Holistic Financial Coaching
Part 2 The Process
In today’s Western medicine, the treatment of illness, the “cure,” focuses on the illness itself – the symptoms, how it hurts, its pain points.
When treating an illness holistically, we look to the root of the illness, rather than the symptom itself.
In the story of the Princess and the Pea… it was the pea under all those fluffy mattresses that were causing the princess pain.
Holistically, we start the process by examining the pea rather than the top few mattresses. Pull out the pea, and the princess will have a great night’s sleep!
In terms of money, most see the symptom or illness… since it usually is what’s causing us pain or discomfort.
The pain points can look like high debt, no savings, overspending, no financial plan, no confidence in the ability to manage money, justified and unjustified financial fear. If you can think of any more pain points, please make a comment below… because it helps everyone-even me-to identify the pain.
A normal approach to correcting a financial issue would be to make a plan. Don’t get me wrong, that’s a fantastic start… but if we don’t root out what caused the problem in the first place, then the plan, most likely, is destined to fail. Even if the plan works, the root of unease and uncertainty most likely will remain.
Holistically, we can see the financial pain point, so we can then determine why the discomfort started in the first place.
The root of the issue… the pea under the mattresses.
We begin by exploring our financial history. Where and when did our financial unease start? What are our first money memories? How old were we when we first learned about money? What did our ancestors pass down to us to create this financial unease? What was their money story, and what was passed down to them?
In the investigation process itself, we begin to unravel and heal the causes of the financial imbalance, the financial fear, the money hook… the pea.
We get clear on how, when, and why the thread of money angst started.
The great news is that usually, in most cases, having that awareness alone is enough to start to unhook these old money stories.
Once we’ve identified the hook, then we can unhook it-or ask it to step aside for us-so we can then start building a financial plan.
We identify what has meaning and purpose. What do we value? We look to the future, what we want to move toward. How can our character strengths support us to get there? Then we take an inventory of our finances and begin to build a financial plan to move toward the goal.
Sounds exciting and doable, doesn’t it?
True financial freedom isn’t just about money in the bank, it’s about peace of mind and living the life your soul brought you here to live! So at the end of our lives we can say to ourselves, “Job well done.”
Holistically speaking, how does money affect our mind, body, and soul?
My next blog will focus on-The 6 pillars of health-physical, emotional, spiritual, social, intellectual, intuitive-and how we can use our money to positively affect our health.
