in a lot of debt without many tools for finding my way out of it.
My first career was as an art teacher. I was responsible for managing a $7000 supply budget. I was also tasked with fundraising and in my first year raised about $400, increasing that to over $20,000 the year I left that position. I learned a lot by trial and error in that role, but did gain some knowledge about the importance of bringing in more than you spend through that role.
Over the next few decades, I held positions that found me managing programs with budgets ranging from $10,000 to well over a million in revenue. I was fortunate to have many mentors who shared their knowledge with me as well as being provided with many experiences that taught me what unhealthy money management looked like.
My financial literacy path has been bumpy and filled with error, yet I am grateful for every step of the journey. It wasn't until I started facing my mistakes head on and empowering myself to ask for help and admit failure that big shifts arrived for me. Today, I am still far from perfect, but I am able to clearly identify where my wounds show up and where I am engaging in unhealthy habits with my finances. I also have the tools and courage to create change in these areas and hold compassion for myself as I take these steps.
While I've shared above my training in how to manage a budget, much of that came through managing other people's money. Managing your own, whether in your personal life, or as an entrepreneur, has deeper roots that you likely are not involved with when managing someone else's budget. This level is your credit score.
For a long time, the concept of a credit score was illusive to me at best. My introduction to this concept as a part of my reality came the first time I requested my credit report. I was filled with anxiety and felt very judged. This document and the score attached to it are in fact judging you. It is a score of how well you've managed your money and this can be very triggering—especially if one of your ways of knowing is through numbers or the language of assessment.
Here is the thing though. This number does not represent who you are as a person. It does not take into account the intentions behind your spending, the traumas of your childhood that are infused into your relationship with money, or your education (or lack thereof) with how to manage your finances.
The best education I have received in how to understand my credit score, what affects it, and how to understand the impact that it has in my life has come through some of my greatest failures financially speaking. It was not until I was living on my own with maxed out credit cards and a score that was in the lowest range that I had to learn what this all meant in order to survive. It was embarrassing and extremely challenging to my nervous system to fumble my way through the process of restoring my credit and learning how to make proactive moves in order to prevent the same from happening again—but I survived it and am living a more peaceful and abundant life because of it.
In today's world, there are many tools and resources that did not exist when I began this journey. There are websites that teach you about your credit that are free and have educational resources to help you increase your financial literacy and take a more empowered role with your finances.
I am not an expert in money or the vast world of all things financial. I am an imperfect human who still makes mistakes, yet has greatly transformed my relationship with money and continues to learn more and do better every day. One of the first steps that moved me in this direction was learning about my credit score and how to affect it positively instead of avoiding it and allowing it to consume me and make decisions for me. Credit Karma is a website that you can use to find out your credit score and also gathers many tools and information for you to learn how to navigate your current situation and set yourself up for the future. Additionally, most credit cards and some banks even provide access to your score (often listed as FICO) through their apps and websites.
If the one thing you take away from this post is that you are not a failure for having made mistakes with your finances than I have succeeded in my intention for writing it. If you are still reading this, there is a part of you that is ready to take the next step towards transformation and is guiding and supporting you as you take it.
Do this work compassionately and give your body the support it needs as you do. Before you engage in any of these practices or websites, ground yourself. Put your feet on the ground, one hand on your heart and one on your belly and take as many deep intentional breaths as it takes to feel present (at least 10 if possible—more if needed). Drink lots of water as you move through this and afterward. Take breaks and move your body as it feels good. Shake it out or dance it out! Move the energy through you and come back into a the grounding exercise. Repeat this as often as you need to. Ask a friend for moral support. Have flowers nearby or open a window and get some fresh air. Play soothing music.
This work is hardest at first, but not impossible. You can do this.
5. Tracking and Intentional Action
One of the first things I hear people say when they find themselves in financial hardship is "I just need to cut back on ...". I hear the same thing from those wanting a healthier relationship with their body. Diet culture has taught us that depriving ourselves from the things we love (often what we turn to in times of stress) is the answer to having the body we desire and that is accepted in our culture as healthy and attractive.
There are many similarities to how we interact with our financial health and our physical healthy—both culturally/societally and individually. There is a deep history that ties health and wealth together throughout time and that show up sometimes more subtly in our present day, and yet still very much there.
