Money Wellness Thoughts

It is with a clear and full heart that I write to you about some changes coming to my work with VitalFinancials.

As I’m sure you have experienced, the dynamic seasons of our lives sometimes invite us to shift focus. We may be called to nurture new projects, redirect our intentions and efforts, and put our energy towards other priorities for a time.

I am delighted to be answering such a call. After careful reflection, I have decided to take a soft step back from VitalFinancials to focus on nurturing my home and my beautiful family.

As a committed Finologist and Money Wellness Coach, I deem this time away from my desk as a sabbatical of sorts. It is time to allow the seeds already sown to grow freely, defining their own roles in the movement toward global money-wellness!

I continue to be available for limited one-on-one money-coaching, and as always, I’m here as a resource for you. You can also find me on social media, where I'll soon be sharing details about my upcoming podcast, What is Finology?, a collaboration with my brother, Jake Wagner.

I hope you share my sense of joy at the outset of this transition. I’m delighted to give my home and family the energy we need, and I’m confident my journey will lead back to a strong focus on cultivating shared money-wellness.  I don’t know exactly how that will look, but I invite you to stay tuned to find out. Click here to join my email community, Money Wellness Thoughts, for quarterly stories about money, energy, and purpose. 
 

Welcome to the final installment of Financial Sanity for the Season. Congratulations! You’ve made it.
 

Chances are, last week had you giving a lot of your attention and energy to others. It’s a beautiful gift to share ourselves with those we love, but it is also important to be present for ourselves if we truly want to enjoy all that the holiday season has to offer.

Take the next few minutes to do just that. Breathe into this moment - a moment you’ve created. Allow yourself to feel present and grateful now, knowing that before you even blink, a new year will arrive.
Use this meditation to help you savor the magic of this moment, right here, and enjoy what’s left of this fleeting holiday season.

Until next year,

Natalie

 

 

It’s the week before the most expensive holiday of the year, and if you’re anything like me, the pressure to pull it all together is threatening your sanity!  
 

It is easy to be influenced by the mass messaging around us.  But focusing on what is truly important to you is the key to being present this holiday season.
 

Fortunately, you have your holiday vision, and you’ve been taking time throughout the season to revisit it.  This week, it’s time to reassess your holiday financials and focus. Where are you in relation to your original intentions?   How have things shifted, and where might it make sense to adjust? How will you be present over the next week so you can make your intentions your reality?
 

Settle in and use this meditation to help ground you amidst all the excitement and pressures of the holidays. Just for this moment, give yourself the gift of your own attention.

 

 

The holiday season is well underway. Trees are up, streets are alit, and the parties have begun! From dreidels to sleighbells to sugar cookies, there’s no denying the holiday magic in the air. This can be a truly wonderful time of year!
 

With so much to do and so much happening around us, it can be easy to lose focus on what matters most to us. So for today, let go of the tension and to-do lists, and make a little space for your intentions.
 

Find a comfortable, quiet place to slow down and enjoy this meditation. Welcome yourself home, and breathe.



 

Don't miss our live Financial Sanity for the Season meditation on December 20! Click here to join us >>

 

To reinforce how these meditations will hold you through your holiday season, this week, we're taking a deep dive into the 5 foundational steps.

Allow yourself to consider what's truly important to you this holiday season, and breathe into that awareness. Let it carry you into the next week feeling confident, centered and at peace.



 

Don't miss our live Financial Sanity for the Season meditation on December 20! Click here to join us >>

1. What are your “shoulds”?

Our “shoulds” tend to cause a great deal of pressure during the holidays. They can be thoughts like, “I ‘should’ serve 10 holiday side dishes, like my mother did,” or, “I ‘should’ buy my children elaborate gifts, like their friends’ parents do.”

Whatever they look like for you, “shoulds” exist in everybody’s mind. But “shoulds” are disconnected from our genuine values and authentic vision. Because they are so often invisible to us, getting out from underneath them can be challenging. Take time this week to dig deep into your “shoulds” by noticing when you feel external pressure to do something a certain way. Allow this exploration to empower your connection to your true self and relieve holiday pressure.

 

2. Reconnect with your values

The busy-ness of everyday life and the internal and external stories we carry with us muddle our connection with our values. In this meditation, you will reconnect with what is important to you in order to keep your intentions and behaviors aligned with your values.  
      
  
3. Revisit your vision and align your holiday money with it

Take a moment to connect intimately with the vision you created last week. Using this vision as a guide, it’s time to see if you’re on track. Check in on your holiday spending plan and assess if you need to adjust anything to keep you on the path to holiday satisfaction.
  

4. Assess your timeline
          
Getting into a time crunch puts unnecessary stress on our intentions and our finances.  Be careful to avoid this stress by intentionally managing your time along with your money.


