Financial Therapy 101: What Is It and How Can It Help Me?

In this episode of the Influence Her Mindset Podcast, we will learn about Financial Therapy and it's benefits to help you overcome your financial related problems.  Many relationships have been destroyed by a lack of communication, lack of transparency and a lack of control of their finances.  Money is the #1 source of conflict in relationships and marriages! Financial therapy combines practical financial planning advice with many of the theories used by a psychologist or psychotherapist.

Many money-related problems stem from a powerful and emotional pain point of reference that you experienced in your childhood, which are called, financial flashpoints.  Financial Flashpoints are emotional or traumatic childhood events surrounding money that have been engraved into our minds and we carry them into our adult life and eventually are passed on to the next generation in your family.  

The goal of Financial Therapy is to:  
•Help facilitate healthy conversations surrounding your finances and money.
•Decrease the financial stress or anxiety that produce money disorders.
•Increase financial management skills and healthy decision-making skills to accomplish your financial goals and,
•Teach you to maintain control of your emotions and finances and monitors your progress for financial healing. 

Join me and learn about Financial Therapy and the benefits to help you and your family heal your relationship with money! Please share your thoughts about the episode as a review or if you would like more information on Financial Therapy, please email me at influencehermindset@gmail.com.  

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Transcript

We want to be cute, classy, and we want to influence your mindset. Financial therapy. Financial healing. Influence with therapy. Empowering your wallet. She mines her money. Financial therapy. for us, Influence Her Mindset podcast. What's up, y'all? And thank you for coming back for another episode of the influence her mindset podcast. Welcome back and thank you for coming hang out with us again. Today, we're going to be talking about what is financial therapy and how can it help you? But before we start, I want to make sure I'm with the right audience and the right crowd. So I'm going to ask you a couple of things to do in the comments. So this is called, if you're looking for me, here I go. Put a heart in the comments if you and your loved ones have ever had a disagreement about money. 
Put a check mark in the comments if when you were a kid, When you went to the store and mom told you, when we get in this store, don't you ask for nothing. Don't touch nothing. Don't look at nothing. I ain't got no money. And if you act up in this store, I'm going to get you when we get home. All right. Put an X in the comments. If you were a kid and money was tight and your parents always reminded you, money don't grow on trees. I can't afford that. We broke. wait till I get paid. All right, here we go, money bags. Put a money bag in the comment if you were the one that everybody came to in the family when they needed to borrow money. 
All right, put a smiley face emoji in the comments if you are a shopaholic, workaholic, over spender, gambler, hoarder, and you don't want to discuss your issues with anyone. All right, we're going for the red 100. Put a red 100 in the comments if you have ever hidden money from your spouse or you refuse to share a bank account with your spouse. All right, last one. We're going to use the hand emoji. Put a hand emoji in the comments if you know what it means to live paycheck to paycheck as an adult. and there was a time when you spent your bill money and you had to do a little something strange for a piece of change to pay your bills and you don't want no one else to find out what you had to do for that money all right all right seems like I'm talking to the right crowd here because the truth of the matter is money problems are everywhere they don't discriminate i don't care who you are we can all identify with one of these 
uh scenarios and pretty much all of them if you want to and we might even be living with them right now so hey don't feel bad it doesn't discriminate so here's a fun fact for you if you ever found yourself wondering why you don't have enough money to do the things that you need to do or why is money always a problem or short and you're not where you want to be in life, well, here's the deal. There's a lot of people with a lot of money, millions of dollars, and they worry just the same because they are worried that they will not keep those millions. So, hey, they're scared. So if you are all out there worrying about, you know, your money issues, don't feel alone. 
