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The Relationship Blueprint: Unlock Your Power of Connection
Colleen is a student of Dr. Harville Hendrix and Dr. Helen LaKelly Hunt who created the Imago Theory and have brought this work to over 50 countries around the world. She is profoundly influenced by this belief shared by Dr. Harville Hendrix. He said, "We are born in relationship, wounded in relationship and healed in relationship."
What are you struggling with today? Colleen believes that almost any problem we have began with a broken or unhealed relationship. The anxiety or deep sadness we feel often began with unresolved issues in our relationships with our parents, partner, family or friends. When we have unmet needs we are programed to get those needs met. When we don't get what we need we protest by protecting ourselves. this often looks like defensive, critical, demanding behaviors. these behaviors are most often ineffective. As a result we may develop unhealthy relationship with food, sex, gambling our or a substance.
Colleen invites world renown relationship specialists from all over the world to help her guests explore their own relationships and see their problems through a relational lens. She will help us explore how to create intimacy to deepen our connections. Her listeners will gain insights to create a more joyful life.
Colleen is a Licensed Professional Counselor in the state of South Carolina, a certified, Advanced Imago Clinical therapist, a clinical instructor for the Imago International Trading Institute while maintaining her clinical practice in Hilton Head Island, South Carolina.
Thank you for joining Colleen today. Remember, don't let life happen to you. You can be the architect of your relationships. Join her next time on the Relationship Blueprint; Unlock Your Power of Connection.
Contact Colleen at colleen@hiltonheadislandcounseling.com for questions or to be a guest on the show!
The Relationship Blueprint: Unlock Your Power of Connection
Episode 4: How do we talk about money more effectively?
In this conversation, Colleen Kowal and Michelle Bohls delve into the intricate relationship between money and personal relationships. They explore how childhood experiences shape our beliefs about money, the impact of a scarcity mindset on happiness, and the importance of open dialogue in couples. The discussion emphasizes vulnerability and understanding as key components in navigating financial discussions, ultimately highlighting that our relationship with money is a reflection of deeper emotional truths.
Can money really dictate our happiness and the strength of our relationships? Join us as therapist and educator Michelle Bohls unveils the profound connections between our financial interactions and personal bonds. Michelle, co-author of "From Money Disaster to Prosperity: The Breakthrough Formula," shares her transformative journey from a scarcity-driven upbringing to a career centered on healing and understanding. Through her stories, we uncover the myth that wealth alone brings joy and instead explore the empowering effects of an abundance mindset. Discover how shifting from scarcity to abundance can open doors to opportunities and reshape our relationships and well-being.
Meaningful conversations are the backbone of any relationship, especially when faced with life's inevitable challenges like bankruptcy, death, or disease. We delve into the power of dialogue, exploring how truly listening and understanding our partners' pasts can turn conflict into empathy and collaboration. With insights from Imago therapy, we discuss how to navigate life's oscillations as chances for growth and connection, emphasizing the importance of mutual support. Michelle's expertise highlights the significance of facing challenges together and understanding our personal truths, opening the path to freedom and fulfillment in both personal and financial realms.
Thank you for joining me today on the Relationship Blueprint. Remember, don't let life happen to you. You can be the architect of your relationships. So join me next time on the Relationship Blueprint; Unlock Your Power of Connection.
Contact Colleen at colleen@hiltonheadislandcounseling.com for questions or to be a guest on the show!
Hey, michelle, welcome back everybody to the Relationship Blueprint. Unlock your power of connection and today I have such a good friend with me. I'm so excited she's here, michelle Bowles, from Costa Rica. Michelle is a faculty member. She's been a mentor. She's an amazing educator. She's also on the faculty for Imago International Training Institute. She's also the co-author of a book from 2021, from Money Disaster to Prosperity the Breakthrough Formula. So you'll want to look for that book. That'll be in the bio and the summary and why I love this woman. Michelle is brave, she's powerful and she's brilliant, and I was just telling her earlier how it's so interesting how Michelle has this wonderful therapist mind, but she also has this amazing business mind and that doesn't go together very often. So I'm just so happy you're going to be with us today, michelle. Is there anything I left out about you that you want to tell our listeners?
