Money Money Money

This week was a money heavy week. I needed to do updates on my record keeping and I worked with a few clients on their money wounds.

Naturally, it made me think about my money wounds. My parents were refugees and lost everything in the Vietnam War. They, like other refugees, had to rebuild their life here in the States from scratch. My dad has a YOLO approach to money-- "spend what you have because you never know when it's going to be taken from you."

My mom has a different approach-- "save all that you can because you never know when you'll need it."

Can you guess my response? It's a little bit of both. I have YOLO parts of me as well as super saver parts of me.

Intergenerational trauma carries the echos of past hardships that your living and dead ancestors faced. It can affect how you relate to money, often leading to unconscious beliefs and patterns. Intergenerational trauma can look like:

• fear of receiving money, not feeling deserving of wealth

• seeing the accumulation of wealth as greed

• over-saving or spending money for fear of it leaving you

• avoiding the topic of money or looking at your bank account

• avoiding asking for a raise, examining your investments or portfolios

This is what we would do in our work together with money wounds:

• we would dive into our money avoidant, spender, saver or worthiness parts. Some of these parts why away from discussions about money. Some of these parts tend to overspend or over save.

• We would take the time to investigate the emotional triggers that lead to compulsive spending or saving.

• We would explore the underlying fears and needs that these parts of us carry

• we would build relationship and connection to these parts of us that are seemingly doing their own thing

When we build relationships with our parts, we are also healing intergenerational trauma. We are most likely working on areas that our ancestors didn't get to work on. Through compassionate curious inquiry, you may find out a thing or two about yourself and your ancestors. If you are ready to do this work, book your first therapy session with me at ​https://angelatam.sessionshealth.com/​ I no longer have any sliding scale slots, but there are a few full fee slots ($240/week) available.