Speaker 1: Welcome to Go ask Ali, a production of Shonda Land
Speaker 1: Audio and partnership with I Heart Radio. I don't think
Speaker 1: that there's some one soul mate. It's not like there's one.
Speaker 1: Although bon Jovi is my soul mate, there's always exceptions.
Speaker 1: Are you saying that gossiping is the same as if
Speaker 1: I'm picking lice out of your scalp and eating it? Well,
Speaker 1: you've done both, So what do you think? I want
Speaker 1: to give her too much? I don't like her to
Speaker 1: come in with an inflated head, so we won't mentioned
Speaker 1: the Golden Globe. After all we've been through. We deserve
Speaker 1: an orgasm. Cis I deserve? Welcome to Go ask Ali.
Speaker 1: I'm Ali went where This season, I'm digging into everything
Speaker 1: I can get my hands on, peeling back the layers
Speaker 1: and getting dirty. Today's excavation is a psychology of money.
Speaker 1: So last season I go asked Alli, Shamila's front was
Speaker 1: talking to me about the real nuts and baults of
Speaker 1: finances and a legacy book. And this season we got
Speaker 1: a question from Erica who asked me, did I actually
Speaker 1: do a legacy journal? And Erica, I did? I put
Speaker 1: a whole book together so that I know where our
Speaker 1: money is at all times. I even have a copy
Speaker 1: of our will, and I'm telling you it gave me
Speaker 1: so much security. Not so much. You know that I
Speaker 1: have this legacy book, but that I know where our
Speaker 1: money is and I understand it, and I actually have
Speaker 1: something tangible to give to my daughters or God forbid,
Speaker 1: if something happens to us. They have it all in
Speaker 1: one book. And so I implore you do a legacy book,
Speaker 1: make a legacy journal. It's so helpful. The psychology of
Speaker 1: money is fascinating to me because it tells us what
Speaker 1: kind of a person we are. And what I mean
Speaker 1: by that is, are you a big spender? Are you cheap?
Speaker 1: To you hold onto the coin tightly? All these things
Speaker 1: stem to how we are made up emotionally. Money comes
Speaker 1: with some baggage, and Amanda Claimant is going to help
Speaker 1: us unpack it. Amanda Claimant is a financial therapist who
Speaker 1: specializes in the cognitive, emotional, and behavioral aspects of our
Speaker 1: financial well being. Amanda run seminars and workshops around the
Speaker 1: country and her work has been featured a major media
Speaker 1: outlets like The Atlantic, The New York Times, in the
Speaker 1: Wall Street Journal, and she's appeared on MSNBC, Fox, and
Speaker 1: so much more. She's a featured therapist working with couples
Speaker 1: on Death, Sex and Money's Financial Therapy series, and you
Speaker 1: can read her blog at Amanda Claiman dot com. Amanda Claiman,
Speaker 1: thank you so much for being a go ask Galey
Speaker 1: and fasten your seatbelts because I have a lot of questions.
Speaker 1: I'm excited. Thank you for having me. I'm truly somebody
Speaker 1: that this is a very scary terrain for me to
Speaker 1: walk through because I have issues with money and I
Speaker 1: think I come from a family with issues of money.
Speaker 1: This is not going to be a podcast where we're
Speaker 1: going to tell you how to get rich or any
Speaker 1: of that. We are talking about all our kind of
Speaker 1: different psychological peces. So that's why I'm excited to dive in.
Speaker 1: So okay, Ali shut up, let me ask Amanda question.
Speaker 1: Can you start with your story about how you kind
Speaker 1: of blew up your financial life? You're infamous nineteen dollar haircut. Yes,
Speaker 1: And this is also a great story I I feel
Speaker 1: about mothers and daughters, which is I moved to New
Speaker 1: York City with a dream and an empty bank account
Speaker 1: and really just thought I'm going to throw myself at
Speaker 1: the world and kind of figure it out. And I did,
Speaker 1: But it turns out there are a lot of financial
Speaker 1: consequences to throwing yourself at the world with an empty
Speaker 1: bank account in New York City. In New York City, yes,
Speaker 1: and so I was doing certain things. I was always
Speaker 1: trying to figure out the problem in front of me. So,
Speaker 1: for example, like I use those checks that come with
Speaker 1: your credit card statement to pay for the security deposit
Speaker 1: on my first apartment and broker speak. Because I didn't
Speaker 1: know to expect those, I was very naive, and that
Speaker 1: really just started a snowball of credit card debt that
Speaker 1: I did not have the means at that point to
Speaker 1: pay off. And I got very anxious about the situation.
Speaker 1: I started doing other things like avoiding really sitting down
Speaker 1: and looking at how much money was in my bank
Speaker 1: account and then paying my bills. I just I was
Speaker 1: so emotional and overwhelmed and avoidant that not only were
Speaker 1: there external financial challenges, but I was creating even more
Speaker 1: problems for myself with how I was managing my behavior
Speaker 1: around money. Cut to a few years into this kind
Speaker 1: of a situation, and my mom had come to visit
Speaker 1: me in New York, and I asked her to give
Speaker 1: me a haircut, which was weird. She hadn't given me
Speaker 1: a haircut since I was probably seven years old. But
Speaker 1: she gave me one of the worst haircuts that we've
Speaker 1: ever seen in time, although it's probably very fashionable today, right,
Speaker 1: But she gave me this awful haircut, and I burst
Speaker 1: into tears, and she was like, don't panic, it's okay.
