Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin - How to Rewire Your Brain to Overcome "Broke Baggage" with Claire Wasserman

Episode Date: January 31, 2025

This week, Money Rehab is hosted by Claire Wasserman, the founder and author of Ladies Get Paid, a coaching practice newsletter and podcast dedicated to helping women embrace their worth inside and out. Today, Claire tells you how to rewire your brain to fight negative thought patterns around money— or, as Claire calls it "broke baggage." In this episode, Claire gives actionable strategies you can use next time you're feeling anxious about money. Claire even demonstrates how to use those strategies on a money challenge in her own life that's making her anxious. If she can do it, you can too. Subscribe to the Ladies Get Paid newsletter: https://pages.ladiesgetpaid.com/subscribe Subscribe to the Ladies Get Paid podcast: https://open.spotify.com/show/30LXsAsZztDFUV8YpVXulb Access Earn Better: How to Negotiate Your Salary Like a Pro video course (use code MONEYREHAB for $50 off!): https://ladiesgetpaid.carrd.co/ Check out all the Ladies Get Paid offerings: https://www.coachmeclaire.com/ Connect with Claire for private coaching: https://www.coachmeclaire.com/coaching Follow Ladies Get Paid on Instagram: https://instagram.com/ladiesgetpaid Follow Claire on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/clairewasserman/ All investing involves the risk of loss, including loss of principal. Brokerage services for US-listed, registered securities, options and bonds in a self-directed account are offered by Open to the Public Investing, member FINRA & SIPC. Public Investing offers a High-Yield Cash Account where funds from this account are automatically deposited into partner banks where they earn interest and are eligible for FDIC insurance; Public Investing is not a bank.

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game changer. Historically overdraft fees has also been something that's made it hard for me to stick to my spending plan, but the fact that Chime allows you to overdraft up to $200 with no fees makes it so much easier for me to actually stay on budget. Make progress towards a better financial future with Chime. Open your account in two minutes at chime.com slash mnn. That's chime.com slash mnn. Chime feels like progress.

Banking services and debit card provided by the BankCorp Bank NA or Stride Bank NA. Members FDIC, SpotMe eligibility requirements and overdraft limits apply. Boosts are available to eligible Chime members enrolled in SpotMe and are subject to monthly limits. Timing depends on submission of payment file. Fees apply at out of network ATMs. I'm Nicole Lapin, the only financial expert you don't need a dictionary to understand. It's time for some money rehab.

Hi, I'm Claire Wasserman, and I'm guest hosting for Nicole while she's out on maternity leave. My day job is running Ladies Get Paid, a coaching practice, podcast, and newsletter that helps you increase your worth inside and out. So this episode is a little bit different from the other ones where I was coaching real women through their work and money challenges. Instead today, I'm gonna be coaching you.

That's right, you and me a little bit. What we're going to be focusing on is how to relieve and release financial anxiety or as I like to call it, broke baggage. Because here's the thing, there is a number in your bank account, and then there's how you feel about that number. And everything that I'm going to share with you comes from what I've seen, what I've experienced, and what I've learned. I run a community of 55,000 members who've exchanged more than 3 million messages. I've been in over $4 million dollars worth of debt. Yes, $4 million dollars. And I have a master's certificate in financial psychology because,

quite frankly, I was sick of my own broke baggage. Maybe let me define what broke baggage is real quickly. So broke baggage is this feeling that you never have enough money, no matter how much is in your account. Broke baggage is feeling guilty or uncomfortable to ask for more. Broke baggage is feeling like you're drowning and you can never get your head above water. And short, broke baggage is feeling like money controls you and not the other way around. Now listen, I am not going to gaslight you and tell you that financial anxiety is all

in your head because, quite frankly, money does make things easier. See money buys you time, it buys. See, money buys you time. It buys you space. It buys you freedom. But not to be cliche, more money, more problems too, right? Or more money and the same problems. Because, like I said, what is in your bank account doesn't matter as much as how you feel about what's in your bank account.

