A Money💲tory: Part Four
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This is the final chapter of a four-part newsletter series I'm sharing on money...
But the story I'm living is still being written.
I said in Part One that sobriety didn't fix my money problems, but it made them hard to ignore. (If you missed the first three installments, I've reposted them to my blog.) Abundance mantras and magical manifesting also don't fix money problems. Make no mistake, I love meditation and tarot cards and positive affirmations and they might put me in the right mindset, but real change only comes from intention and inspired action. No, sobriety didn't fix my money problems but because I had quit using alcohol, something I didn't think I could ever do until I did it, I knew I could approach financial recovery the same way.
Here is how I modeled my financial recovery after my recovery from alcohol addiction:
I began the work of looking at my patterns through personal investigation. Through writing my origin stories and spending stories, I researched my own past. When I got sober, I did the same work of looking at my history of alcohol use to help me understand the patterns and unfortunate choices that I'd perpetuated for decades.
From the pattern work, I started to understand my motivations. The Enneagram has been an essential tool in this step. As a Type 7, one of my basic motivations is to have my needs fulfilled. With this knowledge, I've cultivated compassion for myself as I could see how I'd fumbled over and over towards that desire, using the inadequate tools I had at the time. And just like in addiction recovery, healthier tools lead to healthier financial sobriety.
The practice of extending compassion to myself has grown into loving myself, and my recovery from alcohol has been the same. I forgive myself for the mistakes I made using the tools I had at that time and because I value myself, I desire to do better, to clean up the destruction and be the healthiest version of myself I can be.
I practice gratitude for how far I've come: I no longer use the pawn shop, I have a bank account and money in savings, I charge what I'm worth, I'm paying off my debts, I've paid off my student loan, I can be relied on for groceries and gas and I no longer take money from my kids. I no longer use alcohol to cut myself off from my reality and I no longer use spending to cut myself off from my financial reality.
And finally, I practice generosity, either through service or philanthropy. I know that generosity is really reciprocity, because that's how energy works. Abundance is really satiation. It doesn't mean there isn't room for improvement, but it's the feeling of being satisfied by enough.
In both recoveries, it is daily and often uncomfortable work. I have to stay diligent and intentional and while I've not had a sip of alcohol in 6.5 years, I can still occasionally numb out with spending, feel disembodied or powerless over my finances. And when I do, I just re-enter. Like with alcohol use, it was decades of destruction, so it's going to take some time to rebuild my foundation. I'm going to love myself through it.
In 2018, I had a natal chart reading from Natha Campanella, a friend, astrologer and life coach. She mentioned several times that she could see patterns in my chart that could be about helping women build wealth. Every time she said it, I'd almost laugh out loud. But the truth is, while I'm not an expert in financial recovery, I know how to disrupt patterns. I feel like I was subversive straight out of the womb, but if I was a rule-follower, I would have only continued the generations of patterns that had been established for me. As it is, I'm the first in my family to take care of my physical health through exercise and nutrition--heart disease and type 2 diabetes run rampant in my family. I'm the first to address addiction and mental health through real work and support. I'm the first to have a more fluid and less dogmatic spirituality and I'm the first to have a bachelor's degree. What if YOU are the one THEY have been waiting for?
I know how to change stories. If you have a story that should have ended long ago and yet you are stuck on how to end it and begin a new one, I know something about that. If you're tired of doing the same thing and expecting to get different results, I can help you with that. Invest in yourself now, and we can start when you're ready. Offer is good only until the end of the month. Just enter STORY2020 for 25% off at checkout. And thank you for sticking with me through this series. Thank you for holding my vulnerability tenderly and if you caught a glimpse of your own reflection in my story, I hope that it bolsters some possibility to change your own money story.