Intuitive Spending - When An Abundance Mindset Doesn't Click

I don't know about you - but the abundance mindset never clicked for me. It feels so inauthentic to say affirmations like "I'm a wealthy woman. I live abundantly." When you've practiced the opposite thoughts all your life. It's hard to flip a switch. The best way I've found to understand and click with this mindset is to frame it like intuitive eating! I give you the first four steps of intuitive spending!

Please note: This audio is ripped from a video.

Transcript

Hi everyone,

Let's start by taking an intentional breath together.

So closing your eyes if you feel comfortable,

Inhaling deeply into your stomach,

And exhaling,

Releasing all tension and all breath.

Beautiful.

So in today's video,

I want to talk to you about what I think money mindset,

Money mindset,

Is missing from the conversation and why if you have been introduced to the money mindset,

It never may be clicked for you.

So if that's you,

This is going to be the video for you.

So this video is going to make the most sense for people who have ever heard about intuitive eating or who have ever gone on this journey.

And if you have not,

I'll do a brief little intro,

But this is really going to hit hard for those people who kind of understand and maybe have practiced intuitive eating.

Because what I have found is that money mindset always talks about,

You have to be spending like a wealthy woman.

You have to live abundantly.

You have to be okay with your desires and go out and just feel super abundant.

And I've always felt that never hit with me.

And I would journal and see if I feel some kind of shame about spending or some kind of,

You know,

All these different things that might be adding to the fact that I can't live abundantly.

But what I actually think after a lot of reflection is what's missing is we're jumping straight from,

Oh I hate spending money because it makes me feel icky,

To oh let's live abundantly and spend money like a wealthy woman.

And there's no middle place in there and you can't really buy into,

I'm going to be a wealthy woman if you've been practicing thoughts of spending is hard,

Spending feels icky,

I'm always nervous about my bank account,

I'm never making enough money.

If you've always practiced these thoughts,

Hopping over to the abundant thing,

It just feels so fake and it feels wrong.

It feels like what you're doing is morally bad and that it shouldn't be something that you do.

At least in my experience.

So I think we're missing this subtle bridge.

Now coming back to intuitive eating.

Intuitive eating,

If you're not familiar,

Is the process of eating when you're hungry,

Eating whatever you desire,

Whether that's Oreos or broccoli,

Doesn't matter,

They're all neutral.

And allowing your body to really dictate what you're eating and when really.

You are kind of tuning back into yourself and really rejecting all the notions of you should eat a paleo diet,

You should eat this kind of diet,

You should exercise this,

This,

This,

You should count calories less,

What do they call it,

Less,

More calories out than are in.

You reject all of that and you say I'm going to listen to my body,

I'm going to notice how I feel,

I'm going to let my body dictate when I'm eating,

When I feel hungry,

What I want to eat.

And it's a really eye-opening experience and I encourage you if you're interested,

I'll put some links down below of some books that I've read,

Some different places on the internet that I really took this in and I really went on this intuitive eating journey last year and it's really become part of my life and it has changed it for the better.

But what this video is about is the money side.

So I've been struggling for a long time with the money thing because I would get into places where I had a great job and I shouldn't have been worried about money,

Yet I still was.

So right there is a perfect example of how your circumstance,

Your external reality,

It doesn't dictate what your thoughts are or what you're feeling inside.

So since intuitive eating connected with me,

And no it wasn't easy by any means,

But something about it really hit me and I was like,

It makes sense,

Doesn't it just make sense that you should eat when you're hungry?

Like if you say that to yourself,

Doesn't that make sense?

And doesn't it make sense that your body would know what it means?

So the principles of intuitive eating you may be thinking if you're not familiar with it,

Well if I just let my body eat whatever it wants,

Then I'm just going to eat a whole package of oreos and like,

You know,

Soda pop and like all these things that are not healthy.

And the thing is,

When you've restricted all your life,

When you've been on diets,

When you've been telling your body you can't have this,

You can't have this,

You can't have this,

You might have cravings that you intellectually are like,

Ooh,

This isn't good,

But it's actually sitting down,

Eating an oreo,

No distractions,

No phone texting,

No watching TV,

Eating the oreo,

Chewing the oreo,

Swallowing the oreo.

You want another?

You pick up another,

You chew it,

You swallow it,

So you're super,

Super present.

And you know,

Even for like lunch or dinner or breakfast,

Eat with your left hand so that you are very,

Very carefully recognizing the taste,

The flavor,

How your body feels.

So maybe you do binge a whole bunch of oreos and you notice,

Hmm,

I ate 10 oreos and my belly hurts now.

Interesting.

You don't judge it.

You don't say bad,

Shame on you.

You just say interesting information.

And it's hard,

Of course,

Because you have been practicing judging yourself for these things.

But what happens after you've done this long enough,

Your body doesn't crave 10 oreos every day,

All day,

For every dinner.

It really doesn't.

Your body starts to crave the things that it needs.

Maybe your body needs more carbs than mine.

Maybe your body needs more protein than mine.

Maybe you always crave a certain thing.

It's because your body needs it.

