How to Unblock the Flow of Money

You’re listening to the Mastering Money in Midlife podcast with Debbie Sassen Episode 29.

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.

Well, hello, my friends, and welcome back to the podcast.

We had such a lovely week, last week, in the four-day training, the Money Alchemy Accelerator training. There were so many people who were having a-ha moments, and awareness, and illumination around their businesses and money: What was blocking the flow of money, how they could create more money and really create a plan, set audacious goals, expand themselves, and expand their vibration to asking for and receiving more money and creating more wealth.

I was just so thrilled to see what was possible for all of the people who participated in that training. Whether you were there, or whether you missed it, I thought that today I would speak specifically about how you can unblock the flow of money.

I’m specifically going to talk about four different ways that you can unblock the flow of money. Some of these we spoke about last week in the training, and some of them are new. And the last one is a completely unconventional way of unblocking the flow of money that I’ve actually never shared before. But it came to me at the end of the training, and I thought, “I want to share that, as well.”

So, if you are finding that money is blocked, that you really want, and you really desire to make more money, but for some reason, everything just gets stuck… I’ve spoken before, in one of the podcast episodes about your financial thermostat, and you have set points. We have a set point for the amount of money that we can earn, the amount of money we can save, the amount of debt that we feel comfortable having, and the amount of wealth that we feel comfortable growing over time, right?

There are people who feel comfortable with $1,000 in savings, people who feel comfortable with $50,000 or $100,000 in savings or investments, there are people who feel comfortable with millions. Depending on what your financial set points are, those are the set points that are setting your thermostat, you know exactly where you are based on where you are today.

Sometimes, it just seems so difficult to move that set point higher. Or, if you want to get out of debt, to bring the debt lower, it just seems like you’re just stuck and money isn’t flowing. You really want to be in that flowing state, that feeling of abundance, but, argh, nothing seems to be happening.

One method that is very, very helpful is to look… Again, look for sure, for the first time if you’ve never done this, but it’s always worthwhile to look again, at your family of origin story around money. Because we were all little kids at one time, right?

If you’re old enough to listen to this podcast, then I imagine that once upon a time, you were a 4- or 5- or 6- or 7-year-old, and you were observing the adults around you. You were downloading, into your brain and into your nervous system, all the ways that they interacted with money.

You might have done some work on this and cleared and healed some of the stories, but it’s worthwhile to look again, because new things crop up. For so many of us, we witnessed our parents really working hard to create money, and there was hustling, and maybe people working on the weekends or late nights, or living paycheck to paycheck.

So, you have wired into your nervous system, that making money is hard. And, if it’s showing up today, in your life, that is just that grind and money seems to be stuck, and you seem to keep doing the same thing over, and over, and over but nothing is moving the needle, then that is your calling to look at the origin story. Because we want to bring it to light, and then we want to release that.

It’s something that I did recently with one of my clients, we went back to look at her family of origin story around money, and where it was hard. Another thing that so many of us observed as children is that… Well, either money wasn’t talked about, it was hidden away so money just seems secretive. And, we have this false belief that money is only secretive and then we don’t know how to manage it. Here we are as adults, and we don’t know anything about it, and it just seems scary and unfamiliar.

That’s one possibility. Or, there was fighting and yelling around money. So often it happened, because, prior to my generation, the man was the main breadwinner in the family, and the wife was the stay-at-home mom. And, or maybe, she had a part-time job, she was a teacher, nurse. That’s what my mom and my stepmom were; my stepmom was a teacher. My mom was a nurse.

But it wasn’t the main income for the family. So, dad was making all the money. Mom was, maybe, making a little bit of money, going to the supermarket and spending it. But if mom wanted to spend the money, in many families, she had to go and ask dad for the money. Sometimes he would say yes, sometimes he would say no.

And then, if she wanted more than what the amount of money, the allowance… I mean, in some families, dad actually gave mom an allowance. If mom wanted to spend more than the allowance, let’s say she took you out shopping, wanted to buy you some pretty clothes… This story has repeated itself for many of my clients.

At the end of the shopping trip, shopping spree, shopping extravaganza, mom would whisper, “Don’t tell your father,” right? Then, the bills were hidden away, the clothes were even hidden away.

