48: Recreating Your Relationship with Money with Hanna Bier

You’re listening to the Mastering Money in Midlife podcast with Debbie Sassen Episode 48.

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 so excited to introduce you today, to my friend, Hanna Bier. Hanna works with ambitious women all over the world to recreate their relationship with money in a life affirming, positive, and loving way.

Hanna’s an energy healer, and an expert in Family Constellation, and a Certified Life Coach. She has woven her diverse skill set into a proven and innovative capacity to allow her clients to transform their relationship with money from the inside out.

Hanna spent seven years trying to answer the question; is it possible to create wealth without compromising our health, wellness, and/or happiness? And, can we actually create abundant lives while living a life of joy? Happily, the answer is a resounding yes. And that is the work that Hanna now shares with her clients. And, she’s going to share with us today. Hanna, welcome to the podcast.

Hanna Bier: Thank you so much for having me, Debbie. It really is an honor. You were a guest on my podcast. We know each other personally, a little bit. I am glued to your Instagram®, I love your posts. So, really, I’m so grateful I get to be here today.

Debbie: Oh, thank you, thank you so much for being here. And I am so thrilled that we can talk about money, that we’re both in the same space. And right before we hit the record button, we were talking about our clients sharing different people’s podcast episodes. Like, your clients from my podcast, my clients from other people’s podcasts, now they’ll be able to listen to your podcasts.

And we’re just really raising the abundant vibe of the planet, when we open up this conversation around money and help people heal the relationship with money. And, there’s so much goodness. And, I love what you said wealth and health, like it can come together when we allow more money into our lives. And, we really clear all of those energetic blocks and mindset blocks, and even the mechanics of money. Like, clearing all of this stuff that’s getting in our way from managing money better.

Hanna: I love this conversation. I could talk with you for hours and hours.

Debbie: Yeah, I’m sure we could. But just for today, just for today, tell us why you decided to become a money coach. Because when you and I met in person, however many years ago that was, that’s not the work that you were doing. So, maybe you’ll share with my listeners what you were doing then, and how you went on this sort of seven-year journey to find your purpose as a money coach, or money mentor that you call yourself?

Hanna: Yeah. So, when you and I met, my focus was helping women release from the grips of past trauma, because that was my experience. I had a really, really difficult upbringing. Everything that could go wrong with a child growing up in a, you know, in a developed country, I grew up in Germany, a lot went wrong, that shouldn’t have went wrong.

So, I developed an anxiety disorder, depression, anorexia, I have c-PTSD. And by the time I reached adulthood, I really noticed just how different I was from everybody else. It didn’t seem like I could go into a traditional career, was very creative, but also very sensitive.

And so, I launched my own business at the tender age of 22, because I had discovered how to heal my own trauma. And I started to feel so much better. I started to feel really solid, and secure, and happy. And, that was an amazing discovery for me. So, that’s what I began sharing.

And then over the years, as I was working with clients, 1000’s of clients from all sorts of family backgrounds, religions, all across the world. I noticed that a common thread that many of my clients were struggling with was money. And I really saw myself and my clients, because for me as well, money had always been this thing that made me really curious.

Because I had so many emotional hooks around money. I always felt like, it wasn’t enough. Even when I had enough, it wasn’t enough. It always felt like I was doubting myself around my ability to take care of myself, especially with money. I was constantly questioning my decisions. I felt anxious about it. I always felt like other people were so much better at life than me, including money.

So, many of my personal hang ups were related to money. So, I started becoming really curious. I started asking myself; so, why does this client, who grew up in a very wealthy family, still have so much shame around money? You know, why is it that the client of mine, who has a really great career, still feels so blocked and limited by money? Why do so many of us have all these emotional hang-ups around money?

And I started to dream up this vision of a world where, especially as women, we don’t feel held back by money. Or, like it’s the thing that’s the reason why we can’t do this or the have to do that, you know, this thing that like guides our actions. And instead, I was wondering like; what if money became the thing that is our support system in life?

Like, the really solid foundation beneath our feet, and that kind of wind in our sails, and like the third parent behind us, that really pushes us into life and helps us experience it to our full potential. And so, that’s the question that I’ve been living and exploring and creating, as of late.

Debbie: I love that. Can you tell me more about money being the third parent? Because that stuck out to be, what ,exactly, does that mean? And does that connect with your work in Family Constellations?

Hanna: It does. So many people are surprised that when I talk about money, I can’t not talk about your family. The culture you grew up in matters. The country you grew up in matters. The time and place in history matters. Your family, your ancestors, history matters. It matters so, so much, and especially, the relationship that you had with your parents when you were little.

