I Thought I'd Healed This. Turns Out I Was Just Getting Started.

I thought I had healed my worthiness wound. Turns out, I had only met the first layers.

In this raw and deeply personal episode of The Femme Cast, I'm pulling back the curtain on the self-worth struggle I never expected to face again, this time through money, career uncertainty, financial stress, and survival fears.

When relationships fell apart, I healed the betrayal. When visibility triggered me, I learned to be seen. But when my income, career, and ability to provide for myself became uncertain, I discovered a much deeper wound hiding underneath it all: the belief that my worth is tied to what I earn, achieve, or can prove.

I'm sharing what happened when I finally outed my money shame, stopped hiding my financial reality, and chose to believe that being broke, unemployed, or struggling does not make me unworthy of love, success, abundance, or belonging.

Inside this episode, we explore:

🎤 The hidden self-worth wound that impacts relationships, visibility, business, career, and money
🎤 Why financial stress activates survival mode differently than other healing journeys
🎤 The connection between money shame, self-abandonment, and seeking external validation
🎤 Navigating job search rejection, interview anxiety, and the challenges of today's tech job market
🎤 How worthiness wounds show up when discussing salary expectations, selling your services, or asking for what you're worth 
🎤 The difference between strategy and nervous system regulation
🎤 Practical tools for overcoming scarcity mindset, rebuilding self-trust, and finding safety during uncertainty
🎤 Why recurring patterns aren't proof you're failing, but invitations to heal at a deeper level

If you've ever felt like your bank account determines your value, struggled with money anxiety, career setbacks, job loss, self-worth, confidence, imposter syndrome, or the fear of not being enough, this conversation is for you.

Because your circumstances may change.

Your worth does not.

Done abandoning yourself for everyone else?
It's time to come home. Download The Unbecoming Ritual free. Your unbecoming begins here: https://thefemmecast.kit.com/ritual

Want to go deeper?
Come find me on Substack at The Femme Cast Diaries. I'm sharing my own unbecoming in real time -- the mess, the magic, and the chapters of my memoir Girl, Unbecoming. For the woman who is ready to stop pretending and start coming home to herself. Come unbecome with me: https://thefemmecast.substack.com/

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hey guys, what is up? Welcome back to the show. I am not excited that you're here because I don't want to talk about what we're going to be talking about today. Good lord. Okay. Let's just say, but no, I am really happy that you're here. Thank you so much for being here. I'm actually grateful to each and every one of you for listening to my shenanigans week after week.

SPEAKER_01 0:28

Let's just let's just cut right to it. Okay. I thought I had healed this shit so long ago. And I'm realizing now I'm literally just getting started. And that is this wounding around my worth and what I believe I deserve. And this has been

A Hard Topic To Admit

SPEAKER_01 0:49

something that has it is a very deep core wound. You know, depending on how woo-woo you want to get, I don't think this started in this lifetime. Okay. I think this is a wound that my soul has carried and has been, you know, working through for a very long time. I believe a lot of it is very ancestral. And I believe I'm not just doing this for me, but I'm doing this for many, many other lifetimes and relatives that came before me. So wow. And this is probably the hardest layer I've ever had to work through because it's literally tied in with my survival and like it has never felt so uncomfortable ever. So to give you background, and I know we talked about this in the last couple of weeks, but you know, self-worth is one of those things that cascades into so many different areas of your life, you know. You know, when we have a fear of bringing something in that we feel like it's not safe, or we're not, you know, we're gonna be judged if we have it or don't have it or whatever, you know, that can be isolated to one thing. When it comes to your worth, it can affect so many different areas. And so when I started my journey, it showed up first in my relationships. You know, it showed it up, it showed up as being betrayed, being cheated on, being manipulated, being being breadcrumbed, lied to, manipulated, uh, abused, you know, it showed up in so many different ways in my relationships.

