On money

Money is one of those big topics, up there with death, politics, s*x, and other touchy subjects that people can find it difficult to share about… so naturally it’s somewhere we go in mentoring sessions. ;-)

I’ve been asked a few times lately about money… specifically how and where I have learned about money. Like 4 times in ten days.

When repeating questions or conversations come up, I take it as a sign to share as it becomes obvious there’s a common thread in the collective.

In the Stalking Wolf Vision Quest lineage, they talk about ‘filling the holes in your bucket’ as part of living a vision-aligned life. The holes in your bucket are the places where energy leaks out in the form of dysfunction, drama, patterns of behaviour etc.

At the end of my Quest, I asked what’s next from here… the answer was simple - ‘fill the holes in your bucket’. I made a list of the places that were a bit gnarly or uncomfortable that I had been averting my gaze from for a while… family relationships, physical strength/mobility, my relationship with money, and other things were on that list. I now had a map to focus my attention…

So, on the subject of money, here’s who I have learned from and wholeheartedly recommend to others who are interested.

Firstly, the being with money I learned in a group with Lotus Kruse called Money Love based on the book and work of Meadow DeVor. This group is only for women and is a private, confidential space. There are women with all sorts of circumstances and experiences who deepen their being with money in this group. Some with lots of money, some with not enough, some with inherited money, some with multiple businesses and properties, some recently divorced etc. It’s a deep and gentle dive into your beliefs, conditioning, experiences, and trauma around money and how that affects your actions.

This is where I first learned about financial trauma, the feast/famine cycle, and how many women are catching up on financial education, self-governance, and intergenerational wealth creation after generations of women before us were excluded via policy and culture. It’s also where I learned the men and women play out their money ‘stuff’ using different tactics to hide or self-sabotage hence why this is a women’s only space.

Here is the link to Money Love with Lotus or you can find the book online.

Then there’s the doing of money. Many of us didn’t get solid practical, relevant-to-us financial teaching from our parents or schooling, but often we have this belief we should just know how to do money. We also likely didn’t learn that there’s no one-size-fits-all when it comes to earning, saving, spending, and investing… once you allow for gender, conditioning, personality, neurodivergence, and other factors there are many ways to adapt the doing of money to suit individuals.

I recently did a course with Mel Browne that is an education in becoming your own financial planner. Mel and her teaching partner Lauren are both ex Accountants and Financial Planners who retired their licenses to become financial educators. The My Financial Adulting Plan course is the result of them pooling their experience into chunk-sized modules and adding in a lot of support. The content, delivery, and flow of the course are genius. It’s efficient and effective, it’s not overwhelming, and it’s not too long. Their combined quirky/dry delivery style keeps it from becoming dull and tedious.

The outcome is you have your own detailed financial plan for your future that you’ve created for your unique circumstances and goals that you know how to manage and tweak as you go. Along the way, you learn your Money Type and the best ways to work with yourself instead of forcing it to be different… (ie: gamifying saving and investing works for my type) you also get confident investing, and you learn ways to manage money with your partner and many other practical topics.

This course is open to everyone, although more women than men were in the course when I did it. The pricing is very reasonable and other household members can do the course for the same price, which is such a great offer.

I highly recommend it. I have eight nieces and nephews in their 20’s, I am currently speaking with them all about this course so they get on track early.

Here is the link to MFAP. (The next course starts on 30th July, you need to be on the waitlist to enroll)

Lastly, I am currently in a group with my teacher, Perri Chase called Magnet. This is on the energetics of money (and other things). We are cycling through the four quadrants of magnetism multiple times over the year, deepening each time… Reception (feminine), Holding (masculine), Creation (feminine), and Participation (masculine).

While Perri’s work is available to everyone, it’s not for everyone. It’s by application and you gotta be ready for it, she doesn’t hold back.

I’ll report back on that later in the year.

There are many other books and pods and people I’ve collected info from over the years… I can recall reading about ‘raising your havingness ceiling’ which was impactful, perhaps it was by Dr Carolyn Elliot (now Lovewell) but this article covers the concept as well.

I also read something Amanda Frances wrote about the energetics of raising your baseline first rather than focusing on increasing your topline, which was a helpful concept to add to the mix at the time… her book also wove her counseling wisdom in with her relationship with god in a way that I hadn’t seen before and enjoyed.

I’ve listed the resources where I’ve had big openings and shifts and cover the emotional, the literal, and the magical of money.

As always, I’d love to hear from you on your relationship with money and resources… please let me know of anyone doing great work on money specifically for men. You can email me at tamara@tamarathebrave.com.

With love, always…
Tamara