So, when you were a little… If you had perfect parents, congratulations to you. Most of us had human parents, they did their best with what they had at the time. In an ideal world, your parents would have met all of your needs as a child. They would have kept you safe. They would have nurtured you; protected you, loved you, guided you. And always been there for you, and stimulated you, taking you on playdates and all those things.

Now that you’re a grown up, you would, ideally, meet your needs with the use of money. That’s why money is so emotionally charged. That’s why money matters. Because we use money to take care of ourselves. We use money to build our lives; like, money is the currency, it is the building blocks for so many things in our lives.

And so ideally, your parents would have taught you how to care for yourself by, you know, modeling that for you. And, you would now be able to successfully use money to care for yourself. You would be a great receiver of it. We would feel comfortable, you know, keeping some of it. You would feel comfortable allowing it to grow.

You would feel comfortable making great choices; building a healthy home for yourself, buying healthy food for yourself, and letting yourself enjoy the loveliness of life. You know, buying like, lovely things just for the joy of it.

Ideally, that would be the case now. But many of us didn’t have that experience growing up. So now, we really struggle to care for ourselves with the use of money, because that is something that we’ve just never had any practice in, if that makes sense.

Debbie: Yeah, I think it does. Can you give me an example, either from your own life or from one of your clients, anonymously, so that it will make the concept crystal clear for our listeners?

Hanna: Yeah, absolutely. I had this one client, she worked with me for years and years, who grew up in a family in Ohio. And it was just a regular family, a completely normal working-class background, parents had to work hard for their money. And she went to university, accrued a lot of student debt, and ended up feeling like; wow, I can’t actually make that much money with my degree, and have all this debt that just keeps increasing because of the interest rates.

So, she started a business on the side. But her pattern was never feeling supported. Because that was what was modeled in her childhood with her mom, where her mom never felt supported. So, her mom and her dad were unable to really support her. So, she was somebody who grew up really quickly, and then learned; I just have to do everything by myself.

So, she was shouldering her student debt. She was shouldering increasing prices in Arizona. She was shouldering her, you know, budding business; she was selling crystals at the time. So, that was starting to kind of get off the ground. And it was just like the pressure was mounting, but she didn’t know how to feel supported.

So, this is the thing that I talk about. Many of us think that money and success is where we use our own energy. And we kind of channel it into that and we build something. Whereas, money really wants to be the support system for you.

So, in Family Constellation therapy, we like to visualize that your mom was behind your left shoulder and your dad is behind your right shoulder; the very best parts of your parents, the soul parts of them. And, I imagine them as angels. Like, if they hadn’t experienced any trauma, any hardship and they were just pure love. Like, those are the parents we’re going to place behind you. And then, money should also be behind you.

And, we want to open up your capacity to receive. To receive all the love and all the support that your parents want to bring you, money wants to bring you. So, money becomes like the fuel for you, versus something that’s like a big problem or a big project that you can’t seem to solve.

So, for that client of mine, that’s how money had always felt. Like this thing that she was carrying around, like, the big problem called ‘money’. And so, that was a really powerful thing for her body to experience; wow, I can actually receive.

And then, you know, some practical steps needed to be taken, as well. But within a couple of months, her income went all the way up to $25,000 a month, in her business that she worked on weekends and evenings, while cats were crawling all over her. And she was like, packing crystals in her little living room. Like, nothing fancy, but that made a really big deal for her.

It is a powerful moment when we allow ourselves to receive and know that it’s safe to do so.

Debbie: Why don’t people, women in particular, feel comfortable receiving?

Hanna: We are bred to be caretakers. This is the cultural wiring, and not in all cultures. In many other cultures, you know, who are listening to this, I’m just gonna generalize for a moment. Many of us are bred to take care of younger siblings. Many of us grew up with emotionally immature parents. Which means that we also have to parent our parents, which is too big of a burden for small children; many of us grow up quickly.

And you know, we’re being sold the myth of the “good girl”; never feels angry, never has emotional needs, is like always compliant and obedient, creates harmony wherever she goes. And so, because of this cultural wiring, we’re used to being givers. It’s just kind of the flow that we’re in.

And it’s like, when my clients are in the giver role, we often feel kind of right, because the people in our lives love it, right? When we’re catering to everybody else’s needs; catering to your parents’ needs, your kids needs and stuff, and like, we come last.

And if we do self-care, it’s so we can feel good so we can keep taking care of others, right? Like, this is the thing that I noticed so many times, where women say, “I have to go be successful, so I can model to my kids that success is possible.” And that’s lovely, but how about you just do it for the fun of it, for the joy of it? Because you deserve it, and you love it, and you’re worthy human being, as well.