How Worth Wounds Spread Everywhere

SPEAKER_01 2:26

And I worked long and hard to heal that wound. And, you know, then it showed up in in my business and being online and showing up and being visible and allowing myself to be seen and and putting myself out there and and you know, and I move through the discomfort of that. Now it's tied to my income. So, and all kinds, like, I mean, first it was through my business, then now it's actually like hit my career sector. So it doesn't matter if I'm if I'm working on my business or out there looking for work, it is activating my self-worth so hard right now. And you know, when this wound is being activated, it's very hard to bring in what it is that you're you know what what you're up, what it's what it's bumping up against, right? Oh and oh my gosh. Like, you know, when I was healing through it when it came to my relationships, I'm not gonna say it was easy, it wasn't easy. Like there was a lot of wounding that I had to move through. There were there was a lot of healing that I had to do, and there was a lot of fears, insecurities, limiting beliefs that all came to the surface as I was healing through it. But I could survive that. This, you know, when it comes to money, when it comes to being able to work, being able to earn a living, being able to provide for my future, being able to have a home, being able to put food on the table, you know, this this is now tied to survival. And it makes healing this wound extremely difficult for me. Like more difficult than it has ever been. Because it's really hard to surrender those things. It's very easy to surrender a relationship. Not okay. Oh, sorry. I'm gonna, I'm in hindsight, compared to what I'm dealing with right now, you know. Like there's no, I'm not gonna die, you know, if I have to go single for a while. If anything, can I just do an episode on how much I'm loving being single right now? But we'll save that for another day. But when it comes to, you know, money, you really can't be broke for a while. Like, you can't. And so, like, I'm like in my head, I'm like, how the fuck do I heal this? Like, I know how I healed the relationship

When Money Triggers Survival Fear

SPEAKER_01 4:53

stuff, I know how I healed the visibility stuff. I sat in the discomfort for a while. I can't afford to sit in the discomfort, you guys. Like, I literally can't. And so, you know, and I noticed I, you know, I came to this realization the other day. I was in an interview, and I'll be, I'll say, will say this. Things have been moving very quickly ever since I owed my money shame, and I kind of let you guys in on what I've been struggling with, things have started to shift. So I know, and I'm sorry, like I keep hitting my mic here. So I I'm so sorry. Hang on, I'm gonna try and fix this somehow. I lost my train of thought. I was in a okay, so yes. So since I outed my shame with you guys and I told you what I've been struggling with, and and you know, came came clean about the financial struggle and the conundrum that I'm in, right? Ever since I did that, things have opened up. Opportunities have started to come in, people have started to contact me. Resumes that I had put out weeks ago