If this is feeling resonant with you, welcome. You are in the right place. Now, I'm going to say something that you probably won't believe at first, but if you stick with me, I'm going to show you how to do this. Okay. Whatever is happening on the outside, you create your reality on the inside.

So whatever chaos, money chaos is happening outside, you can protect yourself from the inside. Now, how do you do that? You do that by learning to objectively engage with your thoughts and emotions. What does it mean to objectively engage? Okay, so it is not controlling. It is not about trying to tell your thoughts and your feelings about money to shut the F up.

Because trying to control your thoughts and emotions, it's kind of like trying to push a bouncing ball on the top of a pool. Every time you push it down, what happens? Right? It pops back up. And with our thoughts and emotions, usually that happens at seriously inconvenient times and in inconvenient ways. So my intention with today's episode is to really give you practical exercises so that you can start to observe your emotions and thoughts about money in a non-judgmental way and maybe even try to inject a little bit of compassion in there because I mean, life is hard enough, right?

Why make it harder for yourself? So let's face our broke baggage together. Okay. We are going to talk about in the moment strategies that you can implement when you are starting to feel financially anxious. Then I'm going to go over ongoing work, deeper work that you can do to heal your relationship with money and hopefully drop that broke baggage for good.

And then finally, I'll give you some key takeaways on how you can start to spend happier. Ready? Let's dive in. I want you to think of the biggest financial stressor that you have right now. on how you can start to spend happier. Ready? Let's dive in. I want you to think of the biggest financial stressor that you have right now. Actually, before you do that, let's take a deep breath together. Wiggle our fingers, wiggle our toes, ground ourselves. I was going to say shut your eyes, but you might be listening to this while you're driving, so don't do that. Okay, so I want you to think about your biggest financial

stressor right now, or maybe a certain behavior or mindset around money that you have that maybe for years has been getting in your way of living the life that you want. All right. I'll give you my example. I am the sole breadwinner in my family right now, and I'm going to be really honest with you, I am just not making enough money. So even though rationally, and I'm putting rational in quotation marks, I know that I can cover our basic needs. I'm not worried that we're going to lose the roof over our head. I have

a lot of feelings about what I'm not making right now. I'm massively disappointed in myself. I feel like I'm letting my kids down and I'm extremely worried that I am not going to be able to figure this out soon. Although I'm going to interject here because you might be feeling similar to me. On one side, I do believe that I can figure this out, but on the other side, I have a ton of fear that I won't be able to. So let me know. Is that resonating with you? Sometimes we have these conflicting thoughts and feelings, kind of like the devil and the angel on our shoulder. These are just different parts of ourselves. And what I want to do with you all is learn how to become the conductor of an

orchestra. And instead of all of these instruments, these parts of us kind of be yelling and pulling at us, we're going to make some beautiful music, hopefully. And hopefully that analogy made sense to you. I am going to walk you through a number of prompts that I want you to use for those in the moment money freak outs. Okay. So prompt number one, know your triggers, because once you know your triggers, you can prepare for them emotionally

and logistically. There's something about removing the element of surprise that just helps contain the emotional fallout, right? If you can predict, yeah, I'm probably going to feel a little bit freaked out and it happens. It's not going to freak you out even more. My triggers include this. No one buys a course after I send out an email trying to sell it, people unsubscribe from my paid subscription, or just randomly at night I wake up fully in terror that I cannot afford to give my kids what I think they deserve.

So here's how I prepare. I just give myself some space. So knowing that whenever I send out an email to my subscribers and somebody unsubscribes, it's going to make me really nervous that I can't cover the bills for my family. I'm going to take a deep breath and set an alarm for say 15 minutes. I call it designated dwell time. I literally give myself the opportunity to freak out, but it's contained. Also, these are micro moments and they don't tell the true story of what actually is happening

here. You've got to take a big step back and look holistically at what's going on. So instead of saying, oh my gosh, somebody unsubscribed, I can't make rent. How about we look at the data in the aggregate? So in a given week, a month, a quarter, six months to a year, are we on track to reach our goals? So constantly remind yourself, okay, micro to macro, step in, step out and take a deep breath.

