If money isn't the problem... what is?

This month we're focusing on financial success, but it's about much more than budgets and bank balances. Siubhan Green, founder of The Money Shift, explains why understanding your subconscious beliefs about money could be the key to changing your financial future.

 

For years I had one financial goal. I wanted to own my home outright and have $100,000 in the bank. I figured that, surely, would give me the sense of safety I'd been craving.

 Eventually, I achieved both.

 And yet there was still this underlying feeling of unease that I couldn't shake.

 I thought perhaps I simply needed more money. But as my bank balance grew, despite what looked excellent on paper, I still didn't feel secure.

 That's when I realised something that changed everything.

 Money wasn't creating the feeling. It was exposing the one that was already there.

 I've spent the past 14 years exploring the subconscious mind after leaving my second unhealthy marriage determined that my children's lives would not unfold the way mine had. I wanted something different for them. As it turned out, I ended up creating something different for myself too.

What I discovered completely changed the way I understood money (and life). Because our brain has one primary job – keep us safe. And it does that by reinforcing and reaffirming our identity using something called the Reticular Activating System. The trouble is that our identities are formed in childhood. 

 You see, money is rarely just about money. It's simply one of the easiest places to see our subconscious conditioning, because it's measurable.

 I often describe money as the doorway, rather than the whole house.

 We move into adulthood believing we should have life all figured out. We tell ourselves we should know how to manage money, feel confident making financial decisions and stop worrying.

 But we're simply children in grown-up bodies.

Everything we heard, everything we witnessed and every meaning we attached to our experiences as children became part of the subconscious blueprint we carry into adulthood.

 We didn't choose those beliefs. We absorbed them. 

 As children, our parents or caregivers were our primary source of safety. We believed what they told us because, quite simply, our survival depended on them. If we sensed that being “too much”, speaking up, asking for things, making mistakes or even expressing certain emotions threatened the love, approval or acceptance we needed, many of us unconsciously adapted.

We learned who we needed to be to feel safe.

The remarkable thing is that those adaptations often become so familiar we mistake them for our personality, when, in reality, they were strategies developed by a child doing their very best with the world they lived in. 

Growing up, I learned that making money came at a cost. 

It meant sacrificing time with your family.

 

It meant working unbelievably hard (my parents held down five jobs between them; I was a typical latch key kid). 

It meant conflict. Blazing rows that ended in silence, sometimes for weeks.

Side note here, during a conversation with my mum some 50 years later she shared that she thought she was teaching me to stand up for myself.

I said, “I learned that conflict should be avoided at all costs.” 

And perhaps most significantly, I learned that what you had could disappear in a heartbeat.

You grew up with a different story.

Perhaps you heard that rich people were greedy or selfish. If the last thing you ever wanted to become was greedy or selfish, is it any wonder part of you unconsciously resists having more? 

Or perhaps money was always tight. Even if life looks very different today, your nervous system may still behave as though scarcity is just around the corner. 

Maybe you watched one parent control the money while the other had very little say. Without realising it, you may have absorbed beliefs about your own worth, your independence or what you believe you're allowed to have. 

Maybe money was never talked about at all. If it felt uncomfortable in your family growing up, it's hardly surprising you still avoid financial conversations today (even with yourself). 

The important thing to understand is that none of these patterns mean there’s anything wrong with you; they simply make you human. 

And more importantly, they make sense. 

One of the most common things I hear from women is, "I know what I should be doing." 

They know they should save more.

They know they shouldn't feel guilty spending money on themselves.

They know they need to put money aside for the future.

They know they should charge more for their work. 

The knowledge isn't the problem.

The conditioning is. 

If our subconscious mind believes that having money isn't safe, isn't fair or somehow makes us a bad person, it will work incredibly hard to keep us aligned with those beliefs, no matter how much our conscious mind wants something different. 

That's why someone can earn a good income and still never feel financially safe. 

It's why another person constantly gives their time away for free, even though they desperately need the income. 

It's why someone else avoids opening their banking app altogether. 

It’s why lottery winners often end up broke. 

The behaviour is different, yet the underlying need is often the same. 

Safety. 

The good news is that awareness changes everything. 

Once you begin recognising your patterns, you stop believing they're simply "who you are."

 Instead of judging yourself, you become curious. 

Where did this belief come from?

When did I first learn this?

Is it actually true?

And perhaps the most important question of all...

Is this belief still serving the life I'm trying to create?

Because the beliefs that protected us as children aren't always the beliefs that will support us as adults.

This isn’t about apportioning blame; our parents were simply passing on the beliefs they inherited. It's about understanding. And once we understand something, we can change it.

If you're curious about your own relationship with money, here are three questions to reflect on. 

1.    What messages about money did you hear most often growing up?

2.    Complete this sentence without overthinking it:

\     People with money are...

3.    Finally, ask yourself: If money represented something other than numbers, what would it represent for you? 

Safety?

Freedom?

Love?

Success?

Control?

Approval? 

Your answers may tell you far more than your bank balance ever could. 

We often spend years trying to change our finances without ever questioning the beliefs behind them. 

Money is a wonderful tool, but it's a poor source of emotional safety. 

Sometimes the greatest financial shift doesn't begin with earning more.

It begins with understanding ourselves.

 

This month's guest blogger is Siubhan Green, founder ofThe Money Shift. Siubhan is passionate about helping people uncover the hidden beliefs that influence the way they earn, spend and save money. She believes lasting financial change often starts by changing our relationship with money.