Speaker 1: We'll call your hair stylist and she'll we'll tell her
Speaker 1: it's an emergency. And I said, I can't do that.
Speaker 1: I bounced to check there and and I can't go back.
Speaker 1: And that was just kind of the beginning of the
Speaker 1: truth coming out, which was that my financial life was
Speaker 1: just in shambles. Yeah, so you bounced to check at
Speaker 1: the hair salon, yes, with the idea that if you
Speaker 1: didn't go back, you would never actually have to deal
Speaker 1: with it or pay for it. I don't think that
Speaker 1: there was thinking behind it. There was no plan. It
Speaker 1: was always just like, here's the emergency or the highest
Speaker 1: priority thing that I'm just trying to deal with, and
Speaker 1: then I'll figure out emergency number two, which is waiting
Speaker 1: in the wings for me to sort out. Emergency number
Speaker 1: one um and that Honestly, I I feel like that
Speaker 1: experience in particular gives me a lot of empathy with
Speaker 1: clients when when other people find certain financial mistakes or
Speaker 1: problems to be just so baffling, like don't you know
Speaker 1: that making it harder for yourself? It's like I knew
Speaker 1: that I was making it harder for myself. I just
Speaker 1: didn't know how to do anything differently, I had no
Speaker 1: idea how to begin. And the important thing about this
Speaker 1: terrible haircut is that I was finally talking about the
Speaker 1: problem and my mother, whom I expected to just be
Speaker 1: like disgusted and horrified, was actually really just I mean,
Speaker 1: she was shocked, but she was very matter of fact
Speaker 1: about like, here are the things that you need to know,
Speaker 1: Like it doesn't have to be this hard. She had
Speaker 1: a very practical kind of approach to it, and that
Speaker 1: I know now as a clinician, like that was an
Speaker 1: opportunity where I really needed to be reparented, like I
Speaker 1: had picked up all of these kind of accidental financial
Speaker 1: lessons as I was growing up, Like I had really
Speaker 1: taken on a lot of my parents anxiety about money,
Speaker 1: which led to some of my avoidance and what I
Speaker 1: needed was a way to sort of bow lens out
Speaker 1: the very real problems that I was anxious about, with
Speaker 1: the skills and the tools to be able to approach
Speaker 1: them and to learn how to manage them. So so
Speaker 1: it felt like such an awful crisis, but it was helpful, right.
Speaker 1: I think it's so interesting to think about all the
Speaker 1: family dynamics because I grew up in a family where
Speaker 1: you didn't talk about money. I don't know why, but
Speaker 1: it was always like, it's crass, let's not talk about it.
Speaker 1: And my feeling was it's a little bit like sex.
Speaker 1: You know, we don't talk about sex, Well, then I'm
Speaker 1: not going to learn anything, and what I do learn
Speaker 1: is probably not going to be accurate. So I too
Speaker 1: had a time in my life where I bounced checks
Speaker 1: because nobody taught me about it, you know. And I
Speaker 1: also saw that, particularly with my female friends. They this
Speaker 1: is such an antiquated idea, but it still exists where
Speaker 1: my married friends would say, oh, I'm going to let
Speaker 1: my partner deal with it because I'm just not good
Speaker 1: with it, so my partner will control it. And a
Speaker 1: lot of stuff happens, as you know, with a couple,
Speaker 1: when somebody's controlling money. Yes, Um, that's not two people
Speaker 1: sitting down as adults and saying, why don't you take
Speaker 1: care of the money and I'll do the gardening. There's
Speaker 1: a reason that we relinquish our financial power. And as
Speaker 1: a clinician, I that's what I find the most interesting.
Speaker 1: You know, It's not like I I have a particular
Speaker 1: agenda and I want my client cell to be wealthy.
Speaker 1: I actually find it's so fascinating how much meaning we
Speaker 1: project onto our decisions about how we approach our financial life,
Speaker 1: Like this is the stuff of life. This is how
Speaker 1: we we can sort of identify opportunities for personal growth. Like,
Speaker 1: even if you do have a spouse who's managing the
Speaker 1: money well and there's no quote quote money problem, you,
Speaker 1: I would say, might still be feeling like you are
Speaker 1: kept almost childlike in that dynamic. You are infantilized. Yes, yes,
Speaker 1: you know, look not everybody needs to have the same
Speaker 1: life journey here, but that may be a place where
Speaker 1: for you to feel like you are standing fully in
Speaker 1: your own capacities. That that's a dynamic that needs to
Speaker 1: be addressed, right. I mean I knew early on in
Speaker 1: my marriage it was never going to work for me
Speaker 1: to quote unquote ask permission to purchase something when I
Speaker 1: was also making my own living, Like, I just thought,
Speaker 1: I don't want to get into a situation where you're
Speaker 1: the parent that I have to go to and say
Speaker 1: i'd like to get this. Also, as an adult, I
Speaker 1: had a close friend have a close friend who was
Speaker 1: married for a long time. He ended up being a
Speaker 1: drug addict, and they're all kinds of problems that came up.
Speaker 1: And I said to her, you know, he has an addiction,
Speaker 1: so you need to go through your finances. Have you
Speaker 1: been monitoring And she said, no, he controls the money.
