Financial Feminist - 75. Working Through Money Trauma with Shannah Game

Episode Date: March 7, 2023

We all have a money story, and some (if not almost all) of ours include both big and little “T” trauma that impacts the way we handle finances for the rest of our lives. We wanted to dive into what money trauma is, how it manifests, and how we can become more aware of and work with that trauma for healthier financial practices –– so we asked Millenial Money Expert Shannah Game to join us. In this episode, Shannah and Tori dive into different types of money trauma and how to recognize our own unhealthy patterns and create new ones to help us find peace with our finances. To learn more about our guests, get additional resources, and read episode transcripts, check out our show notes page: https://herfirst100k.com/financial-feminist-podcast Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello, financial feminists. Today, we are talking about that lovely T word, which is trauma. Okay, before we get into trauma, some general housekeeping. Subscribe, rate, review. Y'all know the drill. We really appreciate your support. It not only helps us continue to produce this show for free, but it also allows us to get incredible guests and to rise up in the rankings, which is just like this fun cyclical thing, which means more value for you all. So if you've enjoyed the show, leave us a review. If you haven't, I don't know, go back to listening to Dave Ramsey's show. I don't know if I can say that. It's fine. That's what I'm saying. Okay. You might know if you've read my book, Financial Feminist, that we spend the entire first chapter talking about the emotions of money and

really the trauma of money. And if you haven't read the book, it has been so incredible to hear how well it's connected with you all. The true work around money, like, yeah, teaching you how to pay off debt, teaching you how to save, teaching you how to live a financial feminist lifestyle. These things are all so important. But the truth is, is we can't work to do those things until we start to understand our emotional hangups and yes, emotional trauma around money. So today's episode, we are talking about money trauma, both the big T and the little t trauma. So many of you emailed us or left us voicemails about the shame or the guilt or the judgment or the trauma you feel around finances. We sit down with Shauna Game, host of Everyone's Talking Money

and fellow financial educator. Blending the practical and psychological aspects of money, Shauna works with individuals to help them work through their money trauma and narratives to help people see money as a tool rather than a thing to be feared. On her podcast, she helps listeners alleviate suffering, stumbling blocks, and anxiety around money. We get into so much in this episode as we often do with fellow personal finance creators. Shauna talks about her divorce and what financial lessons she learned that she wishes she could tell herself before she got married, how financial trauma affects women and specifically women of color differently, and how we can move forward after the last few years of financial strain and stress and take care of ourselves during times of economic hardship. Even if you don't

consider yourself to have trauma around finances, you do. Everybody does, even me. And you will absolutely learn something from this episode. So let's go ahead and get into it. But first, a word from our sponsors. We kind of start these organically, which is always fun. Yeah, it's been a minute since we've seen each other. What's going on in your world? How's life? It has been a minute. I feel like everything since the pandemic has been a minute. It's true. Have we not talked since, oh my gosh, it's probably been pre-pandemic. It's been quite a while. I can't remember the last time, but it has been quite a while. Yeah. I mean, time feels like it's totally, you know, this weird, like, this weird thing lately. So

I have no idea how we're at the end of 2022 either, but here we are. Do you watch The Good Place? Have you ever seen The Good Place? Oh, yes. Yes, I do. Okay. So it feels like a Jeremy Baramy. Feels like a Jeremy Baramy timeline.

Doesn't it? Yes. I'm rewatching it with my partner. We just watched the Jeremy Baramy episode last night. And yeah, it breaks Chidi's brain. It kills me every time. Yeah, I know. I swear.

We like to start all of our interviews with money experts by asking, what is your first money memory? What is the first time that you remember thinking about money, considering money? What did that look like for you? Yeah. I mean, wow. That's such a great question. I think my first money memory was the first time I lost a tooth and realized that the tooth fairy was going to come. I had a brother who was five years older. So for me, it was the never ending waiting game. And we'd gone to a movie and I had eaten some Milk Duds, very classic, lost the tooth in a Milk Dud and just remember... I don't remember the rest of the movie and just

coming home and needing to call my grandma and tell her that I lost this tooth and now the tooth fairy was going to come and I was going to have money. And she was asking me, well, what are you going to do with it? I'm like, well, I don't know. I've never really had money before. So I have no idea. But I think that was the first time I had a real conscious memory of, okay, I've got money. And I don't know how old I was. I don't know, six, seven, eight. I don't know how old you are when you lose your first tooth. But then I was like, okay, well, what am I going to do with this? And I don't remember what I did with it, but I probably went and bought a couch trash kid doll or something like that. I love it. Do you feel like that influenced

any way you manage money now or think about money now? That's a good question. Not necessarily. Although I've always been a little bit of a risk taker with money. Yeah. I'm not too conservative. I like to... I kind of from an early age figured we only got one shot at life. So we might as well have some funds. I've always been somebody who's really about balance. You know, half the money goes towards something fun that I like to do. And then half the money goes to something maybe a little bit more practical. So, you know, that's kind of always been the way I've approached any money that I've ever had.