Outing Shame And Watching Doors Open

SPEAKER_01 5:56

that I thought were dead in the water are now reaching out to me. Even one girl who I was in connection, I had I had met networking one day, and we had a great connection, and she was gonna put me in a referral for her for her at her work. Great opportunity, would have loved to work for that organization. It was just, it was such a perfect fit. Anyway, what it didn't pan out for obvious reasons, but she actually reached out to me and sent me a nice note. So just that acknowledgement, just that being recognized, being, you know, again, now receiving the external validation I wish I would have received then. And I think a lot of that came down to the fact that I was really able to own where I'm at and be unapologetic about it and say, hey, here I am, I'm struggling financially and fuck, I'm okay with that. Like, you know, it doesn't mean anything about me or my worth or who I am. And I think that was part of the first step in taking my self-worth back for my money. So if you're struggling in your career right now or in your finances, can you just maybe out your shame? Right? If you are feeling shame about it, if you're embarrassed about where you're at, you're embarrassed about where your bank account is, you're embarrassed about where your credit cards are like they're all max, and you probably can't put a thing on them. You're you're embarrassed about how far behind on your utilities or whatever. Can you just own that and just say, hey, this is the situation I'm in, and I'm still a worthy person. I am still a good human. I am still worthy of love and abundance. And this doesn't mean have this doesn't mean anything about who I am or what I deserve or what I'm worth. Can you just hold that? Hold that energy, out your shame, be unapologetic. Yes, that's it. I'm human. Yep, I'm in debt, I'm broke, I've got no income coming in, I've been unemployed for, you know, X amount of time. Just be there with it. Just be there with it and accept it. And it's funny because there was there's been so much to trigger me in the last few months. Like having the business always triggered me because it required me to directly go out there and ask for the sale. And I think that's probably why I struggled so long in my business as I did. Because there were like months, years where I didn't make any money in my business. And I think it's because I struggled so much to ask for that sale. But when it came to work, it became a little bit easier because now it wasn't my service, it wasn't really my brand, my product that I was out there selling it with somebody else's, right? So that took a little bit of the edge off. But now here I am. I've worked so hard on my personal branding this year. I've worked so hard on getting really clear on my career statement this year, and I'm struggling more than I ever have. In the last couple of years, I've really, really, really declined in the positions I've been able to hold, the money I've been able to earn, and how long I've been able to hold these positions because of layoffs or whatever. And so my self-worth has taken a hit there, and it's almost like it, it's almost given this wound nowhere to hide anymore. It's literally like life and the universe has given me nowhere for this, has given this wound nowhere to hide anymore, and I need to face it, and I need to face it now, and it's scary as fuck, you guys, because you know the the reality is rent is due next week, right? At the time that I'm recording this. I do have bills to pay, and it is really fucking scary, and I do feel really shitty to be in this situation, but I know that it's happening because I need to heal this wound just the way I healed my relationship patterns, just the way I healed my anxious attachment style, just the way I healed my visibility wounds. Like I know that this gets to be healed too. It's just so much scarier and so much more intense than any of the others. And I'm really having a hard time with it. I'm glad I've outed it and I feel better now that I'm, you know, just kind of like out in the open about it, about how I've been struggling. And I've even talked to my family and and, you know, let them know like how I've been struggling, not just like financially, but just how hard the market itself has been. And believe me, let me tell you, if you've never had self-worth issues ever in your life, this market will make you feel like you do. I've never seen, especially if you're working in tech like I like I am, right? I have never witnessed such a challenging market to put yourself out in. I actually saw a post from somebody yesterday who was like, or the other day, and they're like, you know, if you've been if you've been out of work for X amount of months and you still don't have a job and you're looking, maybe it's time to look at, you know, maybe like I can't remember how they worded it, but it was so condescending. I was so mad. I was ready to private message the person. But it was something along the lines of maybe it's time to update your resume. And it's like, dude, do you think we're not targeting our resume every time we apply to a job now because of the way the system works? Oh my god, I got so triggered. But I knew that when I got triggered, that was kind of my red flag.

The Job Market As A Worth Mirror

SPEAKER_01 11:10

Because I knew that when I got triggered, I'm like, something's activated in me right now. Like, dude, something's activated in you. What's going on? And then I had gone on, I had a couple of interviews this week, and I had gone on this one interview that you know I wasn't crazy about. I really wasn't, but I was acting like I was, and I was like, why am I doing this? Not really crazy about this position, but because I'm in this position right now where I feel like I need to, I need to make some income. It's like I I felt that energy of self-abandoning, molding myself and adjusting myself in order to be chosen, just the way I did in my relationships once upon a time. So the wound is there, it's still very active. I thought it was done, but it was only the beginning, and here we are again, and I'm so fucking annoyed and scared and uncomfortable, but we are where we are. And it's like I said, it's left me no choice now. Like I have to deal with this shit because the and here's the thing like, if you have a pattern that keeps repeating itself, it's only gonna keep getting worse. And it's not to punish you, you know, it's not to punish you, it's not to oh my god, there's so much energy coming through right now. Give me a sec, you guys. It is not to punish you, it's not to make you feel like you've done anything wrong, it's not to make you feel like a failure, it's none of that. It's because it keeps trying to make you deal with it, and it's it's almost like it's saying, Oh, last time wasn't bad enough to make you deal with it, I'm gonna make it a little bit harder now. Oh, that wasn't hard enough, I'm gonna make it a little bit harder now. Oh, really? Still not hard enough? Okay, hold on a second. Let me give it to you straight. And it's like, oh okay, and now I have to deal with it. Like, I have to. And it's gonna require a lot of faith. I know it is. I know it is. I I wanna cry right now, you guys. It's gonna require a shit ton of faith. And it's gonna require that, you know, I sit in the discomfort of not having it all figured out, of being in a state of healing, of being in a financial conundrum for a little while, of maybe having to ask for help and being okay with asking for help, of, you know, being okay with moving through the discomfort of not being chosen for a minute and recognizing that that has nothing to do with me or my worth. Recognizing that I'm struggling financially, that I am, you know, that my my bank balance is dismal and non-existent, and my credit cards are max, and being okay with that and making that mean nothing about me. And this is literally how I healed my toxic, anxious, like my toxic relationship patterns, my action, anxious attachment style. This is how I healed it. Every time I felt the need to chase, convince, self-adjust, self-correct, like like alter myself, self-abandon in any way in order to be chosen. I stopped. I stopped chasing, I stopped striving, I stopped adjusting, and I just came back and kind of sat in the discomfort of not being chosen. I I literally just sat in the discomfort of not being chosen, and in that discomfort, I just kind of breathed into it and allowed that discomfort to move around in my body and move and shape, shift, and and go all, you know, go wherever it wanted to go, and just sat there in observance of that discomfort and breathed into it and just allowed it to be there until it got less and less and less. And through the whole time, I was like, it doesn't matter, it doesn't mean anything about what you deserve or what you're worth worthy of. You are worthy of love, you are worthy of abundance, you are worthy of a good life and a healthy, loving relationship, and just kept reaffirming that for myself, right? And you know, disconnecting that part of me, or not disconnecting, putting at ease that part of me that felt so desperate to cling to and attach to a relationship because it was so terrified to be alone. Because in that, in that aloneness, we have to face our unworthiness, right? Well, usually when we're chasing someone else, it's because we're running from ourselves, right? Usually when someone betrays us, it's because we've somehow betrayed ourselves. So even being cheated on and going through that experience, which was so painful for me, it was really pointing at my own self-betrayal

