UnF*ck Your Money

How I Use Money to Heal My Attachment Wounds

Nadine Zumot

Have you ever thought about the connection between your childhood attachments and your relationship with money? 

In this week's episode, I dive into this intriguing correlation. I share my personal experience and explain how understanding my attachment style has been pivotal to my personal growth and financial prosperity. 

I would venture out and say that healing attachment wounds isn't a one-time deal. 
It demands consistency. 

I probably mention the word "consistency" a few times in this episode lol!

In this episode you will learn: 

  • The importance of creating a practice around listening and becoming attentive to the needs of your younger self.
  • How I used money as a tool to heal my anxious attachment wounding.
  • How I intentionally grew and evolved my relationship with money over time.
  •  And towards the end, I share tips and insights on creating abundance and its healing effect on attachment wounds. 

Join me in this week's conversation, and learn how to use money as a tool for healing and manifesting abundance!

xx Nadine

Explore my 3 month Wealth Program MOMENTUM ⭐️ HERE ⭐️

Thank you for being here ❤️


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~Podcast theme song by
The Jilted Irony

Speaker 1:

Hello, hello, welcome back to the Money Healing Podcast. This is your host, nedin Zalmott. I am a spiritual money mentor and an intuitive and a holistic money coach yeah, all these things I mean. I'm a manifesting generator in human design, so being multi-hyphenated is my jam. So, speaking of left of center, I am going to be diving into something that I do as a personal practice and that I really want to share with you all. It's very left of center, though, okay. So it might resonate with you. It might not resonate with you. It might stir up some curiosity within you. It might not. So, really, this is something that I do on a very personal level and it's a little bit advanced, but I feel like you might get some nuggets out of it. This is why I'm sharing it.

Speaker 1:

So today, I am going to tell you how I use money to heal my attachment wound. I know sounds absolutely crazy, but let's go. So, generally speaking, as soon as I lay my eyes on somebody's archetype results and if you don't know what your money archetypes are, please go to my website or check out episode number 29, where I talk all about the archetypes so, as soon as I look at somebody's archetype results, or if I spend several minutes speaking with them about how they relate to money. I can guess their attachment style and this is not therapy. I do mentoring and coaching, so figuring out someone's attachment style is not my primary focus. But of course, during our time together at me and my client, we generally have to acknowledge it and sometimes we get to leverage it to create better and quicker results for them. Okay, so people come and see me because they know what to do, but they somehow well with money, but somehow they are unable to do it. So most of the people that come to see me they're high income earners, as in, not necessarily rich, but they're making the best money of their lives. Somehow they are still feeling anxious, they still feel like they're overspending, they can't hold on to it, they still find themselves back into debt. So these are the primary things that people come to me about. So when I look at their relationship with money or how they relate with money same same, but I'm just using different language here to help at home for you a little bit more I can guess their attachment style and sometimes they come knowing what their attachment style is because, again, generally speaking, the people that come to see me. They have been in a personal development environment for a long time, so I actually worked with coaches before or therapists, so this is not news for them. And if you don't know what attachment theory is or what your attachment style is in particular, go online and have a look. There is a lot of information that is really good out there online and I can just tell you here, very high level, that your attachment style is created with your primary caregiver okay, and your attachment style to your primary caregiver is the blueprint on which you subconsciously base all your relationships later in life, and I 100% know that the way we relate to other humans in our lives is reflected in the way we relate to money In attachment work.

Speaker 1:

The general recommendation to heal from an avoidant, disorganized or an anxious attachment is to get into a relationship with a secure person. And when I was doing my studies and I came across this concept of like so actually this is how my attachment wounding was actually started to get resolved is when I got into my first secure relationship. But honestly, I don't think that's very fair, because my partner he is a unicorn who is mostly securely attached to the world and he copped up a lot from me because my anxious, my anxiety and my anxious attachment really showed up in the genesis of our relationship and I don't think this is a fair. This is a fair balance for this the person who is securely attached in this relationship dynamic. So, as I am a money nerd and I look at everything through our dynamics or our energy with money, I started thinking how can I create a secure relationship with money so that money can help me heal my attachment wound? Okay, so first let's talk about how my relationship with money used to be. As you probably know, or maybe you're new to this podcast welcome.