And sometimes it works out and sometimes it doesn't. Yeah. So we are both millennial finance experts. And of course, you've built an entire brand around it. What is the thing that you feel like if you could touch on one thing that millennials are facing when it comes to finances? What is the thing they're struggling with most or the thing that is causing them the most anxiety when it comes to money? You know, I think that what's interesting about the generations is although we each have,

each generation has its kind of own unique circumstances and, you know, world climate, economic climate, everything that they're in, there are a lot of similarities amongst people. I'm a non-practicing certified financial planner, but spent 10, 12 years working with people. And regardless of demographic, of age, of income, we all had the same things in common around money, which was really fascinating for me to see. But I would say with millennials, I'm right on the cusp between Gen X and millennial, depending on what a survey you kind of look at. But I would say comparison is a really big trap that I see millennials get in, especially because a lot of the younger millennials have grown up with social media and kind of everything in your face all at once. And so it's really easy to start comparing yourself against other people. And

it can be a big trap because we don't know behind the scenes of anyone what's going on. So to compare what you're doing versus somebody else, it's never going to end up in a good place for yourself. So I think that's the big thing is really figuring out how to forge your own path and to put up some blinders and not really see or even care what anybody else is doing. But it's tricky. It's hard. Well, and it's the realization too that there are so many people who don't even do this intentionally, but present one thing online or one thing to their friends or one thing to their family. And there's a completely different reality behind the scenes. And they might not even be aware of that reality. The amount of people, of course,

that have come to me who have been like, I've been avoiding my credit card statements for a year. And I finally got honest and looked. And it's worse than I thought, or sometimes better than I thought. But I think that that's the interesting thing too, is you see a lot of people, I don't know, taking vacations, starting businesses, getting married on social media. And you might be thinking like, I want that. Or why don't I have that? Behind the scenes, they might not be happy. They might be happy. Who knows? But they might not be happy. They might be in debt in order to get those things. Can't tell you the amount of people, and you know, of course, better than anybody, the amount of people who are getting married or having children and making deep financial

sacrifices to have those things in a way that I don't know if they've completely understood. Yeah. It's really tough because money is always this elephant in the room. We don't talk about it. We talk about it on shows like yours and shows like mine. It's literally the name of my show now. Everyone's talking money. So it's about these conversations. So we do this here in these places, but we don't do this outside. We certainly don't do it with strangers. We don't really- Actually not women. Right. Men are more conditioned to talk about money. Yeah. And we don't want to get into these conversations with family. It's hard enough to get into them with our partners. So we operate in this vacuum and it's really easy to think that your mistakes are original and unique and that there's something wrong with you. And a large part of my messaging is always to tell people,

there's nothing wrong with you. Anything that you've done or haven't done, it's completely normal. And most everything can be fixed and can be figured out. But I think it's really important to have these conversations and to talk about that comparison is a thing. And it's okay if you get stuck in those traps. Totally. Speaking of talking about money, you have been so transparent in your own financial journey. And I kind of want to just jump into that tough stuff. You have publicly talked about your separation, your divorce. Was that part of what brought you to becoming a financial educator? Did it change the way you thought about money or talked about money? I was already in the financial industry for about, gosh, about six years before that, five or six years, and had become a certified financial planner. So I really knew the ins and outs of money, which is a good thing and not a good thing when you're going through a divorce.

And I think it was really at that time when I started to have a lot of ahas about the power of the things that we don't talk about. And those things for me are your money story, the beliefs, money trauma that we're going to talk about, your mindset around money, how you think, act, and feel about money. All of those things are so powerful. And I got stuck in the trap of being really, really negative and coming from a place of true scarcity and fear and shame. I stayed in the relationship far too long because I was afraid of what he would do to me financially. And all of it came true and I lived and survived and have come out the other side. So it all is survivable, but it was really tough. And so I started to see the things I was struggling with echoed in the clients and the people I was working with. When I was a practicing certified

financial planner, I worked predominantly with female entrepreneurs. And I would see the same patterns. And I thought, okay, well, first I've got to figure this out for myself. Then I can start to help other people kind of figure this out. But there were a lot of really tough low moments where I thought, who am I to give money advice to anybody? I had to give up all of my assets, every single asset. I was left with a car that we just bought and it had a huge payment on it. And I had a suitcase, a blue suitcase that I packed full of all my clothes and anything else I could squeeze into it. That was it. I went, moved in with my parents and he lived in the house rent free for a long period of time and had everything else. So in order to not have to pay this person for the rest of my life, basically is what that felt like to me.

