Intimacy, Money, and Self-Worth with Faigy Pollock

You’re listening to the Mastering Money in Midlife podcast with Debbie Sassen Episode 47.

Welcome to Mastering Money in Midlife, a podcast for midlife women in business to overcome financial anxiety and make more money without burning out or sacrificing their families. Join Certified Life and Money Coach Debbie Sassen, as she shares practical business strategies and mindset shifts that help you dissolve the money blocks that keep you stuck in a cycle of under earning and under saving, sabotage the growth of your business and prevent you from building the wealth that you desire.

Debbie Sassen: Hello, my friends and welcome back to the podcast. I am excited to introduce you today to a guest. I’m sitting here with Faigy Pollock. Faigy is a college teacher; she helps Jewish brides to prepare for their weddings. And, she’s also an EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique) practitioner. She specializes in intimacy and sexual function.

Faigy likes to think of herself as a hand holder. She holds the hand of women as they embark upon the journey to a happier, healthier, and more satisfying intimate life. She has helped hundreds of women of all ages and stages, work through the stuff that gets in the way of them enjoying themselves and having an intimate experience, in the bedroom.

She’s also created an online course called Unblock Your Way to Oneness, to help women work through all of that stuff that gets in the way. Faigy is blessed with seven children, ranging in age from 2 to 20. And like me, Faigy lives in Israel. Welcome to the podcast, Faigy.

Faigy: Thank you so much for having me. I’m a big fan of your work. I listen to your podcast every week. And I am so, so honored to be a guest. I’m so excited to dive right in and share what I can, and just bring some happiness and light for the people.

Debbie: Oh, wonderful. Okay, so we’ll jump in. And I’d like to give the listeners a little bit of background to one, why I wanted to record this interview with you. And, why it is so near and dear to my heart at this time of the year. So, right now, when this podcast is being published, we are in the holiday of Sukkot, the Jewish holiday of Sukkot.

We have just finished experiencing Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, and creating a more intimate relationship with God, with our Creator. And I approach all relationships in a similar way. We have a relationship with God, our relationship with money, our relationship with our businesses, and our relationship with our partners, and our relationship with ourselves.

And when we want to create more intimacy in the bedrooms, it’s going to also involve creating a deeper, more personal and intimate relationship with ourselves. And that’s why I thought that this time of year would be such a perfect time to bring you in, to share with us your knowledge and your expertise.

So why don’t you start by giving us a little bit of background. How you got into the work that you’re doing? And also, share with us your top tips, or mindset shifts, or way of thinking about intimacy that will be helpful to our listeners right now.

Faigy: Great, thank you sounds wonderful. So, just in line with what you were saying about this time of year, I would just like to add a beautiful bit of inspiration. We see that starting with the Hebrew month of Elul, which is like the end of the summer, school year starts, a lot of new beginnings. But really, it’s the end of the Jewish year. And it’s a very, very special month of ultra-closeness with God.

When God literally, in a sense, God is everywhere all the time. God is existence. But the energy that Elul gives us, that gift of God being even closer, so to speak, and him coming towards us, so to speak, and inviting us into an intimate relationship with him. And that culminating with the day of Yom Kippur, and then Sukkot.

Which is, when it’s almost like the groom taking the bride home, together, into their home, start building their intimate relationships together, and going into that Sukkot, with God, so to speak. And leaving all our material needs in our home, and going out and connecting for seven days: days of joy, days of happiness. Almost like the seven days that the bride and groom rejoice after their wedding.

So, it’s like a honeymoon with God. Like, that’s really the essence of Sukkot. That’s why it’s called the “time of our happiness”, a [inaudible] of joy. There’s even that additional day, where God says, “You’ve been with me for so many days, please, please stay for one more day.”

So, this beautiful way to start the year, with this tremendous, concentrated closeness with God. That’s really what these holidays are all about. And I do hope that we all experience it and feel it that way, and that it really accompanies us into a very, very sweet year.

So, how did I get to do the work that I’m doing? So, I feel like many people, you know, you look around the world, and you see that a lot of times, people, when challenged with certain challenges share the revelations, realizations, clarity. Clarity that they’ve reached with others, because they feel so passionate because they’ve struggled.

So, much in the same way also, the EFT, which I’m an advanced EFT practitioner. And also, teaching as you described, I teach brides before their wedding. The main focus being, teaching them about intimacy. Because for the clientele that I am teaching, these are girls who, very often, their exposure and sexuality, and definitely their exposure to healthy sexuality is very, very, very limited.

And entering marriage and this new phase of life, where intimacy is going to be such an important factor of marriage, the education and all the Jewish understanding and the beautiful Jewish laws, everything surrounding this topic of intimacy, that’s where a, what they call a Kallah teacher, a bride teacher, comes into the picture. To help prepare these girls to ease from being a young girl, a teenager, or a young woman, to becoming a married woman.

And when I first got married, it’s been now for me… My oldest, thank God, I  just paid for a wedding this year; my oldest just got married. And when I got married, I was less fortunate. And the education that I received wasn’t adequate. And that created, for my husband and I, certain challenges. That had we had the awareness and the knowledge, then the beginning could have been smoother and things could have been different.

And I am very, very thankful to all the good people in my life that I’ve been blessed with, throughout my journey. But at the very beginning, feeling very, very alone, not knowing where to turn not, knowing where to find answers. And that was a very, very frightening experience.

And we’ve been very blessed, my husband and I, that we figured it out. We worked out our things. We reached out for help when we needed. And we are where we are today, because of those challenges. And today, I know with clarity, that those difficulties that ignited the passion in my heart to share this information with others, so that others don’t have to struggle in that way.

