TAKE THIS PERSONALLY: Money Isn’t the Problem, Your Relationship Is

This is an iHeart podcast. Guaranteed human. It's the month of love and all things relationships, and that's what we're going to get into all month. But for today, we're talking about a relationship that many people may not even realize they have a relationship with money. I'm bringing on a woman this week to share why money isn't just math, but emotional wiring. She's going to help us unpack our money shame so we can all move forward to have a better relationship with money. This week I'm joined by Shana game. I'm so excited to talk to her all about money stuff. She is the author of unraveling your relationship with money and we are going to do some unraveling today. That's what's about to happen. Welcome, Shana. Thanks so much for having me. I'm excited to talk to you about all the things, but before we get into that, I love to hear the background and why this topic is so important to you. I want to hear a little bit of your story and the genesis of all of this before we really dive into the good details of everything. My first sort of foray into business actually was when I was in college and at the time I started what was the first national student film festival. And I ran that for five years and ended up actually selling it to a Hollywood producer, crazy story. But that was really like my boots on the ground rogue BA style learning about money because I had to learn about everything budgeting and PR and guests and just all sorts of things. And it wasn't until after that I went and gotten MBA and my dad had been in the financial industry his whole career and he had a small firm and he was like, ah, I'm bored. Do you want to come work with me? I'm like, yeah, sure. Why not? And it was interesting because at that time he was working with people who had a lot of money. This was in Los Angeles, people with multimillion dollar estates. And I was working with my MBA cohorts who knew nothing about personal finance and I started to see the same things emerge that regardless of how much money somebody had, they all got stuck in the same patterns and the same belief systems and the same sort of mindsets around money. And that was really my first awakening that, hey, there's more to this than just reading a book, right? And learning how to do a budget and learning how to save and all those sorts of things. But it really wasn't until I went through a divorce in my very early 30s where I lost everything. I lost basically to walk away from all my possessions. And to pay my ex-husband and I used to sell him money that I realized like, whoa, okay, this like relationship with money is a thing. And I better start practicing what I'm trying to teach clients because I was not happy and I was anxious around money. And that was really where sort of the genesis of all of this came together. And I'm a certified financial planner, a trauma of money expert. But where I love to play is with women and particularly women in what I call kind of our midlife, right? So we've had enough things happen to us and we are anxious about money. We're nervous about money. But on the outside, we're like high performing women, right? Like we're doing things and we're in our career and we've got families and nobody would think that inside we're like these nervous, anxious people around money. And so I like to really help to decode this for women and show them that you're not bad with money, right? You just haven't learned the skill set around unraveling your relationship with money and coming to a place where, you know, your nervous system can relax and feel safe around money. Okay. So let's start there because you talk about the relationship with money. And so many people have watched a lot of your videos and their relationship with money. The first it comes to debt or what their net worth is or how have I saved for retirement? There's just so much associated with money, but you're the first person I've really come across where it's like this relationship with money. So let's start there. Tell me what that looks like for you when you're working with people and you're seeing relationships with money. Morgan, it's just if we're in a relationship with anyone else, like I just read that you got engaged, right? Congratulations. Thank you. So it's the same thing as if you're in relationship with a partner, right? Like you've got to give some sort of TLC to the relationship. There's a give and take. There's compromise. There's an effort that you have to put into like making a relationship. And certainly when you're talking about marriage, that's a whole other ball of wax. It's the same thing around money because I say that money is the longest relationship we're ever going to have in our lives, right? It follow us from day one all the way until the very end. And so most of us are in some sort of negative, shameful, guilt-ridden relationship around money. Like we should do these things, but we do the opposite or we go spend money and have drinks with our friends and then we feel really guilty or we read articles, right? Or social media about people and we're like, oh, I should have a seven figure business now and I don't. It's constantly around us. And I think the really important thing is to first ask yourself, like, how do I feel about money? And whatever your answer to that question is, I want you to dig a little deeper. Why is that? If I'm anxious around money, why is that? Where does that come from? Did I witness that in childhood? Like my parents or ever raised