I had to make the tough choice to walk away from everything that I'd built. And it's hard. Those choices are not easy. Yeah. How did you keep yourself from drowning during that time? What for you was the motivation to keep going? And also, I imagine a ton of bitterness or resentment to overcome of I've done all this work seemingly for naught. Yeah, I still have a lot of bitterness. It's been quite a while. Sometimes I'll go to like, I love to cook. Sometimes I'll go to like make something. I'll be like, where's that tool? I'll ask my husband now. I'll be like, where's that tool that I need? And he's like, we don't own that. And I'm like, oh, crap. That was like from my previous. You're like that lemon juicer he's yeah exactly god damn when i got

divorced my friends actually did the best thing they threw me a divorce party which i highly suggest to anybody and they just brought over all their like odds and ends of extra stuff like toasters and spatulas and cooking stuff and whatever and so i had this like just complete mishmash of stuff but it was so cool because it was like... And I want to pause you there. This is like... I want to be on a soapbox for a second. Society celebrates in a woman's life like three things. You get engaged, you get married, you have babies. Those are like the three main things. And maybe graduation now more frequently, but like those are the big three things. Like people come out in droves. You literally

have... Yeah, you have registers where people can go and buy you. Yeah, toaster, blender, tea towels, the nursing bra you need and all of that. And the amount of support that you need during those times. Yes, completely amazing, critical. You need, I would argue, even more support during times of starting a business, going through a divorce, graduating grad school or getting a doctorate, becoming sober. The things that society celebrates are significant but should also be coupled with all of these other life milestones where you need support from friends. You need literal physical things or money or goods, or at least just generosity. And I fucking love that. I love that they did that for you.

It was brilliant. I mean, I still have a lot of those odds and ends. And I remember the people attached to them who gave them to me with kindness know, with kindness and because they, you know, believed in who I was and they knew I was in a bad situation. And, you know, I could have gone out and bought spatulas and whatever, but it was also this pure, just unadulterated freedom that I felt that I could never express, but it was just the most beautiful feeling. Like I felt totally like, you know, my whole life was resetting. I moved into apartment. I moved into apartment by myself since before college or during college. So I moved into this apartment. I didn't have anything. So I just wheeled in my little blue suitcase and then started buying furniture and buying what I wanted. So it was a

great sense of freedom. I also realized it was a privilege that I was able to afford to buy those things. Not everybody has that luxury. Totally understand that. So it was starting over. But yeah, it's tough. It's rough, specifically when the person on the other end is using money as the tool to harm you. And you're just doing the best you can to try and get out of it unscathed. But I think it really taught me again, I already knew this, but it really taught me that money is a tool and you can rebuild, you can make more money. So for me, the choice of giving up all my assets was an easy choice. And a lot of people think I'm completely crazy for doing that. But what I gained was myself and there is no price you can put on that. So

I would make the same choice over again if I had to. Yeah. Such a hard choice, but also I think one you deemed necessary. I think there's plenty of people who could figure out a way to split assets or get assets back. It sounds like for you, that was just not your situation where it was like, it's just easier to cut. Yeah. When the attorney says it's better for you to just let everything go, you're like, all right, let's do it. You're like, okay. So in our research, we found that around 20 to 25% of Americans experience some sort of trauma, deep trauma, PTSD symptoms around money and finances. So can you talk about what sort of forms of money trauma there are or how money trauma manifests for us as individuals? Yeah. Money is one of the most significant trauma bonds that most of us have, and it is deep. If you've never gone through this process of really thinking about trauma,

hopefully this is an invitation in to just think about the different areas in your life where you may experience some money trauma, but there's lots of different ways, right? We can have ancestral. So money trauma that has passed down generations, like my grandparents lived through the Great Depression. And so their thoughts and feelings and actions around money then passed to my parents, that then there's a warped version of that that was passed to me. And so trying to understand your ancestors and what they've walked through, what they've been through is very important to figure out money trauma that might exist. You could have obviously relationship trauma, money trauma that we were just talking about. You could also have trauma around things like blood money, right? So let's say that your partner or your spouse passed away

and you got a life insurance policy. That money may feel almost like survivor's guilt, right? It might feel like blood money to you. And so you might actually- I've worked with a ton of people who have gotten inheritances because somebody has died and they're like, I don't deserve this money. I feel guilty about this amount of money. I kind of don't want it. Yeah, super common. Yeah. And you can also think about blood money this way too. What if you are working a job that you hate and you get the paycheck? That could still feel like a version of blood money to you. That is a money trauma. I'm exchanging my time doing something that I don't like to do for money. So there's lots of different

ways that money trauma shows up. It could be from your parents, how you were raised, could be societal. But I would argue that most all of us have some form of money trauma. We live in this very money scarcity environment. That's how we grow up. That's how we learn to be in relationship with money. And that is definitely a form of money trauma that we all walk through. So there's lots of different ways that this can really show up in your life. I think that's one thing I wish we talked about more. I start my book with a whole chapter around the emotions of money, of the psychological impact that narratives have on you. Again, I asked about money

memories, right? Like that is so interesting about how that shapes our relationship to money based on how our parents managed money or how are the people who we grew up around, how they managed money. And I wish just people would give themselves more slack and grace and the understanding that so much of the way you view money, so much of how you manage money has everything to do with your lived experience and with a systemic oppression and less like your personal defects or something like that. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, there's nothing wrong with you if you feel money trauma, if you've experienced anything that we're talking about. But I mean, honestly, if you're walking around and you're feeling fear, shame, guilt, regret, if you're

