Scarcity Money Mindset with Tammy Thomas

In this episode of the Relational Psych Podcast, host Dr. Carly Claney interviews Tamasin (Tammy) Thomas, a licensed mental health therapist and former financial planner. They delve into the concept of scarcity money mindset, discussing its impact on personal and relational dynamics. Tammy shares her own experiences and those of her clients, emphasizing the psychological underpinnings of financial anxieties and the importance of addressing these fears to gain empowerment. The conversation covers various manifestations of a scarcity mindset, from emotional spending to financial stress in relationships, highlighting the deeper emotional wounds that often drive these behaviors. They also discuss strategies for becoming aware of and healing these psychological wounds to foster better financial health and intimacy in partnerships.

Links:

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Tammy’s podcast: The Psychology of Money with Tamasin Thomas

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Transcript

Carly Claney: [00:00:00] If you want to learn about psychological growth without getting lost in complicated language, you're in the right place. This is the Relational Psych Podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Carly Clayney, licensed psychologist and the founder and CEO of Relational Psych. On this show, we learn about the processes and theories behind personal growth.

Please keep in mind that this podcast isn't a substitute for therapeutic advice, but we're here to point you in the right direction.

Today on our podcast. We have Tamasin Thomas who goes by Tammy and is a former licensed financial planner turned licensed mental health therapist. She has explored the intersection of money and psychology all of her career, exploring what's going on below the surface or on a deeper level when it comes to our relationship with money.

The outcome of this [00:01:00] work is helping people understand themselves better, make more conscious choices around money, decrease tension and conflict with money, while increasing peace and empowerment around money. Tammy, thanks for being here. 

Tamasin Thomas: Thanks for having me. I'm excited. 

Carly Claney: Me too. The topic is scarcity money mindset.

And I'm so excited to have you on the podcast to talk about this in part because of our shared history. You were my coach a couple of years ago when I first started in private practice and then expanded into the group. And I learned so much just about different. Different experiences with money, both on a very business side of things, but then also my own personal development with my relationship with money.

So when we talk specifically about scarcity money mindset, I would love to know from you why we're talking about this today. 

Tamasin Thomas: Yeah, that's a good, that's a good question. There are a lot of different areas I think we could explore with money. Scarcity feels [00:02:00] like the area that's. To me, in the work that I've done over the decades, the one that's least talked about, but most impacting people's lives.

It's like the unspoken fear that is calling the shots. In the driver's seat and no one really wants fear or scarcity money mindset to be calling the shots. And yet no one's talking about how to change who drives the car and who makes the decisions and how we run our lives. 

It just hinders, I think, us as human beings. And I've seen it a lot and I know it's a large part of my story. It's a large part of my client stories. Why did that sound attractive when we thought about bringing it to this podcast?

Carly Claney: Yeah, I think similarly to what you're bringing in, it seems like such an impact on people's lives. And it feels unconscious. It can feel like something that's not known, [00:03:00] not explored, taboo or scary, or just really emotionally laden, bringing in a lot of feelings like shame or confusion or those kinds of things.

So I think being happy, having a place where we're able to. speak to it and demystify it, hopefully, in this next amount of time will help for people listening to be able to see themselves in the story and give them a path forward to making some of that unconscious more conscious and then hopefully have more agency in what they do next.

Tamasin Thomas: Yeah, I agree. I hope so too. 

Carly Claney: When we start defining some of it, when we talk about scarcity money mindset, where are we going with that? What's our framework for thinking about it? 

Tamasin Thomas: So let's start with what it's not right. There is a very legitimate someone doesn't have a job and they don't have money to pay the rent or go grocery shopping, or they grew up in poverty.

That is [00:04:00] scarcity. And that would be a scarcity money mindset that would be very legitimate. It's not the scarcity money mindset that we are going to be talking about today. So I want to really validate circumstances that would be defined as poverty, or would be defined as a legitimate scarcity and really acknowledge that and say, that's not actually what we're going to be talking about today.