Speaker 1: He always has. And so this to me was such
Speaker 1: an extreme story, but such a wake up call for
Speaker 1: her and for all of us that that know her,
Speaker 1: because she had no idea where the money was, how
Speaker 1: it was being spent, She had no access to it,
Speaker 1: and he had been using it not only for his addiction,
Speaker 1: but he had been funneling it into secret accounts. You know,
Speaker 1: It's just it was like a lifetime movie. And you
Speaker 1: do a lot of therapy with couples, right having to
Speaker 1: deal with sort of money that has come in sort
Speaker 1: of through a psychological tributary. I guess yes, and I
Speaker 1: love to embrace our financial lives as an opportunity for
Speaker 1: us to really build intimacy. Like money has this wonderful
Speaker 1: quality and that it's both a symbol and a tool.
Speaker 1: So like something is going to go show up in
Speaker 1: your if has some kind of a money problem or
Speaker 1: some sort of a recurring fight that you have with
Speaker 1: your spouse, and if we sort of deconstruct the meaning
Speaker 1: pieces or the relationship piece, then we can often use
Speaker 1: money to really set up a new structure that promotes
Speaker 1: healthy communication, that promotes equal decision making, or transparency or
Speaker 1: they're all these kind of wonderful, juicy things that we
Speaker 1: can add in using money as a vehicle towards better
Speaker 1: health and wellness and quality of our relationship. You use
Speaker 1: CBT cognitive behavioral therapy when you deal with finances, which
Speaker 1: I love because you know, as you said, all financial
Speaker 1: behavior has meaning. Have you been able to kind of
Speaker 1: use those CBT tools to pull individuals and couples out
Speaker 1: of kind of financial crisis. Yeah, because one of the
Speaker 1: great strengths of CBT is is it it allows us
Speaker 1: to get really specific, like we're identifying these beliefs that
Speaker 1: we have or stories that we tell so much of
Speaker 1: money are the stories that we tell. I was just
Speaker 1: having a conversation with a couple about like a decision
Speaker 1: that one partner had made without discussing it with the
Speaker 1: other partner, And even though there was nothing bad had happened,
Speaker 1: it still felt like a real breach of trust. And
Speaker 1: it was a husband and wife couple in this case,
Speaker 1: the wife felt very personally betrayed again even though no
Speaker 1: money had been lost. And so we go back and
Speaker 1: we we sort of look at the stories that we're
Speaker 1: telling ourselves about what has happened. And one of those
Speaker 1: stories could be this was his money, you know, in
Speaker 1: the way that the couple had their money organized, this
Speaker 1: was his money. He did not have to discuss this
Speaker 1: in any way. You couldn't point to a transgression or
Speaker 1: an injury that this behavior had caused, and yet it
Speaker 1: still was coming up as a relationship issue. So obviously
Speaker 1: we need to look at what is the story that
Speaker 1: the wife is telling herself about what has happened, Like
Speaker 1: where is the rupture if she is unable to kind
Speaker 1: of articulate it, And that's what the work is, and
Speaker 1: we know that there is a story there because she's
Speaker 1: having this feeling. CBT helps us kind of like dig
Speaker 1: underneath and then look at the structural side and say, Okay,
Speaker 1: do we need an agreement moving forward that decisions above
Speaker 1: this amount of money need to be discussed, or do
Speaker 1: we need a system where we talk about everything once
Speaker 1: a month, etcetera. There are lots of ways that we
Speaker 1: can play with that. You know. I think about the
Speaker 1: horrible things that have happened to people during COVID, both
Speaker 1: you know, obviously health wise but also financially. And I
Speaker 1: know that mary couples have been struggling because a lot
Speaker 1: of them, for whatever reasons, their relationship imploded and they
Speaker 1: can't afford to get divorced. What's your therapeutic advice for
Speaker 1: people that can't get divorced right now because they literally
Speaker 1: can't afford it. I have a lot of compare fashion
Speaker 1: first and foremost, Like, what we're doing in that situation
Speaker 1: is we're having to tolerate a painful feeling and a
Speaker 1: painful situation that it's just not available to us to
Speaker 1: resolve it right now, so we can't move forward. We
Speaker 1: need to look at whether the strategies that we can
Speaker 1: identify that are going to help us be able to
Speaker 1: stay functional and stay together and still do all of
Speaker 1: the other things we need to do, like have peace
Speaker 1: in the home, to be able to co parent if
Speaker 1: their children, etcetera. And so that becomes a negotiation. And
Speaker 1: and sometimes it's funny, like I've seen that couples who
Speaker 1: are in the process of trying to split resolve things
Speaker 1: in the split because they have to be kind of
Speaker 1: negotiated and there's no way to avoid it. That probably
Speaker 1: could have really helped the relationship if that had happened,
Speaker 1: but that's just kind of not the journey that this
Speaker 1: particular couple is on. So we we just try to
Speaker 1: have the best split that we can while understanding that
Speaker 1: a lot of stuff that's legacy from where this relationship fell.
Speaker 1: Aparty is going to be one of the things that's
Speaker 1: hard to talk about because we negotiate this peaceful split, right,
Speaker 1: and it's time for a short break, Okay, let's get
Speaker 1: back to it. I read many of your blogs, which
Speaker 1: were so fascinating, But you talk a lot about shame
Speaker 1: when it comes to money, and you certainly describe that
Speaker 1: a little bit with your haircut story. I think everybody
Speaker 1: has a money shame story. I just I'm sure of it,
Speaker 1: and I think about when you have this shame, it's important,
Speaker 1: whether it's just you or in a couple of situations,
Speaker 1: to have vulnerability about it. Yeah, shame is is really tough.