hypervigilant around money, all of those are signs of money trauma. And I would say that probably everyone listening, we could all raise our hands and say, yes, we have some version. Some of it's deeper and more ingrained, but there's always something there, I think, really bubbling at the surface. So let's talk about some concrete examples of how this financial trauma might show up in our lives. I think the most obvious example is spending, right? Of somebody who overspends, someone who doesn't really spend money on things that they love, feels deep guilt for their spending, spends money to cope. I think this is the most common. What are some other responses

and how does this impact somebody in their day-to-day? Yeah. You brought up a lot of the super practical ones around spending and those sorts of things. When we talk about money scarcity, when we're living in a place of money scarcity, we can't make good decisions. Our brains just don't operate from a place where we're able to rationalize the decisions we need to make around money. And so we tend to make the opposite decision of what we're actually going towards. So if we're actually wanting to pay off debt, if we're feeling a lot of money scarcity, we may actually spend more money and get more in debt just because that's the way our bodies and brains work. But when we talk about trauma and

any kind of trauma, specifically money trauma, you're going to a lot of times feel it in your body. You're going to have some sort of body response, right? So these are the things that aren't as tangible as saving, spending money, those types of things. You might get anxiety, you might develop depression. Just this year, I developed panic attacks. I never had those before. And I came to learn that that is a repercussion in my body from trauma that I had not dealt with and really worked through. So it could also manifest in your body like you're not sleeping well, right? If you're waking up at night and you're thinking about money or you're thinking about those bills you have to pay, or maybe you lost money in the stock market and you're kind of

freaking out about that, whatever it might be, right? That is causing a trauma response in your body. It usually raises your blood pressure, your heart rate goes up. And so most of us operate in this hyperactive state, particularly around money. We don't want to have conversations. We don't want to think about it. We want to kind of push it aside. We'll do again, the kind of opposite of what we're actually going towards. And so there's a big, big body connection to trauma, right? And so it's really unearthing what's going on in your body and how is that related to your relationship with money. That is a huge process of working through the money trauma that you might have. And I wish we talked about it again, like any other kind of trauma, like traumatic,

traumatic events or traumatic events. And I have a therapist friend who calls it like big T trauma versus little T trauma. So like big T trauma, right, is sexual assault, murder, like the big, big, horrible things. Little t trauma might be microaggressions or a frayed relationship with your family, depending on the severity. But I think all of us have at least little t trauma. And then some of us have these horribly traumatic events in our life. And yeah, I mean, I think about just how you deal with trauma in any other aspect, right? You gain or lose weight to To your point, you lose sleep. Your body starts feeling either, you know, extremely tight and sore all the time. You don't money trauma and of concern around money that you don't have enough or you're going to lose what you do have. I actually know from research for my book that so much trauma is added in addition if you are a person of color and especially if

you were first gen. And I have so many friends of mine who have told me that, yeah, I have money now and I'm doing okay, but it feels like every single second I could lose it because I didn't have a lot of it growing up and because I live in a world that is constantly trying to bar my rights. And we found in research for this episode, it's a heartbreaking piece of research, but that Black women have the highest levels of this cumulative burden of bodily wear and tear from chronic stress and adverse life events. And it's linked to cognitive and physical decline, breast cancer, heart disease, diabetes, and all of these terrible things. So, I mean, a not so fun question, but like, how much do you see factors like systemic racism affecting money trauma in adults and especially in people of color?

I mean, the answer is a lot, right? I mean, everything that you're just talking about, you know, everything that's going on in the body as a result is very real, you know, and it does stem from first from, first, we don't often recognize that money trauma exists. I think I have a lot of friends that are African American, Asian, lots of different demographics. And when we talk about this idea of trauma, it's like, whoa, wait a minute. I didn't even know this existed. Like, okay, this starts to explain a lot, a lot of what I'm feeling and thinking about money. And you're absolutely right. It creates in particularly people of color, this sense of wanting to be super conservative with their money, wanting to hold on to everything that they can.

A lot of times it creates false beliefs around their value, that they're not worthy of a certain income or that they can't step up to the table and have their voice heard and have it be worthy and worth the amount of money that they're worth. And so I think the most important thing is to really take some time and start to just, whether you're a journaler or you're somebody that likes to just kind of sit and meditate or whatever you kind of use, even if you're doing yoga or something like that, and just start to let your brain go to a place where you think about what money traumas like might exist for me. And if you are, you know, someone who has had ancestral, like deep ancestral societal money trauma, like just start to think about

what that is and how that shows up in your life, in your world, in your every day. And, you know, we can't flip the switch. I wish we could just flip the switch and all of us could suddenly be, you know, trauma-free. If that existed, I really want to flip the switch. I wish we could just flip the switch and all of us could suddenly be trauma-free. If that existed, I really want to flip that switch. But starting to have awareness over the trauma and the stories and the beliefs and all of those things that are impacting you and weighing you down is a really important first step to moving through this. And I think people think that that is really light and airy and like, why would I need to spend time doing that? But that's the hard work. That is the process that really will cultivate change for you. And I've seen it so powerfully with so many people. But again, we don't acknowledge that that piece of

