Money and The Nervous System

How our relationship with money and finances is determined by how regulated our nervous system is

I've almost completed 40 days of a nervous system reset around money which has involved doing daily breath work and meditation practices.

Connecting with the breath, feeling and neutralising thoughts and feeling especially in relation to money, and then shifting the focus to what we are calling in.

It’s been really interesting for me to notice this link between money and our nervous system.

Some questions that helped me to begin the process of noticing how I default naturally in response to anything around money:

When a bill comes in, how do I feel?

If I have a conversation around money, how do I feel?

When I spend money, how do I feel?

How do I feel about the things that I'm spending money on?

When I go shopping, how do I feel about the different prices in a supermarket, what's going through my mind?

If money comes in, how am I feeling about that money?

How long can I hold on to that money?

What do I then do with that money?

Or if I am feeling a certain way, how do I spend money?

The main survival responses are: fight (e.g. irritability, anger, blame), flight (avoidance, ignoring, escaping), freeze (dissociation, stuck, helpless, demotivated), fawn (appeasing, pandering, down playing).

My 2 main ones were fight and sometimes fawn.

By becoming aware of all these things we can then have awareness daily, so we can notice these things as they come up and choose whether we want to respond in that way, whether it's a way that serves or whether it's a way that's a bit outdated.

We can reflect on conversations we grew up around or certain ways that our parents were with money, how they felt about it, how they spoke about it, how they earned iy, all the different kinds of sayings and narratives. Noticing how that's built a default neuro pathway within our system in terms of our relationship with money.

We have a combined nervous system with our partners too, so there can be patterns that play out between us, or their money stuff can impact us.

Some days especially in the first week of daily breath work, I was bringing in a lot of my responses or patterns to neutralise and to consider what would feel like a better way to interact with money.

We don’t have to have these clear intentions though, it can also purely be for being present and being with the practice.

I've shifts with how money comes into my life or stress reducing around money. Over a couple of weeks unexpected money came more than once, I won a gift, another week we received a refund on one of our insurance policies due to an error, one week everything in our evening out ended up being free. This was all in the space of about 20 days.

Seeing this happen in real time has given me the confidence to beam new narratives like, I win, I’m lucky, Money comes with ease and flow, I am resourced, Supported, A magnet.

One evening I woke up at 3am to a loud work ‘differentiation’ (a finance term) followed by a message ‘you need to get out of bed and write this all down’, I got up and grabbed my note book and pen as I started to download ideas in a review of our business, how we can do things differently, new offerings etc, as well as ways that we can personally start broadening our views around money and things like investing. From there, I started to get into action more, crossing paths with people having conversations in these areas or who are of a similar mindset.

Shifting this mentality is about the daily generalised regulation of our nervous system, as it's about the wider ways of how money is intertwined with our relationships or how everything is connected.

For example, If I feel stressed about money, I'm going to take it out on my children, and they are going to be picking up on my energy, and it's gonna create all sorts of discontent within our home.

The more I’m making that time committing to the practice I see its benefit and realise it's something that I need to do everyday. Like when I brush my teeth or have a shower, or go and do some exercise or eat some food or drink some water.

I'm noticing how just that alone is shifting everything around me so the byproduct hasn't solely been more money coming in.

I see the ripple effect with things around me and my relationships especially.

Moving out of survival mode as when we are here we are going to be thinking from a place of scarcity.

We're not going to be thinking very optimistically or about doing things like investing and saving or taking inspired action, if we are reacting to everyday life.

Something else worth mentioning is that our trauma can be impacting our relationship with money and finances.

If we have these default things happening within our bodies, it's going to push us into that survival state of disregulation, sometimes without even realising that it's happening as trauma can be triggered by any of our senses.

When I've been doing my daily practices, especially some of the extended ones I've noticed, I've had big emotional releases around things from my childhood. I don't even know how these things are related specifically nor do I try attach and analyse that as it’s besides the point really.

It is knowing that with that releasing, it's creating big shifts, we can see it happening, opening up expansion and capacity for new energy.

It’s not a topic i’ve sat and thought deeper about yet I understand how certain life experiences can knock our confidence and keep us playing small.

I've also witnessed random things coming in on a day to day during practice, even though the intention is around clearing stuff around money, moments in the day, people, certain conversations, perhaps they triggered me, certain things in our day might upset us or make us feel annoyed, judged, down, it has nothing to do with money, yet it's also still impacting our nervous system, the way we think and perceive, which is impacting our relationships with money.

So I leave you with this information, to bring curiosity to how you feel that you're engaging with money, and perhaps becoming more aware of it.

If you have perhaps been resistant to doing meditation, or daily practices like breath, work, whatever it might be for you, knowing that there's power in it! and that if you're resisting it, there's even more power in it as it's something that is gonna be very transformational for you if you go there. Often we make a story in our minds about it, and it’s the ego limiting us, when we lean into discomfort and vulnerability we realise our stories weren’t true and can invalidate them.

Whether you can or can't meditate or whether breath work is it for you, or whether you have the time. Or perhaps you resonate with other ways of processing, like moving the body or journaling.

Consider a daily practice taking between 15 and 20 minutes, somehow we can manage to fit it in.

I know if I can fit it in as a busy mom of three that you can too! And just on that, do it with your kids around, let them see your conscious healthy habits too, rather than just seeing the unhealthy ones like us scrolling our phones. Kids can bring distraction and all sorts of frustration into these sessions, which give us even more to work with and develop a resilient nervous system. This is the new way, as lets face it, sometimes it can be a challenge to find a moment of silence where we are completely on our own.

Please leave me some comments around whether this resonates with you, whether it's something that you've considered before, or anything about your journey with reassessing your money patterns. As well as any realisations that you've had along the way!

Much love, Jay xx