me? Was I in a, maybe a relationship where there was some sort of financial abuse or did I struggle when I came out of college? Where does this anxiety come from? And that's the place we start at to redevelop. It's sort of rewire this relationship around money. Okay. And I'm assuming too, based on what you're saying, this also relates to the financial trauma that a lot of people experience. So they're depending on the things that they have experienced through their life and what's gone on, there could be this more traumatizing side of that where it's not just anxiety and it's not just stress. It might be a little bit even further deeper than that. Yeah. I use like trauma is kind of a big word, right? Like we hear the word trauma a lot. And I really just want, if you're listening, you to think about it as any place that just feels like a little icky around money. And it could be something big, like maybe you grew up in poverty. Maybe there was lack. For instance, my husband grew up in a family where they were always having to move because they were always delinquent on home payments because his stepdad would lose jobs and he would come home from school and they'd have to like move to a new house. The electricity would be off or whatever it might be. That created like this deep sense of trauma and just nervous always. We can have a bill come in and he just, you know, immediately you can see him go to an anxiety response around that. And it's just because it's so wired in him, right? From being so young. So you can have something like that. But trauma could also show up in situations like maybe you forgot to pay a bill. And maybe that bill went to collections and then maybe it lowered your credit score. And so every time you like log on to your bank app, you're expecting to see something terrible happen. And you're just like your body and your nervous system is just stuck kind of in that moment and it just doesn't know how to figure its way out. So trauma can be something big, but it also could be these little nuanced moments that don't necessarily have to be negative, but they just tell your body like, whoa, okay, we've either got a freeze or we got a flee or we got a fight, right? We have to have some sort of response that's happening. And I would imagine too, it also goes on the flip side of this too, where if you're so stingy with money, where you save consistently, you don't utilize your money for. We love to say on social media, your free will to do things where you'd like to go out and explore the world and be adventurous or go to dinner with your friends. And you're so stingy, I would imagine that's also a side to this and not just that really hardcore side. Yeah, I'm really glad you brought that up because that's absolutely the truth. Like we can see it on both sides. Sometimes people are stuck in and I see this a lot with women too. We're stuck in being like ultra conservative because we've got the messaging around money that we have to be quote unquote good girls. And we're just still not sure what that means. Are we supposed to spend? Are we supposed to save? Are we supposed to never do something? Are we supposed to be big in our careers? Are we supposed to be small in our careers? Like it's just your brain is just on overload. And this is all of us, right? You're laughing, but I'm sure you probably like. Oh, yeah. It's just honestly, anything would be in a woman is so complex. And this just adds to the another list of things where I'm like, yeah, that tracks. OK, I just pushed it aside and probably a lot of my messaging. Yeah, for sure. There isn't necessarily like when we talk about relationship with money, we talk about financial trauma. There isn't a right or wrong side to be on. And that's something I really want people to understand because I feel like there's this falsity out there that there is like a perfect way to do money. And there are these certain like hierarchies that you need to be at certain ages. And if you're not at that hierarchy, then, you know, you're not doing something right and you're a bad person. And so that really ends up breeding even more shame and guilt into just an already complex environment around money. And so I really want to just break down that stereotype. There isn't anything perfect. There isn't necessarily always a right choice. You could do this or you could do that, but it depends on what you ultimately want to do in your life. So that's, I think, what makes it really tricky and it makes it hard to just listen to a money podcast episode or just read a book and be like, oh, I know instantly what I should do. It's just not that easy. And I still want to keep going down this rabbit hole. But something in what you just said really taught me something of what I've been seeing a lot on social media. Being in comment sections is one of my least favorite and favorite things. I learn a lot about people. I see a lot of mean people take what you will. But something that I've really noticed about a lot of people, especially on financial posts, is you're just seeing a lot of there's lost hope in the belief that they can have things that their parents had, that they can have a house when the finances now look so differently. And there's this conversation about this start comparison about what people today are experiencing versus what people 20, 30, 50 years ago experienced when it came to affording things. And I'm curious your take on this, because I feel like this is something that would be so in your wheelhouse. And I'm sad reading a lot of it online