Speaker 1: I think it can help if we have an understanding
Speaker 1: of the purpose of shame, because shame just feel like
Speaker 1: our experience of it, it's almost like like I almost
Speaker 1: picture like hot tar just dripping like it wants to
Speaker 1: stick to you, and it's it's dirty and so uncomfortable.
Speaker 1: But shame is a social emotion, and what I mean
Speaker 1: by that is that that humans are programmed to experience
Speaker 1: shame because shame is what protects us from being kicked
Speaker 1: out of the tribe, so to speak. So it's something
Speaker 1: that says, oh, if I continue with this thing that
Speaker 1: is bad, it's going to mean that I get rejected.
Speaker 1: It's going to jopardize my relationships. And you know, once
Speaker 1: upon a time that literally meant our survival if we
Speaker 1: got kicked out of the tribe. So shame is is
Speaker 1: very deeply wired into our psyche. And shame is also
Speaker 1: one of the first things, especially with money, that is
Speaker 1: a form of like a way to put the brakes
Speaker 1: on the engine of our needs and wants, which are
Speaker 1: kind of always running. So shame is the thing that
Speaker 1: says like, oh, I can't ask my parents for that
Speaker 1: because they're going to get mad at me or I'm
Speaker 1: being greedy if I ask for that. And there are
Speaker 1: different ways that we can sort of like parent around that,
Speaker 1: like saying our financial values are X, y Z, and
Speaker 1: that's where our money goes, you know, so it doesn't
Speaker 1: necessarily shame the asker, but we are going to pick
Speaker 1: up a lot of shame. Like when you were describing
Speaker 1: earlier how you didn't talk about money in your family,
Speaker 1: you were still i'm sure, receiving lots of messages about money,
Speaker 1: even though none of those messages were explicit, and therefore
Speaker 1: you couldn't ask questions and you couldn't get clarification, and
Speaker 1: you know, you're just in this sort of emotional world.
Speaker 1: In that emotional world, I'm sure there was a lot
Speaker 1: of shame about what we don't do or what we
Speaker 1: do yes with money, yes, and so like instead of
Speaker 1: taking in that badness and identifying with that badness and
Speaker 1: feeling like I am really bad because you know what,
Speaker 1: I am gree and I really do want these new
Speaker 1: sneakers to be able to say, like, Okay. Once upon
Speaker 1: a time, when I was learning about the world, I
Speaker 1: received messages that said it wasn't okay for me to
Speaker 1: want this or ask for it. But now I'm a
Speaker 1: grown up and I have the opportunity to look at
Speaker 1: some of these feelings which happened automatically. I can look
Speaker 1: at these feelings with a little bit of critical distance
Speaker 1: in a new light and figure out if that shame
Speaker 1: is something that I want to work on letting go of,
Speaker 1: or maybe I I feel like that shame still sort
Speaker 1: of helps keep me safe. Right, You're probably gonna think
Speaker 1: I'm crazy, but there's a feeling I have with money
Speaker 1: that I equate with my relationship with food. Now I
Speaker 1: have a healthy relationship with food. I don't have any
Speaker 1: eating disorders. But there's a similar feeling, certainly when I
Speaker 1: was younger, which was, oh, I can't really afford that
Speaker 1: pair of boots, but I just don't care. I'll figure
Speaker 1: it out later. You know, I'm willing to bounce to check.
Speaker 1: I want those boots. There's a similar thing. When you're
Speaker 1: feeling physically healthy. You know you've you've walked ten miles,
Speaker 1: you had this big salad for lunch and you're feeling
Speaker 1: good and you suddenly think, I want a pint of
Speaker 1: ice cream. I don't care if it's not on the diet,
Speaker 1: and I don't care if I'm going to feel shitty afterwards.
Speaker 1: For me, it's a very it's a very similar feeling. Totally.
Speaker 1: Does that make sense? A thousand percent? Of course, we
Speaker 1: want without consequences, like because we want, we want, And
Speaker 1: I really feel like like being in touch with our
Speaker 1: needs and wants is like the key to happiness, honestly,
Speaker 1: because we live in a complex world and we have
Speaker 1: all of these ways to kind of interpret things, and
Speaker 1: sometimes what we need is like we kind of need
Speaker 1: the universe to have our back a little bit. Like
Speaker 1: I have spent all of this energy being virtuous and
Speaker 1: exercising discipline and doing all of the things that I'm
Speaker 1: supposed to do, and you know what, I kind of
Speaker 1: feel done. We feel like we need something from the
Speaker 1: outside world to fill us back up, and that can
Speaker 1: be boots, that can be ice cream. It's funny. One
Speaker 1: thing that I have learned is if you don't want
Speaker 1: to have boots, are ice cream, like, do something kind
Speaker 1: of benignly antisocial, like jump in the shower with your
Speaker 1: clothes on. Oh, I know it sounds bizarre, right, Like, No,
Speaker 1: I like it, like I do. What we want to
Speaker 1: do on a psychological level is kind of rebel and
Speaker 1: break free. That's one of the ways that we can
Speaker 1: interpret that and try to meet that need in a
Speaker 1: different way sometimes, And my husband thinks I'm literally a
Speaker 1: monster about this, but I have started in my own household,
Speaker 1: and I use this with clients too, saying I would
Speaker 1: like praise. I walked ten miles, I would like praise.