All right. Let's assume that the trigger happens and you are caught up in that money spiral. All right. So let me tell you what's going on in your body. I think it's helpful to understand what is happening that is kind of out of your control so that you know how to deal with it better.

So whenever an anxious thought flares up, your body is going into fight or flight, which is really a state of contraction. And when you are in this state of contraction, it just becomes so much harder to see alternative solutions because, quite frankly, you are not thinking clearly. This is not when we want to be making decisions about ourselves, our worth, money, or whatever. It's all about calming the nervous system.

So this brings me to prompt number two, the five finger framework, otherwise known as BAFA. B-A-F-A-H. Okay, so this is a strategy that I came up with that has really helped me calm my nervous system. It's great to use when you're having any kind of freak out, but specifically today, it's financial freak outs. Alright, so BAFA.

B stands for Body. Wiggle your toes and take a deep breath. To get from your head, we want to go into our body. So the minute we're freaking out, let's try to get into our body by taking a deep breath and then wiggling our fingers and our toes. A is for Acknowledge. So what am I really afraid of? In a couple of minutes, we're going to go into a deeper exercise to unravel our core fears, but it

is helpful in the moment when you're having that freak out to just face it, to name it. If you try to shove it into the back of your subconscious, it's going to be taking a precious energy that quite frankly, we don't have the luxury to spend. So why don't you just look it in the eye and say, what am I actually afraid of here? So body, acknowledge, F for feel. Okay. So now that we've recognized the fear that we're having, let's try to find out where in our body are we storing this fear.

Okay. So you might want to shut your eyes for a second. Hmm. I'm feeling a tightness in my throat, or maybe it's your heart or your shoulders are up to here. We always store things in our bodies, especially our anxieties. So see if you can locate it and then breathe into it. So just giving it a little bit more space, almost imagining like when you breathe into the fear, it's dissipating it.

Or imagine breathing around the fear, making your body bigger. And inherently, that then makes the fear smaller if you are visualizing it. And if you're not a visual person, I do encourage you to just try this and you'll see that you're just going to be able to get more into that relaxed state, right? We've got body, acknowledge, feel. Now we're on A for action.

What is one step that you can take right now to address your fear? This has to be something you do in the moment. So it's got to be realistic. It's got to be reasonable. And maybe it shouldn't take you more than 5 to 10 minutes. Just anything to get you from the thoughts and the feelings into movement, momentum, action. You will feel so much better knowing that you are doing something about the fear.

And the last letter is H and that stands for hum. Yes, hum. Humming, it stimulates the vagus nerve, which helps to move your body from that fight or flight state into more of a place of relaxation. I encourage you to try humming at any point during the day. I do it just naturally, but especially if you are feeling all kinds of relaxation. I encourage you to try humming at any point during the day. I do it just naturally, but especially if you are feeling all kind of feelings. Hmm, let's do it together. Hmm. Yeah, it does help. And if you're feeling disconnected from your fears and your feelings, right? When

you ask yourself, what am I actually feeling here now? What am I actually afraid of? And you just can't come up with anything. By the way, that's a lot of us. I want you to go look up the emotions wheel. It's also called the feelings wheel, and it's going to help you pinpoint at least one emotion. For example, are you feeling bad? And then from there, it will prompt you, well, more specifically, are you tired? Are you stressed? Are you busy? Are you bored? And then prompt you again. The whole point is to get more familiar with the range of emotions that we have, the nuances around them. Because when you're specific about what you are feeling, that

can help then direct you to take more specific action to address it instead of just trying a whole bunch of stuff, seeing what sticks and up, we're too exhausted and we're back to our old patterns. But I'll tell you this. Whatever you are feeling in the moment, there's often a core fear beneath it. Okay?