The scarcity money mindset that we are wanting to explore today is more of. Us believing that feeling like, there's never going to be enough money. That's the most common is no matter I have a great job, I'm able to pay my bills every month, but no matter what I don't feel like it's enough.

 I would say some examples of that mindset or some examples. Of the pain points that I think people are going to be able to resonate more with that than identifying the scarcity is going to be emotional spending as a coping mechanism, [00:05:00] specifically impulse spending. 

Carly Claney: Scrolling on Amazon for hours and just buying whatever.

Tamasin Thomas: Yeah, or going into Sephora or Ulta and just spend a ton of money when you've got stuff at home , you don't just go in for 1 product, or you go in for 1 product and you come up with 20, right? Feeling of a scarcity despite having enough money. I mentioned that earlier. Difficulty in discussing money matters with a partner, a life partner, husband or wife belief that money is the root of everything.

Of your problems, not the root of all evil, but if you had money, if I just have a little bit more money, things would be better. That's usually the pain point that people define. Other places are we doubt. Our ability to make smart financial decisions. So a lot of second guessing procrastination of financial planning tasks.

Let's say, you want to meet with a financial planner, but you don't do it or let's say, you want to [00:06:00] organize your monthly finances, but you just keep winging it and you don't really. It's something you got to do, but it's fear of not being able to provide for the family again, despite a good job. Anxiety around future financial security.

And this is usually despite having a good job and putting saving strategies in place. Do you see that we're getting to a pattern here? I got 2 more examples comparison with others. Leading to financial stress " so and so has the same job that I do, or they make the same amount of money, but they have this certain car, they have this bigger house than I do, or any type of comparison," the heart of that is actually scarcity money mindset. And then the last pain point I come across a lot with my clients is feeling guilty about spending money on yourself. Again, I think of families, I think of stay at home moms, right?

That want to put their kids 1st and make sure they swim lessons and gymnastics lessons and that they have a hard time buying [00:07:00] themselves, I don't know, like a shirt, or a different shade of lipstick when they have all these shades at home. 

Carly Claney: Let alone therapy or something that would be much more of a financial investment.

Tamasin Thomas: Exactly. Yeah, you had a couple of facial expressions with some of those examples I put out there. Any resonate with you specifically? 

Carly Claney: Yeah, I think it is interesting to reflect personally because there's the theme that you highlighted of how I took it in is things can change, but your feelings don't.

So your financial situation changes, but those anxieties are still there, or you become more successful or maybe you stop avoiding and you make the plan and you're moving towards that plan that hopefully will set you up for success in the future. And yet that checking, that anxiety that can come in, I think that does resonate with me.

I'm like, Oh, did I do it enough? Did I figure it out? And then, yeah, I think the feelings that both I could resonate with and also I could hear in [00:08:00] my clients a lot of things around shoulds and That's actually the biggest 1, like, all of these shoulds of either in comparison to other people or myself or my past self, there's just a lot of pressure that I think I also hear in this perspective.

Tamasin Thomas: Yeah, I love that. It brings to mind when I was a financial planner and I'm working with people, I worked with teachers all the way up to, millionaires and it didn't really matter the amount of money that they had. Some of the people that struggled the most with feeling like they didn't have enough was actually people that were very financially secure and stable. And some others like teachers who work their tail off and really don't get compensated for their education and what they offer well, we're some of the most secure people in their financial plan. And so the dollar amount of what's in the bank account is not the type of security we're talking about here.

We're talking about something a little [00:09:00] deeper in terms of I have a scarcity money mindset, but is it actually about money? And if it's not, what else could it possibly be about? On a day to day basis, I would say what I hear the most with both past clients and current clients, whether they're therapy clients, or many coaching clients are phrases like:

that's too expensive. I, I can't afford that. I'd love to, I'd love to work with you as a coach one on one, but I can't afford that. I'd love to do therapy, but I can't afford that. I'd love to go on vacation, but I can't afford that. I'd love to have a gym membership, but I can't afford that. We don't get to be those people.