and just vast differences that people are experiencing. I think that no matter what generation we're dealing with, they're going to be these huge differences. If we look at our parents and how they grew up, they did not have access to social media like we have. They were not online. They were not running podcasts. Like things were just very different. If we look back to our grandparents and like great grandparents generation, specifically women, they did not have access to credit. They didn't have access to bank accounts. They didn't have access to credit cards. Right. And so there's always going to be something different in each generation. And I think it's really easy to highlight the things that feel out of our control. Like we can't control what the stock market's doing. We can't control what the interest rates are. We can't control what home prices are. Like there are a lot of things that are just absolutely out of our control. But it's really easy to highlight those because they make really good headlines. And we're taught via social media and now with news that if we can't capture your attention in the first three seconds, you're not going to pay attention. And so we go with these big, splashy, big headlines, especially around money. And that makes you feel probably usually even worse about yourself that you're not in that situation. But I want you to focus on what you can control, the things that you can do. And part of that starts with this relationship with money. We're thinking about how do I want to spend and save my money? And what do I actually want to spend and save my money towards? And so I think when we can bring the focus more internal, we can feel a greater sense of control. And even though there are so many things that are up against us, it doesn't mean we still can't move towards those or make those happen, if that makes sense. It absolutely does. And I love that because, again, this is just a very, very important thing. It's just a really hot topic on social media, but not even just that people are posting about, but you see it on those posts where it goes, if you have this amount of money, you can afford this house and you can do this in five years and save the rabbit holes of especially AI and chat, GPT or helping people create this content, right? But really in the comment section is where the humanity is happening and people are discussing, OK, I can't afford this and there's just feels like this lost hope. And I love the idea of talking about relationship with money because I do want to give people hope and want them to have control of their life back in a sense of what they're seeing online may not actually be their reality, even if it is broken down in a certain way and a certain chart to show some similar thing. And so speaking on that relationship of money, what can somebody do? You mentioned those questions to ask themselves, but what can somebody really do to start working on that relationship with money? Where does that all begin? There's an exercise that sounds really simple that I love to suggest to people, but I promise you once you do it, there's more complexity to it than it sounds. But I want you to get out a blank sheet of paper. Don't do this on your computer. You actually need to like handwrite this out. Oh, I love handwriting activity. Handwriting. We're going back to handwriting. Set your phone timer for 15 minutes. And I want you to just get out. I want you to just write with like reckless abandon. Everything that you wish you would have done around money that feels unfair, that you're upset about, like everything you feel like is a mistake. I just want you to vomit it out on this sheet of paper. When the timer's up, step away. Just walk away. Come back 24 hours later. Quick read over. You're going to notice different patterns that start to emerge when you've removed yourself a little bit from this. But the last part of this exercise is we've got to get rid of it. We've got to shred it, burn it, tear it up, something, whatever feels like the right mechanism for you. There is science behind, obviously, writing things down on paper, getting them out of our heads, right? That helps get it out of our nervous system. And then there's science behind getting rid of something. And it doesn't immediately take this stuff away from you. But it starts to tell your body and your nervous system, hey, okay, maybe we don't like what's happened to us in the past. But there is a way we can recreate something moving forward. So then I need you to think about what is it I actually really want? And what is actually enough? So we spend so much time in what we think other people's version of enough is that this is where like comparison starts to come up and a lot of guilt around money. But I want you to think about what is enough for me? How much money do I need? What kind of career do I want? Where do I want to live? What do I like? Really think about that, right? Because once we can create what enough looks like for you. And my guess is there's already some pieces of that you're living today. You just might not be recognizing it. But once we have that sketch, then it's okay. Now, how do we get our money to actually take us in that direction? And so we want to start bringing this back internally, but in a healthy way so that we can start just baby stepping our way towards what that vision of enoughness is. Oh, enoughness. Yeah. And that's tough, right? Because we've been taught growing up and I'll speak from my personal experience. You get taught certain things growing