So all my worried women, stop worrying about it. Let that go. Let's get to work on our mindsets. OK. So in my last episode, I shared a very personal traumatic experience regarding my family that shaped my relationship with money quite a bit. Specifically, after a week-long argument about money, it turned into a bad accident and it left my mom actually fighting for her life. and that pretty much stayed in the back of my mind for a long time. I didn't really realize it, but it showed up a lot in my relationships, in the way i view money, because i associated that as a money problem because it was an argument over money. So until i started studying financial therapy and working on my mindset, 
That did bother me. And I always associated it with like, man, I got to make sure I got my stuff together. I got to make sure I don't have any financial dependence on anyone. I got to make sure I have a degree and well educated. I wanted to be financially independent. So I didn't really realize how that episode or that accident really affected me all of my life. And with mom's accident, that became a financial flashpoint for me. Because it was actually engraved in my mind. It was like a pain point for me, a point of reference that I associated with the money problem. I mean, it was an issue about money because it was after a money fight. So I just want to kind of give you a definition of a financial flashpoint because I associated that money accident or my mom having the accident as a result. 
of the money fight. Financial flashpoints are those super emotional childhood events surrounding money that have been engraved into our mindsets. In the back of our minds, we carry them and they come all the way with us until our adult life. They can be positive or negative, but we do know it's still it sets the foundation for our money views, our values, our pedigree, our lifestyle, and how we pretty much handle money today. So what happens is it shows up in your adulthood, but guess what? It's generational and you end up passing it down to the next generation, i.e. your kids. So let me ask you a question. Most people say generational wealth is, you know, possible. Well, do you also believe that generational poverty is a real thing? 
Because let's think about it. If you can pass down from one generation to the next generation, generational wealth, you're looking at the people before you, you're picking up their habits, you're picking up their values. So pretty much you are going to be able to be in line with the generational wealth. At the same time, if poverty is all you see and it's in your family history, your pedigree, sooner or later, it's going to show up those same habits that will lead you down to generational poverty. So I got together a few little financial flashpoints or pain points for you to think about so that you can relate what I'm saying to something you may have experienced as a kid. Now, this doesn't apply to everybody, but some people, because I kind of polled some different people to give me some of their examples of things they may have experienced in childhood that still sticks with them today. 
So let's go with it. When you wanted that new PlayStation five, for Christmas. And mom said, no, that's $500. That's a bill. I'm not buying that. You probably were mad at her for the rest of the week or even through the holidays. And you were just like, man, mom tripping. Why she don't want to give me this PlayStation 5? What about the new Jordans? The new Jordans come out. Everyone has a pair but you in school. So now you don't even want to go to school. You're not doing your work. You're like, man. Why can't I get a pair of Jordans? What's wrong? All right. How about when mom spends the child support check on her and you know about it, but I mean, it's like nothing you can do. 
You asking her for money. She saying she ain't got no money, but hey, you start taking things into your own hands because you mad. You mad at mom because she just spent the child support that's supposed to be going to you. And maybe you started hustling. I don't know. I've never experienced this next one, but i know a lot of people that have. So, what about when the lights get cut out? The water gets cut off there's no food in the house. I mean, you're embarrassed, you're mad. How's that make you feel? Like, what's going on, mom? You ain't paid lights you ain't paid water. We ain't got no water take a bath. I mean, right now, the PlayStation 5 in the Jordans is looking like a luxury item because one side. 
I mean, there's no lights, there's no food, there's no water. That's a real thing to go through. And if you were a kid, did you ever have to go to the pawn shop or payday loan place to get funds or to pay a bill? Back in our day, I mean, pawn shops and payday loan, places was our friend because if you needed to get some money before you got paid, that was your friend. You went to the payday loan place or you went to the loan to the pawn shop. How about you come home one day and there's eviction notice on the door or you go outside and your car is gone. Your car has been repoed. Like, how did that make you feel like? 
I mean, looking at mom, looking at dad, like what's going on? Like, I mean, we want to go to the store. We want to go get something to eat. And the car is gone. Like these are things that happen maybe in your childhood or even now. And it is really engraved in your mind. And even if you're four or five, you still would remember the time the lights got cut off. There was no food or no water or the car was gone or you had to move because you were evicted. I mean, these are real things. I mean, I'd like to hear from you. If you have one of these stories or one of these areas that I didn't cover, feel free to email me at influencehermindset at gmail.com for any episodes you might want to share with me. 
