Are you struggling with your relationship with money?

Have you been through hell and back?

Maybe you have dealt with a narcissist or two?

Does it feel like you’ve lost yourself? Look no more.

There is truth under your trauma.

Success under the stress. 

Is Financial Therapy Right for You?

Michele Paiva

Financial therapy is a blend of therapeutic and financial competencies, sometimes including neuromarketing, that help women to become emotionally and financially empowered. Here, women can create a space where they emerge to deeper healing and thrive in their relationships with themselves, others, and with money.

What is Your Relationship with Money?

Everyone has a relationship with money. Most people say they want more money so it must be a good relationship. Some people have a love-hate relationship with money. They feel like they earn but they have bills and somehow, money flies out the window.

Others struggle with their poverty, while others struggle with their wealth.

Research shows that most people see therapists as a trusted resource because of the training, nonjudgement, privacy, confidentiality, and legal responsibility, for relationship and money issues.

This makes financial therapists one of the most sought-after types of professionals for guidance on finances.

Financial advisors and financial planners, on the other hand, are sought out least often for issues related to relationships, trauma, or even financial stress. What does this have to do with your relationship with money?

Money is a touchy topic, and even in the therapy room, it’s challenging to lift the shame that accompanies financial stress or money worries. Women have an easier time discussing their intimate lives or past traumas than they do the same they feel if they overspend or have had financial struggles in their marriage.

It is not your fault. Your relationship with money,  financial stress,  financial wellness (or lack of it), financial habits, financial health, and financial choices are not your fault.

Results are your responsibility but they are not your fault.

Through a series of therapeutic and financial competencies, women learn to develop skills to earn more, save more, invest, and create financial well-being along with interpersonal well-being.

Women can rewrite their money stories. They can heal financial anxiety.

They can recognize that the past was not their fault and out of their control. Self-value and trauma recovery are goals of evidence-based competencies in financial therapy.

What Are Your Financial Habits?

It’s interesting that as women we have to develop so many coping strategies that we carry them throughout our lives and then learn that we don’t have to keep them.

When you dig deeper, you realize that we are shaped by our past and the past becomes an autopilot way of looking at the world and ourselves. Some women realize that they have experiences that they thought were unrelated to money. These include their family traumas and dramas, addictions, assault, or observing violence or conflict.

These adverse events are also developmental experiences and have a profound impact on women.  If you’ve tried to manage your money and your relationships but can’t, and anything I just wrote resonates with you – the habits you have are coping strategies and as I stated earlier, they are not your fault.

Money and Mental Health

Can you count? Then the problem isn’t accounting.

Have you ever wondered why that on an intellectual level, you might know how to add and subtract, know how to deposit a paycheck, or know that you can or can’t afford that new pair of shoes or the new thing that is being sold on Facebook by one of your friends in an MLM?

Well, it’s because you are looking at the problem only through tangibility, not a psychological space, which is a very different science.

Finance isn’t just about what stockbrokers, financial advisors, wealth managers, or accountants balance, trade, and sell. Your problem is not a counting problem it is an emotionally processing challenge, due to blocks that range from trauma to low self-value.

Like it was stated earlier, financial stress is cyclical. Stress over finances turns into physical stress which turns into coping with the resource that has the most power, money.

So as financial stress weaves in and out of your life, it begins to feel that it takes over and controls you – as any toxic relationship, addiction or trauma might feel.

Money and mental health go hand-in-hand.

Women and Money

Women tell me that they desire a meaningful life, one that has financial peace, financial independence, is full and filled with love. They say they want emotional and financial security and are often embarrassed that they do not have financial knowledge or savvy.

They feel a bit lost thinking about the stock market, and while some women enjoy a career, others say that they want to stay at home, invest and focus on their committed relationship.

There are women who have confided that they feel that money has ruined their marriage, their families or that they want to contribute more to the family, financially. Money is an emotionally charged topic.

My goals are to help women develop a financial empowerment plan, live the life that they desire, be equipped with a close-knit community, and access to financial education that is economical, accessible, and personal. I’ve seen sites and organizations that lure women with $1 memberships only to try to upsell them with $500 webinars! I’m sure those are great webinars, but that’s not what the average woman who is investing in a dollar membership is looking for. Even women who are in wealth, are not interested in pricey courses or expensive sales pitches dressed up as a consultation call. 

If you are searching for practical solutions, celebrating being female, and living the life you desire- healing your emotional and financial struggles, then sign up for my free newsletter and let’s get acquainted.