up or you need to make sure you're saving by this point. Make sure you have this prepared. You need to have a career that sustains you. You need to have financial freedom. You need to invest. You need to. I can tell you the messaging that I've just taken in from every corner of the world. On money. And it's so interesting to reframe that to think what actually is enough for me because I've been listening to everybody else this whole time. Yes. And you're not alone. That's the beauty. That's the beauty. And this is a thing that if I could go out and just create this movement of especially women, if we could just talk about all the things that we really struggle with around money. We would see that we are so much alike. It's so funny because every time I work with a woman or I have a group cohort program and I have 20 women at a time, they say the exact same things around money. It's just like clockwork. And so it's really interesting because like regardless of how much money we make, regardless of our demographic, regardless of our backgrounds and our ethnicities, we tend to fall in the same. So it's just sort of patterns and mistakes and beliefs around money. We just don't talk about it. So it feels like super isolating and you feel like I must be the only one who has not done this or who has done this. And I'd love to, if you feel like you can, I'd love to hear some of those patterns or behaviors that were all similar because sometimes we have to have it spelled out to really think, oh, that is me. They could be listening right now, whoever it is. And be like, that's not me. I haven't done that. But then you start to hear the language and you're like, oh crap, that is me. I am in that group. So some of those patterns, behaviors, things that you see a lot of people alike having these same thoughts and feelings on, if you're able to share, would be awesome. For sure. And there, I'm going to just throw them out and we can dissect whichever ones you want to. But certainly the first one is always around this enough thing, right? So it's always some form of, I don't have enough. I will never have enough. There isn't enough. And it's regardless again, I worked with someone a couple of weeks ago who made over seven figures a year. And the first thing out of her mouth was my biggest fear is there's not enough. And so there's just this feeling, I think, of just constant lack. And it's just perpetuated by social media and society and all of this, right? So this idea of I'm behind, I'm just chronically behind. I'm never going to be able to catch up. Another one is that your money and this kind of goes with career, that it should be a solid upward line. That if there are any blips, if I get laid off or a client fires me or whatever it might be in your line of work, that doesn't happen to other people. And I'm going to tell you, other people might not admit it, but it happens all the time. All the time. It is never an upward line. And anyone who tells you it is, it's just lying through their teeth, right? It's their twists and turns and people have to do things like people have to pull money out of their retirement plans. People have to ask parents for loans. People have to turn to credit cards. There is just stuff that happens. And so that makes us feel very shameful when we're up against those types of decisions because we feel like I'm filling the blank age. I should not need to ask my parents for help or I should not have to put this on a credit card or I should not be in debt or I should not have to pull money out of my retirement plan. And so that feels very lonely, right? And it goes back to this idea of I'm not good with money. I can't be trusted with money. Look at me. I just did this. A lot of women and a lot of people have this scenario where you get out of debt and then you get back in debt and then you might get out of debt, then you might get back in debt and you feel so terrible when you're in the place of debt. And so what we also tend to do is associate whatever numbers in our bank account with our identity. That if I have X amount of dollars, I feel a certain way about myself. But if I get a raise, I feel a different way. And then I lost my job. Oh, now I'm a fillet. And so we tie these two things together that really need to be separated. Otherwise, we're just constantly going to be drug around by this thing called money. Love to know too, because I'm hearing you share all of these. And what is the balance, right? We talk about what is enough. But then it's, okay, there is a level of I do need to save and I don't want to be in debt. And I also would like to live my life. Where is this middle ground? Where do we find that? How do we find that? I think it comes from really thinking out the choices that we're making and really having some ownership, which kind of sucks a lot of the time over it. I will say, I struggle with this myself and I really want to do that or I really want to go out and spend the money. And so I like to teach like a pause. So you're up against a spending decision, right? Just built in a half a second pause where you can ask yourself, okay, is this really what I want to do? If the answer is, yeah, I really want to do it. Okay, am I going to be okay with it tomorrow? I don't know. Build yourself in this little questioning model. Now, a lot of times the answer can be yes, right? Because this is not, we're not going for absolute perfection here. We're going for 70% of the time. Maybe I pause and decide, okay, I'm going to, you know what? I'm going to wait till