But not everyone is as lucky. It doesn’t work out like that for everyone. And unfortunately, many failed marriages can be traced back to lack of knowledge, lack of guidance, lack of clarity and understanding of intimacy. Because intimacy, and I see this across the board; I see this everywhere, universally, intimacy is such a taboo topic, even with today’s openness and permissiveness, we talk about everything.

Still, at the root, people experience intimacy as something uncomfortable. And I hope and pray that that changes. Intimate relationships should always be something that’s spoken about with respect to privacy, but it doesn’t need to be taboo. And it doesn’t need to be an uncomfortable topic. It just needs the right time and the right context. And because it’s like that, so many people struggle alone in the dark.

So, that’s where, over the years and through my challenges, I think I’ve been blessed with the clarity. I’m not even gonna say that I took it upon myself, I feel like God landed this in my lap, and basically nudges me on my shoulder and says, “Go, go into the world. Share this with everyone. Share this with all the women who are open, their hearts are open, to hear and listen, and shine that light. And, just bring that joy and happiness to people’s lives.

So, that’s how I ended up really starting out, as first, you know, preparing brides for their wedding events. We started working with young women right after they got married. Eventually became an EFT practitioner, and added to the toolbox also, therapeutic tools, so I can really, really help people at a deeper level. And I would imagine that anyone on your podcast is probably somewhat familiar with EFT, because you are also quite a skilled EFT practitioner.

So, it’s an incredible therapy that just helps us go through, break through layers, go deeper, quicker, faster than other therapies that I’m familiar with. And, just help us undo all that stuff. As you introduce me so eloquently, it’s the stuff that gets in the way. It’s all the preconceived notions, all the mistakes, all the negativity, all the baggage that we carry.

And all that, doesn’t allow us to just have a healthy relationship with ourselves, with our body, with our spouse, with sexuality. And that’s where, hopefully, I feel it’s my life’s work, my mission, to share that clarity with the world.

Debbie: That’s so amazing. Really, thank you for sharing your journey. And as you were speaking, even before you said the word “taboo”, about intimacy, I was thinking about our relationship with money, and how money is a taboo topic. And I say that money is the last frontier. That people will actually speak about sexuality, or intimacy in the relationship, their sexual relationship with their partners, even before they will delve into the relationship with money.

And similarly, very few of us are taught anything about money in a healthy way. As we’re growing up, we’re expected to absorb it through osmosis. Most of us don’t get lessons before we get married, on how to have a healthy relationship with money in our partnership.

I’ve worked with so many people who were able to manage money on their own. They knew how much they were making, whether they were working in babysitting, or working in a coffee shop, or even like I was, working on Wall Street and so I had my money coming in. I knew what was in my bank. I knew what was going out of my bank account. Never got into debt.

And my husband and I are not lovers of debt, anyway. So, we’re not the type of couple that gets into credit card debt, or overdraft, you know, in general. We have had some loans that we’ve taken on. But so many people jump into their relationships, and the husband comes from one background with one money story, the wife comes from a different background and a different money story.

And, they put them together. And, it’s sometimes so confusing. There’s a lot of tension around it. And, we don’t know how to talk about money in a healthy way. And, we’re trying to create a relationship with our partner, create a relationship with our money. And just like marriages have been broken up, they didn’t survive, because of problems with intimacy, and in the bedroom.

Money is the number one cause of divorce, according to the research that we have. I mean, money, I say, is never the reason why couples get divorced, because money is just a thing. It’s just coins and paper and line entries in your bank account. But so many couples end up fighting about money, and using money as a weapon against their partner.

And I imagine that you see similar things happening with the people that you work with?

Faigy: Yeah, for sure. For sure. Except that with intimacy, unlike money, where money is just a thing that comes and it goes, intimacy goes so much deeper, so, it’s all the more so tricky. I think that a lot of our like, what you were saying about the differences between how husband and wife might approach their money, is also going to impact their intimate relationship.

Because, let’s say a wife doesn’t feel taken care of. And one way to show that you take care of someone is by being willing to spend money on them. Now, that’s not the only way. There are many ways.

We even see that our sages say, how does the Jewish husband make the wife happy before the holidays? He buys her clothing. He buys her jewelry. That means that the wise people of our nation understood that a woman needs to feel taken care of, in order to feel safe, and loved, and cherished. And that requires spending, right?

So, a man makes, you know, he makes a livelihood, he brings it home, he takes care of his wife. So today, is of course different. And today, we have many women, they’re in the role of the breadwinners, but at the end of the day, just being taken care of.

And very often, that’s going to translate monetarily. But if the wife doesn’t feel, in the daytime, taken care of by her husband, because what she feels like, he’s stingy. Or, she feels like he spends too much; you don’t care about our safety. You don’t really care about our security. You just go buy whatever you want.

Whatever way, she’s not going to feel taken care of. When the woman doesn’t feel taken care of, she doesn’t feel safe. And when a woman doesn’t feel safe, it’s going to be very hard for her to open up into intimate relationship. So, even though money is something that we might say, keep everything out of the bedroom, don’t bring anything into the bedroom with you. It’s impossible not to bring everything into the bedroom with you.

Because we are the total of all of our experiences. And how we feel about money, and how we feel about our partner’s money story, and how compassionate we can or cannot be towards his story, that’s going to directly influence how we relate at the most intimate level.

I feel like, doing this work, on how we relate to each other, how we relate to each other regarding intimacy, how we relate to each other regarding money, is also intertwined. And it’s almost as if, if you start working on one thing, you’ll for sure, also get to something else. Like, I see it with my own clients. I’m not a money coach. I’m being coached by you, Debbie, right?

