When most people think about relationships, they think about relationships with other humans.
What about some of the other primary relationships you have during your life?
~The relating you do with the land you dwell on.
~Your very intimate relationship with the food that nourishes your body.
~Money.
Today, I’m inviting you to consider money as a primary relationship in your life.
And because we are a relationship school, teaching the skills for graceful relating, it’s something we gotta talk about.
YOU + MONEY
When you read, “Money is a primary relationship in my life,” what happens in your body?
- Do you tighten?
- Dismiss?
- Do you want to stop reading, or start skimming?
- Do your eyes widen in excitement?
Yes, money, like sex, is both exciting and scary.
(Warning: plot twist ahead)
You know that I spend a lot of time thinking about sexuality, Eros, and bodies.
Lately, I’ve been considering erotic flow, what it means, how I can support people to access it.
(Here’s where the money/sex parts come together!)
Money is a stream of energy, just like the Erotic is a different stream of energy.
(Don’t worry, not going full-on woo woo here, but hang with me.)
Frequently, how you are with one resource in your life bleeds into how you are with other resources in your life.
Love, pleasure, touch, food, money, etc.
Not to say you can’t have separate relationships with different things, but the common denominator is YOU.
It makes sense that money AND sexuality are areas of your life that deserve your attention, your healing.
Where are you, in terms of your consciousness around money?
Here are a few questions for your consideration, and possible journaling.
- What money practices do you have that you feel pride in?
- Do you budget? Why or why not?
- Do you consider money a friend or an enemy? Why?
- How does money bring you joy?
True Confession: I love money.
It has taken a lot of permission, unlearning, mindset work, therapy and magic for me to be able to frankly write that. Boom!
I love considering how to create prosperity for me, for my friends, for my community.
I love making my dreams come true.
Healing with money is much like healing sexuality.
It takes time, curiosity, and attention.
You can learn to direct your energy, through working with your attention.
For example, if you want to build bigger biceps you’d train those particular muscles.
If you want to build bigger money muscles, you have to train (and retrain) your brain.
How you think influences a lot about how you ARE.
Money Mindset is (almost) EVERYTHING!
For example, if shame is part of your relationship with money, chances are you feel uncomfortable being honest with yourself and others about finances.
And that shame will creep in, creating all kinds of messes.
Kinda like sex.
Which is why, in our work with couples, we teach frank and honest communication skills for talking about these harder topics.
You + Partner + Money
In human + human relationships, not only are you navigating your own stuff, you have to deal with whatever the other person is working with too, and somehow come to a mutual way to move together.
It’s my personal belief that you should be able to talk about everything in your relationship.
Talking about money can become a place of deep connection, once shame is out of the way.
My partner and I are deep in it right now, coming to clarity and mutuality with money.
It’s so fun! (And hard!)
Every night my partner and I sit down together.
We talk about our spending, our desires, our savings, our dreams.
We are participating in a 30-day More Money Challenge (through the app I list below) that is encouraging us to get crystal clear and honest about what’s up with da money.
We’ve been avid budgeters for four years, using You Need A Budget, a.k.a. YNAB, which is a completely profound way of working with money that truly has changed my financial life.
(That’s my affiliate link, and y’awl KNOW I never send out product referrals…I am that much of a believer in the power of knowing what’s going on, and feeling in control. It is really that good.)
Working through money baggage in our relationship has created a new kind of intimacy, and that feels pretty sexy.
Questions to ask yourself:
Here are a few questions for you and your partner about money:
- What is one area that needs tending in our money house?
- What is one money success we’ve experienced?
- What is one financial dream we hold together?
- What is our plan for making the dream come true?
Take some time with your partner to speak about any or all of these questions. It will DEFINITELY be interesting!
And probably the feels will come up.
And you’ll get to build intimacy through vulnerable discussion about a sensitive topic.
Recommended Resources
Arguing about Money Again? Understanding Financial Tension in Relationships
By Esther Perel and Mary Alice Miller
I am an entrepreneur, somatic sex educator, and activist on a mission to help others get free in their bodies. I founded Wellcelium with the goal of bringing world-class teachers of sexuality, embodiment and intimacy together, to create a world that is relationally and erotically well. Read more.