5. Relax and enjoy!

Settling into the pleasure of this special season is part of what brings you gratification. Take comfort in the fact that you are creating and living your intentions. Use the above meditation to relax and create some space for connecting with the here and now.  Breathe, and enjoy the beautiful life you’re living!

 

The holidays are here, and this season can really do a number on us – emotionally and financially. To help you cultivate balance and ease with your money this season, use these holiday meditations to tap into and align with your essential self and your finances.

Don't miss our live Financial Sanity for the Season meditation on December 20! Click here to join us >>

Five steps to starting the season with balance and financial alignment.

1. Shuff off the “shoulds”

Mass marketing, tradition, and the people around us tell us what the holidays “should” be like.  These “shoulds” take us away from the present moment and from our values. Releasing the shoulds is the first step in gaining mastery over your holiday money.

2. Connect with your values

Understanding what is genuinely important to you is essential for good money management.  Your holiday money sits inside of your greater financial picture. Getting clear about your values and how the holidays fit within them is your next step.

3. Pick a number

Whether you’ve been wisely saving throughout the year or you plan to find your holiday money in the moment, identify a number that feels balanced within your big financial picture. Honor your situation and your values, and remember to factor in extras and incidentals (happy hours, wrapping paper, sales tax, etc.). And be sure to plan for some whimsical miscellaneous spending – ’tis the season!

4. Connect with your holiday vision

If you understand what is important to you this holiday season, you’re more empowered to use your money to support it. Perhaps visiting extended family is an important part of your holiday vision, or perhaps you love participating in a Secret Santa with a group of friends or colleagues. Whatever it is, getting clear on your vision, in conjunction with liberating yourself from those holiday “shoulds,” will empower you to explore how create it in ways that involve less, or even no money.

5. Enjoy!

When you take these steps, you connect your values, your vision and your money. You’re off to a great start! Enjoy the season. It’s yours!

Today is the fall equinox, a time when the turning of the seasons brings night and day into equal balance. It inspires me to think of the year as a turning wheel - passing through seasons, holidays and birthdays, and circling back in ever-evolving harmony. The equinox reminds us how this wheel of time continuously comes back around, highlighting the natural equipoise across light and darkness, sun and snow.

Imagine the cycle of money coming in and going out of your life as a wheel, turning around and around.  In this money cycle, you start with your Self and the intrinsic value that you hold. How do you tap this as you bring money into your life? How do you replenish your energy, and what kind of value circles back to you as you use your money?
 
I call this exercise the Wheel of Money™ (WOM), and here’s my question: how healthy is your money life when considering the connections between:

• You,
• how you create money,
• how much money you create,
• and what your money brings back to you?

(Hint: A wheel works best when balanced, aligned and fully inflated. Is your Wheel of Money™ balanced, aligned, and fully inflated?)

When finished, your WOM will highlight strengths in your money life and reveal opportunities to increase balance and alignment. It will invite you to connect yourself to the money you create and to use it in ways that bring value and energy back to you.

Watching the leaves turn red and golden in the fall weather reminds us that the year is spinning towards winter holidays, a time of financial anxiety and worry for many people.

Find clarity and intention now through your Wheel of Money™, and set yourself up for a low stress, cheerful holiday season.

(Note: This exercise requires Adobe Flash, which is not supported on mobile phones! This means you need to slow down for a moment, and take a seat with your computer. I suggest you turn your attention inward and take a deep breath before you begin.  Exploring your Wheel of Money™ may turn into a journey of money wellness.)

Here’s to your harmony,

Natalie
 

Money is value as energy. Like a calorie is a unit of physical energy, a dollar is simply a unit of value as energy. No more. No less.
 
Like the in and out of our breath or the turning of the seasons, our creation and use of money flow in a cycle of certain energies coming and going around. Through discovery and study, I have mapped this cycle and named it: the Money Energy Cycle™ (MEC). The MEC model allows us to explore our own lives through the lens of this energy flow.  

This reveals powerful new data that merely peering through the numbers cannot. Ultimately, the MEC invites an entirely new way of understanding and relating to money. It begins with the value that every person intrinsically holds in the form of our unique gifts and potential to impact the world around us.

• Whether we create money through traditional employment, entrepreneurship, successful investments or relationship, we use our own energy to create or produce something that is valuable to others.
• In exchange for this value, we receive money.
• We then convert this money into other forms of value by saving, giving, debt repayment, investing or spending on goods and services.
• This action moves the money and the value-energy it holds back into the world by funding other MEC’s.

We can see that in each phase, the energy is a type of value.  Money is simply one of the forms of value along the cycle. Its primary role along the MEC is to convert the value we hold and create into the value we need and use.  It’s important to note that the cycle inherently connects us to the world beyond ourselves, while at the same time, it begins with and comes back to our Selves.