I’m still working through my stuff. And like you always teach us, we’re always being coached, and we’re always working through our stuff. But I see it all the time that clients will come to me. And let’s say, they’ll come for a few sessions, and then they’ll say, “Okay, this is all we can afford. My husband said I can’t come again. We can’t afford it.” Right?

So, then we’ll spend a whole session talking about beliefs about money. When really, why did she come to me? She came to me because she was having intimacy struggles. But it all ties in at the end of the day. Because it’s what we make money mean. Like you were saying, money are just the lines in our bank account.

But it’s the meaning that we tie to it, the meaning that we give it, that we tell ourselves a story, that is; my husband does or doesn’t spend his money on me. Does or doesn’t spend money on this particular thing. What does that mean about him and about us? And then, we attach that meaning to it. And then, we live in that story.

And that’s something that we can’t separate, unless we become aware of it and choose to separate, and see what’s really going on at an effective level, we’re going to bring that story with us into the relationship. And that’s the stuff, the stuff that gets in the way. It’s usually when couples have intimacy struggle, it sometimes about body image or lack of very basic knowledge, but usually it’s much more complex than that.

Debbie: I didn’t know that you’re a money coach on the side. You’re moonlighting as a money coach, when you’re really working with couples and their intimacy. But yes, I agree with you. It all comes when I work with my clients on their money. So, we do get the relationship. We do get the relationship with themselves, with their bodies, with… It’s all part of the work.

What are some ways that you can share with the listeners, that you help your clients improve their intimacy with themselves first, and then with their partners? Because I imagine, we didn’t talk about this ahead of time, but I imagine that it all starts with us, first.

Faigy: I think it goes back to the belief that we’re worthy. And, this ties into everything. This will tie into money. And this will tie into intimacy. I’m worthy of being loved. I’m worthy of pleasure. I’m worthy of earning money. Like, it’s all, again, it’s all going to be very intertwined. And intimacy with another person, has to start with us believing that we’re worthy.

Because if I’m worthy, and I believe that I’m worthy, then I will, by definition, believe that you are also worthy. The more we believe that, as a human being created in the image of God, that we are worthy, well, then the person standing right in front of us, looking into our eyes, is also a human being created the image of God, and he’s also worthy.

So, all intimacy with another person, begins with that deep belief and knowledge of self-worth.

Debbie: I don’t know if you can answer this question. I think it’s really the root of all of our issues, that I see, you see, is that we don’t feel worthy, worthy of love, worthy of intimacy, pleasure, money. When you’re working with your clients to shift that belief, I want to ask you a cheeky question like, how long does it take? Right? It’s like, how long is a piece of string?

But as you help your clients to shift their belief system and their feelings of worthiness, like, what do you see? Yes, I do want to ask that question. How long does it take? Like, does the EFT help people to shift it in a day? In a session? In a week?

Is it something that we have to keep visiting and revisiting? Because we have a human brain with the human ego, we always go back to that, you know, even if we’ve like, dug one layer, we have to keep excavating and turning things over, and finding the next deeper layer. Tell us a little bit about that.

Faigy: So, it’s interesting, because for some clients, it’s like, it’s magical, it just happened. Something will come to the session, maybe a core memory, we’ll do some tapping, something will come up. And suddenly, there will be just this like, profound shift. That I, myself, sit there and think to myself like, wow, that’s like a miracle, God. Like, how does that happen so fast?

What I do see, as I say, like, on average, is that usually, if we’re focusing… And the way I work with my clients, we begin our sessions with like, a very, very goal-oriented approach. Like, what’s the exact goal you’re coming, like someone coming and saying, “There’s something not working in my intimate relationship.” What about it? Like, what’s not working about it? And we’ll try to really, really break it down to like, the smallest part and figure out what’s the goal. Make sure that that goal is a measurable goal, an attainable goal, a realistic goal.

If someone says to me; I want to work on always being in the mood to be with my husband. Let’s read some like, science. Like, is that even possible? Is a woman always in the mood? Can she always be in the mood? Like, let’s try to adjust that and make it more realistic.

And once we’re able to break that down and make it very realistic, and get a goal, and usually spend the first session doing that, that’s already half the solution. Which, I’m sure, you’ve also seen in your work; that the more you have a clear goal in mind, the more that once we achieve that goal, we know we got there. Like, if you don’t know where you’re going, you’re not going to know that you got there when you get there, because you never had a goal in mind. So, having that goal in mind is very important.

And then, what I usually see, is that within a few sessions, if we are working very, very close, you know, hand-in-hand with our goal, then I do usually see, within a few sessions, anywhere from like, two to five very profound shifts. Often enough, for a woman to just do, let’s say, a few sessions. And I say to the women that come to work with me, let’s try a few sessions, and then let’s take a break. And then, let’s see what happens over the next few weeks.

You must integrate the shifts that we discussed, the realizations that you’ve had. You can always come back and we can continue to work. Now, of course, at every level, like you taught me and I love this, the devil at every level. At every level where we meet ourselves anew, there are going to be things that we need to work on. And they’re usually going to be familiar. It’s going to almost feel like, haven’t I been here already?

But when we set that, when we zoom out, and we say, you know, [inaudible] already. It’s familiar, but I have more maturity, more compassion, more space in me to contain me, my husband, the situation. So, I’m coming at it from, maybe, a little bit of a different angle. It may never fully go away, but a more… Like you were saying, excavating at a deeper level.

So, for instance, the concept of working on self-worth. I don’t think it’s something that we do, and we check off our list. And now, for the rest of our life, we will feel worthy every single day. No, I think that this is going to continue to be triggered and challenged. But I do think that there is a basic level of work, that doesn’t necessarily have to take long. That will at least, set our trajectory different, than it was until now.

