3 Tips for Reestablishing Your Knowing

Nourish Your Soul. Manage your Money

How do you choose to nourish yourself? Do you seek out healthy ways to rejuvenate, or do you lean more toward distractions? Sometimes, when we’re just trying to let go and feel free, turning a blind eye to how we choose to unwind can have a big impact on our finances.

These days many of us are pushed to our limits. We face stress from work, lower than desired pay, and diminished personal connections. To make ourselves feel better, we often lurch from the newest thing to the latest thing to the hippest thing, all things external.  That can be fun — sometimes too much fun because a high price tag can come with that behavior. Often times, when we chase moments of materialistic pleasure, we find ourselves far away from who we really are and what we truly want. And, when we try to buy our way to contentment, new stress arrives when we open our monthly credit card statements. 

What does it feel like when you nourish yourself in a healthy way?

3 Steps to Financial Healing

I LOVE sharing my mantra: BUILD WEALTH FROM THE INSIDE OUT! 

Think about how empowering that is. When you build wealth from the inside out, you are building your financial future from a place of strength. It means you are making sure that your values, needs, goals, and desires are the driving force behind the choices you make with your money.  

But how do you make that happen? Below, are three tips to start healing financially. But you have to take into account not only your financial life and how you manage your money, but also your work life, your family life, and your personal life. 

Let’s look at, say, your personal life and your physical being. 

It’s essential to find balance in our personal life, and that includes taking care of our bodies and minds. And I find a surefire way to both calm my mind and keep my body strong is to get out in nature. Few things are more healing for me than taking long walks along Lake Michigan near where I live.

I’m also fascinated by a rising movement called Forest Bathing. It’s been practiced for years in Japan and is now embraced in England. Even the Duchess of Cambridge has based her garden on it. (Cheerio, y’all!) Forest bathing encourages participants to slow down and feel present. It’s about allowing nature’s calming scents and sights to dissolve issues and inspire peace and calm.

Take the time to get back in tune with yourself in nature. Find a large park or head to a forest preserve. Get into that harmonic lifestyle so that you can live more in the present moment and release more of your past to create the future you really truly desire.

Let’s focus on the three steps to financial healing.

Open Yourself to Humor & Gratitude

Some days can be tough. During the times that are most trying, it’s difficult to let go of worry, anxiety, frustration and sadness. To a certain extent, we train ourselves to keep our feelings of upset flowing. We replay endless loops of negative thoughts that keep us anchored to our problems. I know how difficult it is to look on the bright side, especially if you’re in debt or have other financial fears.

But that’s exactly when you need to keep yourself open yourself to humor and gratitude. Allowing in more positive feelings can shift your outlook and help you to make decisions in alignment with where you want to go, instead of staying stuck where you are.

Laugh more!

Be Aware of Your Fears

Fears. Who’s got them? My guess is most of us. They come and go over time, sometimes with more intensity and sometimes less. Why? This fear comes from your past relationship with money, which comes from conditions in the families and communities we grew up in. We learned emotional response systems from those we started our lives with and continue to attract those that reinforce those limiting belief systems. We’re more stuck in our daily groves, with the appearance that it is harder and harder to change the more time flies by. But, I’m here to tell you, you can make great things can happen, no matter what age you are, how many failures you’ve had, or how many people are counting against you. I know, because I’ve done it!

All you need is for the real you to show up and to recognize that these disruptive patterns keep persisting in your life. Then, consciously choose to start dissolving them.

Are You Tied to a Financial Lead Balloon?

A dear friend of mine, Susan, said to me, “Julie, I sold my house and I bought my freedom!” We are taught to believe that buying a house is the American Dream, and for many of us, it may very well be.  But, if you face the monthly stress of a home mortgage you can’t really afford, you’re holding the string of a financial lead balloon. Financial lead balloons are items we purchase that look good on the outside, but in reality, they weigh us down and rob us of our personal and financial freedom.

Why do we make these choices? Because there is always Emotion Behind Money. What we do is driven by how we feel, both consciously and unconsciously. When we open ourselves to these emotions and take control, we can heal our financial past and move toward building real wealth. If you aren’t where you want to be, financially, personally, or otherwise, you need to forgive yourself for where you’re at. When you forgive yourself, you create space for the new to come in. And, when the new comes in, it will often surprise the heck out of you!

Adapt Your Way To Success!

Whenever I happen to catch a nature program on TV, it always strikes me how the animals that are the most successful in their natural habitats are the ones that are the best at adapting – oftentimes at a moment’s notice – and it’s a brilliant reminder that the same is true for humans. I see, time and time again - through my own experiences as well as those of my children and coaching clients – that the more adaptable we can be, the better we’re able to navigate through whatever challenges might come our way. The messages are all around us on a regular basis encouraging us to: “expand,” “get in the flow of life,” “detach from outcomes” – all just slightly more “woo-woo,” esoteric ways of asking us to be more adaptable to our current situations, so that we can feel more success and joy in life.

So much of our ability to adapt and go with the flow, however, depends on letting go of all the should’s in our lives: “I should be farther along in my career by now,” “I should have more money in the bank,” “I shouldn’t be in debt ” This type of self-talk just ends up keeping us stuck, not to mention, down in the dumps. If the shoulds are bogging you down – well it’s time to kick ‘em to the curb!

Adapt Adapt Adapt: An Important Key To Life!