And usually it boils down to two things. And I don't mean to grossly simplify here, but this has been my experience and as well as the clients I've worked with. Here are the two core fears beneath a lot of the financial anxieties we have. And it is this. Number one, being helpless. And number two, being unloved or unworthy.

But I should rephrase that. It's not really being helpless or being unloved or unworthy. It's specifically feeling helpless or feeling unloved or unworthy. This is not your fault. Okay. This is all about your survival wiring. We evolved as human beings to constantly problem solve. But when you problem solve all the time, guess what that does to you?

At least for me, it makes me anxious to constantly be scanning the horizon for possible threats. Right? So just thank yourself. You're feeling helpless. You're feeling unloved. Thank you for trying to protect me, but we're going to find another way, which brings me to prompt number three.

Let's address your core fear. So we're going to talk about feeling helpless, feeling unloved and feeling unworthy. And I'll give you exact prompts to ask yourself, hopefully in the moment, but you may not have time. So just circle back and you've got a little bit of space and energy to reflect. These will really help you. So here are the prompts if you are feeling helpless around your money.

What is the smallest action I can take? Small. That's the critical word. We want to build a muscle of sustainability here. And you're not gonna be able to build those good habits if you can't be consistent with them. So it's gotta be broken down to its smallest piece. So if you're feeling super helpless, drowning in debt,

you're not gonna solve all of it today. Maybe that one small action is Googling credible sources one small action is Googling credible sources to figure out what your roadmap will be for paying down that debt. So it's not doing anything with that information yet. It's just gathering information. That brings me to my next prompt. What is standing in my way of taking that small action? Oftentimes, it is actually a lack of information.

In theory, it would be good to do X, Y, and Z, but then you're like, I don't really know how to do that. So maybe the first thing you need to address, the obstacle in your way is who can support me? Who can help me? Where can I go to gather more resources to help me figure out what my next action steps? Or maybe it's a question of time.

You're just super busy or you feel super busy. So instead of taking that next small action to address your financial anxiety, just carve out a little bit of time and space in your week so that you can now sit down with your money. Hold onto your wallets. Money Rehab will be right back. You should love your hair. But that can be hard to do if you're dealing with shedding or thinning.

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Find out why over 4,500 healthcare professionals and stylists recommend Nutrifol for healthier hair. Neutriful.com, that's spelled N-U-T-R-A-F-O-L.com, promo code Money Rehab. That's Neutriful.com, promo code Money Rehab. And now for some more Money Rehab. And the last question to ask yourself here around feeling helpless is, how can I make it easier to remove that obstacle? That's actually my through line and everything that I do with my coaching and my coaching programs.

It's all about how can we just make life more easeful for ourselves? It's not about hustle or working harder. It's all about working smarter. And to me, that means working easier. Now, let's talk about the final two core fears. Feeling unloved and on the flip side of that is feeling unworthy. All right. So if you're feeling unloved, how do I need to feel loved? Right? And this kind of gets into like those love languages. Have you heard of those? Right? Love languages. How do I need to feel loved?

So one way to figure this out for yourself is just thinking about how do I know when I'm loved? And hopefully you've had some experiences in the past. Like, for example, I remember my wife and I, this was only recently, she gave me a hug and it was such a good hug. And I realized I'd never really let myself feel a hug in my 38 years, just really kind of sad.

You might've had a moment like that in the past. That's important. So maybe physical touch or, you know, again, starting with how do I know when I'm loved? And then the next part of that question is, how can I give love that is not money related? Because if the core fear with your money is, I am not loved, that's all about you, right?

How can I receive your taking? We've got to give to get, right? You got to pay it forward. You got to invest, you know, to get those dividends, right? That's a bit corny, but point being sometimes to receive, I find in my life, you know, to get those dividends, right? That's a bit corny, but point being sometimes to receive, I find in my life, you know, you've got to be what you want. So if you're searching for a mentor, you can't find one.