I'd be happy to look at or listen to it or even give you some feedback on it to help you get through those pain points. So what I probably didn't cover was like, I remember in class there were certain people talking about how their families controlled them with money and they didn't like how that feel. Like, I need you to do such and such for me or I'm going to cut you off financially. They didn't like how that felt. So that was a pain point for them. We all have different ones. But the point is, they stick with us and they become engraved in our minds. So going back to financial therapy, just want to make it clear. Financial therapy is not about helping you make more money or earn more money. 
And it's not even about the amount of money you have. It is a specialized therapy process that addresses the emotional, unhealthy, self-defeating behaviors that we have developed in response to our financial hardships and money problems. So think about how you handle money today, how you handle your household finances or your business finances. Think about where you got that knowledge from. Might not necessarily been taught to you in school, but maybe the people around you, you kind of valued how they handled their money or even your parents might have taught you certain things that you really didn't learn in school. So let's test a little bit about where your origins came from. If you can identify with any of these aspects, it's probably going to tell you where you picked up on this particular knowledge. 
How did you learn how to pay bills and manage your household finances? What are your thoughts about saving money? Were you taught to pay yourself or do you pay all of the bills and live off the amount that is left until your new or your next payday? Who handled the household finances? Did they do a good job? Do you avoid discussions about money? Do you physically feel sick and mad when your money is short? Do you feel that the more money you have means that people respect you more? Does the amount of money you have equal your self-worth? Are you afraid to spend money on yourself so you go without? Are you in debt? Are you a homeowner or renter? Are you an enabler? 
Have you ever been homeless? Do you have anxiety or start sweating when you have to pay for expensive items? Do you value the overdraft protection on your bank account? Do you pay your credit card balances in full at the end of the month or just continue to make minimum payments? Do you budget for major purchases such as vacations, luxury cars, tuition expenses? Are you scared to look at the amount of your monthly expenses? Do you discuss your financial situation with your children? Do you invest in stocks for passive income? Do you have a 401k? And if so, are you contributing the maximum amount to your 401k? Did you inherit a business, a house or investments? Do you have a life insurance policy? and a will. 
Do you understand the term compound interest? These are all things that you may have picked up growing up, their habits, their traits, their financial habits, and pretty much where you learn them. It could be anywhere. It didn't necessarily come from, you know, school, but the list could go on and on. My point is. These are things that we learned growing up by people that influenced us. Actually, they influenced our mindset. So we picked up their traits and their habits. Right, wrong, or indifferent, you are the sum total of your surroundings. For example, if you have four rich friends, you'll probably be the fifth rich friend. If you have four friends, not so rich, but broke friends. You'll probably start doing the same thing, same habits and end up broke. 
If you have four friends, that's cheating. Maybe you're going to be the fifth one. I don't know. Point is, we've all heard birds of a feather flock together. People rub off on you, their habits, their traits. It's not a bad thing. It just happens. However, everyone has free will. And when you know better, you do better. So going back to financial therapy, we have all kinds of tools and techniques that can help remove fears, the shame, the emotional baggage that keeps us in bondage. And it allows us to experience true healing through our mindsets and develop a healthy financial transformation and overall well-being. So for a minute, let's just talk about therapy. What is therapy? I mean, you know, I know that therapy in the past and the urban community, some of us look at therapy as, you know, oh, something must be wrong with her. 
She got to go see a shrink. She's taking meds for depression or we've all heard it. People kind of look at it with a stigma or have looked at it as a bad thing in the past. You know, they have negative comments that they may say about you. So a lot of people don't even tell you if they're going to therapy. Because people are judgmental. But now life be lifin'. And we have survived a whole pandemic. Therapy is needed and it is valuable to those who take advantage of it and utilize it to maintain their stability. I mean, besides therapy. Who taught you how to handle life's issues? Was it your parents or the adults in your life? We just established that we learn habits and traits from our parents or whoever the adults were in our life. 