the process is important. I mean, it's why you and I talk about it so much. The first full chapter of my book, which is the longest chapter, is just about, again, the emotions around money, the financial trauma, because you cannot make a budget, build wealth, start investing until you understand how these traumas have impacted your life. And I think about my best friend who graduated college right before the recession. And we've talked a lot about how being unemployed for such a long period of time and being in a scarcity mindset for so long caused her to stay in jobs and situations for far too long because she was like, what if another recession happens? Or like, how do I get this back? Or to

your point again, I'm not deserving of a better opportunity because I'm okay with what I have. I don't want to rock the boat because something could happen. And it could work the opposite too. You could be in a form of money trauma and you could just be like, well, just screw it. I'm just going to spend all my money. I'm just going to get rid my money. I'm just going to get rid of everything. He's talking about Chidi at the beginning, right? Where he's like, nothing matters. And he's making peeps and M&Ms and chili. Yeah. I mean, so it can work both ways. We tend to talk about it in the conservative form, but it could also be very much just like you're complete, just like throw it to the wind. And neither one of them isn't bad or good. They just are. But

starting to recognize your money personality and your patterns, it's like a muck of shit. And you're just starting to unpile it all. And you'll start to have these epiphany moments like, oh my God, like I finally understand myself. I finally understand why I do certain things. And those are like the true gems, you know, if we can take money trauma and turn it into something good. I mean, that is really a beautiful gift that you can give yourself. so let's talk about that so if somebody is listening and they're like oh i'm sure i have financial trauma maybe i haven't dug into it much there's a lot of course with trauma that is again systemic is things that are outside of your control. And for a lot of people, this trauma is not something that they can necessarily cope with,

deal with, or process on their own. I mean, my natural recommendation for anybody going through any sort of trauma is if you have access to it, go to therapy. Absolutely. Work with a therapist, but obviously that requires a certain level of privilege. What are the things we can control? You mentioned the first one is a great first step of assessing, processing, just coming to the realization that, oh, I have this sort of belief about money. Or, oh, this event happened in my life that shaped how I view money now. view money now. What other things can we do to work through that trauma to better understand it in a way that is hopefully as, I don't know, actionable as possible? And knowing that trauma is so messy. Yeah, it's messy. And I'm glad that you said that word because I don't want anyone

listening to think it's not going to be messy. It's going to be messy for you. So just embrace the messiness and the muck and that some days it'll feel like you've made progress and other days it'll feel like you're completely stuck back where you started from. But yeah, I mean, the first thing obviously is the recognizing and releasing as best as you can any money trauma that you feel like might be there for you. And there are a lot of different ways you could do that. I do a process I call a financial forgiveness where I set a timer for like 10 minutes and I just like angry write out everything about money that feels like it's stuck in me or that I'm afraid of or a belief that I've had that I know doesn't work anymore.

And then I like take that piece of paper and I know doesn't work anymore. And then I take that piece of paper and I'm a burn it girl. So I like to go out and burn it. But some people don't like that. So you could shred it, you could cut it up, you could do whatever you need to. It doesn't matter, right? But there's powerful science behind getting out what is in your head on paper and then releasing that in some form. There's a lot of science behind the power of doing that and how that helps to rewire whatever's going on in your brain. Another thing that I think is really important, kind of goes back to what we were talking about when we started this conversation around comparison, is to get really clear on a vision that you have for your life. And I know

that may be really hard when we're talking about trauma, because you might feel like, I can't dare think about the future, but I want to give you permission to do that. And even if you can't think five years ahead or a year ahead, just think about today or tomorrow, or maybe next month. Some of the things that you want to do, what do you want your life to look like? Where do you want to work? Where do you want to live? What do you want to do for fun? All of these things, right? And if you're somebody who likes to do kind of like old school vision boarding, I'm a big fan of it, cut out things, cut out phrases, just put something in front of your face that feels authentic to you and feels like it's the vision for your life and how you want it to look like. And from there, I want you to start thinking about, this is an important piece of money trauma. I want you to start thinking about what success looks like for you. So I want

you to think about how much money do you need, do you want to make? You alone, right? How do you want to spend your money? What are your values around money? All of these things. I want you to think about what is your success measurement? Maybe your success measurement is like, I just want to wake up and not feel so shitty about money. Fantastic. That's an amazing goal. It doesn't have to be this big lofty, I'm going to make a million bucks type thing. So figure out what success means to you. And then from there, you can start taking really what I call measured risks that help you move closer towards that vision. So those are all things you can do. I mean, I'm a huge fan of