Speaker 2:No, that's perfect. I'm excited to talk about money and relationships because I think it's really important. I think we have a relationship with money. We bring our needs to it, we bring our beliefs to it, we create it. It's such a complex relationship, and then the different ways that we do relate to money then come into our committed relationships because we share money. So I just think it's such a rich topic to talk about.
Speaker 1:And it's interesting that you're saying that about our relationship with money. I just ran into a neighbor and we were. She heard about the podcast. She said, oh, I have a good relationship, I don't think I'm going to need your podcast because I knew her before and she was in a struggling relationship. And I said well, there's all kinds of relationships. You know we have relationships with family, we have relationship with friends, but we do have relationship with money, our bodies, you know our politics. The only thing that I can see in this world is relationships. So it's interesting that you bring that up. So I wanted to ask you what was the impulse for you, as a therapist, to dive into this topic? I know you've written an entire graduate level course for therapists about money in relationships. What drove you to that?
Speaker 2:Well, there's a really cute program called Two Cents by a public broadcasting system on YouTube so you can Google Two Cents it's the letter two and they interviewed me about money and I worked with the couple who was on that show about money and one of the things I shared was that I grew up with my dad being an accountant and my parents were both very poor, from small depressed towns. His dad was a bus driver and a janitor and they sort of tried to cover that up with education and middle class and my dad went to work for International Harvester and then 3M as an accountant. So I think it was in the field growing up, this idea of what we can, what we need and what we want and what we can afford, and so there was a lot of scarcity messages about money. And then, yeah, just in my journey as an entrepreneur because before I became a therapist I was a headhunter and I talked to people about their salaries and I had to kind of understand the psychology of negotiating salary and yeah, it just keeps basically jumping into my life to go deeper into the energy of money, not the dollar bill itself, but the concept and the psychological components of how well, just, for instance, you know, I was talking to my surf coach this morning.
Speaker 2:We were out surfing and he was talking about, like this guy who made all this money. But he wasn't happy. And I said yeah, because once you have enough money and you don't need to strive for your dreams anymore and you realize that it's all the fantasies you had about how it would make you feel are a lie, it's really quite alarming and depressing. And you know he was talking about how, you know, the local ticos and ticas may make like $400 a month and I said, yeah, and they might need more. And I said yeah, and they might need more, that you know. And they might be much happier than these people who have so much, because they are working hard, they're out in nature, they're with family and friends, are eating good food.
Speaker 2:So you know, there's such lies about money that somehow, but have enough money, I'll feel free or I'll be safe, or I'll be loved or whatever it is. It's usually something in those piles. But the truth is is I am free and we can explore how that's true is. Yeah, I am lovable and I am safe and I'm all the things that my fantasy, the lie, the ego lies to us. Right, I am all the things the ego is telling me. I need money to be.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. But I think you bring up a really good point about wealth because, also, growing up with scarcity, I feel, and I have felt like, oh, when I get this I'll be happy, or when I complete this degree, or when the next thing, the next thing, the next thing, and you know, at 63, I've learned what a trap. That is right. It's such a such an interesting way to disguise our real, real needs and our real wants.
Speaker 2:When I like, cultivate my happiness, I cultivate my joy, which is just in this moment. I can ask what would it feel like if I felt joy in my body. And when I do that, that actually draws money towards me. When I cultivate freedom, when I cultivate these things and I say I am this, I claim authority and I am this, that draws money towards us. It attracts the opportunities to make money?
Speaker 1:Absolutely, because, if you ever I mean, my mother was in sales and I remember learning at an early age that when you're too hungry the sales don't come, but when you're in abundance and you're not really needing the sale, the sales come. And so that principle that you're talking about, of not living in the scarcity mindset and really being open to an abundance, and that we have plenty and we can give more and we can find more to help others.