*Watch our Facebook live, Nature is full of cycles. Money has a cycle, too* 

Clients love this model because it's simple and accessible. It also:

• Pinpoints the role of money in our lives.
• Neutralizes emotional charges around money.
• Reconciles both the overvaluation and undervaluation of money.
• Invites us to connect money with the deep aspects of our Selves and our lives.
• Highlights the places of imbalance and lack of integrity within our money lives. This empowers us to deepen our connection and make healthy adjustments.

Importantly, because the MEC connects hard numbers with personal integrity, working the MEC in tandem with our numbers is an extremely powerful place to do the personal work of living in authenticity.  


When exploring the MEC, it's good to keep in mind two side notes.  First, just as every square is a rectangle but not every rectangle is a square, money may be value as energy, but value-energy is not necessarily money. Truly, countless forms of value exist and are exchanged outside of money.  Secondly, money itself is morally neutral, and in fact, does not have moral capacity. Its ethical implications occur via how and why it is used. My father is known for saying, “Money is the most powerful secular force on the planet” (Richard Wagner, JD, CFP®). The perspective shift and following change in relationship offered by the Money Energy Cycle™ have potential to facilitate deep, personal, and large-scale change.  I invite you to click here and read about my vision for how the MEC will transform the world.

Warmly,
  Natalie
 

 
In my mid 20’s, I worked what seemed to be a “good job” in the corporate world. It started great. I enjoyed my team, was developing my skills, and was proud of the money I earned. But when the company changed ownership, my team was replaced and my duties shifted away from my personal strengths. Things slowly turned sour.
 
My days became long and uncomfortable. My sales dropped significantly, and over time I felt smaller and further away from what is special and uniquely gifted about me.  As much as I tried to have a good attitude, my sentiments toward my work and its role in my life spiraled downwards.
 
I chose to stay with the position because of the money. But as my relationship with the job soured, so did my relationship with the money.
 
My spending behaviors changed. In subtle attempts to show myself that I was valuable, I began choosing the more expensive entrees and wines. I splurged on long massages, telling myself that I deserved it for what I endured through the workweek. I felt like my money owed me something.  But, as Lynn Twist writes, “Money cannot replenish the soul.” Truly, that’s what I was asking it to do.
 
After my job ended I came to two profound realizations.
 
The first seems too obvious to need repeating, and yet is too often missed to leave out: Money alone is not enough. The second realization is more elusive: Our relationship with the money in our lives is deeply impacted by our relationship with the source of that money.  
 
When my relationship with the money source became toxic, it contaminated my entire relationship with money. The toxicity was attached to every dollar I earned, and I could feel it in every dollar I used. Considering how often and intimately we interact with money, I felt this effect across my entire life.
 
Not long afterwards, my favorite yoga teacher gave a moving lesson on Dharma: The idea that as unique beings, we each have a something special to share—something we uniquely do better than anyone else. What’s more, engaging and sharing this part of ourselves is our opportunity, our duty, and our Purpose.  
 
The “aha!” came when I asked myself one simple and life-changing question: What if our Dharma was the source of our money?
 
To be clear, it’s overly idealistic to expect each person to work their personal Dharma to create money.  However, there is clearly a relationship between money creation, the work that we do, and Purpose.
 
In my case, for example, perhaps if I had children at the time that my corporate job went sour, there might have been a sense of Purpose in providing for them that would have changed my experience—and perhaps changed what the money and its source meant to me.
 
My story is not the only example that beautifully illustrates the connection. I have a client whose immense family wealth was created in ways that she deems morally questionable. For some time, these ethics defined her relationship with her money, and she felt lost in a sea of its quantity, her perception of toxicity, and the lack of a sense of personal Purpose.
 
Through coaching, she began to take ownership over the money that became her responsibility when she received it. At the same time, she developed ownership over her personal Purpose. Honoring the value of the money itself, she now uses it in ways that connect her to that Purpose, and that help connect others to theirs. She values her freedom from the daily task of making money, realizing she can work and create genuine value in ways that don’t “earn a living.”
 
I have a girlfriend who does not work outside the home.  Even though she works hard and feels connected to her Purpose as a mother, she initially questioned her own value in light of her lack of “a paycheck.”  She generally felt like she wasn’t doing enough, and she didn’t feel entitled to spend money on herself.  Then, she saw the connection between her invaluable role as a mother and the financial benefits of her staying inside the home—including the support it gave her husband to earn for their family. She was then able to connect her Purpose to the money in her life.  This gave her an internal sense of value and freed her to use money on herself.
 
What do these stories demonstrate?  We must connect our money to Purpose.
 
