Our Money Relationships
In all of our relationships, there is a link between our Thoughts, Feelings, and Actions. These three are bridges between ourselves and others. But a “relationship” is not only between two people. They exist also between people and pets and people and plants. However, we have subtle relationships with non-living objects. Our homes and our cities are some examples. These objects don’t “talk back to us”, but we feel connected to them. Our connection to our money is one of these subtle relationships. Our habitual thoughts about money can show us the impact of our mind, feelings, and actions.
The money we generate in our lives is not coming from nowhere. Habitual thought, feelings, and actions, has every person generating a different amount of money for themselves – from the abject poor to the super-rich. The relationship we have built with our money is very intimate, and can “feel” like it’s with a living, breathing person. If we have several sources of income, we even might have several different relationships to our sources of money. In other words, depending on our thoughts and feelings, money can feel like a “Reliable Friend” or an “Abusive Partner”.
Take a look at the list below:
| Reliable friend | Big Dreamer | Business Partner | Newlywed |
| Sugar Daddy or Sugar Mama | Generous Grandparent | Sophisticated Socialite | Prostitute or Pimp |
| Neglective Guardian | Spouse you take for granted | Defender | Blind Date |
| Rich Aunt or Uncle | Status symbol | Benefactor | “Catch me if you can” guy |
| Abusive Partner | Shopping buddy | Poor cousin or Poor Relative | Heartbreaker |
| Protective Parent | Best friend | Mood Enhancer | Fling / Non-emotional Tryst |
| Secret Admirer | Ego-stroker/ Yes man | Adopted child or Teenager | Someone who stood you up |
| Surprise visitor/ Unexpected Guest | A great lover who is never available | Spouse you can never please or do anything right for | Hidden affair/ Secret rendezvous |
| A growing child you nurture | Constant companion | Elusive Playmate | Wild Adolescent |
| Dysfuntional sibling | Beautiful Mistress | Non-committed Boyfriend | Boring Date |
| Sexual Tease | Party Pooper | Part-time Lover | Vulnerable Baby / Newborn |
| Disappointing Lover | Distant Sweetheart | Runaway Child | Motivator |
| The promise maker | Insatiable Wife or Husband | A One Night Stand | Proud Parent |
Remember, money is an inanimate object. But, when we’ve built a relationship to it, we’ve animated it in our minds. It becomes REAL to us, whether it generates wealth or keeps us in poverty.
Try to remember the thoughts you had about money before you started working. What were you telling yourself in school? Were you unmotivated to become a graphic designer, so that you now feel the money you earn from it is like a “Dysfunctional Sibling”? Is it because you love cooking that your catering business feels like a “Best Friend”?..
The thought-relationships we have with our money started in our childhoods. Try to remember the attitudes you learned from your parents about money? Were you given a weekly allowance and came to expect it? Does the 80,000 dollars you inherit each year from your Grandmother’s Trust Fund feel like a “Boring Date”? Does the paper route you did at 12 make you feel money is a “Vulnerable Baby”? Were you expected to work in the family business after school? Were you forced to beg or steal?… These childhood memories are our first interactions with money. Our first experiences in how we can generate it. As a child, we may not be able to understand what Divine Abundance is, but we quickly understand money and what we can do with it! These childhood thoughts and feelings follow us into our adulthood more than we realize.
Once we start going to school, working, or starting a business, we also start thinking about how we will relate to the money we will be generating in our jobs. Do we want it to be our “Best Friend”, our “Ego Stroker”, or a “Hidden Affair”? These thoughts can motivate us or de-motivate us, but they are with us step-by-step as we take our college exams, go on job interviews, and write out our business plans. We unconsciously act in the ways we will relate to the money we earn.
Take a day to write down each one of your sources of income and “the relationship” you feel you are having with it. For example, “The money I get from my day job feels like a Reliable Friend. The money I get from doing overtime feels like my Shopping Buddy. And the money I get helping at my brother’s bakery feels like an Unexpected Guest”.
(Write your own 2 or 3 word description of the relationship you feel if it ‘s not in the chart above).
Even though we have these relationships with our money, all of them were learned. Irrespective of the amount of money we have in the bank, we weren’t born with any of these thoughts or feelings. Even people who were born into rich families had to learn to think of money in their own intimate way. That is why some rich people think of their money as a “Generous Grandparent”, while others may think of it as a “Party Pooper”. Born into poor families, we might think of money as “The Promise Maker” or an “Elusive Playmate”. While the middle-class might think of it as a “Reliable friend” or “A growing child you nurture”.
Whatever we have learned can be un-learned. We can re-program our thoughts, and be more conscious of how we are habitually thinking about the money we manifest. Thoughts have power! Thoughts and feelings affect the actions we take to generate money. Starting a new source of income can give us new opportunities to empower our thoughts. We can consciously choose to put positive and abundant thoughts into a business, idea, or plan. From the beginning, it can’t hurt to start calling our new growth prospect “My Beautiful Mistress” or “My Bountiful Benefactor”. Why not?… If that’s what you hope it will be.
At the very least, repeating or thinking this while you work will give you tremendous energy!