But what happens when life be life and maybe they gave you some advice or a solution that might not have been the best solution? for you to do i mean it happens or if your parents were your guide or your teachers what happens when you figure out or you determine my parents could not even handle their issues they didn't know what to do so you wouldn't be going to them because they couldn't handle it so you need to seek professional help i mean that's just normal. I mean, like your parents, We're just doing what they could do or what they knew to do. It doesn't make it a bad thing. You can't hold something against somebody because they didn't know something. I remember when I was married and my marriage was in shambles and I do mean shambles like bad. 
And my mom would try to give me advice about what to do or how to control him or what she thought would work on my husband at the time. And let me tell you, 90% of what she told me did not work on him. He was not having it. He was not going to be controlled by my mother. You know, we were from different backgrounds. We had different mindsets. We were raised differently. So whatever she thought might work on him because we had different backgrounds did not. I mean, it was like putting a square in a circle. You know, it just didn't work. So I had to seek outside counsel for help with my marriage. So financial therapy combines practical financial planning advice with many of the theories used by psychologists and psychotherapists. 
Financial therapy helps you identify the origins of your financial problems, how it contributes to your money related issue, your self-defeating behavior that you might currently have, or even the money disorder that you have developed. And it helps you come up with a plan to address the behavior and the disorder so that you can restore the relationships around you and your relationship with money. For total well-being. Now, financial planning involves setting financial goals, developing an action plan, using monetary assets to implement the financial plan. Financial therapy brings the two together, the behavioral aspect and the financial aspect. So it's very innovative. It's, you know. It's monumental in helping you deal with your financial problems. The goal of financial therapy is to help facilitate healthy conversations surrounding finances and money. 
It will help you decrease your stress and anxiety that produces money disorders. It also increases your financial management skills to help with the healthy decision making. to accomplish your financial goals. And finally, it teaches you to manage your emotions, maintain control of your emotions and your finances, and monitor your progress for financial healing. Many relationships have been destroyed for lack of communication, lack of transparency, lack of control of their finances. Marriages have ended in divorce. because couples really do fight about money and they're not willing to come together and get on the same page and seek help. I always say we know money is the number one source of conflict in relationships and marriages, but help is now available. I wish I had the help back then, but help is now available. 
And if you need assistance and you would like to speak further about maybe a problem that you might be having right now in your finances or a money-related issue, please email me at influencehermindset at gmail.com. I'd love to speak with you alone or you and your partner to help you through some of your money issues. So help is here. Just reach out. I'm going to give you guys a little bit of homework for the next episode. I want you to watch your words this week and going forward. I'm going to give you a quote that's very famous and it's very applicable in this process of financial therapy. It goes, watch your thoughts, they become words. Watch your words, they become actions. Watch your actions. 
They become habits. Watch your habits. They become character. Watch your character. It becomes your destiny. This week, I'd like you to be very mindful of the conversations that you're having in the household, in front of your children, because words really do have power. And part of this healing process is for us not to pass down these traits and behaviors that we've picked up in the past that subconsciously or unconsciously, we may be passing them down to future generations. And they become financial flashpoints for your family and for your children. So we want to be mindful of how we're showing up going forward. Because what do you think it's going to do to your children's mindset if they always hear you talk about, I don't have any money, we're broke, don't ask for nothing in the store, you know, wait till I get paid. 
I mean, the process can be handled a little bit different. Because when you're a single parent or if you're just a parent, period, kids listen to everything that you say and they watch everything that you do. So it will be easy for them to pick up your habits. And we're trying to change the narrative. We're trying to work on our mindsets. And we want to get all these unhealthy financial habits and change them into some healthy financial decision making, healthy financial planning, healthy going forward, making the decisions that we need to make. So, yeah, that's your homework. And I'd love to hear how it goes during the week. I was listening to this couple talk the other day, and they were talking about how they started preparing their kids at an early age to know who they were. 