Speaker 1:

I shared a lot about this in the first episodes the first like five episodes I really went into how I had a difficult childhood. It was both difficult inside and outside the home. We had a lot of abuse happening in the house and a lot of scarcity and turmoil happening outside the house. I was born and raised in Jordan in the 80s, so it was really economically and politically busy at the time. So I don't want to get too much into it here.

Speaker 1:

But what I wanted to say is that I was anxiously attached to everything, everything. I was anxiously attached to my friends, anxiously attached to life to happy moments, to my things, to my possessions, to men, to jobs, to life, to everything, even money. And what that meant was that money. In specific, I was happy when it came, but I was anxious when it would leave. And when I had to spend money on something, I would feel like it's the end of the world literal anxiety. I'm like, oh my God, you're here, please, please. I'm just going to hold on to you and attach to you and like, oh my God, my sense of happiness and worth is all very, very attached to the money that I have in the bank or the money that I have in my hands. And when it leaves, it's like, oh my God, my security is gone. Oh my God, is it ever going to come back? That is, I know I'm making fun of myself, but that is really what was happening in my brain, okay, well, in my subconscious. Really, if I had to spend money, it would feel like it's the end of the world. I would like create all these scenarios where somehow money's going to dry up and that everybody's going to have it except for me. And when it comes, I just feel like, oh my God, yay, money's here, everything's good, everything's fine until it leaves.

Speaker 1:

So my sense of wellbeing was going up and down according to what money was doing right. That is not an empowered status at all. And after that I started noticing how I created false security around me by hoarding it, and that also impacted the quality of my life. I know I speak about this a lot here or on social media. By the way, follow me on Instagram if you don't. Nadine Somut is my handle.

Speaker 1:

So in mainstream money, work or whatever they talk about how, oh, it's so good to save money, but what if you're over-saving? Because that's what I was doing. I was hoarding it in a false attempt to create security to a point where it impacted my life, to a point where at the supermarket I would just choose the cheapest things. At the restaurant I would just like choose whatever is cheap on the menu, not according to what I want. I was money's bitch. Pretty much. I created this. I don't think money is anything. Money is neutral but I put it on a pedestal where it became my oppressor and I was so mean and critical of myself. I would shame myself and, later on, my partner. If we were to want something that is not on the shopping list, I would look at my partner and feel like he's attacking me personally if he decides to order something that's over $20 from the menu. Yeah, I mean, the money was there. It's just that I was so attached to it that I didn't want to spend it and it impacted everything and I was mean to myself. I was mean to Tommy as well, poor Tommy. Sorry, tommy.

Speaker 1:

And since I already mentioned the eight-money archetypes on here and also in previous episodes I think it's episode 29. Did I mention that? Okay, so episode 29, and go to my website if you want to know what your money archetypes were, but I can. I just want to bring them up to kind of help me explain what my anxious attachment with money was actually translating into pattern-wise and archetype-wise. Okay, so my anxious attachment with money translated into a strong warrior archetype, but it was not balanced with the magician. So a warrior archetype is something that I really encourage or help cultivate with clients, but it has to always be balanced with the magician, because when it's not balanced, this is what happens and this is what happened with me.

Speaker 1:

So my anxious attachment translated into a strong warrior archetype and I did not have any trust. I didn't trust in myself, I didn't trust in the universe. I didn't trust that I'm going to be looked after. My magician was really dormant, so this imbalance created a toxic pattern. The toxic pattern looked like me being hyper vigilant with spending and hyper focused on the number in my bank account. And that number in my bank account was a direct reflection of my sense of security. These are typical characteristics of the tyrant archetype. And then I would find myself swinging on the opposite side of that pattern, which meant that I was really in my martyr archetype.

