How to Feel Good About Money - Overcoming Financial Stress and Trauma

Trauma

Oct 21

“Because not only does money provide you with your basic human needs such as safety and healthy food, but also it gives you the ability to rest, to nourish your body and mind, and to leave bad situations. Money can buy stability and choice, and that is happiness.”

— Tori Dunlap

The scarcitMoney holds significant emotional power in our lives, influencing not only our financial decisions but also how we perceive ourselves and our place in the world. For many, the concept of money is tied to stress, anxiety, or even shame—feelings that are often deeply rooted in experiences of financial trauma. These emotions are not limited to those struggling financially; they can affect anyone, regardless of their wealth or success. Financial trauma can exist at every stage of life and in any financial situation, leading to chronic worry, insecurity, and a strained relationship with money.

When we ask, “How can I feel good about money?” we are asking how to create a relationship with money that feels secure, calm, and empowered. Feeling good about money isn’t just about accumulating wealth or achieving financial goals; it’s about addressing the emotional and psychological patterns that shape our behaviour around money. These patterns, which are often formed in response to past experiences or societal pressures, can drive unhealthy behaviours—whether it’s avoiding money issues, compulsively overworking, or constantly feeling the need to prove one’s financial worth.

To truly feel good about money, we must go deeper than budgeting and saving strategies. By exploring the neuroscience behind our financial behaviours and learning to regulate our nervous system responses to money-related stress, we can begin to reshape how we feel about money. This article delves into the root causes of financial trauma, explores the impact of money disorders, and offers actionable tools for rewiring the brain and calming the nervous system to foster a healthier, more balanced relationship with money.

Understanding Financial Trauma

Financial trauma can be broadly defined as the emotional and psychological damage caused by negative financial experiences. These experiences may range from growing up in a household where money was a source of conflict, experiencing a job loss or bankruptcy, to enduring chronic stress related to debt. While financial trauma may not leave physical scars, its effects are deeply imprinted in the brain and nervous system, shaping how we react to financial stress throughout our lives.

Neuroscience has shown that when we experience financial stress, the brain’s amygdala—responsible for processing fear and threats—becomes highly activated. This triggers the body’s fight-or-flight response, flooding the system with stress hormones like cortisol. Over time, this heightened state of stress becomes ingrained in the brain’s neural pathways, making it difficult to respond calmly and rationally to financial challenges.

The prefrontal cortex, which governs decision-making and planning, becomes impaired under chronic stress, causing us to act emotionally rather than logically in financial situations. This explains why many people feel overwhelmed by their finances, even when they intellectually understand what needs to be done. The emotional weight of financial trauma can lead to avoidance behaviours, compulsive spending, or an obsession with productivity, as individuals try to regain control over their financial reality.

To feel good about money, we must first recognise that financial trauma isn’t just about external circumstances—it’s about how our brain and body have learned to react to money over time. By acknowledging this, we open the door to healing and start moving towards a more emotionally balanced and secure relationship with money.

Types of Money Disorders

Dr. Brad Klontz, a pioneering financial psychologist, has identified several money disorders that arise from unresolved financial trauma. These disorders reflect dysfunctional patterns of thinking, feeling, and behaving around money, and they often persist regardless of a person’s actual financial situation. Klontz’s research highlights how deeply embedded these patterns can become, affecting both financial decisions and emotional well-being.