So just for example, this couple's last name was Williams. And they said, before our kids go to school every day, we ask them, who are you? And the response would be, I am a Williams. And they said, that's right. And as Williams, what do we do? When you walk out that door, you know that you represent the Williams last name, the Williams household. We follow rules. We're not rude. We represent our last name well. We don't act up. We're respectful. We're responsible. And we present ourselves as respectable people. So I thought that was something cute, but it really resonated with me because, again, if we're trying to change our mindsets, we have to instill good things into the people around us as well as ourselves. 
So remember, the mindset is going to change, but it starts at home with us. So start teaching you and your family and your kids. Take pride. in who you are at this point maybe you didn't get it right in the past but there's always time to change it for the better so start today start building and protecting your legacy with your families so just giving you a little forward um look at what we're going to start covering in the future in august we're going to have back to school discussions about savings and not really going into debt, trying to get your children ready for school. Like make up in your mind this year that this will be the year that I'm going to be responsible with my money and I'm not going into debt buying all the latest fashions, the Jordans. 
And I know I keep talking about Jordans, but any name brand clothes, any name brand shoes. For prom, we're not renting Bentleys. I mean, if that's not in your budget, don't try to go all out for Instagram, TikTok, all of the social media just to show that you can rent a Bentley for the prom. These kids are too young. I don't have anything against anybody that wants to do that, that can afford it. But let's be mindful of where we are and let's not set a scenario in place that we can't keep up. Decide, you know, going forward, you are going to be responsible. Back to school savings is important, especially for my single mothers. You know, we're going to be sharing stories of some single mothers that have handled their money issues, have overcome their financial struggles, and they're providing, you know, for their kids. 
We're going to hear their stories, see how they did it. Maybe they can share some stories. nuggets and tips with you. And it's just not for single parents. It's for parents, period. You know, this show does not discriminate anybody. You know, anybody can learn something from, you know, a savings tip or technique. Each week, I would like to tackle a different subject about financial therapy, bringing in professionals, maybe therapists that, you know, have patients that they're dealing with. I mean, if you need to refer a person to a financial therapist, you know, what does that look like? Just different things that people have put into practice that have worked for them. So because we're changing our mindsets, we are going to cover different things like money disorders and money 
relationships and money personalities. There are several different personalities. You could be a massive saver. You could be a person that looks at money as being bad. Believe it or not, some people can win the lottery. And if they're not used to having that much money and they're not comfortable with it, give it a year and they're probably back to where they were before they even won the lottery. As crazy as it sounds, that does happen because if you're not used to something, it will repel from you. We'll talk about things like workaholism. Some people just think that they cannot work enough. They cannot make enough money to sustain their sales. So like what is the number for you? How much will be a good amount for you to say you worked? 
What about gambling? You know, some people have a real issue with gambling. Hoarding. We'll cover hoarding. Financial denial. Overspending. Compulsive buying. Compulsive shopping. Financial enabling. Financial dependency again. Financial enmeshment. Financial enmeshment, for those of you that might not be aware of the term, is when you're discussing your financial issues. issues and situations with children. I mean, maybe they're not ready for these conversations. Maybe there's a better way you can handle it. But when it comes to them having anxiety about your financial issue or your financial problem, it becomes very stressful for them. And it may show up in different ways. The last thing we want to do is have your children not be able to come to you if they need a necessity 
something for school or some type of school supply or a book or something. And because they've heard you complain so much about not having enough money, they don't even want to ask you for the book for school or a necessity that they may need, like new shoes or something like that. So we want to be mindful that we're not stressing out our kids. But I'm going to teach you in the coming weeks how to have a conversation with your children and with your family in a nice, healthy way. You can share your financial issue without bringing the stress and anxiety along the way. So guys, I have enjoyed you today. As always, I am so grateful that you came back for another episode of the Influence Her Mindset podcast. 
I'm Miko, and I would love to see you again next week in the coming weeks. Stick with me. I promise financial therapy will be easy for you at the end of the day. So here's to another great episode. And again, my email is influencehermindset at gmail.com. Please hit me up. You have questions, concerns. You want to talk about your money issues. or a financial flashpoint or anything i discussed today. I will be happy to sit with you and your family and we can knock it out. Thank you and see you guys later.. bye!