But I digress. So, I think a big part of it is really the cultural wiring. And what that creates is, it’s a body capacity that’s about giving versus receiving. And so, we need to have both. The other big thing is our time in history. You know, for the first time in history, we have so many opportunities, so many rights as women. So, we go out and we create, and we do, and we build, and we love it.

But on the other side, we’re still expected to carry the majority of the household duties, the childcare duties, all of that. So, it’s giving, giving, giving, giving, giving, again. And so, in order to receive, we need to be more mushy, emotional, open, gentle. And so that, at least, I can talk about myself, like that, to me, I had labeled as weak, as dangerous even, as I could be taken advantage of.

Like, I’m not a feminist. Like, I’m not honoring what my ancestors have been through, in order to get us to this place in history where I have all these freedoms. So, I had many hang ups around allowing myself to be a little softer, in order to receive.

So, a lot of what I’m touching on is a capacity in your body to be a great receiver, a great haver of money. Somebody who allows yourself to grow money, to enjoy money, to give money; those aren’t things in your mind, those are capacities in your body.

As you’re listening, you may have already noticed, you know, that your body doesn’t feel like receiving money is easy. Everybody doesn’t feel like having lots of money comes naturally to you. So, you may already notice, like; wow, there’s some, I don’t feel that way in my body. So, a big part of healing your relationship with money, that I’ve discovered, really goes into the tissues, into the bones, into the roots of your body.

When we clear out that we’re old programming, your biochemistry changes, and you’re then able to relate with money in a new way, that also shows up in physical forms. So, like, those are the two things that many people don’t know: it’s really important. Your family matters, and the healing takes place in your body.

Debbie: Yeah, 100%. I could not agree more. I just love everything about this conversation. And I would love to know more about us parenting our parents, and how that shows up. Like, that really stood out for me. And I think it relates a little bit to your story personally. And relates to my story personally, when I when I think about it. And so, just talk a little bit more about that, and then, how it shows up?

Hanna: Absolutely. Especially women business owners. Many of us grew up with emotionally immature parents, right?

Debbie: How do you define that? Can we just like backup? When you say emotionally immature parents, what does that mean to you and to your clients?

Hanna: Yeah. So, for anyone who’s listening, like if you hear the word emotionally immature people already know. You don’t even need a definition. Like many of us are, like; applies to me. If you’re like; oh, geez. There’s a book called Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents; Google® it, buy it, it’s great. I’m gonna give you a short explanation, now. I didn’t write the book. So, I’m going to try to do it justice.

Emotionally immature parents, who at some level in their development, in their emotional development, mental development, were stunted due to trauma, right? Because your parents have been through a lot. Our grandparents have been through a lot. We live on a really complicated planet; there’s plenty of opportunity to experience trauma.

Many of us are unable to fully process it, because we don’t have a safe space to do so. So, if you grew up with traumatized parents, whose development was stunted, it is very likely that they weren’t able to give you the nurturance, the guidance, and the safety that you needed as a child. So again, I’m going to say those three words again. You can just kind of check in with yourself; do they have all those three things 100%, or  was something missing?

Safety, nurturance and guidance. If your parents weren’t able to give that to you, it’s very likely that at some level, you’re emotionally immature as well. I’m not saying this as a judgment, I’m just saying this as a point of opportunity where you can do some more growing and maturing, as well. It’s going to feel really stabilizing, really grounding, really healing.

And so, as children, growing up with emotionally immature parents, those parents are often erratic, or have emotional outbursts, or unable to support you. And so, we see them, as children, we see them as weak. So, we think; oh, I love my parents so much, I’m gonna step in. I’m gonna support them. Because we know that our survival depends on our family being a solid unit.

You know, it’s a felt sense in your body. We’re like; without my family, I can’t survive. Someone’s struggling, I’m gonna go step in. You know, mom is struggling. She’s feeling really sad, because, you know, my older sibling passed away. Like, you know, I’m gonna go step in. I’m gonna go do the housework. I’m gonna go listen to my mom. I’m gonna hold her while she cries.

And so, what that does, is that instead of us being the little ones and mom being the big one, there is an energetic shift to, I’m the big one now and mom is the little one. So, instead of us going through the appropriate stages of development, we kind of jump ahead. And we mature a little too quickly, but it’s not the real mature.

