Comments on: Your Relationship With Money

By: Jane Straus

Jane Straus — Fri, 09 Jun 2006 14:55:18 +0000

Jennifer, I find your comment about comparing our insides with others’ outsides to be insightful and right on target. Thanks for your thoughts.

By: Jennifer

Jennifer — Fri, 09 Jun 2006 04:35:30 +0000

The subject is fascinating as I do believe that repressed feelings from our past do shape our “money beliefs & behaviors”. I can really relate to Jane’s six questions we might ask ourselves about current money problems too.
Number Six leaps out at me because I believe that we often fill up “psychic or spiritual voids” with compulsive behaviors around eating, drinking, sex and certainly around money. Some of us go on shopping sprees the way an alcoholic goes on a binge or someone with an eating disorder empties the refrigerator. Conversely, the way an anoerexic deprives themselves of food, some of us will work hard to scrimp and save, but fear that it’s never enough to make them feel secure enough to spend some of it occasionally or if they do not without terrible guilt.
Number Five also got my attention as I feel that money in our society is often used to show how we feel about each other and how we feel about ourselves. We often resent people who have what we perceive as more than we do (comparing our insides with their outsides).
Thanks for making me think about these issues as they are very much in my life and “acting out” as I write this.

By: Jane Straus

Jane Straus — Wed, 07 Jun 2006 04:05:02 +0000

Beautifully said, Brad. Thank you for the stats as well as for the reminder from Dickens.

By: Dr. Brad Klontz

Dr. Brad Klontz — Wed, 07 Jun 2006 00:29:37 +0000

Jane, I couldn’t agree more! Let’s face it, we all know the basics about what we need to do with money- save more, spend less than we make, stick to a budget, make a will, etc. However, more of the nuts-and-bolts information about money is not going to help us until we are ready to use it. So what keeps us from doing what we know we need to do around money? A recent survey by the American Psychological Association showed that 73% of Americans identify money as the #1 stressor in their lives, above issues like children, work and health! Statistics reveal that the average family carrying a credit card balance owes more than $9,000! Also, did you know that last year more children watched their parents go through bankruptcy than go through a divorce! And this from one of the wealthiest nations in the world! Many of us erroneously believe that the answer to our financial woes is to have more money. But research is very clear that there is no significant correlation between money and happiness once a household’s income is above $50,000 (enough to care for basic needs), and as America has gotten wealthier, we have also seen corresponded increases in the prevalence of depression and despair. Our problems with money are NOT ABOUT THE MONEY, and that is why more information about money won’t help! Our problems ARE about our RELATIONSHIPS WITH MONEY! Until we understand this and begin to explore our personal and generational history around money, examine, challenge and change our maladaptive money scripts, and heal our related emotional wounds, we will continue to operate in an unconscious and self-defeating manner around money. Ebenezer Scrooge, from Charles Dicken’s “A Christmas Carol”, is the ultimate model of how this type of transformation can take place. He experienced a “wake-up” call from the Ghost of Jacob Marley, showing him the agony that awaits him if he doesn’t change his ways. The Ghost of Christmas Past took him on a journey to visit his painful childhood, during which he expressed repressed feelings and gained new insights related to how his past shaped his money beliefs and behaviors. This freed him up to see the world with clarity, guided by the Ghost of Christmas Present. The Ghost of Christmas Future showed him what would happen if he didn’t externalize with real life action his newly experienced internal transformation! If one of the most despised characters in English literature can change, so can we all! But we have to be willing to wake-up and take the journey!