Financial SHAMING is Never a Path to Financial Wellness

“I want to hug every person (including myself) who read his statement and felt hot shame flood their bodies” - a DM in response to my IG story post this morning on the following…

“I don’t believe in a stimulus check. If $600 or $1,400 changes your life, you were pretty much screwed already. You got other issues going on. You have a career problem. You have a debt problem. You have a relationship problem. You have a mental health problem. Something else is going on if $600 changes your life” - Direct Quote from Dave Ramsey

The following is my equivalent of a giant hug to everyone and anyone feeling the same.

This is a call IN as much as it is a call out. I know how beneficial his approach has been for millions of people. Many of my clients had great success with his method (before they came to work with me…;-). I am not dismissing him, or his work outright…

I am just truly outraged at this comment and it’s lack of compassion and understanding - in the midst of a financially devastating PANDEMIC. It is harmful.

But it isn’t new. Suze Orman’s style often has a similar tone, despite the powerful tools and education she provides. It always turned me off, even though I appreciated learning from her ages ago.

What these voices - and the cacophony of others out there - fail to recognize is the deep, long lasting, and painful damage that is caused - financial, and otherwise.

It is why I facilitate this work in an entirely different way.

We could approach financial hardship with compassion, softening a pathway to empowered action. It could occur in the midst of contextual understanding of one’s circumstance - which INCLUDES an understanding of our current economic system: FLAT minimum wage, gender/racial pay gap, wealth disparity, systemic economic oppression, privilege… etc. etc.

Shame - being shamed, feeling shame - can put us directly into a state of paralysis before we can catch ourselves. ***It is a physiological response*** a protective, survival strategy in the face of the information that: we are wrong, bad, inferior, incompetent, doomed, etc. and that it is *our* fault. Therefore we can’t fix it.

It simply reinforces helplessness. We take little effective action when in this state. I can’t think of anything more DIS-empowering.

I have worked with people who were shamed meeting with a financial professional - then took 2 YEARS or more to even look at their money again.

Shaming is NOT the solution. It is not the path to financial wellness. Let alone emotional, mental wellness.

I hope you can hear my voice if these waves of shame hit and radiate through your body. Whatever your financial circumstance is, know it is simply that. It is a result and co-creation of your birth into a financial system, a particular family, geographic location, and a body/mind/spirit who is doing its best with the resources it has - even if that best is destructive, it is often for reasons are valid. Please have compassion for yourself being in the current crossroads of this reality. Flood your body with it.

Internally flooded with self-compassion, you will begin taking new actions that will help you realize a new financial reality by taking appropriate responsibility. I promise. I know it works. I get emails regularly from my course participants that even in their late 40s or 50s, THIS IS THE FIRST TIME IN THEIR LIVES they are *excited* to look at their money and create change.

The how-to’s, what-to-do’s, are the easy part. Our internal state is the key to how well any of that goes. I am here to hold radically different space.