Right that's where the guilt comes in. We have a roof over our head and a car in the driveway. We don't get to be people that complain about scarcity of money. That's, some other phrases, penny pinching to an extreme, right? That can really show up on a day to day basis. Obviously having an outline or budget is good.

I'm talking about the extreme penny [00:10:00] pinching. On the opposite end of the spectrum, pretending to have a lot of money when you don't. This idea of needing to keep up with the Joneses. And in all of these things shame, shame around financial decisions. Like you mentioned earlier, am I doing enough?

Am I doing it? Am I doing it right? What will people think of me? I know for a lot of families where maybe 1 person is working, the person that's at home feeling if they're managing the financials, the pressure of am I a good steward of this money? And if they're not managing the finances, and they're just managing the kids and the income provider is managing the finances.

I've worked with a lot of men that feel very alone in that. And when we get into it, it's actually not about the money. It's about some sort of scarcity from some other part of their story, right? That's getting acted out within the family unit or the marriage context, but it's getting put on the money.

Most of the men say, I've got great marriage . I've got, you don't connect feeling lonely in the [00:11:00] marriage just around money and making decisions. And obviously the 1 that's on the top of the funnel that everyone can relate to is navigating conflict around money. 

They don't want to lose the connection to their partner, but they also don't know how to navigate it. It's it can be really scary. 

Carly Claney: It also sounds like in that you're pulling in all of the different factors that are playing out both the connection piece, the emotional communication skills, but then there's also values and the shoulds and the expectations we have for ourselves and others.

And I'm curious when you hear some of those phrases from clients or people in your life saying, it's too expensive. We can't afford that. We're not those kind of people. How do you know, or maybe how would someone else know that's not true or that it's not necessarily true or like the challenge back against of, but maybe you could afford it. Or maybe the term is it expensive or not that there's more loaded into that? I'm [00:12:00] just curious how you even began to tap into that. 

Tamasin Thomas: A wonderful question and I feel like, I could give you some examples from clients, but I almost feel like maybe sharing a little bit of my own process and my own story, and this could be really helpful.

Because in many ways, it's just a feeling that we have to draw awareness to that then, once we draw awareness to, we have to step back and go, but is that true? For me, I think that's a lot of how I grew my own awareness of my own relationship to money and specifically the scarcity part of it.

my undergraduate is in business economics and accounting, right? I have a career in finance and specifically financial planning. And for me to feel like there's never enough or to feel like I can't afford that. That's a friendly white flag saying, hey, kiddo, this ain't about the money because I know that if I wanted something, [00:13:00] I could rearrange how I spend my money that month.

And I could afford it, or I could save for however many months it would take and I could afford it. It was more of a what's going on here? And it wasn't until I really began to look at my relationship with money through a psychological lens that I actually began to understand it.

It didn't matter how many finance classes or how many licenses I got in the financial world. It didn't really change my feelings until I was able to acknowledge my feelings around money, honestly, which took a lot of courage. And then had to look at where those feelings might be coming from, or where they might have stemmed from.

And for me, in my personal therapy work, I, got to a point where I was able to acknowledge, I experienced a lot of emotional and financial neglect and abandonment from [00:14:00] my parents. I obviously had a roof over my head and I had food at every meal, but in many ways, I felt like I was raising myself.

I felt like I was raising my sister. And anything that I wanted after the age of 9, I had to somehow figure out how to get some money and buy it. And that included things like the fee to be on the basketball team in 5th grade. Just way too early to have to worry about finances from a developmental standpoint, and then my parents argued about money all the time. So they also neglected and abandoned themselves in that too. And so there was just like this in the air feeling of neglect and abandonment. Emotionally and with finances, and I picked up on it as a kid, and I was trying to understand it.