mindfulness. I do meditation every morning. It's literally changed my life. It's literally changed my connections to trauma. And so I'm a big fan of meditation. I would encourage anybody to just try it for like five days. But I like this idea. I think of it like a pause. So I know my thoughts and feelings around money are so powerful. And my thoughts and feelings then affect my actions and behaviors around money, right? So if I can focus on my thoughts and feelings, that can hopefully lead to good actions and behaviors around money. So what meditation does or practice I like to call the pause is if I'm having a negative thought or feeling around money, I take a pause, just a pause, just a break. And then I think about what do I want to do

about that thought or feeling, right? Most of us are so used to not even, we don't even think about our thoughts and feelings. We just go straight to like the action and behavior. And it usually is counterintuitive to what we're trying to achieve. So just building in little moments for yourself where you can take a breath, take a pause and really think about, okay, is this what I actually really want to do? Sometimes the answer is yes. Sometimes the answer is no, but it gives you control. And so money trauma takes us out of control. And so all of these little things are about just helping you find little bits of control with your money so that you can feel like you're playing on the offense versus playing like the defense with your money.

And another thing, this is a trauma. I don't know if this will quite translate over podcasts, but we'll give it a try. So when I was taking a course to become a certified trauma money specialist, one of the things we talked about was how much trauma shows up in your body and little techniques that you can do, obviously breathing, there's box breathing and different things like that. But one of the things that I love, it's called butterfly tapping. And so if you literally think about taking your wrists and crossing them and putting your hands kind of near your collarbone. And with your three fingers, not using your thumb and your pinky, if you just kind of tap,

tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, what that does is it actually sends signals to your brain that you need to work in both hemispheres of your brain. And so it works to kind of take you out of a trauma response that you might feel and put you back into your body and help you to be able to start making, you know, hopefully decisions and actions and thoughts and feelings and all of those things from a place where you feel a little bit more empowered. So it may sound like a really kind of crazy thing, but I would highly suggest when you're starting to feel like money anxiety, give it a try because it's pretty awesome. It might be placebo, but I was doing it while you were talking and it made me calmer.

So who knows? Well, there you go. Normally, you can feel it like tingling in your toes a little bit. So yeah, it just activates both sides of your brain and you can go faster when you're really feeling like an intense moment or you're slower when you're just- I feel tingling in my head, at the top of my head, like my top chakra area. That's a good thing. I love all of that. And I would add two. One, also a body thing is, when you were saying tapping,

I thought you were going to say this, is I believe it's like an old, it's a Chinese medicine technique of taking your hands and putting them into like light fists and just like tapping up and down kind of like your Tarzan, but all over your body. And it like wakes your body up. So when you are stressed and you're in your head too much, again, it grounds you. It puts you in your body. And I would say, again, the whole thesis of mine and the one thing I want for my entire body of work is to get people to talk about money. And one of the easiest ways to feel more comfortable with events that have happened in your life, with shame, with judgment, is to have conversations with people. And those can be as minor as, hey, I am really stressed about debt. Have you ever felt this way? And it can be as major as sitting down with your partner and being like, let's plan our life together and let's

figure out how we can use money as a tool to vacation once a year if that's something we want to do or have children or get married or whatever that looks like. And so I think just having conversations as simple as that sounds is going to allow you to be more comfortable with money in general, but also feel way less shame. Brene Brown says that shame lives in shadow. And so if you don't talk about it, you have no idea that somebody else might be feeling the same way or has felt the same way and i think it becomes way easier the more you do it absolutely yeah i mean conversations are so important and you know if you if you think about money trauma and like you're thinking like oh i might be someone who has like ancestral or family money

trauma you know encourage you like have those conversations with, you know, your parents or your grandparents, if they're still around and just, you know, it doesn't have to be a judgmental thing. Just ask questions to say, you know, you want to, you want to learn, you're exploring this idea of, of money trauma and you really want to hear their story because it's really these stories that connect us and help us not feel so alone. And so money needs to, like you said, money needs to come out of the shadows. It needs to be something that we can talk about and specifically things that aren't fun like trauma. I mean, we just need to be able to talk about it. I mentioned the recession before.

We're coming into a period, and we've been in a period, I think, for the past couple years of financial anxiety, of economic volatility, of a lot of stress for people. For somebody either prone to financial anxiety or someone who is maybe experiencing it deeply for the first time, how can we, quote unquote, get ahead or even just implement practices to help curb that anxiety, both actionable money things, but also things we can do to just comfort ourselves? I'm a big fan of eating a giant bowl of ice cream. I will highly suggest grabbing your favorite flavor of ice cream and just sitting down and having a moment because, you know, I think we need to, I'm going to definitely give some more practical things. No, but life is fucking hard. So it's very hard. And I think you wrote ice cream.

