At the end of her blog today about how her shopping vice is not unlike a smoker’s addiction, Alexis, my eldest daughter asks, “I haven’t yet figured out the root of my misguided desires, but as this year unfolds before me, I vow to look within my heart (and my closets) to find out.”
And I want to add… You might want to look into your family of origin too honey!
I come from a long line of acquisition soothers. A family of people who used buying things to soothe ruffled feathers, disturbed emotions and uncomfortable feelings. To stuff what we didn’t want to feel, we bought what we didn’t need.
As a child, I remember my parents arguing, a lot, about money. The lack of its greenery cast a dark shadow on every family affair. My father was a spendthrift. A poor money manager, he truly did believe in the philosophy, if there are cheques in my cheque book, there’s money in my account.
My mother was more practical, more concerned about holding to account our spending.
My father’s voice was louder. My mother eventually lost her voice.
Growing up, whenever there was discord, my father bought us something to soothe it over. We didn’t talk about hurt feelings, or familial upsets. We bought our way into forgetting.
Those are the memories of my childhood. And in their shadow, the adage, “Money is the root of all evil,” became the belief, “Talking, thinking, doing anything around money (and anything else that upset me) is unsafe. It will only cause distress and discord.”
So, I never talked about money. Nor did I really think about what I was doing with it. And to stuff down my feelings of discomfort, I spent whatever money I had to avoid the distress having to think about it created.
When I was in that abusive relationship that almost killed me, money was how he eventually came to control me. He started with giving me gifts. Lots of them. And then, it was money. And then, once I became accustomed to his largesse, he took it all away. I became ‘the burden’ and money became the issue. To ease the burden, I gave him whatever I had, whatever I could. I didn’t care about ‘the money’, I cared more about stopping his anger, his yelling, his blaming of me as the cause of his distress. I wanted the prince charming I’d met to replace the prince of darkness raging before me.
“Look at all I’ve given you,” he’d scream. I couldn’t stand his rage so I gave in, continuously, until I no longer had anything to give. I’m simplifying, it was more complicated and darker than that, but money definitely was a point of attack for him to access my psyche. And because I had such poor boundaries around the issue, I was an easy target.
The irony? It was eventually a cancelled cheque that lead the police to arresting him. In the final four months, he was attempting to escape the country and took me with him when he fled the city. He had promised that a) he had money in the states and would ‘make it all right’ once he was out of the country; and b) he’d let me go once he got out of the country and could make it ‘all right’. Ahh, the lies we believe when first we set out to give into deceit…
In those dark and final months of that living hell, money was tight and one day, I found a cheque at the bottom of my purse a girlfriend had written to pay me back for something I’d bought for her. Not willing to do anything without his approval, I gave him the cheque. He cashed it. Because we were hiding out in a small town west of Vancouver, it was easy for the police to track him once my girlfriend gave the police the cancelled cheque with the bank’s stamp on it.
At the time, I did not have the mental capacity to think through the ripple of that cheque, beyond the message I hoped she’d get — I was alive. Just barely. But I was alive.
I was blessed. My girlfriend and another angel had not given up on finding me and here I am today. Free. Loving my life and living in the rapture of now.
But there are still residual issues that linger — issues that are embedded deeper into my psyche than the almost 5 years of that relationship.
And they stem back to my own family of origin beliefs about money. And they reach forward to my daughter’s family of origin learnings about… money.
In her excellent book, “The Energy of Money: A Spiritual Guide to Financial and Spiritual Fulfillment” author, Maria Nemeth, PhD asks, “Does [how you use money] bring lasting satisfaction, or are you using it for instant gratification because your life is off-kilter? These are the questions that bring clarity to your hero’s journey.”
I like clarity on my hero’s journey.
I like being true to me, myself and I.
Time to go back to The Energy of Money and redo the work of ensuring I am using money and other forms of energy to intentionally express myself with love and joy in this world of wonder.
Namaste.
Dare Boldly 
Thank you Gail! Online shopping makes it too easy I think to use it as an avoidance of what we don’t want to think about!
Sad that women are leading the way — we need to be leaders, just not in this way!
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Awesome post! And kudos to your daughter for having such insight. According to a local/international finance advisor for persons “young & younger”, Ms. Lesley Scorgie, on-line shopping is changing how we spend and women are leading the way in this regard. I don’t think this is good news! Any addiction ultimately helps to avoid emotions & thoughts the person is uncomfortable with – whether the fix is in a pipe, at work or on a credit card. And even if spending or $$ isn’t a full out addiction, many of us have a relationship with money that isn’t necessarily healthy. Looking within ones heart & closet is a good place to start…
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I loved this post but not sure why, money has never been that important to me nor to Tim maybe because we don’t have any………lol
I am amazed at all you have been through and how postive you are
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Thanks for a great post.
Every time I read your posts how strong you are and feel I could never get to where you are today, you include a post showing your vulnerable side and your humility in accepting yourself as human. Wonderful story about your friend and sister being there for you too …it brought me to tears and I am so glad for you that you had two people who loved you so much, even in your darkest days.