I was reading magazines and reading books I can find in the library and was just trying to figure it out. And when I was able [00:15:00] to put that lens on to money I began to recognize that there has been a scarcity, but was the scarcity around money. Right. And that is overall, I feel like my entire career I've had enough, but in terms of finances. But the scarcity of money mindset that I have applied to my finances is more about the feeling of not having enough attention, not having enough affection as a kid, not feeling delighted in or enjoyed by my parents, not, feeling that neglect and abandonment. In other words, my body did have a very real experience of scarcity. But my body couldn't place that, in essence where it came from .

My body chose to place that on to money, and that took a lot of freaking work to figure that out because it's not super clear. And I had to be honest about an impact that my parents have [00:16:00] me that probably most likely was not intentional. And so there's this bind of wanting to know my parents did the very best that they could, but also Wanting to acknowledge the impact on me and really needing to get comfortable acknowledging their humanness and the fact that they weren't perfect in order for me to heal and really heal the scarcity wound, neglect and abandonment that was in my world being put onto money.

And a therapist, I know you can relate that it's very common for us as humans to place emotional wounds that we have that are not yet processed on to things outside of ourselves. My body could have placed that on to food. I could have tried to give myself comfort by eating more food than my body needed.

By trying to fill an emotional void with a full tummy, right? I could have placed it on to sex, trying to have a feeling of someone caring about me by having sex with any man that looked my way. [00:17:00] I could have done that. That is not where my body chose to process my particular trauma or my particular wound.

My particular body chose to process it on money. And once I realized that, then I could really care for it and I could actually do the work to heal, then as the healing occurred, it actually allowed for confidence.

It allowed for empowerment. It allowed for financial groundedness. It allowed for feeling really connected to myself and growing a sense of self and being able to show up differently in relationships. It's mental health in a nutshell, but those are things that are very hard to articulate in terms of the benefit, but it was like a radical difference in my being and in my spirit and how I operated in the world.

That was just so freeing and really a maturing and a healing and an acceptance and I don't know all the quite words, but it was like, lovely and I would [00:18:00] recommend it, but I don't have the words to give you that fully articulate the experience. 

Carly Claney: I think you're giving a lot of words to it. In particular I really love that focus on how much work it took and intentionality to do that untangling, which really came first from the awareness. 

Tamasin Thomas: If I were to like sum up the result of the impact of healing, first of all, I don't think I can sum it up, but if I were to attempt it, it would be that fear no longer runs the show.

That fear, that drives that scarcity money mindset. It no longer impacts my decisions, both consciously and unconsciously. So it's like I've taken back my power. You're like, controlling my life and me looking around going, why did I do that? I've been able to take back my power and that's where the empowerment feeling comes in and then the confidence feeling. That I am in charge of my finances and I'm not making decisions based off of some wound that is unconscious and unknown to me running my world.

Carly Claney: Yes. And too I think [00:19:00] it really highlights what an internal process of growth that is. And it's in contrast because I think there are probably on the outside, a way that someone could look at the way that you've managed money or your life or prepared that just looks good.

It's like you've been responsible and you're in control or all of these very like high achieving ways of looking at it. And yet I think the way you're describing it speaks so much to, it can look great or we can praise someone for being so responsible. Oh, the nine year old that's so responsible.

And yet you're really being able to highlight now what is going on inside that feels So different than the growth that you've made and now that the freedom that there's no fear and there's more empowerment and there's more choice associated with that. And that's a healthier, more robust way of living. It just feels rich and yeah, empowered, just a lot of words there versus that tightly wound, [00:20:00] maybe it looks great, but it doesn't feel good.

I think you're describing now a lot of those outcomes that people could feel from or experience from being able to do this kind of work. I'm curious if we can unpack a little bit more of what's happening in the process. What needs to be done, the work that needs to be done, I think we've outlined the awareness piece, being able to have the bravery or the courage to look inside or even look at relationships in our life.