Speaker 1: So funny I I do a version of that, which
Speaker 1: is I speak for my husband. So if we're going
Speaker 1: out and I walk in the room and he doesn't
Speaker 1: say anything, I say, oh my god, honey, you look
Speaker 1: so amazing. I don't even want to go out. I
Speaker 1: just want to stay home with you. And he laughs
Speaker 1: and we carry on. But I mean, I can write
Speaker 1: a better dialogue for him than I can probably get
Speaker 1: for him, so I just do it myself. You know,
Speaker 1: we learn, I think, especially as we get older and
Speaker 1: we mature and we figure ourselves out, and there's some
Speaker 1: freedom that comes with, like just getting tired of judging ourselves.
Speaker 1: For some of these things, and so we find a workaround,
Speaker 1: whether it's writing your husband's dialogue or whether it's it's
Speaker 1: asking really directly, like we can kind of figure out
Speaker 1: strategies for making ourselves happy and getting our needs met.
Speaker 1: And I would say, no matter what the socio economic
Speaker 1: background is. I mean, you quote Oscar Wilde when he
Speaker 1: said the only thing that can console one for being
Speaker 1: poor is extravagance. And there's a little bit of that
Speaker 1: in there, of this idea that for whatever reason I
Speaker 1: can't have but I must, must, must have it. Yes,
Speaker 1: there's something that it's so beautifully affirming about that it's
Speaker 1: a way of sort of expressing this existential planting a
Speaker 1: flag on the ground and saying I am here. The
Speaker 1: world would want to say that I can't do this
Speaker 1: or I can't have this, and and even though it
Speaker 1: doesn't make sense for my bank account, like that, I
Speaker 1: think is often the need that sort of drives those behaviors.
Speaker 1: At people look as scans and say like, but don't
Speaker 1: they know that they're messing up their life Even further,
Speaker 1: It's like, sometimes what we need is to say life
Speaker 1: isn't going to beat me. I can still have fun,
Speaker 1: or I can still do this if we look underneath
Speaker 1: the behavior. There's so much there, and that always makes
Speaker 1: sense if we know how to look at it. You know,
Speaker 1: I also look at money and I see how it
Speaker 1: gets weaponized as well. And I mean weaponized emotionally because
Speaker 1: I see money great amounts and little amounts can destroy
Speaker 1: families because of the emotional undercurrent of all of it.
Speaker 1: And I sometimes think that people are so obsessed with
Speaker 1: shows like Succession or Billions because the money is used
Speaker 1: emotionally in these TV shows. But also I think people
Speaker 1: want to see people with a lot of money being
Speaker 1: horrible people, you know what I mean. There's something very
Speaker 1: satisfying about that. Sure. Yeah, I mean money is an
Speaker 1: energy source and it can fuel whatever you put it toward.
Speaker 1: And when you're putting it towards something dysfunctional, yeah, it
Speaker 1: can create a big, dramatic mess. I mean, there's tremendous
Speaker 1: destructive power that can come with having a lot of money.
Speaker 1: And one thing that you can say, you know, if
Speaker 1: you're not fighting over money because you don't have that
Speaker 1: kind of money, then those kinds of problems are problems
Speaker 1: that you don't have, And it makes a life of
Speaker 1: not having those problems seem more attractive and dearer to us.
Speaker 1: I always love that saying, though, that if you threw
Speaker 1: all of your problems onto a pile with everybody else's problems,
Speaker 1: you'd be so excited to snatch your own problems back.
Speaker 1: And I think looking at those kinds of shows does
Speaker 1: give us that kind of an opportunity to be like, oh,
Speaker 1: I'm glad I don't have those problems. I mean, do
Speaker 1: you sort of look at our country right now because
Speaker 1: there is such a polarization of wealth. People are so
Speaker 1: angry right now, and a lot of it is I
Speaker 1: think the divide of the haves and the have not.
Speaker 1: Don't you see that connection as being what is imploding
Speaker 1: so many issues in our country right now? I do,
Speaker 1: And I love that you asked that question, because you know,
Speaker 1: when we get into the psychology of money, the first
Speaker 1: thing that we discover is it's it's never just about
Speaker 1: the dollars and cents. And one of the ways that
Speaker 1: we create meaning around money is using comparisons. I forget
Speaker 1: who did this study, but there's some research that found
Speaker 1: that if you offer people, you say, I could give
Speaker 1: you a hundred fifty thousand dollars, but all of your
Speaker 1: neighbors have two hundred thousand dollars. Or I could give
Speaker 1: you a hundred thousand dollars, but all of your neighbors
Speaker 1: have seventy five dollars. The vast, vast majority of people
Speaker 1: would take less money as long as they have more
Speaker 1: money relative to other people. So when we see a
Speaker 1: huge amount of income disparity, and the trend of income
Speaker 1: disparity even increasing over time, the part of our brain
Speaker 1: that deals with loss and loss of status really lights up.