When I was no longer developing personally or receiving meaning through relationship at my corporate job, Purpose fell away. The money was not enough to satisfy me. When we connect our money to our Purpose, however, whether directly through work or indirectly through what our money enables (or both), Purpose flows throughout our lives on the back of every dollar. Our lives build up around it, and ultimately, our life and Purpose become one and the same.
 
As a Money Wellness Coach and Finologist, these are the kind of questions I seek to answer.  I’ve created several tools for understanding your money in light of your life – or if you prefer, in light of Purpose.  Aptly, this work is my Dharma, and I find deep Purpose in helping you use your money to live yours.
 
 

One of the best decisions of my life was to spend the first three months of a gap year living in Kenya (yes, the picture is me). Today, I want to share with you a story that I learned from my experience in Kenya — one of my personal money stories.
 
You might guess that Kenya’s financial world is very different from America’s.  Personally, my experience there was drastically different from the upper-middle-class, suburban environment where I spent the latter half of my childhood. Of course, I knew it would be different going in. But I didn’t know what it would be like or what it would mean to me.
  
One of my first glimpses of this beautiful country came when my host Mama welcomed me into her arms and family before even asking my name. “Karibu (welcome), my daughter. Karibu!” I fell in love with how children are communally cared for, and how I could trust any mama in any marketplace to protect me if I needed it.
 
But when it came to money, I experienced a harsh contrast to this strong and caring culture. From the Kenyan perspective, my American nationality indicated extreme wealth. And comparatively, I was immensely wealthy.  I began to feel like a walking dollar sign, and the objectification created a money story that has since shaped my life.
 
I was proposed marriage roughly 30 times in those three months. And sure, I’m a catch (wink wink). But none of those proposals came from love. I was asked to marry for status and money. When I walked through a marketplace, vendors from every direction vied for my attention. Personal relationships—even great ones—inevitably included an ask for money. It hurt.
 
I was there with my whole heart, and generally, I was met in kind. I am deeply grateful for my experiences, and in fact, came to love Kenya so emphatically that I went back later in college. But there were times when my honest intentions felt invisible, and I resented being minimized to merely an economic opportunity.
 
This experience in Kenya created a money story.  A money story is a belief we have about money that is created from our interpretations of the messages we receive, rather than clear understandings based in fact. Unfortunately, because discussing money in personal and detailed ways remains taboo in US culture, our understandings of money messages are particularly vulnerable to misinterpretations—especially when we are young and impressionable.
 
While in Kenya I came to subconsciously believe that anyone trying to sell me something was trying to take advantage of me. Certainly, some salespeople are doing just that. But others aim to serve, and my money story skewed my perspective. I could no longer appreciate or distinguish genuine efforts make my life better.
 
It’s important to note that my money story is my own interpretation of a cultural experience, and could have happened anywhere. Or, I could just as easily have internalized a different narrative. There is no one to blame for the subconscious stories we tell ourselves. The key is to bring awareness to our stories, and to the impact they have on our lives.
 
For me, this story had a tremendous impact. Upon returning to the States, I began to avoid buying things. I neglected to replace tired clothes and would do chores at home while my husband did the grocery shopping.  When it came to bigger purchases, from cars to couches, I leaned against my husband to discern if it was a good or bad buy. My money story made me feel that I was incapable of knowing if I was being taken advantage of, so I just didn’t buy anything.
 
It was years before I realized my discomfort with people trying to sell me, and recognized the subconscious story it came from. I wonder what opportunities I missed as a consumer, or as an entrepreneur selling my own business? I can see clearly how my generalization of salespeople has deterred me from effectively selling the work I love — work I genuinely believe helps make people’s lives better.
 
And so I ask: What money stories are holding you back?  There is no limit to the stories you might have, but some common ones include:

• Rich people are greedy.
• Poor people are lazy.
• Money equals happiness.
• If it makes you happy, you should do it for free.
• Money is intrinsically evil.
• More money means you’re a better person.
• Money and spirituality never touch. 

Money stories create constraints in your perspective that in turn shape your relationship with money.  There is also no limit to how these stories might play out in your life.
 
So what do you do with a money story that’s holding you back? Here are a few steps to take:

• Gain awareness. This can be done by writing out your Money Story* or doing a Money Autobiography.
• Look at where you are now, and at where you’ve been coming from to understand how you got here. Then, consider where you want to go.
• Is the trajectory you’re on taking you in the direction you want to go? If so, great! If not, what turn do you need to take to be on a path towards the life you want to live? If you need to take a turn, get support to empower your success.

Unconscious money stories may be holding you back, but getting out from underneath them will liberate you to interact with the world in ways that are genuinely fulfilling.
 
It takes awareness and intention. If you’re ready to address your money stories and move forward, call me. I’ll help you construct a strong, movin’ and groovin’ daily money life that is designed by your intentions. It’s worth it to have a life for which you’d gladly say, “I do!”