What are some other pieces? What are some other parts of the process?

Tamasin Thomas: What's coming to mind to me right now is this idea of a wall. I think when I first started this work, there was so much resistance to it. 

 It was the fear of if I go and begin to look at my relationship with money from the psychological lens, is my whole world going to crumble? Am I going to crumble am I going to have what you and I would refer to as a [00:21:00] psychological collapse where people might refer to as my whole world just exploded?

And I don't know what I don't know how to function. I don't know how to get out of bed. I don't know how to feel. I don't know what to make of this mess inside of me, and, I think when I think about what do we need to do, not only is the 1st step growing awareness, but I think it would be also recognizing the resistance.

Right and recognizing that fear that wall that we've built and to really find someone that can walk with us in a way that respects the wall, because for so long, that wall helped me survive a world of daily neglect and abandonment, dismissal, detachment, disconnection. Children are seen and not heard, you don't even know I'm in the room, those feelings. That wall was a dear friend for a long time, so to our bodies, it's going to be very natural for that resistance for that wall to say, oh, [00:22:00] hell no.

 Good on you way to be brave and want to do this, but there's no effing way, we're going to go do this. My job is to protect you and I belong here. My job is the wall and I belong here and I am protecting you. So it's like lovingly. I had to lovingly come alongside of that fear that resistance that wall and say.

I get it. You got a job. 

You've done it so well. And I love you for it. I love you for it. But where you were once serving me in a way that really helped get me to the next level. Now you're actually holding me back. And so I, I need to lovingly and gently ask you to take this wall down, and bit by bit.

It doesn't have to be fast, and learning how to do that, which takes a lot of patience, a lot of self acceptance, a lot of self kindness, a lot of compassion and really beginning to feel our feelings and learn to care for them. And some of us can do that on our own, but some of us can't. 

It's going to [00:23:00] help your body feel safer. As the wall comes down, right? I don't think any of us were meant to build that wall. It doesn't get built by itself and it doesn't get taken down by itself.

Carly Claney: Yeah. And it takes 10, years to build. It's going to take some time to rebuild and have a different option really, I think that's what really comes to mind when you talk about honoring the wall and in some ways having gratitude for you helped me survive. I got here, I got to whatever level of success or maybe the success was getting out of that situation, or maybe you felt like you've lived a really privileged life the whole time or whatever it might be.

I've been successful with this wall. And then, like you said, it's not functioning. It's not working for me anymore. It's not serving me in the same way that it served me to get here. But if I don't have anything to replace it with, there's no way I can just strip it away and just have someone else, even a therapist say oh, just don't do that anymore.

Just don't [00:24:00] think or feel that way. You really need to have the patience. To I don't know. I'm curious if you, what do you think of this imagery about it, but I almost see like a brick by brick replacement. It's not like you're making a wall, like changing the wall for a wall, but it's you can replace this brick with something else.

And then suddenly you have a new foundation to have new patterns, have a new way of being with yourself and others. 

Tamasin Thomas: Yeah, no, I like the illustration. I would say maybe the brick is being replaced with something like self compassion. So it's there, but it's not as hard and cold and heavy and not creating distance.

Carly Claney: Yeah, it's creating room to be more present with yourself. 

Tamasin Thomas: And that impacts how you are with everyone around you. If you're in a marriage or partnership, the person you've chosen to do that with .

It changes our style of relating and. I think there's more embodiment and being present to like life, the [00:25:00] goodness, the joy, the grief, right? But being able to handle all that and not have it destroy us, right? 

Carly Claney: Yeah. And hold it a little loosely. Like I think with self compassion and self awareness and moving through all these experiences, you're not as tightly wound.

Things don't have to be as perfect or as precise. There's more room for us to be a bit messier for our partners to be more messy. And you just increase your tolerance of towards life. 