And so, often, you know, what I always heard in high school was; oh, you’re so mature for your age. Wow, you can do everything by yourself? A+ student? You speak how many languages? I went to like, work for a family in France as a nanny when I was 15. I have 15-year-old nannies in my house. And, 15-year-old’s shouldn’t just like travel around the world to like take care of… It was four kids in that family. I didn’t even speak French; now, I speak French.

And I was like, at the time, I got so many compliments for something that was a trauma adaptation.

Debbie: And I’m just gonna speak to trauma adaptation in my history. Many of my listeners, like we do have trauma adaptations that are the result of World War Two and the Holocaust. Right? So, I’ve talked about this, many times on the podcast.

How all four of my grandparents fled Nazi Germany. You and I also spoke of it when I interviewed on your podcast. And, my dad was even born in Germany. That is a trauma, whether you’re going to call it a big “T” trauma, or a little “t” trauma, it doesn’t really matter. But then. fleeing to the United States and having to start from scratch, and build everything again from the ground up.

And my grandparents, probably in many ways, did not have the time to parent my mother and her two brothers. And my dad’s family, you know, they weren’t able to parent him the way they could have, in an ideal world, if Nazi Germany had never happened.

I mean, there could have been other things. We’re not turning the clock back to try to figure that out. But they missed a huge part of their childhood, because they were starting over. Like, living in a crisis and trauma situation growing up “too fast”, whatever that means.

And that is something that we do have to recognize. You know, where did my parents not get the parenting that they would have loved to have had, you know, in a perfect world, right? Most of us are just living the human experience in the human world.

And as you said, it’s complex. So, we have our own human experience. And that’s intersected with other people’s human experiences. And this shows up all the time in the work that I do with my clients. You know, it could be someone who had a beautiful childhood, but then, you know, an uncle or an aunt ran into hard times.

And then, my client’s parent might have helped a sibling out, right? So, someone else in that family constellation. I mean, that’s not exactly how we describe your work, but someone else in the in that family, and that will impact what’s going on with our money.

So, we want to be really, really aware and cognizant of the fact that we all have history, and probably 90% of us, maybe even 100%. But I don’t know if we can actually be statistically correct on this. We’re living with generational trauma in our nervous system.

And it’s really important to like slow down, and bring awareness to what’s happening. And you do the work that you do in your way, and I do the work that I do in my way, but slowing down and really getting in touch with our energy and our energy body will make all the difference in our relationship with money.

Hanna: Yeah. I’ve lived in so many different countries across the world. Like, I can pack up tomorrow and move to wherever, and I’ll be fine. But like you said, that was a trauma. Until recently, traveling like this wasn’t possible. We weren’t able to stay in touch with our family through FaceTime™.

So yes, immigration is a gigantic trauma. And I feel like so many of us, when we approach money, we’re just like; oh, just teach me how to increase my prices. Teach me how to market. Teach me how to do this spreadsheet, and I’ll be fine. But money goes so much deeper than that.

It’s a tree. You can’t just like trim the top, we need to make sure that the soil is fertile. And I feel like talking about our families and bringing those, like our deepest roots, the soil, in order, is what helps the entire tree to really grow solid and strong and big, over time. This cannot be skipped. And I don’t know about you, Debbie, but I’ve tried.

When I first discovered that I had some hang-ups around money, I was like; oh, sure, I’m gonna do these abundance meditations. Like, give me those affirmations. Like, what do you mean, I’m not fixed? I set them five times. Until I realized that this is a much bigger thing than I thought.

Debbie: It really is. I don’t really believe in affirmations. I think that we’re just like talking on top of the trauma, that’s wired into our nervous system. I mean, maybe you could do them over and over and over again. And eventually you’ll bring yourself around to believing them. Or, you’ll believe them and… Like, when you talked about the roots of the tree, like the roots are still going to be rotted. Right?

Yeah, and I love to think of it like a wall that has water damage, right. You could have some pipes, and the pipes are leaking maybe from your bathroom, and there’s, on the outside of the bathroom wall, you can see that there’s just, you know, it’s starting to get a little crumbly. Or, you see, you know, the darkest, because the paint is wet, and then you decide to put some wallpaper over it. And, that’s like an affirmation.

And then, you put another layer of wallpaper, and another, and another, and all of a sudden, you’ve got like 25 layers of wallpaper on top of the wall. And yeah, maybe the damp isn’t going to get through the wallpaper for a while. And then one day, you’re going to notice that the wallpaper is also wet, because you haven’t gone and done the excavation, and cleared out all the gunk and refixed the pipes; the pipes are still there.

But unless you fix the leak in the pipe, right, it’s gonna be really hard to have the water flowing through the pipe, or the money flowing through your life, without it leaking out in some way.