So, if, let’s say until now, before a woman comes to do this work, it’s almost like she doesn’t stand a chance. Like, her negative feelings are so deep, it feels like that’s who she is. It’s not the thoughts that she’s thinking or the feelings that she’s feeling. It’s like, I am not worthy. That will hopefully shift to, I am worthy, and I’m struggling with layers of thoughts and feelings of low self-esteem or lack of self-worth.

So, just making that separation, it’s already a huge gift. And we have to, like you said, keep on revisiting.

Debbie: I like the way you said that, we will keep revisiting it, from time to time, whenever those times are, it will feel familiar. And you also said that our work is never done. If we want to keep working, right? If we want to focus again, every year, every five years, whatever, every few months, on our intimacy and our relationship with ourselves, and our partners, we can keep going deeper.

And I like to think that when we’re going deeper, in terms of understanding and excavating what’s going on inside of us, we can also build our relationships, taller, broader, wider, stronger. Like, there’s more potential on the upside, because we’ve gone deeper on the inside.

Faigy: As long as we want to grow, we’re gonna have to work. That’s the law of nature. Like, if you have a piece of land and you do nothing, it’s gonna grow weeds, that’s just the way nature is. If you want it to grow a beautiful garden, you’re going to have to work with it. That’s the rule.

So, if you want to grow, and you want your marriage to grow, and you want your income to grow, and you want the abundance… It’s not even so much about the numbers of your income. It’s, if you want abundance in your life, abundance shows up in many forms, right? Today, there’s a lot of talk about abundance.

Someone can be making so much money, and they can have such a huge income, but they don’t have abundance in their life, because they don’t have a partner who loves them. They don’t have children who love them. They’re not surrounded with love. They’re surrounded with people who feel maybe, threatened by them, or want to keep a distance because they’re not a pleasant person to be around. That’s not an abundant life. Right?

So, when we talk about abundance, we’re talking about abundance in something, abundance in love, abundance in spiritual connection, abundance in financial security, like, in so many areas. So, if you want to grow the abundance in your life, to grow our capacity to be recipients, this abundance, it requires us, like you said, to go deeper and deeper and become wider and wider. Until our very last breath.

Debbie: And what you said, is that it doesn’t matter how much money somebody has, how many possessions, how big their house is, if you don’t feel abundant, then you’re not going to have the experience of abundance. It doesn’t rely on stuff, or that number in the bank account that says a million or a billion or a trillion, because there is an internal feeling of lack. And that’s where we have…

Faigy: … intimacy. Which is also true with intimacy. Because part of the work that I do with women, and it’s fascinating, I love when they have this like a-ha moment. When you suddenly realize that love is all around. I’ll give you an example.

For instance, if you have a couple where he’s just not Mr. Word. He’s not great with words. But he will go to the moon and back for his wife. So, she comes to me because she feels like she’s… Again, people are coming mainly because of intimacy issues, not because of general marriage issues. So, she’ll come to me because she’s been married for five years; got two kids. She’s never in the mood to be with her husband; she has zero desire.

Like, this is one of the most common things that women come to see me for. Never in the mood. Never in the mood. Okay, so fine. So, you know, I start by asking her a whole bunch of questions. Fine, we narrow it down, narrow it down. What’s at the root of it? She’s feeling so empty, so depleted. And for most women, their emotional desire and their physiological desire are very intertwined, almost inseparable.

So, she’s just feeling empty in the marriage and feeling unhappy. She says to me, “I know my husband’s a good guy, and I know he loves me. But I don’t feel it. I don’t feel it.” And part of the work that I do with them, and I love when it happens, and suddenly, it’s the light goes back on in their eyes, like, wow, I’m surrounded by love.

When we’re able to help women shift from, like you’re saying, the same idea of abundance, from a lack mindset of; I don’t have enough love in my life, to realizing that maybe the love is showing up in ways different than I expected. And perhaps, I am not communicating what I need clearly enough. So, there’s no space for that to show up, because I’m not opening up to it.

And when a woman learns to do that work, and A; recognizing that there’s more love than she thinks. And B; to learn to communicate her needs in a way that her husband’s able to hear it and understand it, feel empowered, and give back, then she suddenly feels like she’s surrounded by love.

And it’s the same thing with money, because I have, for sure, seen this shift in my own life. This was even way before I started working with you, and I feel like that was what got me on this journey, which eventually started working with you, one-on-one. But the very, very first, I would say, the first seeds planted was when that movie, The Secret, became very, very popular.

I remember hearing about it, reading about it, watching parts of it, and just walking away feeling very, very confused. And I remember, even having a whole long conversation with my father, and then my husband, who are both very learned people. I’m just asking them like, is this true? Like, does God really run the world like this? Like, is this nature? Like, is it really nature that if we think positive, then positive things will happen? Do we really create the world with our thoughts?

And that set me on a life altering, magnificent journey. And I just remember that one of the very first shifts that I made, was this point. I was in such lack of; we don’t have enough money, we don’t have enough money, we’re never going to have enough money. Like this lack, lack, lack, lack, lack mindset.

And then, to just stop and think like; one second, maybe I do have enough. Maybe there’s more than I think. And I made it a point to start to notice, anytime in my wallet I had change left, after going to the store. Because up until that point, I had this belief about myself, because that became my experience, that I always have exactly enough. But I’d always come home without change.

And I started to notice that that’s not true, there are times that I do come home with a few coins in my wallet. And I started to make a point of noticing, and even taking that money and starting to put it into like a separate little piggy bank, you know. And to start to notice that, wait, there is more abundance. Or, just to start looking around me and instead of looking at the world through lack, looking at the world through the eyes of abundance.