Are there other ways that it would impact a partnership, two people in a relationship? What could that marriage or that relationship look like through people doing this work?

Tamasin Thomas: My big thing is I think doing this work actually leads to more intimacy. It leads to more emotional connection and closeness, less emotional distance, less conflict, less tension, less avoidance. I got this from rising [00:26:00] woman is this idea of allies and each other's healing. We all have 1st families. We all have feelings, which means we all have baggage. And really talk about the idea of entering into marriage in a way where both partners have a conscious awareness of that and they know that their deepest owies are going to get brought up by the other person and that's for them to work through.

Likewise, on the other side, so if I know that my partner is my ally, right? If I know that when I have a bad moment with him, instead of it potentially creating a whole lot of distance, I have the capacity to come back and say, What you saw the other day was me being very triggered an old wound got brought up.

I know that was not your intention. But I would love to share with you why. Because over the past 3 days, I've really been thinking about why I reacted the way I did [00:27:00] and I've learned something more about myself and as someone that has. And I think it might be helpful for you to know this and I would love to share with you what would be helpful next time this happens.

And that I would offer him the same thing so that when he gets triggered or flooded or has a bad moment. There he would know I'm not leaving , I would know that he would go and do his work. And when he comes back, I'm going to learn something about him. And I'm also going to learn better how to love him.

So the idea is that we are helping each other heal, we are growing the ability to be more honest and intimate with our own selves and then growing the ability to communicate that with the other in hopes of forming, a really solid, deep connection. That isn't just about. Pizza and movie night on Friday night.

Carly Claney: Yeah. And it's also not the level of enmeshment that can happen to of, Oh, I got activated or you got activated and we're responsible for [00:28:00] fixing it or resolving it. I think I really loved the way you described how much of this work is individual. And together, but it's not this blending where it becomes so much of your responsibility is for someone else.

Tamasin Thomas: So I believe money is an avenue to do that with if we handle conflict around money well, and if we can begin to look at our own relationship with money and scarcity money mindset is 1 lens. There's attachment styles with money, there's, looking at the relationship as a whole there's a lot of different ways how we organize our finances.

There's a lot of different things, but all of that. My calling, if you will, is to help draw awareness to this intersection of psychology and money. And if we are brave enough to look at how healing it can be for us as individuals, but also how it can grow more intimacy within the relationships that we operate in.

Whether that's a life partner or friends or family members or whatever the case may be. [00:29:00] 

Carly Claney: Yeah, as we're talking about this, I am finding myself thinking about really people in my world, both in the group practice, other therapists or new therapists who are starting their own practice or a lot of clients who have a lot of financial privilege.

Whether that comes from family money or their own trajectory, that's been financially quite successful. And one of the things that comes up really for a lot of people, I think it's in reflection to this idea of scarcity is the conflict around the privilege, the conflict around I shouldn't be stressed here.

I don't have anything to worry about. I am not in the position that there's so many other, let's say Americans are in why is this so hard for me? And then I will group these people together and we can just maybe talk about it. On the other hand, people in the helping community like mental health therapists or even other helping professionals like nurses or teachers, like you've mentioned, there can [00:30:00] be this perspective around your vocation that you are needing to be a bit of a martyr or there's a relinquishing of a desire for money because your work is so meaningful or you're greedy if you want to make a good salary. There's just a lot of things that are thrown out there in that. And so I'm just finding myself aware of this tension that we can feel with ourselves or even in society against how do we allow ourselves to feel different?

About money and about other people's money. Do you have any thoughts about any of that? 

Tamasin Thomas: Yeah I love the question deeply love and appreciate the question. And yeah, the 1st thought I have is I do want to normalize it is okay if we have a lot of money to feel some of these feelings that we've talked about today. Feelings associated with scarcity money mindset. I have worked with lots of [00:31:00] people that have lots of money. And they are aware that they struggle with the scarcity of money mindset, and that is your 1st friendly white flag that something deeper is going on.