Speaker 1: And human beings are much more aversive to loss than
Speaker 1: we are conditioned to seek gain. So like our brains
Speaker 1: are just panicking there in panic mode as we we
Speaker 1: sort of see how much harder it is to have
Speaker 1: a secure middle class existence and all of the institutions
Speaker 1: that really make being in the middle class work, like
Speaker 1: having access to great schools and clean water and good transportation, etcetera. Like,
Speaker 1: as those things go away, not only is the story
Speaker 1: that we tell ourselves one where we are being unfairly
Speaker 1: targeted and oppressed and losing status, but we very much
Speaker 1: feel like, how am I going to make sure that
Speaker 1: my family's needs are met? And then you can spare
Speaker 1: all into shame you know, and then make probably make
Speaker 1: bad choices. Yes, yeah, I do feel that in our
Speaker 1: country right now a lot. And I mean from every community,
Speaker 1: you know, this feeling of fear, and what's unfortunately come
Speaker 1: about is this real anger. Yeah, I mean anger is
Speaker 1: the protective emotion, you know, it's it's there to say, hey,
Speaker 1: this is getting really close to a boundary and I
Speaker 1: don't like it, and I need you to back off.
Speaker 1: And underneath that anger is something that's much more tender,
Speaker 1: and a lot of times it is vulnerability, it is grief.
Speaker 1: But because it is so hard to stay in those
Speaker 1: vulnerable feelings, we stay in the anger. But the anger,
Speaker 1: especially if there's anger on the other side, it's like
Speaker 1: we just can never get to a place where we
Speaker 1: feel connected, where we have any sense of trust that
Speaker 1: people are there to support us, and we don't have
Speaker 1: any faith that things are going to get better. So
Speaker 1: so I do think that there's a real crisis of anger.
Speaker 1: And to the point about shame and families like I
Speaker 1: remember the great Saint burn A Brown saying about shame
Speaker 1: that the quickest route to shame is unwanted identity. When
Speaker 1: we feel like who we are is being devalued or
Speaker 1: losing status in our our social group or in our society.
Speaker 1: That is where we're going to experience shame and then
Speaker 1: again go right into the anchor to try to distance
Speaker 1: ourselves and protect ourselves from that feeling of shame. And
Speaker 1: in families especially, this can lead to certain messages that
Speaker 1: go into how we talk about money in the family
Speaker 1: or socio economic status, and like family money stories are
Speaker 1: are really meant to give the next generation to set
Speaker 1: them up for what they should expect to see in
Speaker 1: the world. So if what you're teaching your child is
Speaker 1: that they should expect to see that the world is
Speaker 1: against them, that somebody is trying to keep them down,
Speaker 1: the intention is that that's going to be protective, so
Speaker 1: the child knows like, hey, you got to get in
Speaker 1: there and fight. On the other hand, that might also,
Speaker 1: because of the confirmation bias, set the child up to
Speaker 1: just only see that when they get out into the
Speaker 1: world and maybe there are helpers, maybe there are solutions,
Speaker 1: but those kinds of opportunities or resources, if we're on
Speaker 1: the defensive, then we're not going to notice them. Or similarly,
Speaker 1: in a family that says there is privilege and you
Speaker 1: need to make sure that you're one of the people
Speaker 1: who has it. Don't worry about anybody else. The world
Speaker 1: is tough. You've got to get yours like that is
Speaker 1: sort of inoculating that person to distance themselves from the
Speaker 1: shame of the inequality and feeling that disconnect or maybe
Speaker 1: even feeling like they're taking advantage. So so how we
Speaker 1: sort of interpret these social events or socio economic events
Speaker 1: and try to raise our children to understand the system
Speaker 1: that they're born in. Sometimes what we're doing is sort
Speaker 1: of unwittingly perpetuating the very system that we're finding difficult.
Speaker 1: And we'll be right back. Great, let's get back to it.
Speaker 1: My fear is with how our country has set up
Speaker 1: payment and what I mean by that is with Apple
Speaker 1: pay and Venmo and everything. Are our children losing or
Speaker 1: getting a disconnect from the idea of money and budget
Speaker 1: and understanding the gravity of money. Does that make sense
Speaker 1: to you? Yes, When we forfeit awareness because awareness makes
Speaker 1: us uncomfortable, we're sacrificing the ability to be deliberate with
Speaker 1: our money and to really say these are my financial values.
Speaker 1: I'm going to use the feedback of like seeing where
Speaker 1: my money goes, and I can tolerate the feelings of
Speaker 1: that in order to say I'm putting my money towards
Speaker 1: the things that are most important to me. And I
Speaker 1: deal with a lot of this because there's an incentive
Speaker 1: in the financial services world to under the guise of
Speaker 1: making things easy and taking away friction in our ability
Speaker 1: to to an active financial transaction, that we are robbing
Speaker 1: ourselves of the ability to really be conscious and grounded
Speaker 1: and use the knowledge that we have about the reality
Speaker 1: of our money in order to guide our decisions. Like
Speaker 1: we're really just putting ourselves into this very ephemeral kind
Speaker 1: of rule of thumb behavior where like, if I'm naturally frugal,
Speaker 1: if I have my brain setting automatically on no, unless
Speaker 1: you know, I really give it some time and make
Speaker 1: it a yes, but automatically I'm going to say no.
Speaker 1: That's a way of keeping us safe financially. But it's
Speaker 1: also a way of keeping our our needs and wants
Speaker 1: really small and not interacting with them because of that
Speaker 1: automatic no setting. If rather we have it set to maybe,
Speaker 1: and then we take away all of that friction and
Speaker 1: all of those opportunities to reflect to go, oh, maybe
Speaker 1: I shouldn't. Maybe there's an alternative where else would I
Speaker 1: rather put my money. If I'm paying attention to it,
Speaker 1: then we really are subject to the whim of the moment.