Yeah, you need to, you need to feel good about yourself sometimes. And sometimes, you know, I always tell people like build a reward into your money. Build something in and make you feel good. I mean, you spend all your time paying other people. Do something fun for yourself. And that actually could be a great way to work through stress, anxiety, fear. You don't always have to do these big, big things when it comes to money. It could just be like, I just want to feel better today. I just want to do something that makes me feel good. I may want to crank on the music and just dance crazy or get outside and go for a walk and just remind myself that my life is not only about money. There are lots of other parts of me. Money is just this tiny little component. Sometimes it feels very big. I

totally understand that and I've totally been there. I'm a big fan of journaling. So if you're somebody that likes to write, even just grabbing a blank notebook and every morning, every night, get what's out of your head. If there's something that's feeling like it feels overwhelming to you, write it down. And at least then you acknowledge like, okay, I'm going through this day. I'm feeling some stress or some anxiety around money. Maybe today's not the best day for me to make certain money decisions. Maybe today is just a day I want to take extra time and pause and I want to make sure I get out and get some sunlight. And maybe I want to have an extra scoop of my ice cream or whatever it might be. So I think that's something that's really important to focus on. And I just keep rooting back into what do I want my life to look like? What is something really, really small I can do today that moves me closer, that makes me feel better about the place that I am in, even if everything doesn't look great. Talking about my divorce story, there were times where I was looking and I was like, okay, I have negative money.

I have nothing. I have a lot of debt and this is really not a good situation to be in. And I could either make one of two choices. One, I could really stay in that negative place. Or the other choice was like, okay, what can I do today that is going to help me feel just a tiny bit better? And if I start stringing that together each day, then I started to feel like, okay, I can do this. I can make some progress even if there are big setbacks. So try a lot of things. Try whatever works for you. Lean into, again, we've joked about ice cream, but I love food. I'm not going to deny that. Lean into the things that make you feel good. If you can't go on a vacation right now, look at some cool pictures online. Watch a YouTube video. Do things that take you out of that brain loop that we can get in when we're feeling stress, trauma, anxiety around money. Jog yourself out of it, even if it's only for just a few little

moments. I'm realizing how much of that I either don't do or do. I just came back from a vacation and the first week or so, I had all of these thoughts of like, oh, you need to do this when you get back from work. Oh, you need to do this for thoughts of like, oh, you need to do this when you get back from work. Oh, you need to do this for the book launch. Oh, you need to do this. And I kept telling myself, okay, nope, it's vacation. So we're not going to think about work. And I got to the point where that was actually more stressful because I was like, oh my gosh,

I'm going to forget about it. It's not going to happen. And so by week two, I had a notes app, like a notes in my phone on the notes app of just like, okay, we're just going to write it down. And then when we write it down, like all my anxiety went away. Cause I was like, yep, it'll get handled when I go back. Like I have got it in a list. It'll get handled when I go back. And like, that was so effective for me. Yeah. I mean, it's some of those things sound like so simple, right? Like it can't be that it can't, it can't be that because that's so simple. But

a lot of times with, with money, fear, anxiety, shame, guilt, sometimes the simple things are the things that just help you feel a little bit better. And you know, if you can just feel even, you know, 5% better every day, I mean, that's a solid win. Well, and it's progress over perfection too, right? It's this idea that like, and I, I'm sure that you feel this way. We're money experts. We still make financial mistakes all of the time or learn something new about money. Yeah. So it's like, there's the constant, I just need you to keep moving, even if things don't go the right way, or you can't save money this month, or you have that intrusive thought about money leaving or

money being not a thing anymore in your bank account. All of these things are going to crop up again. And the idea is that we're aiming for progress. We're not aiming for perfection. We're not aiming for you succeeding and doing the quote unquote right financial thing 100% of the time. That's not sustainable. It's not realistic. Right, right. There is no right thing. Yeah, totally. You have obviously just been so transparent in your work and in today's conversation about money trauma, about how this affects our lives. If somebody is out there listening and they're going, I want to dig into this, but I'm so scared to get started. It's the monster in my closet. And as long as he's contained in the closet, I don't have to deal with him and everything's fine.

What would you say to that person? I have one question that I ask everybody to think very, very deeply about. And again, this is going to sound simple, but when you start this process, it can be a deep one. I want you to think about how does money make me feel? That's your question of the day. How does money make me feel? I want you to write down anything that pops in your head. This will really help you kind of uncover those bits, but it's a soft kind of gentle way for you to tiptoe into this idea of money trauma, of your story, of maybe even false beliefs that you have. So just start asking yourself questions. How do I feel about money? And then followed up with why.

Why do I feel a certain way? If money always makes me feel pissed off and stressed out, okay, why? What's behind that? Can we dig a little deeper? So I always tell people, ask yourself seven whys. So how do you feel about money? And then go seven layers deep with that. Why, why, why, why, why, right? So what we're trying to do is we're trying to get to the foundation to really have that deep understanding of what is actually causing the trauma or the fear or the shame or the guilt or whatever it is, right? When we get to that layer, ah, there, okay, now we can start doing something with that

layer. So just gently walk yourself through this process. You don't have to do it in just one day or just sitting down, but just start like rumoring on this idea of how does money make me feel and why? And that digging process is sometimes very painful, but usually what happens is it starts to feel super empowering. Like you're really doing something of self-care for yourself to help yourself get to a place where you can really set that course for what you want to do with your life and with your money. And you can actually start making that happen. I've never heard the seven layers of why. I love that.