tomorrow. And if I still want to buy the thing tomorrow, then I'll go ahead and do it, right? And we know usually tomorrow comes and we've already decided we don't need the thing, right? So I think you need to create a system for yourself where you build in some of these tiny little pauses where you can think through your spending and saving decisions in a way that feels a little bit more grounded and a little less like, especially around spending, right? A little less, I need a dopamine hit. Can I get my dopamine hit somewhere else? Like maybe I should just go have a piece of chocolate or go for a walk or something. And then sometimes it's, no, I need the dopamine hit. I'm just going to go buy the thing. But bringing this sense of intention. So instead of feeling like you're out of control with it, especially if you have debt, right? And you want to pay off the debt, it's bringing it back into your body, bringing it back into your nervous system and saying, okay, let me try to be a little bit more intentional with the decisions I make. And that then is going to help me be more intentional with how I approach paying off this debt. That's really good. And it's so funny you mentioned that because I really think about this conversation that I have too, because you mentioned the side of women and how we think. And my fiance has this more different mindset where he's, we can always make more money and I'm like, but I don't think we can. I'm not going to ever think that way. Money's not, it doesn't grow on trees. I learned that my whole life growing up. It doesn't come out of nowhere. And it's not that he's not even reckless with money. It's just more that he is really much more intentional about also enjoying our life and being happy while also doing the things that we need to do. And striking that balance that you're talking about of intention and something that I've found that really works, especially when it comes to purchases. Because I'm also trying to not just buy a bunch of stuff. I don't like to have a lot of stuff. And I always sit there for a few days and it's a big purchase that I'm about to make me big purchase over a hundred dollars, right? Like anything. There are a lot of things that cost almost a hundred dollars by themselves these days, but all over a hundred dollars. And I look at it and I say, do I love this? Do I? Is it going to just make me the happiest person in the world to own whatever I'm about to buy? And if I can't confidently say, yes, I love this. This is everything that I need. I'm going to think about it if I leave and I don't buy it. Then I won't get it. If I do not feel so much overlapping joy over this one thing, I won't get it. And that's what you're talking about with that pause. Absolutely. It's such a beautiful example. And you bring up your your fiance and this is where money gets really tricky with relationships. Because we tend to choose the person who has a different money personality than we have. And also that person has grown up with their own belief systems around money and their own experiences. And so you put that on top of us individually having really no idea what our own relationship is around money. And you're trying to bridge two people coming together. And it usually is this is where arguments come up because you don't even necessarily understand why you might be anxious or why you might get arguments about money. And your partner doesn't necessarily know either. Right. And so you're just like two forces clashing into each other. And it's really learning. Okay, what are your strengths? What are my strengths? And how do we move just half an inch inward towards each other? Knowing that your strengths are going to continue to be yours and mine are going to continue to be mine. And we're going to obviously have differences around this thing. But let's see if we can do it in a way that doesn't ignite one or both of our sort of nervous system reactions all the time. Yes. And that's why I'm such a listen, I'm a big person who I was single for a significant amount of time and dating and going through the whole thing. And I firmly believe in bringing up financial conversations very early on in relationships. If this is somebody that you're considering dating, you better at least understand who they are with money and what they think about money and what do they like to save? Do they not like to save? And just what is their whole as we talk about it relationship with money? And I'm such a huge believer in that. I acted out and I believe I'm pretty sure my fiance, we were like three or four dates and I'm like, so let's talk about this really quick. What am I getting into here? What's so funny is he already knew me pretty well at that point to be like, I anticipated you to have these very bold conversations early on. And I really am so happy that I did that. And I just I wish more people would have those conversations very early. I think it would save people a lot of this grief and the stress that they enter into. And I think too, if you can come at it with a sense of curiosity and not blame, that is the best way in opening these conversations. So really trying to understand, ask questions, ask open-ended questions and let the person respond and don't say something like, I wouldn't do it that way. Learn about how they interact with money. Learn about what makes them nervous or anxious around money. Learn about the childhood around money. Like all of this is really important information. But if we come at the place where we start judging and passing blame, which