And when we stop telling our body what,

Our mind telling our body what it needs,

Everything starts to balance out.

So again,

That's kind of the overarching theme of intuitive eating.

So I thought to myself,

And maybe someone else has done this,

But what I've really thought is that could we take these principles of intuitive eating,

Which personally clicked with me,

And make them into intuitive spending.

And I realized once I did that,

This is what has been missing in so much money mindset talk,

At least from the things that I've been reading,

The things that I've been seeing.

And the number one part of it,

I think,

Is the acceptance.

Accepting where you're at,

Right?

So instead of going out to the store and,

Oh,

Well,

I'm going to be a wealthy woman,

Right?

So I'm going to buy these earrings and these shirts and these da da da da da's,

Because I'm a wealthy woman here,

Charge my card,

Da da da.

And you're like,

You take all this home and you get home and you're like,

Oh.

Like now I feel the guilt,

Right?

I think it's the same way of what would happen if you ate a whole bunch of Oreos,

Right?

You ate a whole bunch of Oreos,

Maybe it felt good in the moment,

You sit back and you feel sick.

Or maybe you don't feel sick,

But your head is like,

You are so bad,

You should not have done that.

No,

No,

No,

No,

No.

It's the same thing.

If you go out to the store,

Being a wealthy woman,

Buying whatever you want,

You get home and you feel guilty about it.

Because it's basically just binging and purging,

Right?

But it's your wallet.

You're binging and purging your wallet.

So maybe you go a couple months and you're super stringent,

You don't buy yourself anything,

You just pay your bills,

You save every penny.

What happens,

At least for me,

If I do that long enough,

Bam.

That means I'm probably gonna spend money on something that I either didn't really want,

But thought I deserved.

Or I do spend that money on something I did want,

That I was saving for,

And then I feel guilty about it.

Because I've been practicing thoughts that tell me I should feel guilty about it.

Okay,

So we kind of see how this could all wrap up.

I want to go over with you a couple of the steps in intuitive eating that I have kind of flip flopped into intuitive spending.

And I think that just even reading the intuitive eating steps is probably gonna help you with any kind of money mindset because it's really based on like,

Acceptance and rejecting what all outside forces have been telling us.

And you'll see.

So step number one of intuitive eating is rejecting the diet culture.

So flip flopping that,

Rejecting the capitalist culture that we live in that says you always need to want more,

That you can't ever be satisfied with what you have,

You always have to be working towards that next goal.

Rejecting the culture that tells you that you need to save more,

You also need to spend more to keep up with your neighbors,

You need to show it off on social media.

Rejecting that you need anything that you don't already have.

Really.

Really think about that for a second.

What is something you really want?

Could it be you want a new car?

You want to move out of your parents house?

You want a new job?

You want a new laptop?

It doesn't matter.

Do you really,

Really need that?

Or is that something that you've been told by marketing,

By your family,

By culture that you should want?

And hey,

Maybe you do really want it,

That's fine.

That's absolutely fine.

But just question it.

Really really questioning it.

Because you might find that,

Yeah I do want a new laptop,

But it's not quite the incessant I need a new laptop,

I need it now.

It might not be as angry,

As fearful,

As a scarcity thing that I need to get this laptop.

Mine isn't good for all these reasons,

You're only focusing on the bad.

How about saying,

Wow my old laptop,

It has lasted a really long time,

It has done so many things for me.

If you want to move out of your parents house,

You gotta question,

Do you really?

I mean you're probably either rent free or like a very low rent.

You get a chance to hang out with your parents,

Which isn't it like after college,

After you turn 18,

You've spent like 75% of your time with your parents or something like that.

Your time with them is probably limited.

Can you look at the ways that where your situation is now,

It's not as urgent as you're making it out to be.

Can you look at your situation and say,

You know what,

Actually this is pretty great.

And I need to see that before I try to change it,

Before I try to get a new laptop,

Get it out of my parents house.

I need to accept where I'm at before I'm trying to flip things over.

Because guess what's going to happen?

You're going to get the new laptop,

You're going to love it for like two weeks,

And a new model will come out.

Or it just won't have that thrill.

Because the thrill was in the wanting.

The thrill was in the wanting it and then getting it.

It was not,

It's that goal setting,

It's that always capitalist climbing up the ladder where you're at is never good enough.

So let's reject that.

When those thoughts pop up in your head,

Question them.

When you see some kind of marketing ad that you're like,

Oh that looks good,

Question it.

Why do we have to go on vacation every year?

Why is that a thing?

Who made that a thing?

Why can't we go to new places that are around our town?

Why can't we enjoy the places that we have already been?

Okay,

So step number two of intuitive eating is to honor your hunger.

So I flip flopped this to think,

Honor your desire to spend.

So now that step one I've told you,

Well do you really need it?

Let's be honest,

The reason that we want to spend money,

Other than like marketing bombarding us,

Culture bombarding us,

It stems from the desire for safety.

It stems from the desire for safety.

We think to ourselves that if we just accumulate enough money,

Then we'll be safe.

