4.10 | The 5 Worst Approaches to Money
Welcome to Devotional Anarchy, a podcast about intimate embodied leadership that is radically human, honest AF and thereby inherently disruptive to systems of disempowerment and disconnection. I’m Isha Vela, trauma psychologists, certified somatic practitioner, wealth wizard, licensed financial professional leadership coach, and intuitive business mentor. You’re here because you know self intimacy and self knowledge is the source of everything you want to create in your life. And that building safety and trust in your bodies would allows you to fully own and stored your energy in the direction of your desires. This season, get ready for deep dives into wealth building spirituality, emotional leadership, and human centered business with an activist twist. The conversations and tools shared in this podcast are your permission slip to manifest a life and business that lights your soul on fire and supports collective liberation.
Hello, and welcome to this episode of the podcast, which for me feels like we’re gonna have a little bit of fun, and we’re gonna be we’re gonna poke a little bit of fun at some of the trends that we’ve seen with money, I guess over the last century, but more recently,
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yeah, and so it’s gonna get serious, it’s going to kind of be fun, but it’s gonna, I think you’ll be entertained. And you’re going to learn something always. Before we do that, I want to talk about my high level one on one money, mentorship wealth, which is discounted through me. And over seven sessions together, I’ll guide you through a process of, you know, healing money wounds, using all the embodiment work that I know self relating techniques that you’ll be able to do on your own. So that you can regulate your money nervous system and reclaim your joy around managing your money, and expanding your capacity for increased income. And those sessions go along with a little library of practices, ranging from creative work to
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just really practical things, and even you know, spiritual and magical things that you can integrate very easily into your life that is designed also to integrate the work into your body. On top of that, you’ll also receive 290 minute sessions with me the first one being a financial needs analysis where we really look at what your income needs are based on your goals and dreams. And the second session is also a 90 minute session designed to basically build a roadmap for you to get to those goals and dreams like a step by step tailored process. So really merging the spiritual embodiment, and the practical all together. I don’t know anybody else who does this, by the way. But the investment is $2,400, regular price, it’s discounted by 25%. And you’d be saving $600. I have this three and six payment option available. So you can either meet me in my DMs to book or you can just click the link in the show notes. All right, so let’s go on with the five worst money approaches. So the first one is like scrimping and pinching, right? Save your pennies, budget, tighten the belt, right?
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It’s this really, you know, it’s what I grew up with, essentially, this old school old way of saving money and it feels like this hoarding kind of contraction energy around money. And it’s really like the the foundation of which is scarcity. So it doesn’t feel expansive at all.
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It’s definitely contracted even like as you pinch pennies, you kind of want to pinch your face, too. So what is true for me and what I’ve learned is that pleasure is the way to expansion.
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What when I think about healing trauma, when I think about how we expand our nervous system, it is through pleasure, because pleasure helps us establish safety. And when we feel safer in our bodies, we are automatically more expansive, we are more grounded, we are better able to integrate and metabolize whatever is moving through our system, right? It kind of speeds up the process of the trauma metabolics like healing metabolics so and you know, when I say pleasure, you know, can be very, very simple things. And in relation to money, it doesn’t necessarily mean spending, but accessing pleasure in lots of different ways and using those experiences as an intentional way of expanding your money nervous system.
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For example, pleasure for me can be taking a walk in the morning, like regulating your system looking at beautiful trees outside or going for a hike or it can be like
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Having a cup of tea in the morning, like whatever it is for you, it’s going to be different for everybody. But whatever it is for you is going to work for your system, right? Because it’s going to give you the maximum pleasure. What is pleasurable for one person is not pleasurable for another, right. So it’s very personal. And when I was doing this very intentionally I know it was, it was the fall of 2020. And a tree had just fallen on my house. So I was moving from one Airbnb to another, bouncing around and looking for a more permanent place to stay while my house got fixed. And one of the place that we that we stayed at was really close to the downtown where I live. And we took one day, I think it was after school to walk. No, it was not after school, because school was remote. We took a walk downtown from from the apartment, and we went to kind of spontaneously to eat ice cream. And I can’t have ice cream, because it’s dairy and sugar. But just like just the walk, just being with my kids. And just deciding that we were going to treat ourselves just felt so luxurious. And then we sat in a park and enjoyed it and chatted and that just like, it gave me so much pleasure to do something that at the moment felt like it couldn’t be done, because we had to have masks on and we had to be careful. But we were still kind of like kind of expanding into the world. And we were spending time together and my, my heart was so happy. So it can be something very simple like that.