Speaker 1:I think that's a big deal, but as couples, I was looking at some of your dialogues that you've written for couples and I love some of the prompts that maybe our readers might want to explore. Like one of them, you said was you know, go back to your most. Or like one of them you said was you know, go back to your most positive memory that you have as a child around money. And then you had one about well, what was your negative memory about money? When I got to the negative one, I couldn't really think of too many positive, to be honest. Yeah, what was your negative, man? My negative was when my mom would have a big sales week.
Speaker 1:We were fat, you know. We were going to dinner and we were buying things we couldn't afford, but this one day in particular I might have been six she put her purse on top of the car. We were on our way to the laundromat and so her whole paycheck had been cashed and it all blew. You know, the purse flew off the top of the car, the money. I could see it flying. And then I watched my mom go into this really mental breakdown, and I don't know if that was the beginning of my fear around money, but it certainly, you know it stays with the girl.
Speaker 2:Just tap. Like real, that's very real. So a positive and a negative are wired in there together. Of the flush payday, the mental breakdown from losing it, like so many belief systems are embedded in what you're describing. Like so many belief systems are embedded in what you're describing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so there's always been this like, really, you know, huge conflict with you know, and this is how it transfers. I want our listeners to realize this. So when you would think that when I would get married, I would marry somebody who made $84,000 a year, had the same salary, retired in 30 years, with a pension Guess what, michelle year, had the same salary, retired in 30 years, with a pension Guess what, michelle? I always marry the entrepreneur. Of course you do, because it's still that unhealed, unmet child who really is trying to heal that part of me, right? And so I marry the risk taker, who is just like my mom but not like my mom right yes the risk taker, who is just like my mom, but not like my mom, right?
Speaker 1:I want our couples to get really curious about how they see money and how that comes up in their relationship. Because it sure came to mind.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, it's so important. That's what the book was about. It was really about how our history creates belief systems and then we live out of those belief systems, unconsciously around money, and how important it is just to unpack that, to just start to look at what are these early memories and what are the beliefs that they created. So do you know some of the beliefs that may have come out of that?
Speaker 1:Oh sure. So one of the beliefs is don't spend your money because you probably will need it later, which is a good. It had a good outcome, but it was pretty fear-based.
Speaker 2:It wasn't like let's go a little further, because that's sort of a directive, yeah. So if that's true, what I believe is If that's true, what I believe is so?
Speaker 1:if that's true, then I can't spend money.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and we might even go to like it's dangerous to spend money.
Speaker 1:Yeah it's for sure and it doesn't look good to take jobs that you don't know what you're going to get paid every week. There's so many offshoots of you know that experience for me and for others. You know what your history is with money is playing out today, and you know so. What do you say to a couple that is not in therapy but they, like if they're normal, are having differences with their partner around money? What do you tell them? What's your first bit of advice?
Speaker 2:Oh, I'm so is such a a boring answer? Yeah, dialogue, well, they don't know what that is you've got to like. Let me just start with this premise. So are you remember the jihari's window? Yeah, we don't know what that is, but if you look it up online you can see.
Speaker 2:It basically means that like a portion of a quarter of myself I know and you know, you can see this part of my character and I know about it. And then there's another quarter that you don't know about me. It's my secret. And then there's another quarter that you can see, and some of it's glorious about me and some of it's not so pretty, and you can see this but I can't. And then there's a whole quarter that neither one of us have any idea about.
Speaker 2:So, just starting right there, about 50% of me is unknowable to me. And then I'm trying to have a relationship with a partner where 50% of him is unknowable to him. It's so funny, right, right, I mean it's kind of a miracle we can make it a day without, you know, running into something that kills us in the darkness. So because our relationships are such a mystery and we are such a mystery, we can't really solve a problem with the same consciousness that created it. Right, and so we have to go underneath what we think we know, and dialogue is the only tool I know that will get me there, because I don't even know what I don't know, so what?
Speaker 1:do you think Should we do a little mini dialogue for them to hear Is that a good way to demonstrate that? Yeah, so are we going to pretend to be a married couple? Yeah, sure.