I'd like you to flip that around and ask yourself, how can I be a mentor, et cetera, et cetera, right? So the same thing, if I'm not feeling loved, how can I give love? Just make sure there's no spending money related. All right. And then the other side of this, of course, is feeling unworthy. Just ask yourself, what problems do I enjoy solving? How can I do more of that?

What do I need to feel my impact? And then what can I do to feel more of that? So I highly encourage you to pull back the curtain of whatever is on the surface. This financial anxiety, right? The trigger of somebody unsubscribes from my newsletter. I'm not making enough money. I'm feeling freaked out.

What do I actually feel afraid of here? And if I could reduce it to unloved, unworthy and helpless, let's make a plan around that. Now, I'm gonna go just one step further into addressing core fears, and this is really ongoing work. So do take time and space to do this. And I always encourage people, you know, listen to me, get my book, but hey, also get a therapist, all right?

I'm gonna walk you through an exercise first and then apply it with my own example so you can really see it come to life. And I highly encourage you to get a pen and paper and do the same. All right. So we're going to start with whatever money anxiety you are feeling the most in your life right now. Okay. And I want you to ask yourself, why is that important?

Now, the way that you respond, okay, you're gonna write this down in the following order. You're gonna say, this is important to me because. Now, whatever the answer is that you come up with, you're gonna repeat it using the following framework. Taking that answer, however you responded, is important to me because, now whatever the answer that you have for that, you're gonna repeat it again in the same framework.

So your answer is important to me because, and you're gonna repeat this usually about three to four times. I think you'll notice that when you do this exercise, there will become a point where you are just going in circles. That means you're done. You got to the end. And for anyone curious or feeling like this exercise sounds familiar, that's because I was inspired by the downward arrow technique in cognitive behavioral therapy.

And I have found that this works really, really well for all kinds of anxieties, but specifically financial anxieties. Now here's the end of the exercise and the most important part. Whatever you get to in your final answer. So again, remember, it might take like four or five times to get here. You are going to take the response to the last one that you came up with, that last answer, and you're going to fill in the blank of this sentence. What I really want is after that, you're going to brainstorm

things that you can do to cultivate, achieve, integrate more of this into your life, or maybe just reflect and say, hey, do I already have this in my life? Am I already doing this? And if so, maybe I should celebrate that. Let me give you my example and hopefully it all comes together for you. So for me, I'm stressed out right now about not providing enough for my family. And that really does keep me up at night. It's important to me to provide for my family so that my kids

are never restricted in what they can do so that they can have a good quality of life. It is important to me that my kids have a good quality of life so that they have as many options as possible. It's important to me that my kids have as many options as possible so that they can create the life they want. It's important to me that my kids have as many options as possible so that they can create the life they want. It's important to me that my kids create the life that they want so that they can feel free. What I really want is my kids to feel free. Which, by the way, I did a little bit more brainstorming, like what does it actually mean to feel free? So feel free to be whoever they want to be.

Feel free to do whatever they want to do. And this is the action part. This is the one that's going to move you from feeling helpless to hopeful. Here are ways I can help my kids feel free. Things like, you know, encouraging them to follow whatever passion or pursuit they're interested in, you know, not passing judgment either on them or on myself or somebody else because I want to set a good example. What I love about this exercise is that you really get to the core value that is buried deep inside. Your fear is covering up. You're having a hard time seeing the value

because that fear is like smoke thrown in your face. When we can get to the core value, we can create a plan to cultivate it and realize it may not require any money at all. You may find that the solution to your money anxiety doesn't require money. Which brings me to the deeper work for those of you who are ready to unravel and unburden your broke baggage. So, here are prompts to get you started. What is the story that you're telling yourself about money? What is the story you tell yourself about how you can make money?

What is the story you tell yourself about how you can make money? What is the story you tell yourself about how you spend money? About how other people spend money or make money? Your money story is what you believe that money represents and how it's used. So for example, for me, right, I came to that conclusion of, okay, I want my kids to feel free to create the life they want. Money equals freedom for me. It also can be power. It can be security. It can be love.