Hanna: I love that. And it’s not that the wallpaper isn’t working. It’s just that there’s water damage. Right? You know, it’s the same… Sometimes my clients are like; so, never again do affirmations? Like, I even have free affirmations on my website.

It’s just not a replacement for going to the roots. For like, like you said, for doing the excavation. And then, imagine you’ve got a really solid wall. Everything’s how it’s supposed to be. It’s like dry, it’s solid, pipes are in great condition. Can you put those beautiful wallpaper on it and it’s going to work right away.

To bring it back to money. What we’re talking about is, when you’re… This is the thing, like that many people don’t know, like your family system wants to heal. There are energetic healing modalities; I practice Family Constellation therapy, that can help you heal the trauma from your ancestry and bring your family into a state of order.

Yes, even if somebody’s in jail. Yes, even somebody’s institutionalized. Yes, even if your family has been through war like yours and mine has. Yes, even if gigantic tragedies have happened that we really wouldn’t wish on anyone. Even then, the family system always has a desire to heal.

And so, when we do all of these deeper healings, and we feel really solid, and we’re able to be a great receiver of money and have lots of money, and allow it to expand in our lives, then doing all of these affirmations and meditations instantly kick in.

Like, some of my clients don’t, when they graduate from working with me, when the work is done, like we don’t ever have to do it again. And then of course, they can just like, go do the meditations and the affirmations, and it kicks in right away, and becomes a reality.

It’s just that if you’re listening, and you’re like; oh, my God, I’ve been doing all the things, why the heck is it not working? It’s not you. And it’s not that the tools don’t work. It’s that there are underlying issues that we need to resolve. It’s like gardening, you know, if the soil is completely toxic, you can throw down as many seeds as you want; it’s not gonna grow. But if you’ve got delicious, amazing, nutritious soil, that’s like, perfectly moist, like three little seeds are enough, and they ka-pow a beanstalk as high as the sky. Right? So easy.

Debbie: Amazing. That’s right. I love that example. So, tell me, I know you said you have some affirmations on your on your website. What are some of the thoughts, they might be affirmations, they might not, what are some of the things that you love to think about money?

Hanna: I had my daughter about two years ago, and after she was born, I talked to my mentor. And you know how everybody says, “Once you become a mom, you’ll be a changed person; you’ll be reborn.” I was like, “Yeah, right.” And then, I had Grayson. Gosh, darn it, they were right.

I had like this big personal transformation, so I talked to my mentor. And my intuition is very strong, it always tells me what to do. Like, any decision I make, it’s not my choice. It’s my soul kicking me in the tush to do something.

So, I talked to my mentor, and I was like; the thing that’s on my mind all the time right now, is how nobody knows the truth about money. Everybody’s so scared of money. Everyone’s so stressed out about money, simply because they don’t know. Simply because the world is telling them all these lies about money.

So, she said, “Ooh, how about you write down what you believe to be the truth about money?” And this is how my method, called Money Bliss, started to develop. So, then, I started writing these affirmation cards to kind of give people a first glimpse into this completely new paradigm, when it comes to money, that’s really relaxed. Where you’re so satisfied, and content, and blissfully happy with your money. And your money completely grows, but you really don’t even think about it much, because money is the thing that you’re so good at. Like, money is the easiest part of your life.

And this is my favorite affirmation. I just love it gives me chills every time I read it. Money is a natural resource. And as such, it flows in and out of my life, naturally and harmoniously. I commit to surrendering to this natural state, and source my safety from within, versus grasping for it from without.

Debbie: Ooh, I love that. I love that so much. Thank you. What else? Because that one is so deep. Keep going.

Hanna: Yeah. I now allow my soul to guide me, trusting her above all else, even my own thinking.

Debbie: Oooh, I love that.

Hanna: Yeah, because my head likes to worry, but my soul knows. This is why my soul makes decisions in my life, not my mind.

Debbie: How often do you connect with your soul?

Hanna: All the time; I’m never not connected. If I disconnect, everything goes haywire. If I’m not connected to my soul, you better believe my internet’s gonna go down in the next 10 seconds; I’m gonna break my leg,  and I don’t know, something silly is gonna happen. I notice it right away. If I’m not connected, my life just goes pffft, you know? My love would say tits up, because he’s a Brit and they talk like that. Everything just goes haywire.

So, I’m always connected. Always, always, always. Like a living prayer, moving prayer.

Debbie: Do you know you and I have that in common? Because my husband is also English. I don’t think we knew that.

Hanna: I don’t think we’ve talked about that yet. That’s so funny.

