The Root Beliefs Behind Every Financial Block
There are many ways we, as women, are keeping ourselves small when it comes to money. We feel afraid to check our bank accounts, we go on shopping sprees because we feel guilty, and then we feel even guiltier when we realise we’ve spent more than we should.
We don’t feel bad about money because we lack discipline or intelligence. Actually, we feel helpless because of beliefs we picked up watching our parents, listening to adults, hearing news reports, and absorbing all sorts of messages long before we were old enough to question them. Over time, those messages became unhelpful beliefs that continue to run behind the curtain of our awareness.
Once you learn to spot these beliefs, you can aim to rewrite them into something more useful, using tools like Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT or “tapping”) to clear the emotional charge underneath the old beliefs and support more helpful beliefs and habits around money.
In this article, we’ll go through 24 common beliefs women have about money, where they tend to come from, and how you can begin to release them.
Where Do These Beliefs Come From?
My early memories include watching my mum check her bank statement and make a pained noise, wondering out loud why she had less than she thought in her account, and telling me that next month would be tougher and we could not afford any luxuries.
Similar patterns show up in coaching sessions, in conversations with friends late at night, and in the DMs I get every week. Different women, same stories. Many of the women I work with tell me how hard it is for them to ask for money for the work they do, and they just don’t know how much they should charge. It feels so rewarding when we tap on their issues and they gradually realise that yes, they should ask for more, because they have qualifications, experience, and their work brings a lot of value to others.
That’s the thing about limiting beliefs: they rarely feel like beliefs. They feel like facts. “I’m just not good with money.” “Wanting more is greedy.” “I have to earn my rest.” I told you a bit about my mum earlier, and I do think “I have to earn my rest” is one of her beliefs. She rarely sits still. And when she does, she’s soon back on her feet, rushing off to do something else.
Such little sentences get repeated so often, by so many of us, that they start to feel like truth instead of what they actually are: old programming that once kept us safe, and now keeps us small.
We have come a long way since the days where we had to remain at home to look after our children and do all the chores, feeling secretly undervalued and not daring to tell anyone about our dreams. Could it be that some part of us still feels that we are not allowed to have ambitions when it comes to money?
What the Numbers Tell Us
A 2022 Bank of America study found that 94% of women expect to be personally responsible for their finances at some point in their lives, yet only 28% feel truly empowered to act on that responsibility. That gap, between knowing you have to take charge of your finances and feeling too unconfident, or even unwilling, to actually do it, is exactly where limiting beliefs hide.
Below are twenty-four limiting beliefs about money I hear women share again and again. As you read, pay attention to your reactions. A tightness in your chest, a little flinch, a “Oh… that’s me.” That reaction is information. It’s showing you exactly where the healing work wants to happen.
24 Beliefs About Money That Keep Women Stuck
- “I don’t deserve to have more.”
- “Money is the root of all evil.”
- “Earning more than my partner would cause problems.”
- “Wanting more is greedy or selfish.”
- “I have to earn it the hard way.”
- “I’m just not good with money.”
- “I shouldn’t spend money on myself because people are counting on me.”
- “Checking my bank account would make me feel bad.”
- “If I ask for more money, I’ll sound too salesy and no one will want to buy my services.”
- “More money equals more stress and unpleasantness.”
- “I’m afraid people will say my service isn’t worth it.”
- “I will never earn as much as her.”
- “I can’t tell them how much I make because they’ll think I’m a failure.”
- “I have to do it all myself.”
- “Money isn’t spiritual.”
- “Money isn’t for people like me.”
- “Money is a man’s responsibility.”
- “I suck at maths, so I’ll never be good with investing.”
- “Money is for people with power.”
- “Money is dirty.”
- “Money is hard to come by.”
- “I don’t have what it takes.”
- “Money is difficult to understand.”
- “You have to be born into money.”
Releasing What No Longer Serves You
None of this is your fault. Many of your beliefs were formed early, often before you were old enough to question anything, and at the time, they did exactly what they were meant to do. They may have helped you make sense of your environment when you first formed them, even if they no longer serve you today.
But familiar was never the same as true.
The good news is, since these are only beliefs, they can be challenged and changed over time. Your beliefs aren’t “you” the way your genetics are you. They are just recurring thoughts, and recurring thoughts can be interrupted.
I want you to remember you are not broken. You only need to acknowledge how your experiences shaped your beliefs, and that you can choose to change those.
Daphne
EFT is a great tool that can help you address a variety of issues, including the money beliefs we’ve talked about here.
If you would like to have a chat about a belief that’s holding you back and aren’t sure if EFT can help, do not hesitate to contact me.
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