Speaker 1: If we're hungry, then we're going to get the ten
Speaker 1: dollar twenty dollar salad. If we are tired, then we're
Speaker 1: going to take a rideshare home instead of taking public transportation, etcetera.
Speaker 1: Like we need those feelings that kind of pump the brakes.
Speaker 1: And there will always be I tell cliences all the time,
Speaker 1: there will always be more needs and wants than there
Speaker 1: are resources. So let's kind of make friends with what
Speaker 1: all of these emotions have to offer us. So is
Speaker 1: this kind of financial radical acceptance. It is. It is
Speaker 1: radical acceptance. But one of the things that you're accepting
Speaker 1: is the wisdom of the brain and the body, and
Speaker 1: the partnership between the emotions and the subconscious and the
Speaker 1: meaning and the stories with just the kind of boots
Speaker 1: on the ground reality of like this is how dollars
Speaker 1: come into my life, and this is how dollars come
Speaker 1: out of my life. So money can be your focus
Speaker 1: to have a deeply personally meaningful and purpose driven life.
Speaker 1: And it doesn't mean that by having this focus on
Speaker 1: money that you're just trying to hoard all the money.
Speaker 1: That's not it at all. It's just being deliberate with
Speaker 1: all of these dollars about how you operate in this
Speaker 1: money world. So let me ask you this, how how
Speaker 1: does our relationship with money change over the course of
Speaker 1: our lifetime. So as we grow and mature, we express
Speaker 1: our developmental tasks and phases very much in terms of
Speaker 1: the kinds of choices that we're making with money. So
Speaker 1: one rule of thumb, I think for a happy life
Speaker 1: is not to judge the previous developmental phase by the
Speaker 1: one that you're currently in. So if, for example, you
Speaker 1: happened to be a twenty four year old named Amanda
Speaker 1: who got a lot of credit card debt because she
Speaker 1: wrote herself checks and put them into her bank account,
Speaker 1: twenty four year old Amanda's developmental task was establishing independence,
Speaker 1: figuring out who she was professionally personally said, having friendships,
Speaker 1: like figuring out where does one get a couch? And
Speaker 1: all of these had here sort of grown up tasks
Speaker 1: um And then thirty five year old Amanda who is
Speaker 1: partnered and thinking about a family and saving for the
Speaker 1: long term, like it would be possible to be very
Speaker 1: judgmental of all of the mistakes and the learning that
Speaker 1: that younger Amanda had to go through. But that was
Speaker 1: what all of that work accumulated, along with the financial
Speaker 1: consequences of figuring it out, the learning accumulated such that
Speaker 1: you know, I'll switch back of first person, like I
Speaker 1: knew who I was at thirty five because I had
Speaker 1: gone through all of that stuff at So suddenly what
Speaker 1: I'm trying to do with my money and the things
Speaker 1: that I'm trying to figure out, the lessons I'm trying
Speaker 1: to learn, those are different in those two different time periods,
Speaker 1: And now as somebody who's in her mid forties, I
Speaker 1: am so much more into like having the perspective of
Speaker 1: a life's journey, and it becomes much more reflective and
Speaker 1: thinking about impact kinds of things. This is much more
Speaker 1: i think, developmentally appropriate to where I'm at at this
Speaker 1: point in my life. So in working with people, one
Speaker 1: of the things that I'm listening for is sort of like,
Speaker 1: what are the lessons that are in their life right now?
Speaker 1: Where do they see the value and where do they
Speaker 1: seek the mistakes or the sacrifices based on what they
Speaker 1: learned in an earlier base of adulthood or even what
Speaker 1: they were learning in their family when they were growing up,
Speaker 1: which hopefully they're doing simultaneously with looking at their life
Speaker 1: in general. You know, if you're in therapy, one could
Speaker 1: I could look at my life and think, well, my,
Speaker 1: you know, my frontal lobe wasn't developed when I was
Speaker 1: a teenager and I was doing all kinds of crazy
Speaker 1: stuff because I felt invincible, and so I didn't manage
Speaker 1: my money that well. I was sort of free falling
Speaker 1: in all areas. And then in my twenties there were
Speaker 1: still bouncing of checks because they were still bouncing of
Speaker 1: relationships and bouncing of ideas of what to do. And
Speaker 1: so the money stuff does track with your own personal
Speaker 1: emotional journey in general through your lifetime. I think I
Speaker 1: find this all fascinating because I think there's so much
Speaker 1: correlation between what's going on with you as a person
Speaker 1: trying to be self actualized as it is with your finances. Yes,
Speaker 1: so my sort of like research fascination right now is
Speaker 1: all around needing and wanting and how we we think
Speaker 1: of those distinctions as categories in our financial life. Certainly,
Speaker 1: but like if you've seen Maslow's hierarchy of needs. You know,
Speaker 1: there's a big triangle and at the bottom of the
Speaker 1: triangle it starts with like physiological needs like when we're
Speaker 1: hungry or tired, and that we have safety, etcetera. And
Speaker 1: then at the top you have self actualization. And so
Speaker 1: I like to look at that as like that is
Speaker 1: an arrow, Like it's not like we get to the
Speaker 1: top and we have no needs. It's like no needs.