most of us do, then we get into the real sort of danger area around this. So I say, just start with questions and just if you have to sew your mouth shut, just go, OK, that's interesting. Right. And just keep it as information that going forward without replying something negative. Absolutely. And that's how we should approach most conversations. Right. If you're having a hard conversation, it should be you're listening with the intent to listen, not to respond. And I know we're all guilty of that. It's hard not to because we want to. I don't know if you're like me, but I want to help. And like, I can help with that. I know what we can do. And I very much didn't. And I was proud of myself in this situation. I was like, OK, yeah, like I and I'm just thinking my mind, I can work with that. This is stuff that like we clearly are similar in a lot of ways. But it also reminds me of I see a lot of people talk about how they either grow up with sodas and apps family or they grew up with a water only family. This is also a topic of conversation. That's a great way to open up the conversation. Were you getting only waters? Or did you also experience a lot of joy around the dinner table when you go to eat with every food item you could possibly have? It's a very easy way to start having that conversation. And I actually love it. It's funny to see the differences of people through that. That is great. I love that. And any questions like that, right? If we can just be if we can laugh about it, if we can have fun with it, especially when you're dating somebody, that just takes the person off from immediately like feeling defensive, maybe about having to justify something. And if the other person is in debt or has student loan debt or whatever it might be or a business failed or something like that, they already feel bad enough. I guarantee you about it. So yeah, I love that. Come with fun, come with compassion and it will change how you interact. We talk about money, but money is another one of those like really, which is so interesting to me. Another thing, especially as women, we've been told not to talk about money. Don't talk about your finances. Don't talk about what this is. Don't talk about how much you make. Don't you dare find out what anybody else makes. There's this very kind of hard conversation about not talking about money. And I have liked to be a little devil on the shoulder with that one and not done that. I very much like to talk about money. So I'm curious your thoughts on this because I think it's important. That's why we're having this whole episode. I think it's really important. Like I wish when we went out with our girlfriends, we would talk about not just like getting the raises and scoring the big deals, but also talk about, oof, I spent way too much last month or, oh, I'm paying off that last bit of debt or, oh, whatever it might be. Like talk about the things that feel shameful, maybe the things that we never say out loud, but open them up as conversations because I think that it helps the other person as much as I know that it helps you. And we can bring this language around talking about money. Maybe we can change the dynamic and we can change how we internalize it just from the act of being able to talk about these topics that feel. Very taboo, especially around money. Very much so. And again, I don't want it to be taboo anymore. If you're listening to this, I hope you start having these conversations with girlfriends at dinner or you're just talking about it a little bit more here and there, maybe not to like the cashier at Croker, but you never know that could be like a really good conversation. You never know. Dang, I can't believe I spent $150. That could open up and grocers aren't expensive right now. So you also talk a lot about how people feel shame around money and that's really not how it's supposed to be. But feeling that way makes them feel stuck. And the stuckness is what gets a lot of people caught when it comes to finances and moving forward. We discussed that, how to do something about where you're feeling right now. But I'm so curious about the stuck phase that a lot of people get in because cycles love to repeat themselves. And if we can avoid that, it would be awesome for a lot of people. I think shame is the most prevalent emotion around money that people feel. Like it's just built in almost. We live in a very scarcity driven society, so it's hard to escape it. Even you turn on the TV and watch the commercials. And if you watch it from like a different lens, you'll notice how many times money is talked about and how many times it's talked about in the context of your life. You're not where you should be or you're behind or just something like that. You're just constantly hearing these messages over and over again. And I think what's interesting about shame is it could be something tiny that maybe caused a sense of shame or could be something big. And so we all have a different definition or a different experience, I should say, around shame. But we all internalize it and it creates a stuckness. Because when we're in a pattern of feeling shameful about whatever it might be, it doesn't tell our nervous system. It actually tells our nervous system you can't be trusted around money. And when you feel like you can't be trusted about around money, you're not going to make decisions that are in your best interest. Or usually you don't make any decision at all because you just get in this freeze place where it's if I just don't do anything, maybe that will make