It’s amazing, how just like in a relationship, when we choose to focus on the love that is all around us, that brings more love into our life. When we choose to focus on the abundance in our life, that is because everyone has abundance in their life, to different extents. But even if right now, I have debt, okay, even if I have debt, and I don’t  have “a lot” of money in my bank account, but I have other abundances in my life.

So, the more I focus on the abundance, that creates and invites, I invite more abundance into our life. And I’ve seen that again, and again, and again, and again. And the crazy thing is, that even though I know this in my head so clearly, and I can articulate it so well, it’s still, when it comes to me and my own business and my own stuff. I’ve got to do the work. I can’t run away from it, right? It challenges me every single time, like you said, to go deeper and build deeper foundations, and wider [inaudible].

Debbie: I love it. I love it. So, since you already brought that up, let’s talk about your journey as a business owner. You and I started working together one-on-one  in 2020, then you took a break for about a year. And you recently joined my group program Wired for Wealth.

Tell us a little bit about where you were, if you remember, if we can scratch the surfaces of our memory, where were you in 2020? How did you end up the year, after we worked together for six months? And, where are you now? And then, you can also share where your business is going.

Faigy: So, I’ll start even before, because I consider you my teacher for longer than we’ve been working one-on-one together. Like from the very first email that I received from you, and I was like, wow, this is Debbie Sassen, and I like her. I like what she has to say, and it resonates with me, it rings true.

And I was able to relate a lot to just you being, probably more than a little ahead of the game, than where I’m holding life. But I almost, like, I saw in you a role model. Because I said to myself, like; here is someone who we come from, you know, we live in similar communities. We’re raising our children in a similar system. We’re building families with similar values.

And you’re like ahead of the game, however many years, you know, senior you are to me. And I said, wow, like, she could do it. Like, if she could do it, then maybe I could do it. Like that, to me, was very, very, very empowering.

I think that that’s also why I, right away, connected with everything you said.

So, I also signed up for some of your 1k Investor. There was another mini course that I did, I read your book. So, I’ve been on your email list for a very long time now, for many, many years. I’d say, probably, as early as me launching my own online project.

And when I was launching my own online product, which I’ll talk about in a minute, I was looking for people in my community who are doing something similar. In the sense of, they have something, they’re online, they’re putting themselves out there, right? They’re women, they’re mothers, and they’re doing it successfully. And I just remember that being very, very, very inspiring.

So that, you know, I really want to publicly thank you for that. But when we first started working in 2020… So, prior to that, I had, as you said, I started out as preparing brides for their wedding, and then eventually, that morphed into guiding women and turning that into, there was such a need, turning that into an online course. That’s a whole miracle on its own, how that materialized and happened.

So, once I got online, and I had this online course, and thank God, it was very successful from the very start. Which, in a way, it’s interesting because I look around and I see some people, they go online, and they struggle a lot at the beginning, and then figure it out. And they have to figure it out again, and they have to keep on doing it and not give up. And then eventually, they become successful.

And in my case, I was very blessed with immediate success. I sent out an email. I got so many replies, so many women came to my first webinar; almost unheard of. And so many women purchased the first round of, what at the time, was a live course on intimacy. Which at the time, was very, very unique, because intimacy is a private topic, especially in our community. And, it is something that is not spoken about. And to a large extent, rightfully so.

Intimacy is something that should, ideally, be given over from mother to daughter, from father to son. It’s just like money, right? The education for money should be given over in a healthy way, in the home. That’s where we should learn, that’s where we should absorb our gratitude and our belief of abundance, in God and abundance, like all of that should be given over. In an ideal world, I hope, that’s where we learn the most important things about life.

So, coming online, going online, and creating a course about intimacy was quite unique and tricky. But of course, I did it, you know, hopefully, I pray that I did it the right way with the right intention, and that only good should come from it. But it was so needed, that I decided to go ahead and do it.

So, I was coming, really, only from this perspective of; I have a gift, I need to share this with the world. I don’t have enough time in my day to meet one-on-one with the entire population. Right? And, how can I get this information? I find myself repeating so much information again, and again, and again, and again.

What if the women, who came to work with me, first did my course and heard the information, they would then need less sessions with me. It would cost them less money, it would cost me less time, I can help more people. So, these were the thoughts that went into creating the course.

So, unbeknownst to me, I go online and I put this course out, and baruch HaShem, thank God, it was so successful. And I feel like, for me, that was a little bit also, I don’t want to say it was like, a blockage or a roadblock. Because once that success happened, once, almost effortlessly, having to repeat that, again, was like, how do I do this again? Like, what did I do?

And, that’s when I started to struggle a lot. And, that’s when I started to realize that I need to shift the way I’m looking at what I’m doing. I can’t just look at it as showing up and sharing my gifts with the world, and whoever’s gonna want to come, it’s just going to come knock on my door and say, “Hi, can I please buy your course?” It’s not going to work.

And that’s when I entered this pattern, which I’m still working on breaking out of, let’s say, going out there, putting myself out there, doing a free webinar, running a campaign, selling however many courses, and then just disappearing for a month. And that’s when I came to see you; after going through this, like up and down, up and down, but like a very, very extreme up and down.

Like showing up, doing an amazing campaign, and then disappearing for a month. And then somehow, pulling myself together, finding what it needs within me, doing it again, and then disappearing for a month. And that’s extremely, extremely exhausting.

And that’s, I think, when I showed up to work with you. It was during corona, and I knew that I had to do something. And I just thought like, try as I may, I’m not self-motivated enough to do the work. And, that’s when we worked privately, one-on-one.

And we worked through a lot of my money story, and my money blockages, and the things from home, and, you know, the positives and the things that still need to be worked on. Like, all of that really is what we worked on, if I remember correctly. I don’t know, it feels like a long time ago.