Debbie: Right? Okay, so let’s have a little bit of fun. Because I noticed that my husband interacts with money very differently from how I interact with money. First of all, he’s an engineer. So, for him, it’s very, very practical. Secondly, he doesn’t do the same kind of work that we do. So, I just notice the thoughts about money that come out. Most of the time I stay quiet.

In a recent podcast, I actually talked about being out to dinner with my husband and another couple. And they couple was telling us about someone that they knew who became extremely wealthy, and became an unsavory character. I mean, he could have been an unsavory character beforehand. But in his later years, people were repelled by him, in his family.

He gave a lot of money and donated, and there are buildings with his name on it. But my husband blurted out at the table, “Did money ruin him.” And then, he’s not exposed to the coaching that I do, so I get into Debbie, The Coach. And I’m like, “No, money doesn’t ruin people. Money is just a thing. It’s always your thoughts about money, or the way money is vibrating in your nervous system, or, you know, the energy around money.”

So, I’m curious how your husband connects with money? And has he been influenced by you? Are you having a positive like, you know, are you rubbing off on him a little bit?

Hanna: I think we’re both rubbing up on each other, in really good ways. And it’s so funny, how so many people say that, you know, we start relationships with our polar opposite. And man, is that true. So true, at least in my life. It’s just like; hi, you’re the opposite from me. We’re going to be on the same page once… But it’s really good, because it opens my eyes to all the things that I otherwise wouldn’t see.

And the question that I’ve been pondering is, what need are each one of us trying to meet with the use of money? My need, that I’ve been trying to meet in recent years… And it always changes, like, it feels like I have this topic that I’m working on in my life, and I’m starting to figure it out and then move on to the next. In recent years, it has been safety.

Because I grew up not knowing boundaries, with like, I was allowed to do everything. So, I got into really unsafe situations, like being a nanny with a faraway family, that my parents didn’t even know, at the age of 15. Taking care of four children, including a newborn. Someone who doesn’t even speak the frickin language. In a vineyard, I was cooking food for the workers, you know, picking grapes.

I could tell the story, and you would not even believe me, but it’s true. Anyway. So, for me, my thing with money, that I’ve been exploring, is how can I feel safe? How can I trust myself? How can I feel like I have solid ground beneath my feet? How can my boundaries be not too loose? Not too tight?

So, it’s really solid and safe in life. Especially as the economy is going up and down, and life is happening and events are unfolding, right? Like, we’re all living on the same planet. There’s a lot going on. And how can I feel really solid within myself, regardless?

When I think about my love, what he’s exploring, that I’m assuming, you know, I don’t want to give too much away. But I think I have permission to say that for many men, it’s about exploring power and status. You know, at least for him, like he’s really got the safety thing down. So now, he wants to go out into the world and to create and build. So, whereas, I’m like; I like having a lot of money. And he is like; let’s invest, invest, invest and grow. And he’s a risk taker.

So, my heart is (sounds of nervousness), you know, so it’s perfect for me, it’s so good. And then, I am the party pooper with him. Where I’m always like; oh, but let’s be reasonable. Let’s be realistic. Can we put this into a plan? He was like, no. You just have to believe, you have to trust yourself, you have to leap. And like, even just the word ‘leap’, that just gives me a heart attack.

I shouldn’t say this, because my subconscious mind doesn’t understand humor, right. But it just makes my heart beat faster. So, it’s the best healing for me. It’s so confronting and just perfect.

Debbie: What’s interesting, when you talk about how you show up in your relationship with your partner and money, and how he shows up in the relationship, two things come to mind. And that is, I wonder, for how many women money is also a symbol of power? Which sort of popped up in my mind, like do women want power, which can be represented by money? And I don’t know if we’re gonna have time to answer it, but I’m just gonna leave it out as a question, maybe you’ll address that.

And then, when it comes to risk taking, my husband and I are the opposite of you; I love to take risks. I love to invest in the stock market. I mean, I’m 59 years old. We have about 80% of our stock market investments in the risky assets and stocks, and then only about 20% in stable assets. And I really love that. I love having that potential for growth in my portfolio.

And my husband is much more security, safety, have a plan. Do we have enough? So, it’s just interesting how different people, different backgrounds, different financial literacy… And I think this is, I mean, first of all, there is our nature versus nurture. I think my nature is to be more of a risk taker; it always has been.

And my husband’s an engineer, he wants to see proof. He wants to see how the numbers fit together. And he wants to feel that solid ground underneath him. But I’m just gonna go back to that question about power. What are your thoughts about women and money and power?

