Guest Blog Post: Heal Your Finances by Acknowledging Anger by Jessie Susannah

Heal Your Finances by Acknowledging Anger

Excerpt from "Money Magic: Practical Wisdom and Empowering Rituals to Heal Your Finances" by The Money Witch aka Jessie-Susannah Karnatz

Join Jessie Susannah for her upcoming in-person Portland class (recordings available!) The Money Witch’s Six Portals to Financial Healing on May 3rd, 2024. 

As animals, material survival is the basis of our human experience on Earth, and since here we are in late-stage global capitalism, when I say material survival, I mean money. It’s not an accident for you to be born into these systems. You have something to contribute to making this exact moment better, or you wouldn’t be here. Connecting to the human experience from a soul-centered place is a very powerful way of exploring life, but don’t forget that physical survival is a big part of your soul’s work in this incarnation. This work of healing your finances is not an aside; it is the work of healing everything in your life. You are here on this Earth to evolve, and to weave the unique thread of your journey into the tapestry of human existence. When you expand into success in all areas of your life, you contribute more deeply to the communal healing of your lineages and communities, as well as the entire human story. 

It’s important to note that just because money is spiritual doesn’t mean we can talk about it or work on it without acknowledging systemic economic oppression. Talking about an issue as spiritual while trying to sidestep the “unresolved emotional issues, psychological wounds, and unfinished developmental tasks”  of either ourselves as individuals or the societies we live in is called spiritual bypassing. The term was introduced in the early 1980s by John Welwood, a Buddhist teacher and psychotherapist. We can’t spiritual our way out of being human or being in relationship with the human experience. Being spiritual must hold the truth of humanity. The ways that spiritual bypassing shows up in conversations around manifestation, law of attraction, and money magic are harmful, violent, and wounded. No manifestation process should pressure you to ignore the impact of marginalization or the reality that our money story has massive chapters in it, including the current one, that are based on the exploitation of human life and labor (especially Black and Indigenous lives) and the unsustainable extraction of the Earth’s resources (due to the violent suppression of Indigenous stewardship). No conversation about financial healing can be based on gaslighting that this is not even happening.

 It can be confusing and frustrating to try to hold both the spiritual purpose of life and a pervasive experience of structural inequalities. The friction between these truths is just one example of the major paradoxes of being human. Sitting with paradox is the realest of human experiences. So the good part is, being human is all we have to do in this life. These double binds push us to find creative solutions, be genius, and discover the unique nuances of our own truth. They also give us an opportunity to do something deeply human: acknowledge we are a part of a much larger story, accept the things we cannot change, and fight like hell to change what we can, starting with ourselves.

So much of how we got where we are financially has been out of our control. The human form we take has a spiritual purpose, but it also has a randomness to it that is entirely unfair. While we are in the process of facing the particular set of financial challenges we have been dealt, we are going to experience anger. Give this anger some space. Ask your anger what it needs. Making space for the feeling will allow it to feel seen and heard, which is what we all need. Try to find some safe space to express anger. Making conscious space to metabolize anger means allowing yourself to feel it as fully as you can and allowing it to move through and out of your body through such actions as artistic expression, screaming in the car, punching a pillow, ripping paper, or exercise so that it doesn’t live repressed as your shadow self. What practices do you have in your life for metabolizing anger? It may seem unrelated, but this is a huge step in healing your finances and creating a more easeful financial reality for yourself. 

 As you dig deeper into your money story, it is normal for anger, rage, and grief to surface. Think of these feelings as bubbles of stored energy that will naturally come to the surface when the firmament of your money trauma is being broken down. Your job is to make space for them to be released rather than re-cementing them in the new structure you are building for yourself. The process of living within kyriarchy means that within our money story there are places where we have been or are being mistreated, where we have or are experiencing abuse, and where we ongoingly compromise our values in order to survive. Allow yourself space to notice, feel, and express the anger you feel about systemic financial oppression so that it doesn’t manifest as self-harming behavior. For example, a lot of people avoid filing their taxes on time because they feel (justifiably) angry at the ways their government is spending their money. But in reality, all this does is make you pay more money to that very same government in interest and penalties, cause stress in your own life, and sometimes even cause you to miss out on a refund if you wait too long to file.

 Acknowledging these experiences and validating the anger that rightfully accompanies them will go a long way in giving you the space to reconcile with money. You’re not angry at money; you’re angry at systemic oppression, at your family, at financial abuse and manipulation you have experienced. Being angry at money will keep you stuck in the same place you’ve been in, because it locks you in an adversarial relationship. If you can’t start to let go of your anger with money, it is very challenging to build a loving relationship with it. If you can’t let go of your anger at yourself for some of the ways you may have acted with your finances in the past, it is very challenging to build a loving relationship with money. A self-loving relationship with money is our goal, and you deserve to get there. Your resistance energy is sacred and deeply needed by the human collective; please don’t waste it on your finances. 

 Heal Your Finances Homework:

Take one step forward and experience healing! Identify one financial or administrative loose end from your past that you have felt ashamed of, and make a plan to clean it up. 

This may be a debt you owe to a friend, a small past-due account lingering on your credit report, a defaulted account. Maybe you moved and haven’t updated your driver’s license or voter’s registration. Maybe you’ve been meaning to get renter’s insurance or make a living will.

 Instead of feeling overwhelmed by the whole big behemoth of your finances, choose one bite-size project, make a clear and a manageable plan, and implement the hell out of it.

Jessie Susannah Karnatz, aka the Money Witch, brings capitalism-critical, shame-free education to healers, hustlers, and creatives in order to catalyze change in their financial lives. She believes healing our finances will bring blessing to our lives, our lineages, and our communities. She offers education, Money Magic products, Intuitive Financial Coaching, and tax preparation online and in the Bay Area (unceded Ohlone land) and does it all with impeccable business lady style. Find Jessie Susannah on instagram here.

Join Jessie Susannah for her upcoming in-person Portland class (recordings available!) The Money Witch’s Six Portals to Financial Healing on May 3rd, 2024.