That's so powerful. And one of the things I think about a lot too, and I encourage people to think about is there's often this fear around money of realizing, oh shit, it's all me. It's all up to me. It's entirely my responsibility. What if I fuck it up? What if I make a mistake? What if I can't handle it? I'm not prepared to do this. I don't know anything about money. There's this scarcity terrified version of that. And then there's a version that's like, this is all me. I get to make all of the decisions. I get to manage money how I want. I get to spend money on what I want to spend money on. And the amount of confidence that my proper, usually proper management of money has given me has been incredible. You just said, well, how does money make you feel? And my first word for me is powerful. Powerful. Completely powerful because

I am in control of my money. I don't have to counsel anybody, at least for me as a single woman. I don't have to counsel anybody. I don't have to ask questions. I can do what I want with my money and spend it how I want and save as much or as little as I want. And of course, there's a level of privilege in that. But I think getting to that state again, where you can say, yep, this is all me and I got it. And I'm not going to be perfect and it's going to be messy, but I've got it. I think that's an incredible transformation from, oh my God, shit, it's all me to like, hell yeah, it's all me. Let's go. Yeah. I love that. When you ask the question, how do you feel about money? You get to that bottom why. See if you can start flipping the switch. See if you can start flipping the script of like,

yeah, all right. It may be just me, but I feel really empowered. I got this. I can do this. And if I make a mistake, who cares? It's totally fine. My last question for you, what would you say to someone who is scared of money and just feels so, so alone? First, I would say that you are not alone. I know that's really easy to say. I am the first one to admit that I have had my fair share of money, fear, anxiety, trauma, guilt, shame, you name it. So you have a friend in me for sure. And I would highly, highly suggest that I think everybody listening here feels that way. So you are not alone. There are lots of people like Tori, like myself, that are out there really having these important conversations and sharing these important stories around money. And I know for myself, I mean, Tori, the same way, you can reach out to any of us and connect with us and know that we're here trying to just make your day

feel not so alone and trying to help you feel like you have a place to come to. There are certainly certified financial therapists out there. If you're really struggling, I highly suggest trying to find one of those if you have the resources and that's available to you. But at the end of the day, if you are feeling alone, one of the most you have the resources and that's available to you. But at the end of the day, if you are feeling alone, one of the most powerful things you can do is actually sharing that with somebody. So sharing that with a friend or a partner or a family member and saying, I'm really, whatever the feeling is, whatever the word is, a lot of people feel embarrassed. If you feel embarrassed, just say that. I'm feeling really embarrassed that I'm feeling

alone with my money, that I'm not sure what I'm doing. I feel like I've made mistakes or I feel stuck. And somebody else doesn't have to have an answer for you, but just the sheer act of having that conversation and opening up in that way will open up in you lots of different things that you didn't know were even possible. So maybe start with just something very simple like that. You're amazing. This was so, so impactful. Where can people find you? I am over on Everyone's Talking Money podcast. You can listen to it on any podcast player, or you can come over to our website, everyonestalkingmoney.com and check out all of our show notes and all the amazing things we've got coming up.

Amazing. Thank you for your time as always. And thank you for your support of HFK. I think you were one of the first people to ever have me on a show. So that was just thrilling for me. And just thank you for all your support. Thank you. Thank you so much for joining us, Financial Feminists. And a huge thank you to Shauna for being so vulnerable and sharing her immense knowledge with us. Her podcast is Everyone's Talking Money. And you can learn more about her and her show at financialfeministpodcast.com. We link all of our guests, resources, videos, and extras for each episode. I don't know if you know this. Of course you don't know this. I don't know why I assumed you all know this. We do so much research. Our team does so much research for these episodes, both not just

on our guests, but on like the topics and the background. And we try to pass all of that on to you, not just on our show notes page, but also our Instagram. So if you've ever like gotten to the end of the episode and you're like, cool, that was fascinating, but I want more or I want even different information. We do all of that. We have all of that and we post it in the show notes. So financialfeministpodcast.com. Thank you as always for being here. Your support is always so humbling. Thank you for rating, reviewing, subscribing, listening to the show, sharing the show. Thank you for the support of this movement and we'll catch you later. Thank you for listening to Financial Feminist, a Her First 100K podcast.

Financial Feminist is hosted by me, Tori Dunlap, produced by Kristen Fields, marketing and administration by Karina Patel, Sharice Wade, Alina Helzer, Paulina Isaac, Sophia Cohen, Valerie Oresko, Jack Koning, Khalil Dumas, Elizabeth McCumber, Beth Bowen, and Amanda LeFue. Research by Arielle Johnson, audio engineering by Austin Fields, promotional graphics by Mary Stratton, photography by Austin Fields, promotional graphics by Mary Stratton, photography by Sarah Wolf, and theme music by Jonah Cohen Sound. A huge thanks to the entire Her First 100K team and community for supporting the show. For more information about Financial Feminist, Her First 100K, our guests, and episode show notes, visit financialfeministpodcast.com

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