Money held the power to determine how I felt about myself because I did not know I held authentic power within. As an empathic child, I sensed early on that money determined one’s value when you live on the wrong side of town. This feeling amplified when I was 27, and cosmic destiny placed me dead square in the middle of the money-centric, male-dominated financial services industry. I had a master’s degree and was highly trained. So why did I experience so much fear and anxiety about money?

As one of the few female stockbrokers in the early 1980’s, my journey was to come face-to-face with the power of money. After all, I was in the heart of a culture and profession defined by money’s ubiquitous authority and influence. I began to grasp just how much I’d handed my power over to money when feeling less than my rich clients or when pesky “money attacks” informed me of my own disempowerment. This disempowerment reflected beliefs that no longer served me, becoming a “shadow” that came between myself and my authentic nature of inner abundance.

My early involvement with money, markets and clients, clearly signaled that how we are taught to think about money was very different than how we actually feel about money. In-part the misconception that money is “rational” and emotion is “irrational” contributes to mixed messaging about money, power and emotion. Money operates on both a thinking and a feeling level; but very often, financial decisions are made emotionally and justified logically.

Researching and exploring anything and everything related to money was my profession, personal passion and healing journey that continued as a thirty-year veteran investment consultant. The institutional investment arena facilitated my growing awareness about the incredibly positive power of money, and also the potentially fallacious cultural power, it holds. Yet, questioning it seemed at times, like I was committing heresy.

I was driven by an unrelenting inner guidance to explore, research and experience, the cultural, institutional, and personal power given to money.  I became aware of healing benefits such as learning to embrace my “money attacks” knowing they were calling me to question what I was afraid of, and to understand, how I was giving my power away.  I began to see much larger truths about money and myself. I discovered that reclaiming our inner power brings healing and wholeness, far beyond financial wellness.  Money teaches us, by reflecting back to us through feeling, how we unconsciously give our power to it. Money can also be a catalyst toward opening the heart to a visceral place of true inner abundance.

Coleen Trimble is a thought leader who has examined the concept of money from a boldly honest and integrated perspective. Thought-leading education is available via BELULAR® seminars, conferences, coaching & consulting.

You may reach her at coleen@coleentrimble.com or www.coleentrimble.com.