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And that most of the pleasure work that I did was, you know, in the confines
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of the pandemic, because that’s what was available to me. So most of the work that I did was when expansion was really movement based and nature based, so it doesn’t need to involve money.
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All right, moving on to,
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you know, the second worst money approach. And that is the universe will provide, if you know, there’s different versions of it, of course, but one of them is if you are in pleasure, the universe, the universe will provide right? So it’s going to connect it to pleasure, it’s there’s been a lot of spiritual bypassing the pleasure based movement. So it needs to come after the pleasure piece, right? So just being in your pleasure, just leaning back and being new pleasure, the money will just come you will be in your receptive energy, you will be in your feminine flow. It’ll all just happen.
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But yes, and no, I have been guilty of this one.
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And the truth is, you know, like, I need to be really honest with you. I’ve never known the universe not to provide Okay, so but on the one hand, it is totally true. I’ve been in some, like gnarly financial situations where like, shit just aligned and came in at the right time. And I’m just like, oh my god, like literally, oh, my God, you’re amazing, thank you.
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But when it sort of, it’s what it feels lopsided, when you’re also not taking the action to create tangible financial security, when you’re also not tracking your income and expenses, that’s when you are turning a blind eye. Right? That’s when you are,
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you know, engaging in subtle avoidance, you are living in illusion. So it’s really a both and
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and, you know, I want to make a note here also of
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delu mindset,
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right, because I I am definitely a what I think is a healthy, healthy, delusional thinker. And I have really found my self in places where I’m just like, oh my god, am I in delusion? Or am I in like, healthy delusion? Am I like, what is the difference there and it feels like a fine line sometimes. And for me, it is the absence of calm concrete actions and behaviors that you’re taking that make it a delusion, like an unhealthy delusion or an illusion. So, you know, so like,
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sometimes we get into the spaces where we’re just like, oh, the universe will provide I don’t really need to do anything except like, like, again, like leaning back into my feminine flow. Well, yes, you need to make sure that you are, you know,
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paying your bills and, and selling your shit if you are.
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If you have your own business, right, you need to make sure that you’re putting your offers out there that people can see it right or you have systems in place so that money can come to you that there’s a you have a funnel in place where people can find you and you know, you’re
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on some platforms and you have visibility, right, so you’re just, you’re just making sure that you’re taking the steps you’re making the aligned actions that are in, that are in alignment, I guess, with the belief that the universe will provide because you are providing for yourself, okay?
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All right, number three stupid money tricks. So the third would be spending money just because you have it.
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And this is kind of like the balance point between the first one of pinching pennies. So I am not suggesting you pinch pennies. And I’m not suggesting that you spend because you have to spend, of course, everyone is allowed to do whatever they want. But I have to confess that
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as someone with OCD, and was, like, you know, grew up in a very like, in a situation where I had to be resourceful in a lot of different ways, like, waste drives me freaking crazy. It drives me crazy. So I don’t like food waste, I don’t like any kind of waste.
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So
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I feel like, what I want to what I support people moving towards is a having a devotional relationship with their resources with the resources that they have, like, I am part of a
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food distribution group, or I am the recipient, the blessing the food distribution group. And when I received this free food, essentially, I’m just like, I feel so blessed. And I’m just like, I want to take care of that food. I want to cook it with care. Right? It’s just everything. I want to treat it with preciousness and with reverence. And, and that’s kind of how I try to live my life as much as possible is really giving all of the resources I have, whether they’re my clothing or my food are just like my blessings. I want to give them love and attention.
