Wealth Reckoning

The intersection of shame and money that fuels ambition.

It’s happening—that tight, straitjacket feeling of suffocation that arrives as fog rolling into the intimate harbor of my brain.

I am unaware of time or where I am supposed to be and why. My body struggles to function properly as I stare aimlessly out the window, wondering when the men in suits show up at my door and agressively tell me, “Ma’am, it’s time for you to leave the premise. We have reserved a spot for you under the nearest bridge where a Target grocery cart will be waiting for you with your all your belongings upon arrival”.

The chest beckons to dissolve the dark coal wrapped in chains around my heart, making it hard to breathe.

I’ve once heard that “worry is like worshiping the problem".

I like to use the loose band-aid of worrying like it’s heroin, believing it will numb me from my suffering, yet it sinks me deeper into a lack of self-trust, feeding the worry.

“Just don’t look at the numbers. Stay vague. You can’t handle the disgust you will feel.”

Instead, exhaustion sits in my lap like a cat waiting to be pet, where peace and serenity feel like a faraway fantasy.

I was convinced that once I made a lot of money, everything would feel safe, cozy, and relaxed.

I thought that once I began earning it consistently, the flow would never cease.

I wouldn’t have to rely on anyone but myself.

But that is not how my version of God works.

God’s reckoning of my money patterns is a hurricane I like to call Katrina. She desires to test every brick of stability that has been built to withstand her gale-force winds. She invites me to witness where I have maken other people my higher power so that I will come back to myself and build a stronger infrastructure emotionally, spiritually and physically.

While a secure foundation has been built through self awareness, spreadsheets, and love, lots of love, Hurricane Katrina will always blow through town to test how strong my systems are in place. She wants to see how far down a shame spiral I will go before I come back to myself and make room for the whisper, “Come closer. I’ve got you. Move towards me”.

The whisper takes me back to the scene of the original wound. It’s summer 2004 in Annapolis, Maryland. I come home from university in Alabama knowing a reckoning is about to occur. My attendance to class the previous semester was like your avoidant boyfriend showing up when he needs something-sparce and uninterested.

Six months earlier, my father announced that he had lost his high-paying executive-level job, was being investigated by the SEC, and in a worst-case scenario, might even go to prison. My parents were tinkering on their second marriage separation, and my younger brother had been arrested for pubic intoxication at college. As the eldest daugther,I was left with the words, “Please just focus on your studies and don’t get into trouble. It’s stressful here at home, and we can’t handle much else.”

Keep it together?

What am I keeping together?

The pressure cooker of perfectionism?

No matter how much I tried to cover up my pain with madras skirts, popped collars and Ralph Lauren cable knit sweaters, my subconscious took over, and I dissociated from my life and relied on tequila shots and sex with my not-so-virgin-anymore boyfriend. Hence, going to class became an afterthought.

It’s the last day of my home visit in the summer of 2004, and I believe I have performed my way to the finish line without punishment. I was wrong. My parents asked me to meet them on the back porch just thirty minutes before we are supposed to leave for the airport and I was to head back to Auburn with my boyfriend unscathed. With concerned, serious faces, I was informed that my college tuition would no longer be paid for due to my lack of effort and attendance.

I was enraged and mortified. I knew something had to change, but I didn’t realize it was going to be this drastic. The shame and embarrassment without an offering of emotional support and curiousity created the story, “This is all my fault. I am a bad person”. A perfectionist’s worst nightmare.

My parents made the right decision, which led to me learn how to become self sufficent as an adult financially. But there was a missing piece that has re-created that trauma over and over again until I confronted the grief under neath. I needed a hug, a shoulder to cry on, curiousity and ompassionate support to move through this big “T” trauma which my parents had zero capacity for at the time. It is also not the American Irish-Catholic way.

I took that self-blame and shame and left school which I eventually came back to to focus on what made me feel high outside of sex and alcohol: self-sufficiency through working and making money. If I couldn’t feel emotionally safe within my family, I sure as hell could find some sense of security through not having to rely on anybody and having money felt like a giant exhale after holding my breath for an entire year.

I craved connection and belonging which felt terrifying to articulate. I settled for validation of high earnings always landing on “Top Performer” lists at work which I believed meant that I was proving my ability to take care of myself emotionally through financial means. Would someone then provide me with what I so desperately craved?

This faulty foundation never lasted long term.

I recreated the wound over and over again through up and down earning, hoping to earn the love I so desperately craved yet never addressing the underlying trauma that wanted the love, compassion, and connection from the most important person in my life: me.

The punishing of self can feel like a form of control when you are sick.

It is an act of bravery to refuse to lean into the self-blame and command our reckoning with wealth. To cry through all of the layers of grief that keep us from loving ourselves unapologetically and desiring more. Allowing the visions sourced from my peace and joy to match our business and earning brilliance. Without shame. Without the need for validation. Allowing people to love and show up for us as we learn to love ourselves better each day. Imagine what kind of world we would live in?

If I may help you overcome these incestuous cycles of suffering that are causing friction in your money patterns and business, I’d love to chat. I am currently taking one-on-one coaching and executive team facilitation clients through the fall. I would love to be of service.