Hanna: I feel like many more of us wake up to the idea that maybe it’s safe to be powerful. It is a rather, I don’t want to say new, because it hasn’t always been that we’ve been so oppressed. But I feel, viscerally, in my body, oftentimes that it feels safer to hide, it feels safer to be small. It’s like I’m a little turtle kind of peeking out of my shell, like, is it still safe? Is it still okay?

And again, like, that’s the ancestral trauma. Some people will call it a “witch wound”, you know, just women being persecuted for knowing too much, and being too powerful, being too big. I’m definitely noticing that tendency within myself. I wonder how many other women have that?

And I’m so appreciating so many new role models, you know, Lizzo is coming to mind, like all of these celebrities, or Christina Aguilera in the early 2000’s, who are so controversial. And like, claiming into their power and stepping into their power, and opening up a conversation around women being powerful.

So, I think more and more power is something that we are enjoying. I think for many women, it also needs to, it can’t be power over. I think what we want, is power with each other. We don’t want power at the expense of another. We want to feel that it’s the power that every single baby is born with; it’s a feeling of strength, a feeling of I am here, I am worthy, I am big, I’m gonna live, I’m gonna do, I’m gonna create, I’m gonna have fun, I’m gonna express myself.

I think that’s what we think of this power. I’m still noticing, about myself, that I’m still getting rid of some conditioning that has the belief that it has to be either, power over or power under. And I’m noticing that in my everyday life a lot. Where in many situations, it’s either power over, power under, you know, with, like taxes, for example. I’m like; ah, so the government has power over me.

I’m just exploring these dynamics, and starting to come up with my own definition of what is power for me. Because I feel like that’s also a very charged subject for many of us, definitely for me.

Debbie: Yes. And I love what you talk about the power over. And I’ve never thought about the power under. And I think as women, we like the power to… The power to effect change, the power to have an impact, the power to share, the power to give, the power to receive. That receive muscle is definitely something that many of us would benefit from working on.

The power to have money, just like to increase our capacity to have money. Money doesn’t have to be something that is lorded over, right. When we have more money, we have more choice, we have more opportunity to either, let it flow through us, in that beautiful way that you spoke about in that first affirmation, and to hold it.

And today, I was having a session with one of my clients, who really has big goals to grow her business to eight figures. And all of these thoughts came up; yeah, when I have more money, I’ll be able to do more things. I’ll be able to have a foundation, and help more people and pass it on.

And as women, we’re givers. I definitely believe that that’s part of who we are. And I bring up the Hebrew, which is… Our womb, in Hebrew, is called rechem, and that is also mercy and kindness and benevolence, when we take the word and we translate it to English. I do believe that that’s who we are. We do want to help other people, and share, and give, and be collaborative, rather than having power over.

And is it okay, as women, to have money for the sake of having money? Like can you grow an eight-figure business without the need to pass any of it on?

Hanna: I love that. That is just… What a delicious thought, because money is love. Like, love in the form of money. Like, to receive that feels so delicious and blissful. I like to think of my, just the money that I have, is like just little bits of love sitting there. And I can just let it… It’s like a little warm feeling, it’s like; oh, I have all this money, I can just do something with it. I can choose not to. It just it feels really, really lovely, and warm, and kind, and amazing.

And I would really love for more people, and women, to experience how lovely it feels to be someone who has a lot of money, and be someone who’s really financially resourced, who has a really strong flow of money. And, just feel how that feels in the body.

I always think about nature. How in nature, the flow of lifeforce energy is so strong. You know, like clouds are moving across the sky, and little saplings break through concrete streets, like the lifeforce energy is so strong, it cannot be contained.

And so, I think of money in the same way, wouldn’t it be lovely to feel that raw forest, of just resources, to flow through my life and how good that feels? Because I feel like too often, we’re so we’re so literal with money. When money can also just bring us really lovely feelings, along with the physical trappings.

You know, it’s nice to buy our grandma flowers. It’s also nice to just feel like you could do whatever you wanted in your life. Like, you could take a year off if you wanted. You know, you could stay home with your grandchildren, take care of them while your kids go to work. Like, buys this opportunity. And I think it’s all those like softer emotions that are such blessings.

Debbie: Yes, I love that. And I’m just gonna just go back to that session that I was having with a client, because as women we want to give and there’s this quick, it’s like a trigger, that if we have it, we quickly have to give it away, or there’s judgment around it. And I think that, as women, that’s one of the hardest things in our relationship with money to change, is the ability to have it without any need to do anything with it.

