money

WE’RE IN A TRANCE ABOUT MONEY —

By Judith Barr

DURING THE HOLIDAYS AND EVERY DAY

 

When I was a little girl, I knew people had really distorted relationships with money.
I couldn’t have put it into those words then …
but I knew it in my bones, my heart, and my soul.

It became obvious at certain times, in certain ways.
One of the most obvious was the holidays.
It was like people went berserk with their money and their gifts.
They went out of control in ways they didn’t seem to ordinarily.

As I grew up and then became a therapist,
I saw this behavior more and more, including with clients.
They would ask me to help them with their holiday spending,
and then they would fight against my help with all their might.

We're in a Trance About Money -- During the Holidays and Every Day
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This is the message that complements Judith's blog post on the same topic: https://judithbarr.com/2019/12/06/were-in-a-trance-about-money/

Out of this was birthed my work to help people
heal their relationships with money to the root.

This year as I witness people going through their holiday “journeys,”
I’m seeing an additional perspective through an additional lens.

Individually, it seems that people are in a trance
they don’t even know they’re in.
A trance they don’t seem to want to have pierced
A trance they don’t seem to want to have revealed to them.

For example, a woman wants to come work on the fights she
and her partner are having about money.
They are wealthy people and have just become richer still.
They buy holiday gifts for people that most people would consider extravagant.
But they don’t see it that way.
And …
she doesn’t want to do therapy unless their insurance will pay for it.

She can’t even see the reality of her distorted relationship with
money through the example I’ve just given.
The distortion that she would pay limitless amounts of money
for things, but little or nothing for healing.
She is in such a disconnected trance!

People who aren’t wealthy have their own distorted relationships with
money …
and their own trances, as well.

The trance exists individually, in couples, in families, and …
communally, too.
Greta Thunberg named the communal/global version publicly
at the UN Climate Summit … in her own way:

“People are suffering. People are dying.
Entire ecosystems are collapsing.
We’re in the beginning of a mass extinction.
And all you can talk about is money!
And fairy tales of eternal economic growth!”

A 16-year old young woman is telling world leaders that
they are in a trance and it is causing disaster beyond what they
are willing to admit, or even know.

She poignantly tells them:
“You are still not mature enough to tell it like it is.”

I don’t know exactly what she had in mind and heart
when she said the truth of that.
I know that the roots of our relationships with money
are found in our childhoods.
In hidden places, unimaginable experiences and memories, and
are acted out in distorted ways.  These roots need to be brought
out of unmatured trance states and into grown up, here-and-now
grounded awareness for healing.

What about you?
Are you in a trance state in relationship to money?
A trance that you don’t want to know, see, pierce?
A trance state that you’re resisting healing?
A trance state that affects your personal life and the life of our world, as well? 

Are you in a trance state in relation to money?
A trance your unmatured self does not want to heal?
A trance your soul longs for you to heal?

 It’s time to wake up.
Come out of that trance.
Get the help to heal your relationship with money and its impact to the root…
It’s time to respond to your soul’s calling.

© Judith Barr, 2019.

 

If I Were A Rich Man … ‘Twas the Night Before Tax Day!

By Judith Barr

‘Twas the night before Tax Day
and all through the house
not a creature was stirring,
not even a mouse
who could nibble at a dollar bill
and carry it to build his nest
or back to his nest already-built.  

‘Twas the night before Tax Day
and all through the house
all the creatures were dreaming
of what they would do with nests full of money.
Many dreaming, like Tevye,*
that they wouldn’t have to work hard,
would have big houses right in the middle of town,
and would be thought to be wise and powerful
just because they’re rich.
Many asking, like Tevye,
“Would it spoil some vast eternal plan.
If I were a wealthy man?”**

Any day of the year is a good day to learn about money …
To learn different things about money than they teach you at home, in school, at the bank, on the job, in an accountant’s office, and certainly in the media. To learn deeper truths about money than you learn anywhere else.

Tax day is a particularly good day.

With all the issues we have related to money in our individual lives, in our national economies, and our world economy …
And of course, in our politics …
The Fiddler on the Roof song and fantasy can help us dissolve the illusions we have about money …
And learn the deepest truth about what drives us in our relationships with money.

For example …
Just because a person is rich, doesn’t mean s/he has a healthy relationship with money.
Just because a person is rich, doesn’t mean his/her relationship with money is about the here and now, and not some other time long ago.
Just because a person is rich, doesn’t mean his/her relationship with money is that of an adult.
Just because a person is rich, doesn’t mean his/her relationship with money is really about money.

*****

As a depth psychotherapist and a financial therapist, I have worked with many people over the years to help them discover the roots of their relationship with money. Despite my numerous articles, the most thorough of which is my home study course, A Recession Regression – Finding the Root of Our Relationships with Money, people often, if not usually, have the misconception that if you’re rich, you have a healthy relationship with money. Not necessarily so.