me feel better. And so it doesn't. Spoiler alert. And so this stuckness is really getting to what is it? Why am I stuck? I don't know. I keep using the dead example, but it's the most prevalent example. Maybe it's I'm in some debt with our student loan debt or whatever it might be. And I feel stuck. I make some payments. I get ahead and then there's more interest and like I just can't get ahead. So it's really thinking about, okay, what is it? Go back to this. What is in my control? What is out of my control? Is there any way I could find like an extra 20 bucks a month? Yeah. Okay. Maybe I could do that. Okay. Maybe that 20 extra bucks is like the springboard to start paying more of that debt off. And then maybe that thinking about, you know what? I can do that. Maybe then that tells my nervous system. Ooh, there's other things I could do. Oh, I could do this and this and oh, I can make this. I can make this decision instead of that decision. And maybe I have drinks at home and I only have one drinks out with my friends or whatever it might be. And you start to see opportunities. So when you're in the place of shame, you're just in a shutdown mode and you just, it's not that you don't have the skills. It's not that you're not smart. It's not any of those things. It's just your body is wired to keep you in that place because we're still like that way back. We're still like the people where we're trying to outrun the tigers. Our bodies still feel that same way. And so start thinking about what is a tiny little something I can do? Tiny little thing, tiny little step. If we're in $5,000 of debt, we're not going to pay it all off tomorrow. But could I pay off $10 this month? Maybe that's a tiny step and those tiny steps are going to budge you out of that place of stuckness. And it's also going to help tame down that shame a little bit. It doesn't all go away, but it's just going to start moving you forward. And when you can start to see progress, your body, your brain, everything starts to respond to that happening. And I love this so much because I do feel debt is such a unfortunately important topic for so many people. And though we don't talk about that often, just like we don't talk about finances. A lot of people don't talk about their debt and the things because it's associated with shame and nobody wants to admit that they're in debt or that they have things. And there's so many people that are dealing with this and debt is that like hot button of I feel like as soon as you even say that word, it triggers people to something in them just immediately like shivers where they're just, I have to identify this. And I am curious to your take. I love the tools to be able to start paying off that debt, but somebody who is in it and they're trying to figure things out with their life, but they also want to live because there is this also, I know I always have this thought in my mind where I really want to save money, but what if I'm not alive tomorrow and I don't ever going to spend it? And that thought creeps in my mind way more often than I probably should. I imagine a lot of people who are experiencing debt also have that where they're, yes, I want to pay it off, but what happens if I'm not here tomorrow and I never did anything I wanted to do? So how do you handle that subject where it's, yes, you need to pay this off and take care of it, but also you want to live life a little bit? It's such a good question. And I will say, and I talk about this in my book with extreme honesty, I am a money expert and I have been in and out of debt myself. I have probably made every money mistake humanly possible. And I feel like it's important for someone like me to say that because I know all the things you should do. I know all the tips, the tricks, like I know all of that. And yet I've still had these things happen and I'm still battled with exactly what you're talking about myself. First, just know this is a very normal human reaction. And I think there's a couple of things to think about. One is that you are on your own personal journey and your own personal relationship with money and you are the one that gets to set the rules. So if you're in debt, but you're like, you know what, I really want to go on a vacation with my friends or my partner. That's your decision to make and you can actually make that decision. You could make that decision. Yeah, I need to go on the vacation. Like the vacation is going to give me a mental health break. I'm going to have fun. It's going to be memories, blah, blah, blah, whatever it is. You don't have to justify that to yourself. You just go on the vacation or you could decide I really want to focus on paying off the debt. But only you get to decide what is right and what is wrong. No one else gets to tell you what that is. So that's the first thing I want you to know. Even though all the experts, all the experts will say, nope, you have to stay home and just pay off your debt. You're human, like you said. So sometimes you're going to make the choice of I need to live. This thing is really important for me. I need to see the ocean, et cetera, et cetera. And I want you to just go do it without shame. If that is your choice, just pick it and go and tell yourself, I'm making a choice. There's no shame involved in this. But then also if we're looking at, okay, but I'm in debt, I really want to pay off debt. We tend to limit ourselves around what we think we can do. There is so much more you can do than you think you can do. I tell everyone this, I can find money in your