Speaker 2:All right, we'll start with centering, right? So we'll assume we got centered and we would start with appreciations, which we kind of started with, although I didn't get to send mine, so let's just for the listeners.
Speaker 1:Centering just means like that you're going to breathe, you're going to calm your nervous system a little bit before you get started on talking about a difficult thing, or even a good thing. It's a good idea to get yourself transitioned from where you were maybe cooking dinner to hey, we're going to sit down and have this dialogue. So that's what Michelle means by centering, and then, after the centering, making sure you begin with an appreciation, and Michelle and I have already done some of that today. But it might sound like, michelle, what I appreciate about you so much is your sense of humor, and then she would tell me something. So then now we get into it, so pretend you've already shared.
Speaker 2:You've already shared, so I'm gonna mirror you, okay. So you were little, your mom was in sales and she would either be it either be feast or famine, and you can recall one specific time she cashed her whole paycheck and it was all cash and it was in her purse and it started falling out and flying away, yeah, and she had like a mental meltdown, yeah, and one of the takeaways for you was that you need to be really careful with your money and not spend it, not overspend it, not even spend it, and that the deeper belief that might be there is that spending money is dangerous.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:Am I with you?
Speaker 1:Yes, and this or more yes, I think the idea that money would bring me safety.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so there's that idea that money would bring you safety.
Speaker 1:And that when I don't have it, I'm not safe, then Right.
Speaker 2:When you don't have it, you're not safe. So if I were your partner and I was an entrepreneur and money was inconsistent, right, that I might be curious about you. Know, Coco, what do you need from me when you start to get anxious about money?
Speaker 1:So actually what my husband has done is he's really wonderful at showing me spreadsheets, because talking about it for me overwhelms my brain, but when I can see it, I'm good.
Speaker 2:Okay, good. So showing you the numbers, the spreadsheet brings you a kind of clarity around money that just talking about it doesn't do Correct and we didn't find that the first couple of years.
Speaker 1:We had to learn about each other and learn I had to be able to really express what I needed. I'll let you get that much.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you took a while to learn that. You kind of had to bump around a little bit and dialogue on and dialogue about it until you found what does help and like land in your system as I am safe.
Speaker 1:Because what I would tell you is that early on, when I would ask questions probably sounded more like drilling. I know that I sounded critical Because early on.
Speaker 2:When you ask questions, you make up that it sounded like drilling and critical.
Speaker 1:Yes, I'm almost 100% positive. And so then we're in that power struggle versus really trying to communicate about what the issue really is. Yeah, yeah yeah.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, then you're in a power struggle versus, like, the real issue is this sense of safety, yeah, and that like you're safe and that you're going to be okay changing him, but when he could see my pain in it and that it wasn't about him, that this wasn't about judging or thinking he didn't make enough or whatever, that it had nothing to do with that, it was all about early wounding for me and that when he could see and experience that, that's when he was like hey, I know why don't I show you a spreadsheet? Maybe that would help if you could just see it. You're a visual person.
Speaker 2:That's so important what you're saying, coco. So through the dialogue you came to this, and through the dialogue Kevin could begin to see this was really about you and your history and not about him. And when he didn't take it personally, it freed up his mind to think of some solutions that may help calm your fears.
Speaker 1:Yes, because it's really in that vulnerability that you and I are very well aware of. It's in that my ability to be vulnerable versus drilling that. Then he wanted to come over to my side of the world and see my pain and help me through. Yeah, you know, it's such a powerful tool. So I don't think your answer about dialogue was boring at all. I think it's one of the most fascinating things that we don't do in this world, because we talk at each other and we take turns in monologues, but we really, really don't slow down and really hear one another and that's yeah, it really turns to be very painful yeah, we don't hear and we don't think to listen, and that's why it's so important to remember that we're walking around in the dark all of us.