And then if we have enough money to spend on the things,

The new laptop getting out of our parents' house,

People will like us,

We'll keep up with the Joneses,

And we'll be accepted and not kicked out of the tribe,

Right,

If we're all cavemen.

You don't want to be kicked out of the tribe.

So honor the thing,

Honor the desire,

Honor the desire.

I see within myself,

I want a new laptop.

I know that maybe the desire for it could be based on the fact that I've seen a lot of marketing for it,

Could be based on the fact that I think it will bring me some kind of safety of,

You know,

My old laptop is going to break,

Or it will bring me the safety of knowing that I can spend this money on it.

It will bring me some kind of fulfillment,

And that's okay.

It's okay to have those desires,

As long as we're being honest with ourselves about what they are and where they're coming from.

And you don't have to know,

Right,

You don't have to know exactly,

Oh well,

This definitely came from the fact that I saw 13 ads for this laptop.

You're not going to know that.

But if you just recognize that we all have the desire for safety,

We all have the desire to accumulate this money because we think it will make us feel safe.

And we have the desire to spend money because we think that it will make people like us.

We get new clothes,

We look good,

We fill all our makeup.

If we have these certain things,

People will like us.

Or here's one,

I will have permission to like myself.

Right?

Let's be honest,

Your friends don't care if you get a new lipstick.

Your friends don't care if you get new earrings.

But if you buy those new lipstick,

Those new earrings,

You'll give yourself permission to like yourself for,

You know,

About two days.

You'll give yourself permission to feel,

Oh,

I'm so beautiful,

I feel so put together,

I feel so classy,

You know,

Whatever it is that you're saying to yourself,

You'll give yourself permission to think those thoughts and feel those feelings.

And that,

My friend,

It's okay.

We all do this.

Honor that.

Know that it's okay.

And know that you have the control too.

You can feel beautiful with your old lipstick.

You can feel beautiful with chapstick on.

Those are just thoughts,

Right?

Okay,

So step three in intuitive eating,

And I might be jumbling this up,

I'll put the link down below so that you can really look at them,

But it's make peace with,

Making peace with food.

So making peace with money.

You,

My friend,

Probably have a lot of stories that you've been telling yourself or that someone has told you about money.

Either you need it to live,

Money is bad because people who have it are bad,

Rich people are bad,

You don't want to be greedy,

You need to make sure that you're donating.

We have all these rules,

We have all these morals.

If you do this with your money,

You're bad.

If you do this with your money,

You're good.

If you put it in your retirement,

That's good,

But if you spend it on going to the movies or something,

You're bad.

So we've assigned these rules,

These values to money.

Money is not anything.

It's a piece of paper,

Or whatever it is.

It's literally just a piece of paper,

So it's not anything.

It has no moral value except for what you assign it.

Money is a neutral resource,

A neutral resource.

Money is,

It just is.

We give these stories to it,

We put these stories on it,

And it honestly doesn't deserve it.

It's just a piece of paper.

So we need to make peace with it.

When you see a dollar bill,

Do you,

What do you feel?

You probably feel the urge to pick it up,

Right,

Because you've been taught that you can't waste money.

You don't want to let it go.

There's not very much around,

So if you get a chance at a dollar bill,

You better pick it up.

Like,

We've had all these stories,

It's just a piece of paper,

Right?

Do you feel the same urge if you see a flyer blowing in the wind as you see a dollar bill blowing in the wind?

No.

But it's the same thing.

We create the value.

We create the stories.

Okay,

So this video is getting long,

So I'll probably stop here at step four.

Step four is to challenge the food police.

Challenge the money police.

So stop letting your thoughts tell you what's good or bad to do with your money.

You do not have to think to yourself,

Oh,

What a good girl,

I deprived myself and I didn't buy that cupcake.

You don't have to think to yourself,

Oh,

What a bad girl,

I got that cupcake.

I shouldn't have done that.

Or those earrings or that shirt.

You don't have to have any story with it.

You did it.

End of story.

There's nothing to it.

Just start challenging those thoughts in your head.

Actually,

Money's a neutral resource.

Actually,

It's not that big of a deal.

Actually,

There's money in my bank account,

There's money in the world.

It doesn't matter.

Right?

So I only went through the four steps.

There are ten of them.

You can see the intuitive eating steps.

I'll link them down below.

If you liked this video,

I'll go through the rest of the steps and how I've twisted them into a money mindset reality.

So let me know in the comments below if you like this.

I will do a part two.

And thank you for watching.

I hope you enjoyed and I appreciate you taking this intentional breath with me.

I hope that it helped kind of get you to a place where you can understand money mindset as more than just saying affirmations about how you're going to live abundantly.

It's so much more than that,

I think.

It's an acceptance.

First and foremost,

An acceptance of where we are and accepting and knowing that where we are is great no matter where you are.

Right?

We get to think those thoughts if we choose to.

So thank you again.

Let me know if you'd like a part two and I'll see you in the next video.

Reviews

I really enjoyed this talk and the connection between intuitive eating and intuitive spending made absolute sense. I would love to hear a part 2!