So again, what does money represent and how is money used? Knowing this can really help shed some light, give context to why maybe you've been stuck with your broke baggage. Now, if you really want to see this come to life, go check out the episode that I did with Danielle, who believes that you have to burn out in order to make money. That's what she's done in the past. That's been the example that's been set by her family. So it was hard for her to imagine any other way of being.

The other thing that she believes is that getting rich is mutually exclusive with being a good person. And as you saw in that episode, she mentioned how she was raised. And that brings me to the next question I want you to ask yourself is, where did this money story come from? And who did I learn it from? This is where we're putting on a detective hat, just digging deep into that broke baggage, trying to understand the context in which we learned it.

Whether it was consciously learned or absorbed, it doesn't matter. But we've got to try to figure out where the heck this came from in order to unburden it. All right. So what I want you to do is to reflect on what's called financial flash points. It's just a fancy way of saying memories from the past about money that are particularly emotionally charged for you. So if you can think back to the first memory that you've had about money, that's a good one. By the way, it doesn't have to be a big dramatic situation. It's just when was the first time that you became aware of this thing called money? And then see if

you can go from there. When else have you experienced any kind of emotional charge around money? Here are the prompts to ask yourself next. Who was there? What did they say or do? Now, this is where we're going to get a little bit imaginative. What do you think were their underlying stressors and fears? So really imagining their broke baggage and then putting yourself in their shoes, trying to visualize how they maybe

grew up and what messages around money they received. And now see if you could just send a little bit of compassion to them, especially if you're almost imagining yourself as them growing up, witnessing whatever they witnessed. By the way, none of this stuff has to quote be true. This is all in your imagination, but really do your best to honor the emotional authenticity

of who this person was and how you could envision the way that they received their broke baggage. Gosh, you might feel a little bit bad for them, and that's okay. Here's what I wanna to demonstrate to you. If you can learn something, that means you can unlearn it too. None of this stuff was inevitable, as hopefully you've seen in the way that you imagine this person who impacted you.

Well, who impacted them? If all of this stuff was passed down, it means there's a point in which you can consciously choose to not continue to pass it down. And that's what we're going to do in just a minute. Now, for those of you who are very intellectual and I sort of count myself among you, if you think knowledge just stays in your head, you are going to stay stuck because we absolutely

carry knowledge in our bodies. So as you imagine the person or the people who burden you with their broke baggage, I want you to visualize the following. So where do you feel like maybe their baggage is being carried in their body? So it helps to close your eyes here for this. All right. So my mother gave me her broke baggage. I'm going to imagine that her money stressors, they exist in her shoulders. And now I'm going to imagine blasting warm light at it.

This just like sunbeam going at this broke baggage. And in doing that, the broke baggage disintegrates. And then I want to blow it out into the air. Seriously, if you are somebody who's skeptical of what I'm saying, but you've tried a bunch of other shit and it's not working, give this a chance. Do it a couple of times. Again, the whole point is we've got to address not just the thoughts,

not just the feelings up here in our mind, but where is it in our body? And we need to release it. Otherwise, it will stay stuck and we will stay stuck. The reason I'm having you release this other person's broke baggage first, right? Because you're probably thinking, well, Claire, what about me? Let's get to me. I'm getting to you in just a second. The reason I want you to forgive and release this other person's broke baggage, especially for women, can be a lot easier to do things on behalf of other people than it is to do it for ourselves. Especially if we are still struggling with some feelings of unworthiness and adequacy. If you're a person

who can self sabotage, right? You get in your own way. That's why we begin with doing it for somebody else first. Then we can see, ah, that felt good. It felt good to relieve and release this broke baggage for this other person. Then you're going to do it for yourself. So you're going to go through all those prompts I just gave you. So you can pause the video or the podcast. Go back, rewind. All right. And you're going to do it again for yourself.