Speaker 1:

Okay, so when the warrior archetype is not balanced, it either becomes the tyrant or it becomes the martyr. And being in my martyr, that meant that I was overworking, I was bending backwards to please my boss. I wanted to do anything at work to be indispensable because, on a subconscious level, I wanted to create a sense of security. My sense of security was money. My sense of security was my job. Okay. So Now fast forward.

Speaker 1:

A few years later, this all fizzled off when I got the calling to start my business, this business. So all of these coping mechanisms no longer worked, because I saw them for what they are these coping mechanisms were. Maybe they helped me, I'm not. I'm not one to call coping mechanisms limiting beliefs or limiting behaviors, because we honor them for helping us. We honor them for the wisdom that they hold. However, these coping mechanisms were no longer helping me. They were limiting me and keeping me small.

Speaker 1:

So first, I acknowledge that I had an attachment wound and that I was anxiously attached. I acknowledged I and I was able to identify what it is Attachment wounds. They are formed from an early age. Some resources would even say that they begin forming in utero. I was my mother's firstborn and I'm not here to point fingers, because healing and even like the way that I leave my programs, it's not about parent blaming or pointing fingers at anything, not at your parents, not at yourself, not at the system. We are here to become empowered, self led people. So I mentioned this not to blame my mother, but I'm just assuming that because I was my mother's firstborn and because her family lived in another country and because she was such a young mother and a first time mother, I think that she was a little bit overwhelmed. I don't think she had the support that she needed at the time. That's why this translated in me in my nervous system, because the nervous system is developing in these early ages in these early weeks that created this anxious attachment. So I've spent a fair time studying on this topic and I'm a researcher and also I love learning and learning and learning more. But, most importantly, I've observed myself and observed what helped myself and my clients.

Speaker 1:

And if I were to sum up the antidote or the medicine or the solution for healing our attachment wounds, it would be consistency, because in consistency we find safety, and I mean safety on a visceral level. What I'm talking about here is creating consistency so that your nervous system can relearn and rewire to feel safe, to feel viscerally safe. So if attachment wounds were formed due to a lack of consistency in safe connections because, again, for humans having safe connections the connections that register as safe on a nervous system level, it is a requirement, it is something that we need for healthy development. It's not something just nice to have. So, in an attempt to heal myself, I created this consistency for myself in many different levels. So, like I said, I was able to be in a secure relationship, but that actually came after I started working on my secure attachment from the lens of trying to heal it with my relationship with money. I know it's very convoluted, but that's just the way I function. So I think being in a secure relationship came as like a manifestation of me working on my secure attachments in the first place.

Speaker 1:

So, as with everything that is related to trauma, to healing, the antidote is usually simple, not easy. Let's not confuse simple with easy. The antidote is always safety, and to create safety for myself, I first started with creating, becoming consistent with my self-care, consistent with how I took care of myself, consistent of how I would listen and attune to my wounded younger parts, consistent with how I listened and held space for my un-wounded younger parts, because we always talk about our wounded inner child and wounded younger parts, but there are parts of us that are not wounded. There are parts of us that are full of magic and creativity and imagination, and I also was able to carve out space to spend time with them. So this consistency, as like the, as we call like re-parenting I was consistently sitting, holding space and re-parenting my younger parts, and I also took care of myself on a daily basis. So this all created safety. It took a long time. It's not from like okay, I sat with my inner child once, or like I felt my feelings once. I'm talking actually really like. Take it literally consistency over a long period of time.

