Could your subconscious mind be keeping you from making more money? That's what we're discussing in this episode of the Feminine Money Mastery Podcast. [Intro]
Think about suddenly earning double or triple what you're earning now. Or suddenly making millions of dollars a year. Wouldn't that be fantastic? A dream come true.
Not according to your subconscious mind.
Consciously, you'd love to be wealthy and make loads of money. We all would. But if you're struggling to reach your income goals, there may be something more at play. You may have some hidden programming that's preventing you from reaching the financial goals you so desperately want.
And because the subconscious mind runs the show, until you become aware of that programming and clear it out, you will continue to struggle.
Did you know that according to research, your subconscious is almost 85% of your mind? And that the primary purpose of the subconscious mind is to keep you safe and alive.
Now here's the kicker.
If your subconscious mind, for whatever reason, interprets being wealthy and having lots of money as being unsafe, it will do everything in its power to protect you from it, regardless of how much you make, your true value or even your belief in yourself.
So the million-dollar question is "Why would the subconscious mind believe that it's not safe to be rich?"
And the answer to that usually comes down to one thing: Programming.
To understand programming, you have to first understand how the brain works.
Your mind is a meaning-making machine. It takes in everything that's going on around you and tries to make sense of it. And it does this to keep you safe. One of the primary tasks of our brain is to keep us safe and alive. So our brain pays special attention to anything that seems even remotely dangerous and then does its best to keep us away from that danger.
So let's explore how our mind comes to the conclusion that money is unsafe and something to stay away from.
One of the earliest sources of negative programming around money comes from childhood and the beliefs your family or caregivers had about money and about rich people in general.
Beliefs like "Rich people are dishonest/selfish/greedy/evil" or "Money corrupts people."
So I want you to pause for a moment and think about what your parents said and thought about about money and wealthy people when you were growing up.
One of the things that was passed on to me by my mother was that it was wrong for a woman to earn her own money. I was taught that men were supposed to earn money and a woman's only role was to take care of her family. My mother learned this from her father and then passed on the belief to me.
I absorbed the lesson as a child and lived it out for many years into my adulthood until I became aware of the belief and changed it. In fact, it was partly due to this belief that I spent 23 years stuck in a toxic and abusive marriage. I believed that because I was a woman I didn't have what it took to make it on my own and support myself and my kids financially without the help of a man.
Which is ludicrous in hindsight because now I can see that I have had that potential all along. But it wasn't until I became consciously aware of that belief and then changed it that I was able to break free, start building my business and become financially independent.
So I want you to pause for a moment and take some time to think about what sort of beliefs were passed down to you regarding money and wealthy people. Write them down and then reflect on how those beliefs have impacted your life and still continue to impact your life to this day.
Now it's not only negative beliefs about wealth and rich people that can cause you to develop negative associations with money. You may, for example, have had more than your friends growing up and felt different because of it. The desire to fit in may have subconsciously made you associate wealth with something negative and emotionally painful in your mind.
Or you may recall money causing problems in your family, like your parents arguing over money or having battles over child support.
Or maybe you witnessed your parents or caregivers always worried and stressed out about money. And in your tiny, childlike mind, you started to associate money with negative emotions like stress and worry.
When money brings up memories of conflict, you'll find ways to avoid it or get rid of it if you do have it.
This happened to one of my clients who witnessed her parents arguing about money as a child. In her mind, she came to associate money with family conflict. As an adult, this showed up as her always finding a way to "get rid" of money when she had it, by buying things she didn't need.
Another side of the equation is when a parent uses money (and what money can buy) to compensate for a lack of time, attention and affection.
In this case, the subconscious mind equates money to love and affection. This can lead to habits of overspending and living beyond your means as an adult.
So you can see that both what your parents and caregivers said about money, as well as how they handled money, have contributed to your money programming.
Your early religious upbringing may also have influenced how you view having lots of money. Through religious teachings, you may have recieved the message that money is the root of all evil, that rich people will never get into heaven or that you can't be both spiritual and rich.
Now of course, it's never good to worship money and exploit people, but programming can often give you beliefs that tend to be more extreme, like the belief that all rich people are dishonest. That is just not true.
Another source of negative programming around money is culture including TV and movies.
TV shows and movies often depict wealthy people, and these are usually the bosses or business owners, as villains who are out to exploit people for their own financial gain.
Rich people in movies and on TV are often portrayed as idiotic, self-centred or just plain evil. They hurt people to get what they want, ignoring their families and stepping on hardworking, honest people as they climb to the top.
Now you may not even think about these associations consciously, but they come up when you hear about or see media coverage of rich people ripping other people off or committing a crime, which further reinforces the negative programming in your mind.
The negativity increases if the person gets away with it. Like when corrupt executives get caught but continue to live in the lap of luxury, or get "fired" but still get huge bonuses or severance packages.
Or you see celebrities wasting ridiculous amounts of money on things like gold toilets or diamond-encrusted iPhone cases while you're wondering how you'll ever be able to pay off your student loans and there are millions of people around the globe without enough food.
Your subconscious mind records all of this, along with the childhood programming it received about being rich. And it links money and wealthy people to negative things like greed, corruption, conflict and pain.
And since the main job of the subconscious mind is to keep you safe, if it associates money with something negative, as something that could possibly harm you, it will do everything in its power to keep you away from it.
Your most deeply wired and primitive survival instinct may believe you're safer and will survive better if you refuse wealth. Or your subconscious may cap the amount of money you can make by what it considers to be safe. This is usually the case if you have an income ceiling that you just can't seem to break through.
This sort of programming needs to be rewired if you ever hope to create a new financial reality for yourself and your loved ones.
It starts with becoming aware of your programming around money.
What did your parents say about money and about rich people? And how that has influenced your current relationship with money.
Here's a great exercise that can help you to uncover some of the beliefs that you have about money. Grab a pen and a sheet of paper and complete the following sentences with the first word that comes to mind. Don't give it too much thought.
* Rich people are _____________________ .
* Money makes people ________________.
* I'd have more money if ________________.
* My parents always thought money would _________________ .
* Money causes ________________.
* I'm afraid if I had more money I would be __________________.
* Money is _______________.
* In order to have more money, I would need to ______________.
* I think money ______________.
Completing these sentences will start to give you a glimpse into what you think about money. Most people I've taken through the exercise have had conflicting thoughts about money, some positive and some not so positive. And many of these came from their childhood conditioning.
Here's the thing though. Most people unconsciously relive their parents way of thinking and handling money, even if their circumstances are outwardly different.
For example, you may be a college graduate with a high-paying job whereas your parents never completed high school. Yet, you're still living one paycheck away from disaster, just like they did.
Or you may have consciously vowed never to be like your parents, to handle money differently than they did. Yet, you still find yourself in a constant battle around money.
Becoming aware of your patterns and your programming is at the root of resolving them.
And if you're serious about healing your relationship with money, which includes uncovering all your subconscious programming around money, then consider signing up for my Feminine Money Mastery Mentorship Program.
It's designed for women who want to break through to that next level of impact and income and who understand that developing a healthy relationship with money is a crucial piece of the puzzle.
If you're ready to create a whole new financial reality for yourself, click on the link in the show notes or go to femininemoneymastery.net to find out more.