And so to really just make room for that feeling instead of dismissing it or saying, we don't get to feel this or that we're not allowed to really go. Wait. I am feeling it. I wonder what that feeling is communicating to me. I wonder what needs to be paid attention to. I really want to normalize that, 

So I'll give you an example of what I mean by I'm working with a couple of different couples right now as many coaching clients and all of them have money and right now they happen to all be heterosexual couples and 2 incomes, so both husband and wife are working, but the husband is bringing in more money and wives, there is a similar pattern actually in all 3 wives for different reasons. I will say that. [00:32:00] Whenever the husband asks for, hey, can we talk about this decision we need to make around money, right? So they're actually inviting their wives into the financial conversation. They value their wives opinions and want their wives help the wives in various different forms, ends up avoiding or dismissing that bid.

That bid for connection, or that request to talk about a certain decision and the husbands have felt how they have described that is that they feel very lonely and they actually feel stress around some of the finances, which they eventually use the word scarcity for, even though they're doing just fine.

They know it doesn't make sense. But when we have drilled down and done the work, even if they come from generational wealth, and 1 of them does, they've always known they would be provided for in abundance. What [00:33:00] we have seen similar patterns of is some form of. 1, or both parents being emotionally unavailable or emotionally immature.

Them knowing that their parents love them, but not feeling the connection. Right and so that at the end of the day is a wound that absolutely deserves to be cared for and healed. But how it shows up is that they feel lonely around finances and managing the family's finances. And the pressure is we don't have enough money and they go to their wives to have a conversation to brainstorm and their wife says not now.

In this situation it's really not about the money. They've got plenty of money. And yet all of these emotions that they have around scarcity are real and so valid and so really is the wives avoidance. There's a reason that they're avoiding and they feel overwhelmed and that is very real and very [00:34:00] valid.

And we really begin to sink into that and begin to open that up and understand it. Oh, the amount of healing, it just gives me goosebumps. Even as I say it, the amount of connection that ends up getting formed from that, when they understand that their wounds are being activated and how to actually help each other heal in that and how to come together .

The second group of people you asked about are helping professions that believe that they're not worthy of money, that they should do things for free that they shouldn't charge a high amount. I don't like to overgeneralize, but to lump that kind of all in the theme that is the most common, not everyone, but the theme that is the most common there is usually something about our belief in our value or our worth. Something about well I don't deserve to charge that much, as a therapist I would be, I would become a therapist for free. I just love this work so much. I would do it for free. 

Versus I would do it for free. I, I absolutely love helping people and. I have sacrificed a lot to be here. I [00:35:00] have school loans. I surrendered multiple years of income opportunity, lost income opportunity because of going to grad school, and therefore, this is a reasonable fee to charge whatever the case may be, and I know not everyone is therapist.

I know there are pastors and preachers and teachers that don't even have that type of freedom. You're kind of still looking at your belief system around whether or not you feel like I'm worthy of more can be very healing because again, at the end of the day, what we're talking about here is mental health. We're not actually talking about money. Even if your money situation isn't going to change still looking at your relationship with money is an avenue to healing wounds that don't show up anywhere else in your world. For whatever reason, your body and my body chose to put them on to money, right? So it's gotta be an area that we look at. 

Carly Claney: I really love that we're ending on this because I think there's also a part of me that's getting activated of thinking about the stress of money just in general [00:36:00] of prices go up and maybe your raises aren't going up to match that and housing and all of these really real threats around money and anxious feelings. And I'm coming back to what you said earlier. There's still choice. There's still I could rearrange things. I could save up for this. I could put where my values lie into these money decisions.

And I think being able to hold onto that and really challenge ourselves when there is those very normal pressures around money to see, check in what else is going on here. Yes, we can validate that this is a stressor. And is there more of a load? Is there more of an emotion that's happening? That's not just the numbers on a spreadsheet.