Speaker 1:

Do not ever underestimate the power of simple things that are consistent in self-care. I am not talking about manicures and overindulgence here not against them, but this is not what I'm talking about at all. I am talking about caring for your nervous system. Go on a bed early, eating well, co-regulating with nature, co-regulating with a mentor or your therapist or your coach, and making sure that you vet your friends and partners so that when you're spending time with people, you're not spending time with energy vampires. You spend time with people who care about you, who you spend time with people who really care about your evolution, who listen to you and who honor you. By doing that, you are also honoring your space and your energy and only allowing yourself to hang out with people that you feel viscerally safe with. So this is what I did and this is what I do on a consistent level. I built this consistency and now my younger parts trust me. Okay, one of the things like I just want to tell you. I want to bring this example because I want to show you how simple yet potent this consistency is.

Speaker 1:

One of the biggest, most major turning events in my healing journey was when I listened to my, an inner child, a younger part of me that was stuck in my old bedroom at six years old, and I asked her what can I do to show you that I am really going to be here for you? What is something that you really really wanted and never received, that I can provide for you now? And it was. The answer was so simple Again, simple, not easy a Barbie doll. So I didn't poo poo that, I went and bought myself a Barbie doll and I asked her how would you like us to spend time with this Barbie doll? And for two weeks, what we did was we created outfits for her. I would get like material left, right and center from the house, you know, like old covers we were moving at the time of course we're always moving like material that we weren't using old shirts, old t-shirts and I would just spend time while we were watching TV and create outfits for this little Barbie. And a part of me was a little bit skeptical, but I would say 85% of me was really on board.

Speaker 1:

And the results after that, like after a few weeks of doing this, I cannot even explain how my relationship with myself, how my self-esteem changed because of this. This is what I mean by creating consistency in the small, simple things. So many of my clients in the beginning of our journey look at me and go like, really that simple? I'm like, yeah, that simple. It is about the simplicity and is about consistency, because that is what is going to create your safety. Did I go on a tangent? Nah, never. All right, where was I? Let me look at my notes. So, oh, yeah, here we go.

Speaker 1:

So when I was doing this, when I built consistency with that younger part, it started to trust me and what happened was that it no longer felt the need to sabotage me in order for me to listen to it. Sometimes we sabotage or self-sabotage when younger parts of us want attention, because that's the only way we pay attention. As busy adults, we only pay attention when we're in pain. That's why sometimes the younger parts they rebel and sabotage, so we pay attention to them. So when I did that, when I create this attunement with that six-year-old, she no longer was running my finances. She was no longer the one that is wanting me to hoard money for safety. She had safety from me. That's what I'm trying to get to.

Speaker 1:

So, on a different note. Like I said earlier, I created this consistency through my relationship with money. So you have a relationship with money. Some clients like to refer to this as a romantic partnership, and that's really beautiful. Other clients are working on making money more of the neutral energy in their lives, so it's no longer the enemy. Sometimes money is the enemy, and then we go and do these affirmations of like oh my God, money loves me and I love money. It's like no bitch. No, we need to kind of neutralize this, because your body's like no, that I don't believe that. So that your body believes that money is not the enemy. We need to kind of create a space where money is neutral. Okay, so don't bypass your nervous system and your brain, because they're very, very, very, very smart. I don't recommend that. They will catch you.

Speaker 1:

So, anyway, where was I? Okay, so right, I feel like I went on a tangent again. Oh yeah, here you go. So I gradually made money, my friend. I did that through becoming very clear on how I want my life to look like, how my new life would look like when I were to leave from my soul and my intuition, as opposed to my trauma, and then I created a system where money would show up for me, no matter how outrageous and crazy my desires were, and that is the bucket system. I didn't create the bucket system, but I developed the bucket system that I use, the bucket system that I teach in my coaching programs and inside of create fulfilling abundance. So in this program I also teach you how to heal your money wounds and create a structure for your money and also create the abundance that you desire. So reach out if this is something you feel like you can benefit from or if you're curious about it. So I don't know if you know this about me, but I've worked in accounting for many years, so I understand I have this like a knack for money systems.