Money Avoidance: People with money avoidance disorder tend to distance themselves from financial matters because they associate money with fear, guilt, or discomfort. They may procrastinate on paying bills, ignore their bank statements, or avoid budgeting altogether. This behaviour often stems from early experiences of financial instability or a belief that money is inherently bad. By avoiding financial issues, individuals create a feedback loop of anxiety, reinforcing their fears and making it harder to feel confident about money.
Money Worship: This disorder involves the belief that having more money will solve all problems. People with money worship disorder often overwork, chase financial success at the expense of their well-being, or engage in risky financial behaviours in pursuit of wealth. Despite achieving financial milestones, they rarely feel satisfied, as their emotional needs remain unmet. Neuroscience reveals that this behaviour is driven by the brain’s reward system—specifically the dopamine pathways—that seek short-term gratification without delivering long-term contentment.
Money Status: Individuals with money status disorder tie their self-worth to their financial success, often spending beyond their means to project an image of wealth. This disorder leads to overspending, debt, and a constant need to prove oneself through material possessions. The emotional insecurity that drives this behaviour overrides logical financial decision-making, leaving individuals trapped in a cycle of financial strain and dissatisfaction.
Money Vigilance: While financial caution is generally viewed as a positive trait, money vigilance can become a disorder when it leads to excessive anxiety about saving and spending. People with this disorder are hyper-focused on maintaining financial security to the point where they cannot enjoy their financial stability. This fear-driven behaviour is often tied to a scarcity mindset, which keeps the brain’s fear centres on high alert, preventing individuals from feeling relaxed or content with their financial situation.

Understanding these disorders is critical to breaking free from the patterns that prevent people from feeling good about money. These money disorders are not just financial problems—they are psychological and emotional challenges that reflect deeper, unresolved trauma. Recognising and addressing these patterns is the first step toward achieving emotional well-being in your financial life.

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How Financial Trauma Manifests Beyond Money

Financial trauma often permeates other areas of life, manifesting in how we view productivity, time, and self-worth. For many people, financial security is tied to their sense of productivity—working harder becomes a way to prove worth or maintain control over financial circumstances. This leads to an unhealthy relationship with work, where rest feels like a risk, and downtime feels unearned.

The Pressure to Always Be "On": Many individuals who have experienced financial trauma feel the need to be constantly productive. They believe that their financial stability is dependent on their ability to work tirelessly. This pressure is a symptom of a dysregulated nervous system, which remains stuck in a chronic state of fight-or-flight, making it difficult to relax or feel at peace. The more this behaviour is reinforced, the harder it becomes to break free from the cycle of overwork and burnout. Learning to regulate the nervous system helps to reduce this compulsive need for productivity, creating space for a healthier, more balanced approach to work and money.
Distorted Relationship with Time: Financial trauma can also distort how individuals perceive and manage time. People may feel that there is never enough time to achieve their financial goals, leading to over-committing, filling schedules, and constantly rushing to meet deadlines. This urgency reflects an underlying fear that time is running out, which is often tied to a scarcity mindset. As a result, individuals may feel perpetually behind, even if they are financially stable. Addressing these patterns helps create a more grounded, present experience of time, reducing the anxiety that often accompanies financial worries.

By understanding how financial trauma extends beyond money, we can begin to address the broader emotional and psychological patterns that prevent us from feeling secure and confident in our financial lives. When we manage our relationship with productivity and time, we create more emotional and mental space to cultivate a positive relationship with money.

The Neuroscience of Rewiring Your Relationship with Money

Neuroscience offers hope for transforming our relationship with money through the brain’s natural capacity for change, known as neuroplasticity. The brain is constantly adapting and forming new neural pathways based on our experiences and behaviours. This means that even deeply ingrained financial habits and emotional responses can be reprogrammed with intentional effort.

Recognising and Interrupting Patterns: The first step in rewiring your brain is recognising the unconscious patterns that drive your financial behaviours. This might include noticing when you avoid financial responsibilities, overwork, or feel anxious about spending. Once you are aware of these patterns, you can interrupt them by consciously choosing a different response. Neuroscientifically, this process activates the prefrontal cortex, allowing you to override emotional reactivity and make more thoughtful financial decisions.
Rewriting Financial Narratives: Cognitive reappraisal is a technique that helps shift the emotional response to financial stress by reframing negative thoughts around money. For example, instead of thinking, “I’ll never have enough money,” you might reframe it to, “I can take small steps to improve my financial situation.” This shift in thinking helps rewire the brain, reducing the power of fear-based responses and creating new neural connections that support a more positive outlook.
Building New Financial Habits: Developing healthy financial habits helps reinforce new neural pathways in the brain. By consistently engaging in practices such as budgeting, saving, or regular financial check-ins, you train your brain to feel more comfortable and confident in dealing with money. Over time, these new habits can replace old, unhealthy patterns, leading to a greater sense of control and well-being in your financial life.