While I am not saying that there are areas where removing or reducing certain habits or indulgences may benefit you, I am noting that it is not just about what you are releasing. Often times there are things that need more attention or have been abandoned that when reintroduced actually help to balance out the environment and lessen the need for those things that you may be overengaging at the moment.
There is not a one-size-fits-all solution to most things in life. Our bodies and our unique circumstances are frequently grossly left out of the solutions we are given. You can absolutely use these tools to help you create transformation, yet know that it is through the engagement with them while also honoring your specific needs and your soul wisdom guidance that you find the most effective and efficient path.
In my experience, the best way to transform a relationship (mindset, habit, pattern—call it what you will) has been to first become familiar with the reality of its current state. Set an intention for how you desire it to be, and then identify attainable, actionable steps to get you there. You do not have to plan out the entire path before you begin—in fact, I recommend not attempting to as this will cause frustration and likely put you right back into the old pattern quickly. Take it one tiny step at a time. With each step, celebrate!
I wrote a blog post a while back which referenced tiny celebrations throughout your day as a way of transcending your circumstances. I recommend this post as well as another which is all about using a method of ACCEPTANCE to support you in shifting mindsets.
Regardless of what your situation is currently, knowing fully the scope of your circumstance is key to your transformation of it. The first step may be actually saying it out loud. "I am in over my head and I'm ready to create change." (Use the language that feels accurate for you if that sentence does not resonate.) Next start an investigation. Take action towards empowering yourself with the tools and resources to move you through this process and land you safely and securely on the other side of it.
I can't promise that you will not have moments along this journey where you find yourself in a situation reminiscent of the past (this moment or ones further back from your lived experience)—acutally it is most likely that you will see patterns and habits resurface from time to time. This is natural and a part of the learning process. However, as you continue to move forward with compassion for your imperfection and humaness, the more quickly you can engage the tools that you now have at the ready to support you in getting back into alignment with where you are intentionally headed.
Tracking is a tool that I have found to be extremely useful. You can do this in many ways. For some, having a budget-tracking software is helpful while for others that is overwhelming. Find the way this is correct for you. It may begin by just logging into your bank account daily and becoming more familiar with looking at your spending. It may look like an abundance gratitude list where you note daily any income and value you have received and celebrating these wins, no matter their size. It could be hiring someone to help you with your bookkeeping or working with a financial advisor.
This journey is personal and unique to you. Tune into your ways of knowing and being—your soul wisdom—to guide you through the process and connect you with the tools, teachers, and techniques that resonate for you. Ask for help, and know that you are not alone. While this is a journey you must take FOR yourself, it is not one you must do BY yourself. Filter the advice that you are given through your body and follow the ones that feel peaceful and supportive. Learn from the ones that create tension, resistance, and anxiety—there is much insight to be gained here as well as potential to provide the quantum leaps you seek in your transformation.
Understand that even reading this post is a step in the direction that you seek. You are already doing it.
If the artwork that has been presented throughout this post resonates with you, you can learn more about it and the message that accompanies it on my YouTube Channel. I've shared the full video below where I read the message while presenting the image from various views. The theme of the piece is The Soul of Money and it is part of a large collection of Soul Wisdom Vistas—channeled artwork that I create as a part of my devotional morning practice. They each come through first as visual artwork. I receive insights from the way the materials interact and how the image is formed, layer by layer. Eventually, a theme emerges, and with it a message.
I keep them in a drawer in my desk and occasionally rotate them on the walls of my office. I like to have them close by as they often come to mind or make themselves known in my awareness as I work with clients, run workshops, and various other interactions that I engage in within my day-to-day.
This message in particular is in alignment with a theme I see very present in our experience as a collective and with the individuals I am working with through my business. It will be integrated into the toolbox of resources and energetically support a program that I have opening up next month (registration will open in mid March 2022) called The Missing Link. It is 17-week group experience that will hold a space for soulpreneurs to gather with peers and learn from soul wisdom leaders in our field while aligning their soul wisdom ways with their business to create nourishment and sustainability in their business practices. One of the themes that we will work with is how to create enriching engagements and tuning into the soul of money.
This program is designed to support soulpreneurs who are already finding success in their business, yet are meeting frustration around old paradigm energies showing up and creating challenges, causing burnout, and blocking progress towards the thriving environment you are calling in. To stay abrest of updates on this experience and be notified when registration opens, subscribe via the link in the footer of my website and send me an email letting me know you are interested in finding out more about The Missing Link!