bank account. I can find money in absolutely anybody's bank account because I'm looking for opportunities to find ways we could do something better. And there are lots of things like I call my cell phone carrier every six months and say, hey, am I on the best plan? Is there a better plan? And I would say probably eight out of 10 times I end up saving like 20 or 30 bucks a month because there's a better plan that comes out or shopping my car insurance or things like that that may seem like a chore. But these are like little extra buckets of money that I can find where I don't have to earn more money. But then I can reposition that towards debt or towards whatever I want it to go towards. There are opportunities inside your bank account right now. You just need to find them and you can find them when you start letting go of the shame and just saying, let me see if there's like some interesting things I can do here. But there are other options to pay off debt, right? You're going to have to get a personal loan. Maybe you might have to get a second job just to pay off that debt. We get stuck in like our own. I don't want to do that. I have a friend who lost their job and I'm like, you go trade a Joe's right now and get like probably a really good paying job to bring in some income. Oh, I don't know that. What does that say about me? And I've got degrees and I'm like, what choice do you want to make? Like you have options. You have things in your control. So that's the second part of this, right? Is what do I want? And broadening the vision to go, oh, there are actually some things I can do, right? And it's actually maybe not that hard. Like I can actually do a few things. I love to bake cupcakes. And so I bake cupcakes and everybody hires me for like their parties and things. It's an extra 50 bucks every time somebody buys a dozen of cupcakes. I can take that money and I can put it towards something else. So those are just a couple of things. I wish there was like a magic answer, but those are just a couple of things to think about, but I really want you to know like you have ultimate choice and what you decide. Yeah, I want you to be human too. And I also want you to pay off debt and you don't have to do the two things all at once. Like you can pick and choose, but pick and choose without that sense of shame. I know you said there's no magic answer, but I really liked your answer. I thought it was great. And it gave us the ability to have both because that is the human experience, right? There's not a single person in this world who doesn't want to not pay off their debt, who doesn't want to save money, who would also like to go on vacations, who would also like to do the things that they allow them to live their life. There's not a single person who would not disagree with any of those things. And so to really start to understand that relationship that we have with life is what you're doing to help people truly get a better way of living with their finances. And I think that's so cool. So magic answer to me. I know it's not the actual magic answer and we can't just like, bop, bop, bop, boo and debt is gone. That would be great. But I loved your answer. I thought it was awesome. So thank you. I do love to end the podcast with a piece of advice or a piece of motivation or inspiration or just something maybe we didn't talk about where it feels really heavy for you that you're like, I need to share this information. So it's where I just hand the platform over to you and you're going to take us on whatever journey you want to end this thing. Wow. We have talked about so much when it comes to money. I was going to give you just one extra little something to do, a little journal prompt for the journal listeners out there. This is something I love to do. I end every night with this. I write myself what I call a hey, Shauna letter. So whatever your name is, Hey, Morgan, whatever. And I literally just get out everything around money that has been stored up during the day. So sometimes it's good things. Sometimes it's bad things. Sometimes it's me cursing at the it. Sometimes it's me. I can't decide what I'm doing about a certain option, but I just get it out of my head and get it down on paper. And I would say find something. We talked about lots of different tools, but find something that works for you that feels like you can have some sort of ease around money because that's what I want you to feel. Not that it's always going to be easy, but that you can sit in the messy and you still have this sense of ease. Oh, that's really good. And you left us with something to do. I love an activity. My journal has all kinds of different scribbles in it. Now it'll have another scribble in it. Different things. So, Shauna, thank you so much for your expertise and being vulnerable and sharing parts of your story too. And it was just really awesome to have you on. Thanks so much. If you resonated with Shauna's story, you can connect with her more on social media at Shauna Game or check out her book, Unraveling Your Relationship with Money. More to come in the next few weeks on all things love and relationships. If there's anything you want me to address under that umbrella, then DM me on Instagram at TakeThisPersonally. If this is where I leave you, I hope you have a great week. Stay safe. Thanks for being here with me. And I love you. Please tell more people that you love them. That's what this month is actually all about. Reminding people that we care, we're there. And hey, I love you. This is an I Heart podcast.