Speaker 1:

The money system that I use is very simple the bucket system and the reason why I chose something simple is because it doesn't need to be complicated, but also I wanted it to cultivate a sense of slow, not restriction, which is perfect to create that safety and consistency, not rigidity. So when you have a rigid structure with money, that relationship that you create with money is going to become conditional, and that is not what I want. I don't want that for you, I don't want that for myself. So money no longer oppresses me. You know how I was saying. Some clients have this romantic relationship with money and some just want to neutralize it. For me, money went from my oppressor to it no longer oppresses me. It no longer tells me where to go, it no longer tells me what to do and how to feel, and it became a relationship where I know where it is and it created consistency and safety and trust that it will come. So let's dive into that trust piece, because this is very, very important.

Speaker 1:

So, inhaling my money wounds, I became more open and more safe to receive money. So, as someone who was anxiously attached and is a business owner with inconsistent income, I had the belief that I had to do certain things and be extra valuable, extra talented and extra worthy to receive money. What helped me transform this was when I realized that back in my family, back in my family of origin, money was given when I was good, when I did my chores and when I was the beautiful, good Arab daughter, when I took care of everyone, put everyone, everyone ahead of me, everyone's need ahead of me, and also got good grades. I mean performance, performance, conditional, conditional Money, in my subconscious equated to love and confusing money with love is really not a good idea for an entrepreneur. So when I used to confuse money with love, I ended up exhausted and burnt out. And not to mention, if you are someone who is an entrepreneur and you are somebody that confuses money with love, you are unfortunately perpetuating your trauma onto your clients. So when I understood that money was just a reflection of my creativity and money more money came to me from my pure intention to help others. I became like a magnet to it.

Speaker 1:

The energy between money and myself completely shifted and I would say that healing my relationship with how I received love was actually what helped me shift how I related to money and also creating a proper system for my finances helped me build that consistency that my younger parts required to heal my anxious attachment. So I'm not going to sit here while actually I'm standing. I'm not going to stand here and say, oh my God, tick, healed. Healing our money wounds, healing our attachment wounds. Healing is a journey. It is not like, okay, done, tick, move on.

Speaker 1:

I would say that my anxious attachment the reason why I say it's quote, unquote healed, it's because it's less frequent, it's less intense and when it does hit, it hits for a shorter amount of time. So before, if I were stuck in anxious, and my anxiety for it would be weeks, now it would be hours. I'll catch it. I know what to do, I know how to attune to it, I know what to create and, again, I always. Here's something I want to say I now use money for consistency, not for security, because I know now that my sense of security is not my job, it's not my clients, it's not my podcast, it's not my Instagram, it's not my website, it is not money. My sense of security comes from me. Okay, it's not my partner either. My sense of security comes from the inside. It is from inside to the outside, and that is what money is responding to. So that is exactly how I am healing my anxious attachment, using my relationship with money.

Speaker 1:

So, to conclude today's episode, I would like to invite you to do something a little bit different. So we are conditioned to focus on what's not enough, on what's not there, and this is a survival mechanism. So no shaming there. But for today, what if you were to journal on how money has been consistent in your life, and what would it look like and how would it be if you were to start healing your attachment, wounding whether you're avoynantly attached or anxiously attached, through your relationship with money. And maybe the first question is what would it look like if you were to neutralize your relationship with money? So that brings us to the end of this week's episode.

Speaker 1:

I hope you got a lot of value out of it. If you did, please feel free to take a screenshot and tag me on Instagram at Nadine Zumot and just share your aha moments. I love, love, love hearing from you. And if you'd like to leave a five-star review on an Apple podcast or wherever you're streaming this episode from, I will really appreciate that. Thank you so much. Okay, so I am running another cohort of create fulfilling abundance. If you feel like you're curious, if you feel cold to join, just send me an email or a DM and we can chat and I will love you and leave you. For now. I'll see you all next week. Bye you.

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