Many people I’ve worked with who were not rich, knew their relationship with money was not good for them. Many even knew it was not good for their family or our world. But until they did the depth work, they often imagined being rich would fix their relationship with money.

Many of the wealthy people I’ve worked with knew something was distorted about their relationship with money and came to me for the help to discover what. Many didn’t know, and were very surprised and thankful to find out.

People willing to go to the depths of themselves consistently discover in our work together that it is the little child they once were – still alive within them – who is truly driving their relationship with money. Sometimes experiences with money as a child do form a layer of that child’s experience driving their financial life today. But almost always there is another layer of early experience that isn’t about money at all. It’s about something going on in that child’s life, in that child’s relationships, in that child’s pains or even trauma, that ends up being transferred unconsciously onto money.

Here’s a profound example that could apply to a child who grew up to be poor or a child who grew up to be rich. Sal grew up, the oldest child in a large family: mother, father, aged maternal grandmother and grandfather, and 8 siblings.  His father worked in a factory long, long hours. His mother took in sewing so she could also be home to take care of her parents and children during the day. They were far from rich financially, and he felt it. But the greatest deprivation Sal suffered was from not having enough of his mother. She felt she had too much else to take care of, and his being the oldest, she enlisted his help taking care of the other children.

Sal decided very early in his life … before he even had words to express his decision: I’ll never have enough. It was a decision that lived in his little heart, his little body, his little mind. Later he might have had, thought, and even said the words. Or perhaps not. If he did, it is unlikely he could have realized how powerfully that early decision would affect his life, even drive his life, from his unconscious self. One thing’s for sure: it definitely would drive his life in very profound ways from the underground labyrinths of his psyche.

For instance, with an early decision of I’ll never have enough, he might struggle and struggle and work so very hard trying to make a good living, and find that no matter how hard he works, he does, in fact, end up never having enough money. He fulfills the early decision by its coming true actually in his finances, followed by his feelings.

He might also find a way to earn a really good living, bring in lots of money, and still feel he doesn’t have enough. He might change jobs, start his own business, hit a jackpot investment, and still feel he doesn’t have enough, even though he has in the current day more than enough many times over. He fulfills the early decision by its coming true in his perception and most of all in his feelings.

In both versions of Sal’s here-and-now experience, he is always experiencing and afraid of not having enough. In both versions, he is blocked by a decision he made long ago in his childhood – the decision “I’ll never have enough.” He is blocked by that decision. He is blocked by his being unaware of it. He is blocked by his transferring an experience he had with his mother onto money. And he is blocked by his own not working with this issue in his life and not healing and resolving it to its root.

Furthermore, he is not the only one impacted by his early decision and his reactions to it – his internal reactions, his relational reactions, his financial reactions. This is one of those places where it is becoming more and more obvious that we’re all connected.

Babies are not born greedy. Babies are born innocent, vulnerable, needing. It is the experiences our babies have and the unconscious early decisions they make from within those experiences that end up driving them to become greedy – greedy for money, greedy for power, greedy for attention, greedy for love … or hopeless in relation to the same things.

When you come right down to it, most of the profoundly intense feelings we feel in today’s world have their roots in the experiences of the child still alive within us from his/her world long, long ago.

If only we would do our inner work to discover the roots and to heal all the way to the roots … our world today could be a very different world.

This is not work for just one of us or just a few of us.
Every one of us who does this work helps him/herself and contributes to the communal healing.
But this is work every one of us needs to find a way to do.
For our own sakes, for our children’s sake, and for the sake of our world.

© Judith Barr 2016

*Tevye is the main character in the popular Broadway musical “Fiddler on the Roof.”

**From “If I Were A Rich Man,” song from “Fiddler on the Roof.” © 1964 Music by Jerry Bock, Lyrics by Sheldon Harnick.

WHAT YOU CAN DO TO HELP KEEP OUR WORLD SAFE FROM THE INSIDE OUT

As you begin to “wind down” from Tax Day – whether you’re rich, poor, or in-between … whether you get a refund or have to make a payment – take this wonderful opportunity to explore your true relationship with money.

Explore how you felt doing your taxes, or having them done for you. Were you tense or relaxed? Were you angry? Sad? Elated? Scared? And take some time to explore as well how you feel in the wake of this Tax Day. How do you really feel towards money? If you could speak with money, what would you say?

We all sometimes need the help of a skilled, caring professional in the things we do … and the labor of love that is exploring your relationship with money is no different. When you’re ready to go deeper into yourself, and truly heal your relationship with money, seek out a caring, integritous therapist to help you find and heal your early decisions about, and wounding to your relationship with, money.

Imagine if we all, rich and poor, did the crucial inner work to heal our relationships with money! Imagine how different our economy – and our world – would be!