Stopping Self-Abandonment In The Search

SPEAKER_01 16:07

and how I had abandoned myself so badly. That's usually when things like that happen, right? And so now here I am now with money. It's doing the same thing. It's running away from me. Why is it running away from me? Because I'm running for myself, I'm running from my own self-worth wounding, and I'm waiting for the money to come in and make me feel worthy, make me feel good enough, to have the bank balance that'll make me feel worthy, to have the the credit card, the room of my credit card that's gonna make me feel worthy, to have the apartment that's gonna make me feel worthy, to have the nails and the hair and the whatever that's gonna make me feel worthy, right? Can I feel worthy without all those things exactly as I am right now? Can I feel worthy knowing that I'm in a financial struggle and not making it mean anything about me or what I deserve? Can I feel worthy knowing that, you know, maybe I have to reach out and ask for help and make it make that be okay and make that, you know, recognize that I deserve to be loved, I deserve to be supported, I deserve to be helped, and and not making that mean anything bad about me. And again, sharing it with you guys and outing it and being honest about it, and again, making it mean nothing about me and what I'm worthy of or what I deserve or anything, right? Keeping my work my worth is innate, it is there, it has existed in me from the day I was created and put in the in this life, brought into this life. Okay, I've been worthy from that first second of this life, and every moment since, no matter what I was wearing, what I was doing, what was happening around me, who I was with, where I was living, it didn't matter. None of it mattered. None of it. Every single cell in my body is worthy. Regardless of anything else. And that is a belief that I have to keep coming back to. And every time I feel that fear, every time I feel that fear that the money is running out, or I don't know how I'm gonna pay my rent, or what if I don't get this job, and I haven't heard from any other job yet. Right? This the business isn't working, the job hunt isn't working, nothing feels like it's working. What if nothing works? What if nothing, you know, every time those fears come up, I breathe. I breathe. I surrender them. I give them to a higher power for me, that's source. I give them to source, creator, and I say, Here, take this, help me to see this differently. And that's a practice that I got from Gabby Bernstein. Help me to see this differently, help me to recognize my worth right here, right now, exactly as I am. Let me see in me the worthiness that you created me with, right? And just keep affirming that until and breathing until