But at the end, I want you to imagine coating your body with gold paint. Yes, gold paint. This is your way of kind of bubble wrapping yourself, protecting yourself, making that definitive and declarative statement that, yes, whatever chaos is happening out here, whatever number is in that bank account, you will not let it permeate yourself on the inside. You are protected. Now, woo woo, as all of that might have sounded to you. Seriously, it's based on research.

I promise you it is based on research. It is backed by principles and it's helped me and the clients that I've worked with, including one woman who even legally changed her last name to Gold. Yes, she changed her last name to Gold because that exercise was so effective for her in protecting her piece. Hold onto your wallets. Money Rehab will be right back. And now for some more money rehab. I'm going to warn you, losing your broke baggage is not going to happen overnight.

And it's not going to happen with one visualization. So you need to find a way to kind of tangibly chart your progress. Otherwise, you're just not going to want to keep going. This progress, it really can't be tied to anything external, meaning when I make more money I'll feel better. Well, that depends on a lot of factors that are totally out of your control. And if one of our core fears is feeling helpless, we do not want to outsource our life in that way. I think a really nice way to kind of chart your progress that you have full command

over the amount of time that you spend in a financial freakout, as well as the amount of time that it takes you to recover. So for example, you tend to be up in the middle of the night like me, worried about what's not in your bank account, and you toss and turn for hours. The goal right now is not to not wake up because that's going to take some time and work. The goal is to maybe not spend hours having that financial freakout, right? Also, see if maybe you can start to notice when you are freaking out about money or perhaps you made a poor financial decision, just don't add judgment to it.

That's something a lot of us do and we're not even aware of. We might have a certain thought or feeling about our experience in life, inject a narrative into it that just makes it worse. So you invested some crypto and there was a dip and you're disappointed that you lost money. You're really nervous that you're going to have to now tell your partner that you lost the money. And now all of a sudden you catch yourself going, you're so bad with money. That's adding that extra narrative, that judgment that is only going to compound your broke baggage even further. So it's really critical for you to strip away any of that narrative,

any of that shame that you might be feeling. Another pro tip here is anytime that you were making a statement about yourself or actually about the world. So for example, I am bad at money or money is really hard for me to make, or you have to sacrifice your values to become rich. Right? These like declarative statements about, well, your money story. I would love for you to inject the word feel. I feel because that is a more accurate portrayal of what's going on, which is this is your opinion. This is your money story. This is your opinion about the world and

money that by the way, might not be mine or might not be hers, which means it's not the absolute truth, which means we can create a new reality. We can make change. So, for example, I'm bad with money becomes I feel like I'm bad with money. Or you have to sacrifice your values to become rich becomes I feel like you have to sacrifice your values to become rich becomes, I feel like you have to sacrifice your values to become rich. Another reason that little sort of word shift is helpful, not only is it more accurate to

what actually is going on, but it creates a little bit of distance between you and the thought and the feeling. And when we have distance, we get perspective. And that is the whole goal here. Again, going from that state of contraction, fight or flight, freak out, to options. We can see more clearly. We can find opportunities.

We can be creative. We can be ourselves. Now, for those of you who, quote, know better, but struggle to do better. So these are the people who are like, I know everything I'm supposed to do, but yet somehow I cannot make myself do it. I'm here to tell you that you are wired to stay stuck because what's familiar feels safe, even if it doesn't feel good.

Plus, the more we think or do a certain thing, the more solidified it becomes in our brains. It's harder to make change. Literally, there are grooves in our brains that have been created as a sort of shortcut way through life to operate more optimally, but that doesn't mean we feel good. And so this requires us to be consistent with making small habitual changes. This is neuroplasticity. Highly encourage you to Google more about neuroplasticity. It's just a to Google more about neuroplasticity.

It's just a fancy way of saying it's possible. Rewire your brain. Yes, you can rewire your brain to release money stress. So as you reflect on today's practices, it's just so important to ask yourself, how can I implement them sustainably? How can this go from being a one time thing that I am watching or listening to? I journaled on a Sunday.

