If I only have more saved…

I had a conversation with an old friend last week about money, how our parents didn’t teach us much about building wealth, and how differently we’re trying to do it with our own kids.

She’s always been a great saver and even calls herself “cheap.” (Trust me, I’ve lived with her. She is annoyingly frugal.)

That frugality paid off: she’s got a fat investment account, and her advisor says she’s way ahead of most people her age. In the last two years alone, she’s added $60K to her retirement fund.

And yet…she told me she’s battling shingles.

When I asked what was stressing her out, she hesitated. Then she admitted: “Money.”

There’d been an unexpected expense at home, and there are rumors she might not get her annual bonus...one she depends on.

How can a woman who makes multiple six figures, with a nearly fully funded retirement account, feel that anxious about money?

Because most of us believe the same story:

“If I just had more saved, I’d finally feel calm and secure.”

So we try to fix the anxiety by saving more, earning more, or obsessing more-constantly checking, tracking, and calculating.

But here’s the truth I’ve seen (and experienced) over and over again: Money itself never creates lasting security.

If your sense of safety depends on the balance in your account, no number will ever feel like enough.

Take a minute and think about your current financial situation.

What comes up for you...what thoughts and emotions do you have, and what sensations do you feel in your body?

Notice: money didn’t do anything. You assigned meaning to it.

Money is just a thing...a neutral, benign circumstance that every single person on this earth can have a different experience of, different thoughts about, and different emotions around.

If fear, shame, or dread appeared, those feelings came from within you.

They come from the beliefs you inherited from your caregivers, community, culture, race, gender, and the media.

They come from how you see yourself and what you believe is possible for you.

They come from that insatiable human desire to feel secure — to have some sense of control in a world that rarely offers it. (Look for next week’s email — we’ll go deeper into this.)

Which means calm and security must also come from within you.

As Kyle Cease writes in The Illusion of Money:

“You don’t really have a relationship with money; you only have a relationship with your thoughts about money.”

Those thoughts can run your life — or they can become the doorway to freedom.

When you stop chasing money for security, you stop outsourcing your peace.

You remember that you are already safe, already whole, already held.

And from that place, money begins to flow more easily than ever.

But even more importantly, peace begins to flow.

And that is the most valuable wealth there is.

PS-This is what I teach inside Awakened Wealth learning to create inner safety so money becomes a reflection of your wholeness, not a replacement for it.

Awakened Wealth is currently full, so get your spot on the waitlist. Reply to this email and I’ll add you to the list.

Or reply with “intensive” if you’d like details on a 3-hour Money Brainspotting Intensive you can do right now to start shifting your relationship with money.