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And, you know, I’m also as a as an OCD person, you know, who hates waste? I’m also very judicious and discerning about what I do with my resources. Right. So it’s like, devotion, it’s discernment. It is judiciousness or mindfulness. You know, you want to treat the things with care, and not just be like, Oh, well, this is this is a piece of plastic, I don’t need it anymore, or like this phone doesn’t work anymore. I’m just gonna buy a new one. I think that we need to shift from either this wastefulness or this, like the scarcity. And the wastefulness is like, the way that it comes together and balances out for me is in this discernment is in this judiciousness. And the way that I experience and the way that I help people understand it, is that, you know, when you have boundaries,
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you learn to manage your energy, you’re not scattering your energy and all these different places, you you’re judicious about who you spend time with, about who you’re vulnerable with, who you get into relationships or partnerships with, right, you are discerning about how you manage your energy. And in the same way, because money is an extension of your energy, you want to be doing the same with your cash. So the same way that I protect my boundaries, that my energy is the same way that I protect my cash flow. So you know, the point here is to stored in alignment with your values, right? So I don’t spend money on things that I don’t believe in. Sometimes I have to, like I just this morning, I spent money on, you know, fixing my tire because there was a nail in and out of flat tire. Right? Those are things that can’t be helped. I’d rather not spend that money, but the emergency came up and I had to deal with it fine.
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But, you know, when my kids want to buy junk, or junk food or junk plastic things, I’m just like, I don’t want to spend my money on that. That’s not where I want my attention and my energy to go when I don’t want to support that with my money. And so I want to just bring in, okay, this is a serious piece we’re going to bring in now, I do want to talk about the recession for a minute because nobody’s talking about it. And it’s and in a way, I’m not talking about it because nobody’s talking about it, but I feel like I need to talk about it.
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It’s like the silent recession. On the one side, you’re hearing economists say everything’s fine.
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And,
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but people are feeling it at the grocery store, they’re feeling it when they pay their rents.
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And I see a lot of people spending like we’re not in a recession. And just to be very clear with the numbers, food prices have gone up 3.1% In one year, between 2023 and 2024.
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And it’s jumped by 24%, a whole quarter, almost all quarter in the last four years, basically since COVID. And of course, you know, they’re they’re tying it to labor shortages due to the pandemic, ongoing chain supply, disruption, droughts, avian flu, but you don’t hear a lot of people talking about it. And there’s a part of me, that thinks it’s kind of bullshit, it feels kind of bullshitty. So
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as I experienced it, and I, as I see other people experience it, I feel like we’re not talking about it, because there’s not much we can do about it, because we need food to survive, right? So we adjust, we end up, you know, spending, like, it’s a luxury. And I’ve adjusted some of my grocery buying behavior, I don’t, you know, I spend less time than money at Costco or at Whole Foods, and I spend more time at all these or whatever, you know, but there are adjustments that need to be made in situations like this, right? Like, we can still be expansive in an economic contraction, but we can be expensive in different ways. Right? So I feel like that the not changing your behavior when we are in a, you know, not everybody has to again, you get to do with your money, but what you want, but I feel like
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I want to invite you to be mindful and aware. Awareness is really the invitation here.
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So the fourth, stupid Money, money, advice or trend is to change your money, mindset, money, mindset, money mindset. So this is what you see predominantly out in the online space is money mindset, focused on thoughts and how thoughts influence behavior. And money mindset ignores first of all, systemic inequities, and ignores how some people grow up in environments where they don’t see people who look like them thriving. Right? So it’s not a matter of mindset. It’s like a whole friggin life experience. And that you have to really
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embody something that you’ve never even witnessed, except for maybe on television. Right, but that you have not experienced in real life. So that’s a big leap to make. And it’s not going to happen just with mindset, that is a whole becoming identity process that needs to happen.
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money mindset, and focus on money mindset also ignores trauma, which of note, of course, ignores the body, right, there is so much that we hold in our bodies that is related to psychic imprints to be totally woowoo about it.
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And just unconscious decisions that we make, when we are young, right, that we make that are not necessarily cognitive, thought oriented, they might develop even before we
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they might be formed before we form language, or the capacity to speak and reason. Or when our reasoning is has that distorted child reasoning. So So yeah, like it. All the unconscious work is like cannot be accessed, you know, through conscious thought, or money mindset. And that’s why it’s so important to really kind of like look behind the curtain at what’s happening on the cellular level, on the intuitive level, unconsciously. That’s where the really sticky stuff is living, right. And when we think about attachment and money, usually it’s in nonverbal spaces, and you access nonverbal spaces through right, going inward and attuning inward and letting your body to speak to you. You have to have the capacity and the ability, the skill to listen to your body and to speak to your body and ask the questions so that your body can respond and give you the answers right it’s not that hard to learn.
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And it develops over time and your intuition right like gets stronger
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longer, but it’s not about, it’s not about money mindset.