And I definitely I remember, like there were some very, very, very big shifts that happened during that time. Again, in me growing my capacity for abundance. And then, when we finished working together, I don’t remember what was going on. I just know that we moved, and it was a crazy year.

And then we got corona, and then I [inaudible] and a lot was going on. And then again, I fell back into that same track of showing up and then disappearing, showing up and then disappearing. Even with my mailing list. Like, writing an email of like; I want to share, please God. I’m taking it upon myself to share more emails. And then, just like disappearing for a month, right?

When you advertised the Wired for Wealth, I just knew like, this is what I need. I need to work again at a deeper level. I need to break out of that pattern of showing up and disappearing. I need to reach a certain level of consistency.

What I see happening through our work together is, instead of me looking at myself as; I prepare brides. I’m a therapist. Oh, and I also, by the way, I have an online course that I can offer you. It’s like, no.

I have an incredible online course on intimacy. It will change your life because it changed my life. It changed the life of hundreds of women, and 1,000s of women who are on my mailing list, who receive my content. Which, by the way, I’ve started to write to them much more regularly, which I’m very proud of myself for that.

And realizing that the only way that I can really impact all the people that I feel so passionate to impact, because that is my passion to share my gift, I’ll do that any day. The only way that I can really do that, is if I realize that what I’m doing is essentially running a business. How blessed that I am, that the business that I’m running, is a business where I love to get up in the morning and come to my office, and do the work I do.

It’s the business that I’ve so, so, so blessed to be able to completely, really, like, revolutionize the lives of many. But it’s a business. And if I don’t look at it that way, then I won’t survive more than a day. And, that’s what was happening at the beginning.

And now looking back, I understand that the showing up and the disappearing…. So, the disappearing was a symptom of that core belief, or the lack of belief and knowledge, that this is a business. And I feel like, for women like myself, and Debbie, I’m sure you see this with the work with women, who are you know, what we call today,  heart-centered businesses, right?

We’re doing this, not because, oh, the only thing that’s pushing us is because we need to make money. Yeah, of course, we need to make money. I’m not going to lie anyone. Why do I charge money for my courses? I need to make money, of course I do. We all do. We live in a world where that’s the currency; we need to make money.

We’re doing what we do, because we love doing it. Because we want to share it. And that’s what makes it hard for us to view it as a business. Anyone who I gave my course to for free, or at a very reduced price, I could see, I could go and I could see, who did their courses? Who finished? Who did their exercises? I could see. You can just see the people who do it for free, don’t do it.

I know myself; I have a friend who is a very talented ADHD (Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder) coach, and one of my children has ADHD. And I know that there’s so much they can teach me. She gave me her course, because it’s like an over $1,000 course. She said, “Here, take it for free.” Did I ever listen to one? I listened to one class. And I know that if I would have paid $1,000, I would show up every week and listen.

So, the shift from I want to do this for free. I don’t want to have to charge money. I don’t want to talk about money. Money’s uncomfortable. It’s embarrassing for me to say that my course costs money. Who do you think you are to charge money for talking about intimacy, and changing people’s lives? You should just do it for free.

From moving from that mindset, so realizing that the only way I can really help people is by showing up as a business owner. Running a business that makes sense. A business that’s functional, otherwise, it’s not going to survive, I’m not going to survive. Charging them, because by them paying money, they’re committed, they’re showing up. That’s the only way I can help them.

Just all of those shifts, which I’m still working on. But today, I have so much more clarity on that. Due to the work that we’ve done together. It’s been awesome journey.

Debbie: Thank you. I’m so glad to hear that. I’ll say two things: One, is the little phrase that I love to use, it relates to what you said last, and that is; when people pay money, they pay attention.

Faigy: Just so true. It’s so true.

Debbie: Because we feel that emotional connection, because of our relationship with money. When we pay, we feel that inner obligation to show up and do the work.

Faigy: I think there needs to be an emotional exchange.

Debbie: Correct. And that’s exactly what money is, money represents that energetic exchange of value. And when we give up something that we see as valuable, we want to receive something that’s equally valuable or even more valuable. So, we will show up and do the work that we paid for. That’s number one.

Number two, your immediate success with your course, is like winning the lottery. Someone buys a lottery ticket, wins a million dollars, a billion dollars, whatever the latest lottery is worth. It can change who you are, if you do the work to change your financial identity.

But what we see with lottery winners, is most lottery winners will lose the money within two to three years. And many of them will be even worse off than they were in the beginning. It’s just this energetic shift that they’re not ready for, because they haven’t done the inner work. They’re still seeing themselves….

So many people who buy lottery tickets don’t have a lot of money, right? And all of a sudden, there is this huge like, cash machine from the sky that just falls down, and the money is all over the place. But inside, they’re still in a lack mentality, or they’re still living with, whether it’s $50,000 a year of income, $100,000, whatever their number is. They are not the people who have a million dollars in their bank account, or the $10 million or $100 million in their bank account. And that takes an energetic shift.

And for you to have the capacity to receive more money and receive more clients, and to put more value into the world for what you can receive money, requires you to expand your energetic capacity to receive more, to ask for more, have more and receive more. And that’s the work that you’re doing now.

And as you recalibrate your financial thermostat, that will enable you to receive more, and not to self-sabotage. Meaning, you disappear for two months or three months, or however long it is. It’s like the thermostat for your air conditioning; it’s still hot in Israel, we’re still in September. But if you set your air conditioning for 23 degrees Celsius, when it gets to 23 in the room, the air conditioner will shut off, and then the temperature will go back up. And then, the air conditioner will turn on, and cool the room down to 23.

So similarly, you can receive a lot of money… When you show up, you share your course with your email list, people will buy, and then you’re going to shut off your thermostat. It’s not going to be an intentional thing that you decide to do, it will just happen because your thermostat is set at a certain income. And when you hit that income, you’re going to shut it off till you drop.