Speaker 2:There's so much we don't know. We're a mystery unfolding in a mysterious universe. So, yeah, I think that when we kind of come at it from that perspective, then we can get curious about so many things that could be possible that we just don't know yet. And money is one of those things where there's a lot of hidden beliefs that, like I don't think if I on most days you would say, spending money is dangerous.
Speaker 1:Well, I think that on most days, I know that I've really gotten over that, I've mastered it Exactly.
Speaker 2:I've seen you shop girl.
Speaker 1:I really don't think that's my issue anymore, but I mean, that really was like an emancipation for me, like sometimes it just feels like oh my gosh. When you were talking about freedom earlier and I love the meme where the person is you see a woman's face and she's behind the bars, right and through the bars, like let me out, let me out. And then if you take a zoom out, all she has to do is right. And that was me inside the bars thinking money is not safe. Yeah, yeah, I think.
Speaker 2:There are my quote from Harville's book yeah, and so, yeah, I think. Purpose of imago therapy to free people from the prison of their reactive brain and regain their natural state of open collaboration with each other.
Speaker 1:Wow, yeah, and that's kind of what you're saying wow, I know, I thought, is that in chapter two?
Speaker 2:yes, it is, it's a chapter two. I'll give the page number just in case somebody's got another bookshelf and they want to go watch it. It's page 60. Yes, it's on YouTube. We posted it. We had a conversation with Carvel and Helen this morning and posted the end of chapter two. But I mean, it's so rich with wisdom, that book, with wisdom, that book, and.
Speaker 2:But the big thing that I want to emphasize when it comes to money is that most of the time you're being lied to. Your brain is lying to you that spending money isn't necessarily dangerous. But spending money unconsciously could be right. It's a. It's all about our awareness and our ability to collaborate with the people we're financially dependent on.
Speaker 2:Yes, and at the end of the day, when steven and I because we can both get scared about money, I mean, given the history that I shared about my family and his family they were farmers who got a lot of money, like the hillbilly that show. Yeah, I'm dating myself, but the point is okay, I gotcha little farmers coming into a lot of money because their land right, right people and so they live very simple lives. But there was still this scarcity. When you're a farmer and you come from farmers, you know things can get tight and and all we do is turn to come from farmers. You know things can get tight and all we do is turn to each other and say you know what? All we need is each other and to know that we can eat today and then, like the rest of it is, it just doesn't matter, it's mostly made up.
Speaker 1:But what you're saying, michelle, is what I think is an absolute truth is that, going through anything bankruptcy, death, disease, any kind of problem that I can think of. When I have gone through the problem connected to Kevin, I'm not going to say that it was perfect, but, boy, it was a lot easier and we were supportive of one another through those darker days and I think what happens so often as we go through these big bumps in life is that we get scared, as you're talking about, because we're believing these lies, and then we go through them separately. Yes, before we go, I know you have a client coming, so I don't want to take any more of your time, but is there anything you'd like to close with before we say goodbye to our listeners?
Speaker 2:Well, just going back, I just want to add to what you said. You know this idea of ups and downs, right, we get scared, we get stuck, and then how do we get unstuck? Yeah, and that's where I think there's so Amago offers so much in terms of ideas and tools to help us get unstuck and come back together. But just know that, you know, if you think about an even relationship not the ups and downs, right, just even. We never get stuck. Yeah, if your heartbeat's doing that, you're in trouble. You want a heartbeat that's going up and down, up and down, and that is the oscillation of energy and their true nature in life, and so if we can just remember that, we're going to come back up and go back down again.
Speaker 1:That is just all part of the whole journey.
Speaker 2:You know and.
Speaker 1:I want to add that, for our single listeners, you can do this same thing with a dear friend or a parent or a sibling, somebody that you trust to have this exploration, because this whole relationship with money thing is not just for couples. It is really important for us to examine what our relationship is with money and what is the real truth for us, so that we can be free. Thank you so much for Thank you. Thank you, michelle, for being with me today. I always love seeing you and until we meet again, and for our listeners, thank you for being with us on the Relationship Blueprint. Unlock your power of connection.