How could we journal again next Sunday? And again and again, you are rewiring your brain to release that money stress. What a massive undertaking. I hope you are so proud of yourself. I hope that you've stuck with me throughout the kind of woo woo of it all. Again, it's backed up with science, with my certificate in financial psychology.

Now, for those of you who are going, well, I have broke baggage because I am broke. All right. This is for you. As much as you need to fill the emotional bank, you've also got to fill the bank bank. OK, so what is in your bank bank? It depends on basically two things. How you spend your money. So that's money out and what you earn, which is money in. So if we want to make a change with the number in our bank account, we have to really look at how we're spending and how we're earning. For those of you who want to earn better, I encourage you to check out my salary negotiation

video, which is a five hour course with a 200 page workbook complete with scripts. And I have a little goodie for you, which is the code MONEY REHAB. If you use it to buy the course, you will get $50 off. All the links are in the show notes. For today, we're not going to talk about how to make more money. We're going to focus on spending or more specifically how to spend happier because I'm not a huge fan of budgets.

They feel really limiting, constricting, and I'm all about let's get expansive. Let's feel good. So how do we feel good with our spending? There's a whole theory out there that awesome people like Rami and Sethi talk about, which is spending big on the things that you love so that you can cut down on everything else. And there's been research that shows that there are five areas

of spending that has an effect on you well beyond immediate gratification. So here are the five categories, and I'd love for you to now review afterwards. Am I spending money in these areas? If not, do I want to? Does it resonate? Number one, buying experiences.

Number two, making something a treat. Number three, buying time. Number four, consuming it later. And number five, investing in others. Everything that you spend your money on, every time that you hand over your credit card or cash, it is an extension of who you are and the values you have. You might have heard of that expression.

You can vote with your dollars. It doesn't have to be political. You are investing in a product or in a person when you give them money. I want you to think intentionally. Is this aligned with how I want to live? If that's all feeling very intense to you, and when I bring up values, you start to be overwhelmed.

This is a simple fill in the blank exercise. Every day, I want to feel these three feelings. You can't come up with three, no worries, at least one. I just don't want you to go crazy here, right? So maybe it's I want to feel secure, grounded and creative. Whatever. Those are mine. Maybe it's I want to feel secure, grounded, and creative. Whatever. Those are mine. Next question.

What can I do to experience these feelings? Every choice you make from the actions you take to the money you spend or don't spend should help you get closer to experiencing these feelings. I want you to ask those two questions of yourself every quarter. Because things change and you change and I don't want you spending or saving based on someone else's goals or values. The whole point is being intentional in your action. And that means slowing things down. So when you are about to swipe that card, slow it down. When you are getting stressed about money, slow it down.

The goal is to be thoughtful in how we self engage, not judgmental or punitive, which unfortunately is a lot of the ways that we interact with ourselves, each other, and money in this world. I think money holds a mirror up to ourselves. And so you have the decision right now to decide what you wanna see in that mirror.

Who do you wanna be? How do you wanna feel? How do you wanna make others feel? Because you owe it to yourself, quite literally. On that note, thank you so much for watching or listening to today's special solo episode, or maybe it was more of a window into my personal therapy. So if that resonated with you, I want to hear from you. All my links are in the show notes. You can find me on social at ladiesgetpaid.com.

I'm so honored to have been with you here today. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. We got this. Thank you, thank you, thank you. We got this. Money Rehab is a production of Money News Network. I'm your host, Nicole Lapin. Money Rehab's executive producer is Morgan Lavoie. Our researcher is Emily Holmes. Do you need some Money Rehab? And let's be honest, we all do.

So email us your money questions, moneyrehab at moneynewsnetwork.com to potentially have your questions answered on the show or even have a one-on-one intervention with me. And follow us on Instagram at MoneyNews and TikTok at MoneyNews Network for exclusive video content. And lastly, thank you. No, seriously, thank you. Thank you for listening and for investing in yourself, which is the most important investment you can make.