Today we continue the Moving in Faith series. Once again, God is taking me in a bit of an unexpected direction, and asked me to talk about money. Specifically, I am led to talk about how part of walking in faith and spiritual growth will require healing on many levels and as odd as it may seem, money is a huge part of this.
So, first, I want to re-cap what these tests or journeys in faith serve, which is:
1, is the growth and evolution of your soul,
2, to bring you closer to or in alignment with the life you are destined for,
3, refinement, and
4, to lead you back to the truth of who you are.
So what does money have to do with all this? Well, as I mentioned in the preface to this series, through all the different seasons of faith I’ve experienced in the past decade of my life, three life areas in particular were significantly impacted, one of which is finances, but also relationships, and my sense of self-worth and relationship to self.
Not long after I made the decision to leave my lifelong home in California, I also started an inner healing journey. It wasn’t planned, that is just how the timing worked out and in hindsight I can see this was exactly how God had intended it. Not long into my inner healing journey money became a focal point of this work, because, money is very much tied to your sense of self worth and aspects of your dominant thought paradigm.
Early into my inner healing journey I learned that the vast majority of my behavior and way of operating, if not all of it, was trauma responses. It was like my entire personality, way of thinking, perception, all of it was trauma responses. Of course, I was unaware of this until I became aware of it. I just thought that’s how it was.
When the inner healing work (that is, the various books I was reading, coaching programs, digital courses and products I was using) intersected with money, I started learning that even my finances were tied to my past trauma and all the things I had to process and heal. I’d never really thought about money on a deeper level prior to that.
I just thought it was something we need to survive and that to get it you have to work. I also believed that if you wanted more money you had to work even harder, but that there was a limit – at least for me. Big wealth was only available to certain types of people and I wasn’t one of them. I also believed that it was ok to want to have more money, just not too much, nothing “unreasonable.” There was a certain imaginary line and when you crossed that level of income it was excessive.
All of this started to change when I was presented with the idea that not only is there more than enough money in the world, there was nothing keeping me from receiving whatever amount I want other than my own mind. But it isn’t as simple as changing your mind. You also have to believe that you can have it and that is where the intersection with the inner healing is.
And, so for two years I have been moving through one of the toughest and scariest seasons of my life. Over the course of this time, I lost every cent I ever earned in my life. All the planning and careful thought. All the saving up to prepare for the move and later venturing into self-employment didn’t matter.
I don’t know what the opposite of the Midas touch is but it felt like I had it. Nothing seemed to work. I sent resume after resume into void after void, never to hear anything back or to be told that despite meeting all the qualifications they were going to go with someone else. When I did find another job, it was roughly a 50% pay cut from my prior job.
When it came to my business, it seemed like it was more of the same. I invested in coaches, I read books, I studied all I could find; e-courses, master classes, you name it. I applied all the stuff and none of it worked. The accounts kept shrinking. I had many moments of terror and despair. I cried myself to sleep many nights. I questioned myself and God. Why had he called me to do this if it wasn’t going to work?
And while I went through all of this. I never turned away from God and I never doubted God. I knew He had led me to do this so I knew there had to be some reason, even if I didn’t know what that reason was. The rest of this story is still unfolding for me, but one thing has become clear to me and that is that God stripped everything away and brought me to the brink, the very edge of my limit to neutralize my relationship with money.
It was a reset. And it is so much deeper than that even. All of that money I had saved and all the things I accrued over these past decades were created from a version of me that no longer exists. A version of me driven by the flesh and the world. I had money on a pedestal. I had false values attached to it. I didn’t see it for what it truly is, which is a resource available to us abundantly from the source of all there was, is, and ever will be.
I have spent over two years doing this work. I am still doing this work, but I know in my spirit that I have completed the hardest part of the climb. There’s nothing left for me to process or examine or heal, not at this same level of intensity I experienced over these past two years. And I now understand that I had to go through all of this to be able to neutralize my relationship with money. So let’s get into it.
Money, specifically our money mindset is a huge part of inner healing. It makes sense, right? Money is a huge part of our life, we can’t live without it. Yet, many of us don’t have the greatest relationship with it. And our relationship with money affects when and how God will bless us. Why is that? Because of our conditioning around money and people who have money.
Let me give you some examples:
Money doesn’t grow on trees.
Money is evil.
We can’t afford that.
Rich people are greedy.
I don’t care about money.
All they care about is money.
Nobody should have that big of a house.
As soon as I get any money something takes it away.
I just can’t get ahead.
If I get wealthy, people won’t like me anymore.
Do any of these sound familiar? Maybe all of them sound familiar? None of these are true. None of these statements are absolute truths, they’re just beliefs.
We also have unhealthy or limiting emotions toward money:
- Guilt and shame around money; we view wanting money or materials things as bad.
- Obsession about money and material things
- Holding too tightly to our worldly possessions (so we won’t move in faith for fear of losing these things).
All of these things will get in the way and hold you back. They will lead to self-sabotage or somehow fumbling our blessings when God gives them to you.
God wants us to be abundant and taken care of and to feel safe and supported. But we have to learn to allow for that. It’s crazy the ways we will reject it or push it away, because while we want wealth and success and happiness, until we heal ourselves we don’t feel worthy of it, on some level, so we sabotage it or we run from it. It’s all subconscious.
All kinds of crazy things come up the more you do the work and the more of these layers you peel back. You get to that next level and that panic hits you: oh, this is too good, something bad is about to happen, as if we can’t just have good things happen, period.
So, if you are experiencing something right now that feels similar. If this resonates for you, I pray this will bring you some reassurance that it is just part of the process and it will work out. God will make a way for you. He will make sure you have what you need and His grace will fill the gaps as you’re navigating this.
It is not being stripped away to punish you or because it’s true that it can’t work for you. It is a reset, to neutralize your relationship with money and the material world. It’s kind of like one of those pictures you’re supposed to stare at until you see like a sailboat, or some other image within the image. It’s not until you relax your eyes and stop trying to see it that you can finally see it, and then it snaps into focus and you can’t unsee it. This is God’s way of resetting your vision to see with the spirit, with your faith.
Alright, that concludes this chapter of the Moving in Faith Series. I would love to hear from you, so please share your thoughts in the comments. If you find this helpful and want to continue the pursuit of faith, fitness, and joy with me, please like and subscribe. You can also find Faith Fitness Joy on Facebook and Instagram or check out the website at faithfitnessjoy.com. Thanks for stopping by and I will see you in the comments and on the socials!