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And I’ve had in my, in my money trauma healing process, there are things that I’ve on earth that are so like that I don’t even know what they’re connected to, because it’s so decontextualized. And so like, not in my lifetime that I’m just like, Okay, I don’t know what that was, but we just moved the energy of that. So, you know, so much of what’s in our bodies, we don’t have the language to describe, we just have sensation, we just have images that come up, right. And when I work with people, I tell them, you know, tune into the times channels, right. So this times, this means thoughts,
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is for images, M is for movement.
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E is for emotions, and SS for sensation. And thoughts are just just one of the channels, they’re not all of the channels, and usually our dominant channel, because that’s how we are raised is to focus on thinking and thoughts and ideas. But
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but when you focus on those other ones, I feel like you it’s becomes a much richer experience and a much deeper excavation into the funny stuff. Alright, so the fifth one, our last, our last, like, worst approach to money.
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So the fifth one is,
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do more muscle
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would fast. So clearly, working harder, doesn’t necessarily generate more income.
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And we see this, there’s tons of people who work really friggin hard on this planet really, really hard. So we know that working hard, just by observation doesn’t generate more income. Even if you have education, and a,
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you know, a job that pays relatively well, working harder doesn’t necessarily generate more income, even if you’re an entrepreneur. So again,
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for me, it is about being strategic about your time and energy. And
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I know that Gay Hendricks has talked about this in his book,
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The Big Leap about operating in your zone of genius. And I know that we are, you know, in different stages of your business business, you can’t always operate in your zone of genius, it is quite a privilege to do so. And sometimes you have to, at times when you’re going to be doing things that you don’t like to do, like, Oh, I’m gonna, you know, upload this to YouTube, and I’m going to send a link, and I’m going to write, we’d rather have somebody else do that. Because we can, we can do that we have the skills to do that. But it really takes it’s not time efficient, it’s not energy efficient.
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But if you can, if you have the space to be strategic about your time and energy, then do so hire the people who are going to be able to support you so that you can do the things that you’re really good at. And that way you can focus on the revenue generating activities. And this is something that I’ve, that I’ve spoken about with with clients too, is this, like, why are you spending time doing this activity, when you can be focusing your energy there, let’s say reaching out to potential clients or following up with clients that were already interested, like, move your energy, their direct your energy there, and that will generate more, more income? Or why don’t you really get clear about your messaging, and really focus on the inner healing that you need to do in order to bring your voice out fully and authentically and clearly so that people can find you and like buy your shit. You know, so messaging is one of those things that’s like that is focusing on that and learning how to do that is a revenue generating activity and getting that down, Pat. So I guess there’s more I need to say about working harder. Yes, working harder.
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Usually when I see people working hard
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there’s a feeling of scarcity there too.
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I feel like underneath that there is this
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belief that yeah, money is just got to
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do there’s a reluctance I guess to be or or an unfamiliarity, rather,
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of being able to really like lean back and allow it to be easy.
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See, right? There’s this belief about, it needs to be hard. And maybe you came from a long line of people for whom it was really hard. And so you don’t know anything else on the cellular level. And sometimes the hardest thing is letting shouldn’t be easy. You know, the kind of like, that’s so unfamiliar to our system. It’s like, Wait, there must be something wrong with that. How is it that you know, when you look at like, I don’t know, a business plan, for example, and you’re just like, wait, I would only need to work four hours a day? How is that possible? No, right. So it can, it can bring up experiences like that. So letting it be easy, getting out of that, that scarcity of having to like work harder, which is also a mismanagement of energy. That all falls underneath the five worst approaches to money. So I’ll recap. five worst approaches to money. The first one being, save and budget, scrimp and pinch this is your
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the advice from your lovely baby boomers, which worked for them doesn’t work. Now, by the way, I don’t think it ever worked. Then number two would be the universe will provide. Number three is spending because you have it. Number four is change your money mindset. And number five is just work harder. So I hope this was a humorous and
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maybe learn something too. So I hope that it was good for you, and I’ll see you on the next episode.
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Thank you for listening to today’s episode. Remember to hit the subscribe button to get notified of new episodes dropping on the new and full moons of each month. And if you haven’t already, leave us a five star review on iTunes to make sure that everyone who needs this transmission receives it. Until the next episode, I’m sending you fierce fierce love.