I mean, as a religious Jew, I will always give at least 10% of my money to charities, I’ll make donations. And we even give more than that. I don’t even consider it mine. It’s like I am the guide for this amount of money, that came into my life, so that I can be the guide or the agent to pass it on. So, it’s never really mind to begin with.

And what if I just want to hold on to the money, and just enjoy that love? I love that, you said that. Like, just feel the warmth and the nourishment, from all of that love coming into my life. Just feels so delicious.

Hanna: Just so delicious. And many of us have never experienced that. And I think it’s such a beautiful gift to give that to ourselves.

Debbie: So, what do you think is one of the hardest things to change about your relationship with money, based on your own personal experience? And/or working with your clients for these seven years or more?

Hanna: I think it’s to see the unseen. It’s like getting your nails done. Like, if I did my nails at home, it turns out, okay, but if I go to the salon, the professional looks at it, like they see what needs to be done. And so, I think what’s really difficult, at least for me, is when I’m sitting in my own life, and I’m trying to pinpoint the problems and find solutions. I can think of some things, but it’s never the fastest, most effective, most direct path to the other side. So, I think that is the most difficult thing.

And also, I think we’ve been conditioned to think that if we can’t do it ourselves, we’re weak, needing help is weak, like we’re the ones who always support everybody, you know, who am I to receive money coaching? Who am I to go get help with money? Does that mean that I’m a loser? Does it mean, you know, and then does that mean I have to look at my past and see all the mistakes that I’ve made, and I’m gonna have to beat myself up about that?

But I think it’s so important for us women, especially, to allow ourselves to be supported. Because that is yet another way that we delay getting into really beautiful, healthy space with money. You know, we don’t have to work on our money, in like a really deep way forever. It can be like an intensive couple of months, a couple of years, for you to really work through your money stuff.

And then, you’re feeling so much better about it, you’ve got the tools, you feel really capable, you feel great. When you have some questions, you might get additional help. But I think it’s just it’s so nice to have somebody like a coach, or a guide, or a healer, or mentor, to look at you from the outside to help guide you so you can get there faster.

You know, sometimes I talk to clients who are in their 60s and 70s. And they’re like; I’ve been worrying about money my entire life. And it’s such a shame, you know, because it didn’t need to take all those decades of worrying. Like, if we just had allowed herself to receive some help.

Debbie: I love that. And I will just add, because it comes with the parenting that we might not have gotten, certainly, parenting around money, most of us didn’t get. Our parents never had those conversations with their parents or very, very rarely. And they couldn’t teach us about money because they had never learned it from their parents.

They just watched and observed what was going on. And they were expected to learn it by osmosis. And we were also expected to learn about managing money and developing a healthy, beautiful, delicious relationship with money through osmosis. But we know that we’re just repeating the broken patterns that we witnessed in our parents.

And we’re feeling that like brokenness, or that an unhealed relationship with money, in our bodies, and in our cells, and in our bones, as you were saying. And we have this real thought error, that we should be able to figure it out by ourselves. Like money is just this thing that we always have in our life, from cradle to grave, and money is going to be with us. So, shouldn’t we have been able to figure it out already? And, the answer is no. Right?

Hanna: That’s so unrealistic. And the world can’t teach us about money and healthy money practices either, because it’s thriving off of our not knowing this, right? Like, the world thrives off of us feeling incompetent, of us feeling like money is too complicated. So, let’s not even look into it. It thrives off of our constant dissatisfaction, how we compare ourselves to others.

And so, if, as women, we become financially capable, and we begin to trust ourselves, oh, geez, that’s where the power topic comes in. Right? Because then, we do use the power that we have to not only create amazing lives for ourselves, but also impact those around us.

Debbie: 100%. Hanna, thank you so much for being here. It has been such a pleasure. We could definitely talk for another hour or two. Maybe we’ll do it again sometime, in the near future. Please let my listeners know how they can find you. Where do you hang out online? What would you like to share as a closing remark?

Hanna: Absolutely. My website is HannaBier.com, which is H-A-N-N-A B-I-E-R.com. Hanna, no ‘h’ at the end. You’re welcome to grab your 13 Money Bliss Affirmations there, if you’re now curious. It does not replace deep healing, but they’re really lovely to get a glimpse into what a new relationship with money could look like.

You can find those on my website, HannaBier.com/affirmations. I’m also on Instagram. My handle is @HannaMoneyBliss. And I also love receiving personal emails. If you’ve got some tricky money stuff that you’re trying to work through and you want to tell me about it, feel free to shoot me an email at Hello@HannaBier.com. I’d love to hear from you.

Debbie: Great, thank you so much. And I look forward to speaking with all my listeners on the next podcast. Bye.

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.