How Pleasure Helped Laurie Hit Her $$ Goals
I remember when my client Laurie (not her real name because; duh, privacy people!) first came to me, she thought she was going to work exclusively on her marriage. Not to brag, but to brag: usually everyone who signs up to work with me gets WAY more than they had anticipated. They walk in the room with one thing in mind and on the way, we unravel to find so many more gems. With Laurie, we started the first few months working through her relationship. But like an onion; the more we peeled, the more a core wound was looking straight at us, and this time it was: MONEY. Laurie was SHOCKED by this revelation because compared to the masses, Laure is extremely economically privileged. Though, like so many of us, she had a complicated relationship to the dolla dolla billz.
This confusing relationship to money had her acting in extremities, which put unconscious weight on her and her family. She was the type who would either max out her credit card for designer goods or track literally every CENT coming in and out of her accounts. She didn’t feel safe with money, and because of that there was never a middle ground where she could relax, breathe and trust. It was the most extreme version of feast or famine I had ever seen. She overspent because she felt she wasn’t worthy of all that abundance. She would find herself spending and spending as a way to get rid of what she had received. Once she did that one too many times; she went into freeze mode and a wave of shame and guilt moved through her. That contraction had her forcefully penny pinching and acting from an extreme place of scarcity. Her behavior and relationship with money was so charged, it cast a major shadow on her relationships, including the one with herself. |
We often think something like money doesn’t have any connection to the self-help world, but boyy are they connected. I am a practical magic type gal- I believe there is room for the practical: save, invest, educate yourself, BUT if you have no space in your life for growth, expansion and empowerment: you’re cutting yourself short. Unless you ACTIVELY work on changing your relationship to money (or in any area where you want to grow), you become a victim to its stories, and let me tell you, no matter what your financial background, we ALLLLL got stories. These stories and limiting beliefs effect every socio-economic class and tax bracket alike. We all have stories, beliefs and thoughts that keep us playing small. The dangerous thing about stories, thoughts and beliefs is that it directly relates to how we show up and how we act in the world. THIS is why it’s so important to be held by a professional to work through any beliefs that don’t serve you.
Actively going in the mud and working to change these mindsets + inspired action + feeling good = gold. Take Laurie for example, she was sooo down to do the action steps and change her mindset, but like most people she glamorized blood sweat and tears and was attached to making the work HARD. Which is why, she rejected any pleasure homework that I would give her. Like so many people, she was told pleasure is unnecessary, dirty, frivolous and a treat that you get AFTER you do the damn thing. During our work together, I invited her to invite pleasure into her everyday mundane activities. How could she up the dial in any situation she was in to FEEL better. IE- she has a long workday ahead, instead of putting her head down and go go go, I invited her to add some pleasure to the situation; so, for her, that’s putting on some light jazz music, lighting a candle and drinking some tea: simple acts like that allowed her to soften. Later in our work together, I gave her an assignment to follow her pleasure and to research what makes her feel GOOD, and to find what lights her up.
So often, we go on autopilot and aren’t even here and paying attention. We eat the same thing for lunch, we automatically do things without even being present. This exercise was an opportunity for her to be the writer of her own story: to see what she liked, what was a yes for her and what was a no. At first this assignment made her hella irritable. She didn’t understand what the F pleasure research had to do with money…until she DID.
With a relentless pursuit of creating a foundation of pleasure in her life, she cracked open. Laurie re-related to that once tumultuous relationship with money, now feeling safe. She created a relationship with money that wasn’t so dark, gloomy and fearful. She loosened her grip on the all or nothing mentality. It sounds wacky but having a consistent relationship to feeling good and pleasure stabilized her, she didn’t feel the NEED to impulsively spend OR to frantically hold on to every penny- she neutralized and found deep peace. Her relationship to pleasure also allowed her to receive more. When she was in her scarcity, she was closed off and was so filled with fear. Now, since she trusts and knows she is worthy of pleasure and feeling good- she naturally has attracted side projects, a promotion and “random” streams of income. She let go of the story of it having to be painful and has created a relationship to ease. This ease has created flow in her finances, her body and her life…
She trusts more, she nurtures herself more, and she stands up for herself now.
As you might have guessed: yes, this work deeply influenced and benefited her marriage. Her partnership is thriving with more open communication, love, healing and transparency. I share this story with you as a story of possibilities. When we start to shift our beliefs and patterns things change. Add pleasure, deep nourishment, slowing down and self-love and bam: big growth ahead!