And then, it’ll be like; oh, I haven’t sent out an email in a while. People haven’t bought my course in a while. So, we have to recalibrate your financial identity, and reset your financial thermostat, for more. It’s as simple as that.

Faigy: It’s the same thing with intimacy. It’s like there’s more love than your nervous system is used to accepting and feeling. And most couples, who start off at that point will eventually crash. And then, it’s like; okay, do we now spend the next 50 years talking about oh, the good old days, and basically miss the life in the present? It just kind of like, disappears between our fingers, right? And, life is over before you know it.

Or, do we say; what we had at the beginning was a gift. We were showered with beautiful gift. Now, let’s build the capacity in our nervous system, in our connection within that, within that dynamic in the home, to allow for that level of love. And then, when we build it, it becomes real, it becomes yours.

So, looking back at my own journey to success, at the beginning, I feel like because intimacy was such a needed topic and there was no one, maybe you people were doing it already. But I don’t know that it was being done online the way I was doing it, yet, at that point. That these days has become much more popular.

And I would like to believe that, hopefully I am part of a positive revolution in enabling the conversation. Of course, the conversation has to, like I said, it has to still be done in a refined way, in a private way, in a respectful way. But it needs to happen. So, at the beginning, being blessed with this huge success. Yes, of course, I, of course I showed up. I mean, I put the course together, there were sleepless nights, it was stressful. Yeah, I showed up. I know I did.

But as far as the like, the marketing, and the viewing myself as a business owner, and learning to ask for money, like I didn’t do any of that, yet. I wasn’t aware of that yet, because I feel like the need was so big. But once that first wave subsided, it’s like, okay, crash, now do the work. Now, do the work so that once again, you can become that recipient of that abundance in a much more integrated way.

In a real way. In a wholesome way, that’s part of you, not by accident; not by chance. But because you’ve grown into that leader, you’ve grown into that person, and then it’s so much more powerful, and then your capacity is so much greater. Like you were saying. Your capacity to receive and therefore, to get. Because the more you can receive, the more you can get. It’s two sides of the same coin.

Debbie: I agree 100%. Let’s tie this interview, where we’re talking about intimacy and relationships and abundance, to our relationship with God. Because right now, during the holiday of Sukkot, this is our most intimate relationship with God. And as we have been saying, it’s a relationship that we always have to be working on. Right?

There are people who are naturally spiritual, right? They just wake up every morning, they feel connected with their Creator, they feel connected with the universe, they have this beautiful, warm feeling flooded through them. And then, they might especially, maybe, when we’re younger teenagers and we have more time, freedom on our hand, we don’t have a partner, we don’t have a business, we don’t have children.

And then, all of a sudden, we might like, crash, if you were talking about that relationship. Like, things that came so naturally, all of a sudden, we have to work on them harder. We have to put more intentionality into a relationship.

Faigy: Right, doesn’t necessarily have to be hard. It just has to be intentional.

Debbie: Right. Yeah, I didn’t mean that like physically, like lifting boulders or anything. But when there are so many other moving parts in our life, God can get pushed to the side. Even though we have this awareness in our psyche that, yes, there’s a God, there’s a Creator. And we’re, I imagine as mothers, we’re thankful for our children, and we are thankful for all the abundance.

But as you said, when we actually pay attention, whether it’s the change that’s left in your wallet at the end of a shopping trip, or the fact that your husband took the garbage out, your kids maybe, cleaned up the toys. Whatever it is, when we’re focusing on the good things, we see more of that.

So, especially now, in this time of year, how would you recommend or suggest that people create a deeper, more intimate relationship with God?

Faigy: Well, first of all, just like intimacy is very intimate, right? And it’s very unique in every relationship, how that intimacy is going to show up. Just as every woman’s journey, every CEO of her business, every woman who works with you, her own unique journey of her money story, of her work with money, it’s very, very personal.

I feel like it’s the same thing. Everyone’s relationship with God, by definition, is so unique and personal, because there is no other you. There’s no other one in the world who can have your relationship with God, only you can. So, it’s a very, very individual, unique, personal, private experience.

And everyone has to figure out what enabled them, you were saying, like, sometimes God gets pushed aside. And I think that the work, is to realize that it’s not that there’s God and everything else, and sometimes he gets pushed aside. But rather, to see that there is only God, everything is an expression of God, the love in our life, the abundance in our life, the food in our life, the cooking in our life, the laundry in our life, the business in our life.

Everything; it’s all an expression of God. God created the world for us as an opportunity to connect with Him. That’s the ultimate pleasure. That is the ultimate good. That’s the ultimate intimacy. And by being able to see, especially for us women, where we do get so busy with, like, you were saying, we spend the holiday in the kitchen. We spend it in the kitchen. We’re cooking, cooking galore, you know, cooking up meals.

And we could still easily lose sight of the fact that, really, what we’re doing with all the “physicality”, searching our soul, searching for that spiritual lift, realizing that God is in the kitchen. God is in the bedroom. God is with us on the porch. God is with us everywhere, because God is existence.

And the more we connect to that, because that is the source of abundance. Because God is eternal, God is abundant. And the more we connect to that, the more we will see that love is all around us. Really, everything else is just showing up in our lives as masks. Where we are expected to see beyond the mask, to see what’s behind the mask, and to see how really, really, really, everything’s God.

Debbie: Hmm, I love that. Thank you, so much. Before we close up this interview, I want you to share, number one, the biggest money transformation that you have had, that you’d like my listeners to hear about, and to experience, and see what is available to them when they do the work on their money and their money story. And for the women who are building businesses, what’s available to them.