The pain of differences in our perceptions on ‘money’ and ‘stuff’, although not the trigger, certainly contributed to the death of our marriage so I understand all you have spoken about in this post regarding money. I am not a “stuff” person (although there is always room for improvement :)) .
There is an excellent book by Geneen Roth titled “Lost and Found” where this lady describes the agony she went through after losing all her money in an investment scam, and it made her examine life’s real values, but she also traced back to her love / hate relationship with money in general. It is well worth the read. It is a book you pick up and cannot put down.
Oh that’s right, there is one thing I do disagree with in the above comments. Books cannot be counted as “stuff” 🙂
Keep on, keeping on …. you are so inspiring
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Ahhh Susan. Thank you! My mother’s heart is so grateful for your words — isn’t she amazing? 🙂 I am so blessed.
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I’m completely engrossed in your daughter’s journey/blog and the further insight you share with us here.
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Thanks for the added insight into your past because it makes me realize anew what an amazing person you are to have come out of such a nightmare into the the glow of what you represent now. You are such an inspiration.
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Thank you so much Julie — someone asked me recently how I manage to not burn out, or become distraught about all that’s wrong in the world — and I replied — because I believe in love and wonder and magic and miracles everyone. And, because I believe to give into the sorrow is to discredit the miracle I got that day in May when he was arrested and I got my life back. I got that miracle to live in joy, and so I do! 🙂 Hugs to you Julie — you inspire me!
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You keep me going!
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As always I am so glad that you take on the tough issues.
At a recent energy clearing my healer zoned in on how my ‘fear’ around the absence of money (READ: long term security) was showing up energitically. She said:
“3rd chakra (solar plexus) – There is a huge heaviness that shows up around the sense of “responsibility” that comes with having money – this comes from a childhood story that was put onto you – if you can disconnect these two items, your financial picture will change dramatically”.
YIKES! What do do with this information??
STAY TUNE!
Dianne
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The book I mentioned today is very powerful in moving you through the letting go — of the stories and the connections that keep you stuck.
I look forward to your update Dianne! Hugs
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As always, Louise, a wonderful post. I remember well, the day that JD phoned me to tell me that she had a cancelled cheque returned and should she tell someone as it showed the name of a town in B.C. where you might possibly be. We all had stayed (your friends and family) connected by phone trying to figure out what had happened and where you might have gone. Going to the CPS a couple of times proved fruitless on my part. I immediately told JD to phone Dectective “Smith” and let him know, as he had been so very kind and helpful. I know that this little issue (it was huge at the time) isn’t what your blog is about but I just wanted you to know. So glad that you are able to write/blog and be yourself. Your loving sis, Jackie
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Thanks so much Jackie — it is amazing the prism through which these events filter — and the many facets that created the beauty today. Thanks for being there always for me big sis! Love you too.
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Thank you, Louise. This is powerful sharing. And how wonderful to have developed such insight into the root causes of a pattern of behaviour, because this is truly the route of freeing ourselves. In their wonderful book about money, Your Money or Your Life, Vicky Robin and Joe Dominguez talked about what they called ‘gazingus pins’ – the things on which we spend our life energy without thinking. For me, those were often books, and it took me a very long time to realize that the issue for me was my belief in my own power to assimilate and use knowledge – not to have tons of books on the shelves. I still like books, of course 🙂 But I have considerably fewer than I used to have. It seems to be a slow and gradual process, in some ways – this sloughing off of things – and a process where we need to learn to be kind to ourselves.
Have a lovely day 🙂
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I too love books Hope — but enough is enough. I find myself slowing down on my acquisition of them — I’ve made a deal I can’t buy new until I read the old!
Lovely comments — thanks so much!
and yes, my day was lovely. Hope yours was too.
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Elgie,
I am always intrigued by the permutations of retail therapy – a fix by another name. Some people are casual/social users, some are bingers and others are compulsive daily users.
It is a symptom of so many issues/problems we would rather paste over than deal with – and what better way to paste over the hurt, the sore or the scab than a new item of clothing, kitchen gadget/things, furniture, cars, trips, houses .. the list goes one.
I’ve been focusing some thinking lately on the subtle and very powerful shift that comes from another branch of the money tree.
That is, this shift from having ‘not enough money’, to ‘having a bit more than we need’ without stopping at the ‘just enough’ place for a while.
The ‘not enough’ stage is hell .. deep or shallo .. it is debilitating, going down, going backward – having fallen and unable to get up. Then, along comes ‘a bit more than we need’ mode. Not excess, but the lift of worry. Not enough to buy Armani. Just enough to buy enough to meet needs and have a little left over for breathing room.
The psychological lift of that is huge. A greater lift is the boost that comes from knowing life is in the black rather than ‘in the dreaded red’ again, still, perpetually. Not that it is perpetual, but when you are there it feels perpetual.
Keep up the great columns.
Cheers,
Mark
p.s. … when are getting together??
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Great insight Mark! Thanks — you may want to read The Energy of Money — it’s not all about the money 🙂
ps — not this weekend or next… after that…
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