I’m pretty sure that the complexity of my money stories didn’t begin at home.
My parents’ financial generosity to me and my sister included dinners out to try new cuisines, an array of extracurricular activities, summer and winter camps, travel experiences abroad, and that pairs of skater shoes and then those Adidas shoes and then whatever shoes that were the next cool shoe “I had to have.”
No, at home, if things were tight I never felt it.
At home, money was not an object of scarcity—my dad always said we worked to make money and then to spend it on things we enjoy. We were also to be thoughtful about how we spent, but we weren’t meant to be afraid to spend money.
At home, money was neutral—not good, not bad, just an object of necessity to move through the world and experience newness and growth.
But I’ve got some real deep money stories about the “badness” of money and I think I can trace those stories back to church.
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Years of religious upbringing told me that you cannot worship God and worship money (1), and as a young person I was committed to worshipping God.
I don’t remember it ever being explicit, but somewhere among the Bible and theology lessons landed the notion that money was sinful (the conversation on sin is one for a different day, different time).
Sure, it’s not that money is the root of all evil, but that the love of money is the root of all evil (2).
But that distinction is subtle and when you’re a teenager (without proper biblical interpretation training) the nuance is easily lost.
Or maybe I was just a teenager who wasn’t listening carefully enough. Or maybe my church leaders didn’t understand the distinctions themselves.
Either way, what matters is that I formed a story and that story led me to feel like my love of nice things and nice experiences equalled a love of money.
And that made me bad.
Not a little bad, but a lot bad.
Money was a necessary evil. Necessary, yes. But also, evil. I touched it passively, as needed. Or I gave into the “sin” and binged on buying shoes and getting my hair done and traveling (putting it all on a credit card because if I couldn’t see it/feel it/touch it, it wasn’t real).
* * *
Religion and the misinterpretation of texts did a number on my relationship to money.
It wound its way into my mind, settled in my body, and took my soul for a 37 year ride that I am now facing.
Even though in my mind I know this story isn't true, my body says otherwise.
Even though I am a student of Mysticism, Mystery, Paradox and I have done plenty of work around undoing dualism and binary thinking, it is still hard to not see money as having moral value.
I am trying to unwind these narratives that keep me from looking my bank account, putting money into savings, and feeling guilty for wanting to be able to enjoy good things abundantly.
I am working on bringing this energy into alignment with my how I want to be in relationship with money and wealth.
* * *
Did religion play a role in your money stories too?
What are the money stories that are deep in you?
What are the stories that you’d rather not look at?
(1) Matthew 6:24
(2) 1 Timothy 6:10