And then, let us know how people can get in touch with you, if they want to create a deeper, more intimate relationship with themselves and their partners.

Faigy: So, first of all, the money transformation, that’s a fascinating question. Because really, it’s made up of a lot of little parts. Like, while you’re going through it, you might not even realize that you are in the transformation. Like it’s happening through you, right this very minute. You know, it’s like, you look back and you suddenly, like, connect the dots.

Well, so I heard this podcast, and then I got on the mailing list. And then I this, and then I that… Like in your case, it was like someone mentioned your name, I looked you up online, I got on your mailing list, I loved what you had, I signed up for your course, you mentioned a certain book, I read the book, I reached out to you… Like, I can’t even remember, I can’t keep it straight. Like, so many little mini steps along the way, that just together, turned into this beautiful transformation.

Starting out, like I said, being for me, my story, being afraid of money. Feeling like I want to have nothing to do with it. Handing over the check to my husband, you take care of it. I don’t want to have anything to do with it. To being able to sit down and say, together we take care of our family. Together, we run this business.

I love money. Not because I love money, per se. But because I love the opportunity of helping other people. I love that they’re able to exchange energy, give me their money, and I could give them something that can change their life. I could then, take that money and use it to help others.

Because if I’m not sustaining my family, then I won’t be able to help others. So, being able to realize that money is such an incredible blessing in our lives. I would say that that’s probably the biggest transformation, going from having this hate relationship. Well really, love-hate relationship, because I hate money. I want to have nothing to do with it.

Except when, oh I need this and I need this and I need that, right? And my husband, he’s the bad guy. Because here, I hand over the checkbook and you take care of the money. And when I need something, well, if you’re handing over the check, and you don’t want to look at the numbers, and when I have to say no, I have to say no. Well, you have to accept that, right?

So, just all the tension that that brings into the marriage. And like you said, everyone’s money story, that they bring with them into the marriage, going from not being willing to look at the money; having anxiety over the thought of having to manage a bank account. To be able to go into my bank account and look at the numbers.

To be someone who’s able to sit down and say, so how much money did the business bring in this year? How much do I want to bring in next year? What do I need to do, in order to hopefully, meet those goals? And, what do I want to do once I do meet those goals? What are the changes I want to make? What more light I could bring into the world, when I hopefully, do meet those goals?

To be able to even think in those terms, I would say that that’s the biggest transformation. And I think that for a lot of women, I see this across the board, it could go back to the fact that naturally, a man is a provider. That’s the way God created the world. You know that the man is the provider, the woman is the recipient. Not a passive recipient, as in I don’t have to do anything. It’s a whole, it’s a whole podcast on itself, which we’re obviously not gonna, we’re not going to elaborate upon, right now.

But I do think that there’s a very, very natural state of mind that a woman has of; you take care of me; you’re the husband. You take care of me; you are the provider. And I feel that this gets in the way for a lot of women who do want to open up businesses, and especially in today’s world, where there is so much respect and space for heart-centered… Especially female business owners, which is an incredible thing to see. So beautiful.

This is something fairly new. And this is something that yes, it’s true, that still is a patriarchal world, and it’s definitely still a man’s world. But I really, really think that’s shifting. And I think that even the men in the world are starting to realize that the women are bringing to the table something that for hundreds of years, they couldn’t.

And I think that there’s so much space today, and reverence for that feminine space. And, I think that that’s beautiful. So, for a lot of women, what might get in their way is this part, because they have the heart-centered mission, they have the dream, right? But then it’s like, oh, but it has to be a business. And that’s where a lot of women, I think ,just like shut down and say, forget it, I can’t do it.

So, my message to you, is you can do it, you can do it. You can make that shift. It doesn’t mean that you have to sacrifice your femininity. It doesn’t mean that you have to turn into a man. You have to realize that there is so much that you can do with your feminine power, with your feminine beauty, in the softness and the heart-centered way and the feeling that you could do.

And yet, at the same time, still be able to put on that thinking cap, right? That like, higher function of the brain, and yes, be able to look at numbers and not be petrified by them. And realize, again, like I said before, that if you want to be able to show up in the world and really make a difference, then it’s going to have to involve monetary exchange.

That’s just the way the world is today. We can’t avoid that. So, if you’re dreaming big enough, hopefully, those blockages won’t get in the way. And if they do get in the way, then call Debbie Sassen.

Debbie: Thank you. That’s such a perfect way to end the interview, and to end the podcast today. Thank you. Let everybody know where you are online and how they can find you.

Faigy: Okay, so they can email me at [inaudible]. So, there’ll be a link to the page online, where you can see my course and you can purchase my course. Then, there will also be a link to sign up to my mailing list, which is basically a free class that I give, like an introduction class. And then, by doing so you are signed up to my mailing list.

And you can email me at faigypollock@unblockingyourway.co.il (F-A-I-G-Y-P-O-L-L-O-C-K). That will all be linked in the show notes. And anyone who’s looking to work with me, I graciously accept whoever comes my way, whoever I’m available at the moment to hopefully assist.

And I hope and pray that just like you, Debbie, has been a blessing in my life and helping me open up my heart to more abundance. I hope that, I too, will be able to help women in their journey to grow your intimacy. And together we should always be able to really operate from our heart, from that love, from that passion, from that clarity of our mission in this world to help and empower other women to do the same.

Debbie: Amen. All right. Thank you so much, and I wish you and the listeners, Chag Sameach; Happy holidays.

And I look forward to seeing you next week, on the next episode of Mastering Money in Midlife. Bye, for now.

Thanks for listening to Mastering Money in Midlife. If you want more information on Debbie Sassen or the resources from the podcast visit MasteringMoneyinMidlife.com.