When it comes to living a happier life, adaptability is a key ingredient. I see its value all the time – whether it’s with my kids, my coaching clients, or through my own experiences. The messages are all around us: “expand,” “go with the flow,” “detach from outcomes,” “let go of resistance” – all just slightly more esoteric ways of asking us to be more adaptable and accepting of our current situations.

Accepting ‘What Is’

So much of our ability to adapt depends on accepting where we are in our lives. If we can accept the reality of our situation, warts and all, rather than fighting against it, it frees us up to move forward with creative solutions.

To this end, I love reading the bedtime story, You Get What You Get by Julie Gassman, with my kids. One of the lines in the story, “You get what you get and you don’t throw a fit,” has become a popular family mantra. It’s a great reminder to my children about the importance of accepting ‘what is’ and adapting to the way things are when life takes an unexpected or unwanted turn. We can all take a page from this children’s storybook.

Financial Fears: Claim your personal power & your dream job

In my last blog, we talked about financial fears and conditioned belief systems. Did you take some time to visualize yourself in that future you desire? When it comes to a job, it can be scary to make a move. Even if we aren’t happy, we’re still getting that paycheck, right? Well, you can have both the joy and the paycheck. Let me share a story of someone who faced this job situation head on.

Someone close to me was in a good job. It was stable, income was decent, she liked most of the people she worked with, but her dream job posting had come to her attention. She found out that they were considering three people inside the company for the job. She would be the only outsider considered for the position. It would have been easy to give into her fears and do all that negative self-talk of the low odds of her actually being picked since she didn’t already work there or have any relationships with those she’d be interviewing with. Blah, blah, blah….. I told her that was a bunch of hogwash. If you believe it, then it will be true.” She felt like the underdog, she was younger, an outsider and she didn’t have as much experience.

Financial Fears: Let go of old belief systems and conditioning.

Who’s got them? My guess is most of us. They come and go over time, sometimes with more intensity and sometimes less. Why? This comes from our past conditions in the families and communities we grew up in. We learned emotional response systems from those we started our lives with and continue to attract those that reinforce those belief systems. We’re more stuck in our daily groves, with the appearance that it is harder and harder to change the more time flies by.

I’m here to tell you, anything can happen, no matter what age you are, how many failures you’ve had or how many people are counting against you. All you need is the real you to show up…and to recognize why these patterns keep persisting in our lives.

Think of it like this; years ago, I was watching a cooking show. Not one with a huge celebrity chef but a show that brought in everyday people to share their family favorite recipes that had been passed down for generations. This young woman in her early 20s was picked and she was so excited to share her great grandmother’s baked ham recipe. As she prepared the food on live TV she was very methodical going through things step by step. The host that day asked her, “Why are you cutting both ends off the ham before you put it in the oven?” The young woman responded, “I’m not sure, that’s just how we’ve always done it in our family.”

As she continued preparing the ham to go into the oven, the host was still perplexed as to why she cut off the two ends of the ham, and then tossed them into the garbage. The host challenged the young woman. She said, “Can we call your Mom and ask why you cut off the edges and throw them away?” Of course, the young woman agreed. They called mom and she said, I’m not really sure, let’s call grandma. “Grandma, can you tell me why we always cut off the ends of the baked ham when we do our family recipe?” Grandma stated, “I don’t know, that’s just how my mother taught me.” Her great grandmother was still alive and the host asked if it would be ok to make this third phone call to great grandmother to solve the mystery.

Great grandmother was happy to take the call, at age 92, and said, “Oh sweetheart, I cut the ends off the ham because the pan I used for years was too small to fit the whole thing.” Can you believe it? Really! Four generations this recipe got passed down and they were cutting off the edges of the ham and throwing them in the garbage all because great grandmothers’ pan was too small. Crazy!! This is a simple example of how patterns stick in our lives and we don’t even know why and ask if the reasoning is even relative to today.

Shift From Disappointment

If you want to knock yourself out of alignment – mentally and emotionally – dwell on your disappointments. Keep replaying in your head what you should have done. Don’t let yourself accept that promotion you were passed up for. Continue to hold onto shame and judgement about the way your divorce physically manifested itself in your life.

And never, ever forgive yourself for the mistakes you made one, three, five or even ten-plus years ago.

Because, you know what, you deserve that. You deserve to have a cloud hanging over your head for the rest of your life about the way you handled the disagreement you had with your sister a few weeks ago. Good things shouldn’t happen to the kind of people that say things they don’t mean in the heat of the moment. And all the time you wasted when you were younger dating the wrong people, pursuing the wrong career and building relationships that ended up being exactly the opposite of what you needed? That time wasn’t well spent because it’s not like you learned anything for those experiences.

Align Your Spending with your Heart Space

There’s a lot to be said about a person who listens to, adheres by and acts according to their gut. For a lot of us, that gut feeling isn’t enough to make a decision. We need facts. Research. The probability of something bad happening. So we exercise restraint when it comes to our most valued decision‐making assets: our intuition.

When was the last time you made a choice that resulted in something negative? Maybe you took a job opportunity that you thought would pan out differently ‐ even though you had a feeling that it may not be a good idea.

As women, we are the masters of ignoring our gut and instead going with our heads. And as a business owner with a financial practice, I understand that there is a time and a place for using your head over your heart when it comes to help with money. I practice conscious spending for myself and I teach that to my clients. But I also stress the importance of aligning your spending with what’s in your heartspace.