Worthiness Without The External Proof

SPEAKER_01 19:20

that trigger starts to dissolve. And so it's gonna take more than once, and I know that, but this is the process of healing, and for me, because I am meant to be, I really I if you look at my astrology, my astrology is crazy. Okay, I've really did I've really dive deep into astrology this last year. It's insane. Last couple of years it was human design, but I felt like you could go so much deeper with astrology than you ever could with human design. So I've I've dived really deep into my astrology, and it's so crazy to see how all of this stuff is kind of laid out in my birth chart. And it's all kind of making sense right now. And so for me, it is very important to actually share it publicly. That is part of my journey, that is part of how I A, that that's my Dharma, that's how I'm meant to show up in the world. That's the work that I meant to do. I'm meant to kind of share this work with other people so that they can heal through it. But also in doing so, it heals me in the process because I'm outing my shame and I'm not letting my shame control me anymore. And I'm finding my worth in the financial conundrum that I find myself in right now, and still I'm not making it mean anything about me or who I am or what I deserve. Right? There's a guy playing a very obnoxiously loud stereo right outside right now. So hopefully you guys can't hear that. But anyway, and you know, when I go back to, you know, when I was writing my book and I go back to that moment with the Balinese healer who's like, well, you're not, you, you're, you're, I can't remember how how he worded it. And I remember, like, I wrote it in the book, but he's like, You're gonna heal, you heal when you heal other people. That's how you heal, he said. You'll heal when you heal other people, and when you heal other people, you'll heal yourself. And I'm like, well, what kind of double-edged sword is that? Who am I supposed to heal first? Right. Anyway, now I know what he meant. Now I know what he meant. I get it now. Right? And you know, it's funny, I can remember all those times when, you know, I was working on the business and I was putting offers out and I was creating one on I've got one-on-one. I've got a group container, I've got this, I've got it. Didn't matter what the offer was. I always thought it was a strategy. I'm like, maybe the offer needs to change. I need to change the offer, I need to make it lower, I need to make it less, I need to make it more, I need to make it bigger, I need to make it smaller, I need to do all these things. Always playing with the strategy, never once looking at how do I feel when I actually put this out into the world? Because I felt the discomfort of putting an offer out. And the real the with the moment that it clicked for me was when I was out on job interviews this week, and I felt that same discomfort when they asked me how much do you what are your salary expectations? And every time they asked me that question, I got so nervous, and I'm like, same wound. Same wound. Exactly. I'm

Surrender, Source, And Daily Practice

SPEAKER_01 22:27

like, oh dang. I know this feeling. We felt this before, right? This is not our first rodeo. So yeah, anyway, so that's kind of where we're at right now, and that's kind of how I'm moving through this. Hoping that it moves quickly, really seriously hoping that it moves quickly. But also loving myself through the process if it doesn't, and reminding myself that it's gonna be okay. If there's one thing that I know for sure, one thing that I know for sure, when you surrender to the healing, you will be supported in that healing because I know that I'm not just healing for me. Okay, I know that I'm not just healing for this lifetime. I'm healing centuries of wounding around worthiness for myself and others. So, and many of us are. It's not because it's not to say that I'm a martyr, but I do believe that many of us right now on this earth, alive today, are clearing so much ancestral trauma and wounding. It's insane. And so, you know, I'm ready to do this work, and I know that I'm fully supported in doing this work, and I know that I will be rewarded for doing this work, and so I'm gonna let it be uncomfortable for a minute. You know, I'll and I'm gonna be sharing little notes every day on Substack as to, you know, because one of the things that I love to do when I'm healing this wound is sort of channel a little message for myself, like a little message of love, a little message of healing, a little message of, you know, seeing the light in me, you know, and and no matter what's happening around me, no matter what I'm moving through, just just beautiful words of of encouragement and love and faith and belief and healing. And so I'll probably what I'll start doing is maybe start sharing those as they come through for me. I'll share them with you guys so that if you're moving through something similar, you can follow me there. All the links are in the show

Salary Expectations Reveal The Same Wound

SPEAKER_01 24:33

notes, okay. Let me know if this resonated for you. Let me know what part of this resonated most for you and if you can relate to this, if if you can see yourself in this story, and if this meant anything for you, you can sub there. All the links on how you can connect with me and support me are in the show notes below. I love you guys to the moon and back. I really hope you're not in that situation, but please know that if you are, I am totally with you, and we absolutely will move through this together. So until next time, you guys, massive love.