Any final thoughts before we get into some resources or how to connect with you?

Tamasin Thomas: No, I've loved the conversation. It's lights me up. I'm so grateful to be here and to get to [00:37:00] engage in this conversation with you. It's really cool. 

Carly Claney: Me too. Let's start with resources. If there's anybody that wants to continue thinking about this or continue on their own work, what are some ways? 

Tamasin Thomas:  So we mentioned this earlier, obviously growing awareness. I know that sounds simple, but it's much harder than it sounds, oftentimes we'll feel something and we won't actually acknowledge it for a couple of days, or even understand it for a couple of days. So that could be really just beginning to slow down enough to say, I feel uncomfortable with this, but I don't yet know why. That's like a massive step.

Another way is to start to begin to ask ourselves questions. I'll give you some examples here of questions that people could like journal around and just take half an hour to themselves and see what comes up, often stuff will come out while we're journaling that we're not conscious of.

And these questions I'm about to give you are actually part of 1 of my freebies called better money health. So let's put a link in the show notes to [00:38:00] the better money health freebie. But if you're in a partnership these are a few questions that you can ask. And then after these, I'll share some questions for people that are single.

If you're in a partnership, you can ask your partner, what is 1 fear you have around finances? When does this fear become most activated in our relationship? What do you need from me when your fear is feeling really big? Listen and discuss these with your partner, and then maybe in a different conversation, ask your partner to ask you the same questions, right?

And let the focus be on you in that later conversation and see what you guys learn about each other and see what understanding and intimacy gets birthed from that. If you're single, and really, I actually encourage Even if you're not single to ask yourself these questions, because it all starts with our own relationship to money.

But journaling about these 3 questions, am I acquainted with my fear that gets placed on the money? Do I [00:39:00] even know it exists? How does this fear show up in my body? Meaning what are my 1st warning signs? My fear is being activated. Okay, beginning to draw awareness to that and observation around that.

And the last question is, what is one thing I can do today to help care for this unprocessed fear in my body? 

Carly Claney: Those are great questions. I love that. And I am so glad that we'll have a link to that to be able to follow up with there. 

Tamasin Thomas: And then a few other free stuff would be my podcast , right now it's from a couple of years ago.

I think there's only like 12 episodes. But it's called the psychology of money with Tamasin Thomas. I do hope to bring it back up, but essentially the 1st, 12 or 13 episodes are people just, we're basically recording a conversation about money and you get to explore their relationship with money with us.

Very brave souls that have been on there. So that can help grow some awareness and just make you feel less alone. And then Instagram, I'm really, learning about Instagram and [00:40:00] trying to create posts that are really packed with value. And there's a lot of free journal prompts on there.

There's a lot of free regulating exercises for our body when our body gets activated or anxious around money. Giving me a follow on there, and then if you did want to work 1 on 1 we can do that in a coaching capacity. We cannot in a therapy capacity. Basically, there's a application you fill out, letting me know a little bit about what you're looking for and then if that sounds like it could be a good fit, I offer just a 15 minute pre video consultation, where we just get to really iron out, make sure it's a good fit. And then at that point, if it is, we can schedule a couple of sessions, put them on the calendar and work together. There's a max of 12 sessions, but I don't hold anyone to that. And you could do 1 session. You can do 5, you can do 12 sessions.

Carly Claney: I love those options and we'll have all of this information in the show notes and in our post on our website as [00:41:00] well, but thank you so much for your time and sharing all this wisdom with us. I think it's just really nice to be in the space where we're thinking about these things and I feel like I've grown a lot too, so appreciate that.

Tamasin Thomas: Yeah. I've loved it. Thank you so much for having me. It's been fun. 

Carly Claney: Relational Psych is a mental health group practice providing depth oriented psychotherapy and psychological testing in person in Seattle and online in Washington State. If you're interested in mental health care for yourself or a family member, please reach out. Our website is relationalpsych. group.