Speaker 1: Our needs and wants are the story of how you
Speaker 1: live your life in a human body in this crazy
Speaker 1: complex modern society, and and our needs and our wants
Speaker 1: help point us towards our purpose that we're going to
Speaker 1: have on this journey. And that allows me to relate,
Speaker 1: I think, and I hope in a healthy way to
Speaker 1: needing and wanting, which can be really scary, but it
Speaker 1: also I think provides a lot of hope. Oh God, Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna end on this because it's um it's funny
Speaker 1: because I've always been so afraid of money, and having
Speaker 1: read a lot of the things that you've written and
Speaker 1: speaking to you today, I feel the kind of a
Speaker 1: sense of relief, you know, because so much of it
Speaker 1: was connected to emotions that I didn't I didn't sort
Speaker 1: of dig into before. So thank you. You've certainly answered
Speaker 1: a lot of my big questions about finances, and so
Speaker 1: if you have a question for me, I'd love to
Speaker 1: answer it for you. I do, so bring it, Amanda.
Speaker 1: So I also have two daughters, and mine are just
Speaker 1: a little younger than yours, but kind of right behind you.
Speaker 1: And I don't know if this is true for you
Speaker 1: as a parent, but my two kids have very different personalities,
Speaker 1: and I wonder in your approach to parenting, do you
Speaker 1: find that you knowingly parent your two children differently or
Speaker 1: do you try to have a really consistent sort of
Speaker 1: like this is the way a parent. This is what
Speaker 1: I'm trying to impart to you. That's a great question,
Speaker 1: big sort of fundamental moral structure. Ways. I parent them
Speaker 1: the same way in terms of like, this is what
Speaker 1: we do, this is what we believe. You know, we
Speaker 1: always have family dinner at six. I don't care if
Speaker 1: your social so those things. I parent both of them
Speaker 1: the same way. Now as they've gotten older, I have
Speaker 1: a tendency to tailor my parenting towards each girl because
Speaker 1: their needs are different. You know, one of them is
Speaker 1: just emotionally much more needy, so I have to sort
Speaker 1: of be there for her. The other one is a
Speaker 1: lot more independent, doesn't want me cuddling and giving her
Speaker 1: good mother messages. So as they get older, you start
Speaker 1: to understand what their needs are and how you can help.
Speaker 1: And now that they're full blown teenagers, it's very clear
Speaker 1: to me what they both need. And now it's I
Speaker 1: don't have to think a lot about it. I know,
Speaker 1: well this one, you know, this one, I'm not even
Speaker 1: allowed to ask. He was at the party, and this
Speaker 1: one is I know. I got to put an hour
Speaker 1: and a half aside because she's going to go through,
Speaker 1: you know, every single detail of meeting this boy. So
Speaker 1: it evolves and changes all the time. But again, to
Speaker 1: bring it back what I first said, as long as
Speaker 1: I've instilled in them sort of our collective familial morality
Speaker 1: and big lessons and stuff, then the rest I can
Speaker 1: sort of figure out as we go along. I love that.
Speaker 1: I hope that's helpful. By the way, it's a work
Speaker 1: in progress till the very end, so you know, God
Speaker 1: knows what I'll be like as a grandmother. Amanda, thank
Speaker 1: you so much. And again, I'm sort of obsessed right
Speaker 1: now with this connection of therapy and finances. It was
Speaker 1: but a nibble. I feel like there's a full meal
Speaker 1: in our future. So thank you. I would so be
Speaker 1: delighted to come back. Thank you. I had a great
Speaker 1: time talking to you. So I was thinking a lot
Speaker 1: about shame based on what Amanda was saying, and I
Speaker 1: was thinking about how in my twenties I was sort
Speaker 1: of a delinquent financially and then I sort of got
Speaker 1: my act together in my early thirties. But when I
Speaker 1: met my husband, and it was very, very hard to
Speaker 1: divulge this. I was in credit card debt and I
Speaker 1: had to borrow money from him to pay off this debt.
Speaker 1: And I wasn't such a huge debt that he ran
Speaker 1: away from the relationship screaming, but you know, it was
Speaker 1: humiliating to ask him to bail me out. And that
Speaker 1: was a big moment for me. And that's when I decided,
Speaker 1: you know what, I'm now in a partnership where I
Speaker 1: don't want to be irresponsible um And we sort of
Speaker 1: thankfully got together and had real conversations about how we
Speaker 1: react about money based on our own emotional makeup and
Speaker 1: how we were going to move forward and not let
Speaker 1: money become a lot of baggage and fighting and so
Speaker 1: um I'm grateful for that. And I also think that
Speaker 1: for all of us listening, if we can somehow understand
Speaker 1: how we deal with money based on our own emotional makeup,
Speaker 1: it's really going to free us. It's not gonna make
Speaker 1: us richer, but it's definitely going to free us. Thank
Speaker 1: you for listening to Go Ask Alli. Be sure to subscribe,
Speaker 1: rate and review the podcast, and follow me on social
Speaker 1: media on Twitter at Ali e Wentworth, It on Instagram
Speaker 1: at the Real Ali Wentworth and if you have questions
Speaker 1: or guest suggestions, I'd love to hear from you, call
Speaker 1: it text me at three to three four six three
Speaker 1: five six, or email Go ask Gali podcast at gmail
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