Through neuroplasticity, it is possible to reshape how you think and feel about money. The more you practice recognising and shifting your financial behaviours, the easier it becomes to move from a state of stress and anxiety to one of confidence and clarity.

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Regulating Your Nervous System for Financial Wellness

While rewiring your brain is essential for long-term financial well-being, regulating your nervous system is equally important in the short term. Financial stress can trigger the nervous system’s fight-or-flight response, making it difficult to think clearly or make balanced decisions. Learning how to calm and regulate your nervous system allows you to approach financial challenges with greater emotional resilience.

Breathwork and Mindfulness: Breathwork and mindfulness are powerful tools for calming the nervous system. Deep, slow breathing activates the parasympathetic nervous system, which helps shift the body out of a fight-or-flight state and into a more relaxed mode. Mindfulness practices, such as meditation, can reduce the brain’s stress response, allowing for more thoughtful and less reactive decision-making around money.

Somatic Practices: Somatic practices help release physical tension caused by financial stress. Techniques such as grounding exercises, progressive muscle relaxation, or mindful movement can help discharge the stored energy in the body, creating a sense of calm and balance. These practices help reduce the emotional charge around money-related issues, making it easier to approach financial tasks from a centered and grounded place.

Routine Breaks from Productivity: Many people tie their sense of financial security to productivity, feeling that they must always be “on” to ensure financial stability. However, neuroscience shows that regular breaks improve cognitive function and emotional health. By stepping away from work or financial tasks for short periods, you give your nervous system the chance to reset, allowing you to return with a clearer, more focused mind.

Regulating your nervous system through these practices can create a sense of safety and calm that is essential for financial well-being. When the nervous system is balanced, you are better equipped to handle financial challenges without being overwhelmed by emotional reactivity or stress.

Healing Financial Trauma

Healing from financial trauma is a process that requires patience, self-compassion, and consistent effort. It involves unlearning the patterns that have kept you stuck in cycles of fear and stress and replacing them with healthier behaviours and mindsets.

Reflecting on Early Money Experiences: Many of our beliefs about money are formed in childhood, based on the behaviours and attitudes we observed in our families. Reflecting on these early experiences can help you understand where your financial patterns come from and why they continue to influence your behaviour today. By identifying these root causes, you can begin to challenge and change the beliefs that no longer serve you.
Practising Self-Compassion: Financial mistakes often lead to feelings of guilt or shame, but these emotions only perpetuate the cycle of financial trauma. Practising self-compassion allows you to approach your financial journey with kindness and patience, reducing the stress that comes with trying to “fix” everything immediately. By treating yourself with understanding, you create the mental space necessary for true healing and growth.
Building Financial Resilience: Financial resilience is not just about accumulating wealth; it’s about developing the emotional strength to face financial challenges with confidence and calm. This resilience is built through consistent financial habits, emotional regulation, and the ability to recover from setbacks. By building a solid foundation of financial habits that align with your emotional and practical needs, you can create a greater sense of security and stability in your financial life.

Conclusion

Feeling good about money is about much more than financial success—it’s about healing the emotional and psychological wounds that shape your relationship with money. Financial trauma, whether from past experiences or ongoing stress, can have a profound impact on how you view and manage money. However, through the tools of neuroscience and nervous system regulation, it is possible to transform these patterns and cultivate a sense of peace, confidence, and emotional well-being.

As you begin to recognise the impact of financial trauma on your thoughts, behaviours, and emotions, you can take the first steps toward healing. By engaging in practices that support neuroplasticity, such as cognitive reappraisal and building new habits, you can rewire your brain for a healthier relationship with money. At the same time, regulating your nervous system through breathwork, mindfulness, and somatic practices creates a foundation of emotional balance that supports long-term financial wellness.

The journey to feeling good about money is deeply personal and multifaceted. It involves not only addressing the practical aspects of financial management but also healing the emotional and psychological patterns that have kept you stuck in cycles of fear, stress, or avoidance. Through awareness, self-compassion, and consistent effort, you can cultivate a relationship with money that feels secure, balanced, and aligned with your overall well-being.

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