Money just became this very confusing, anxiety-laden, angst-ridden thing. You, as a child, who are observing this, and again, downloading it into your nervous system, was like this wishy-washy, wonky energy around money. And you made a decision, as a child, that you don’t want anything to do with it.

Or, alternatively, you may have made a decision. as a child, “I’m going to make so much money, that I never have to worry about this kind of situation again. Nobody is ever going to tell me that I have to hide the receipts, that there are things that I can’t buy. I’m going to be in charge of my own money, and I’m going to make sure that that happens.”

When you have that forceful energy, that you’re going to have to do it to prove something, or to show someone something, that also can block the flow of money. Because it comes with so much efforting, and so much push, and so much having to prove something to someone, even if that someone is no longer alive, are no longer in your life.

It’s fascinating how these family of origin stories, repeat themselves and come back to shadow us, influence us, even haunt us, as adults. So, you want to go and have a look at what was happening, then, clear that. Release that. Decide that it is no longer part of your story today.

You are going to allow money to flow to you, from all the sources where it can: from your clients, from tax refunds, from even… You might get someone who’s going to give you a tip or a gift. However money comes to you, allow it to come to you in all ways. That’s number one, reviewing your family of origin story.

Number two, is forgiveness work. So many of us made mistakes. And, that’s why I’m very open and transparent. I speak about my $50,000 loss on a “hot tip” investment in the financial markets, because we all make mistakes. All through our life, we make mistakes. When we’re in school, we make mistakes; we don’t get our times tables right. We spell things incorrectly. We forget facts and numbers, and how many people died in battles, we make mistakes. Sometimes we park in a “No Parking” zone and we get a ticket. These are things that happen in life.

But for some reason, when it comes to money, we feel like it’s the end of the world. We want to just crawl back into the cave because of the guilt, and the shame, and the embarrassment.

So, if you have financial mistakes in your history, who doesn’t? We all have our little skeletons in the closet, or ghosts in the closet. We’ve swept things under the carpet. We’ve pushed some bills into the drawer and said we’re going to look at them later, and we never did. Then we got those red notices in the mail that we were overdue on the payment for the water or the electricity.

Whatever it is, it’s really time to forgive yourself. Because if you are holding on to all of this guilt, or shame, or whatever those heavy, negative feelings are, your money energy is just going to be stuck and constricted inside of you. It’s going to be hard to allow yourself to open up to abundance and open up to receiving more money.

Even if you’ve done some forgiveness work in the past, I always recommend that you just go back and look at anything that might have happened. You could write it all down, you can do some tapping, whatever it is, it’s really time to forgive yourself for the things that you did in the past. You were younger then, you were less informed, you might have been trying things out for kicks.

I mean, so many kids stole candy from the supermarket when they were little, and I’m not condoning this. If you’re listening to this in a car, and your kids are listening, quickly turn it off, rewind, tell them that they’re not allowed to do that. Because I’m not suggesting that kids steal for thrills, but kids are curious. They like to test boundaries, right? If you’re an adult, if you’re a parent, we know this is true.

So, if you’re still feeling shame over something that you did, as a child, it’s time to let it go. When you free yourself from all of those heavy feelings, then you create energetic capacity within you to receive more money.

Number three, if you want to create more money, you have to step up and you have to get visible. You have to stop playing small. You have to be willing to call in clients, to call in the people who want to work with you, the people who want to pay you.

And that includes, if you have outstanding invoices, sending an email or sending snail mail to your clients and saying, “Hello, remember me? We worked together and it’s time to pay.” Now, you don’t have to use those words, that’s probably not very professional. But if you want to receive money, then be visible.

Be visible in your email to your clients, be visible if you’re doing online marketing, digital marketing, be visible in networking groups, be seen. Because when you get out there and you’re seen, people know that you are a going entity, you’re a business that’s here to serve. The way we serve our clients is that we provide services, we share value, and in return, people pay us.

If you’re going to keep yourself just like the best kept secret that the world ever knew, well, then it’s going to be very hard for you to call in money, and allow that flow of money, and that flow of abundance to come to you. I know that as people grow their businesses…

If you want to be small, and just work in your neighborhood, with your neighbors, with your friends, that’s one kind of business, and that’s fine. But if you want to really have that flow of money, and that’s what we’re talking about, unblocking that flow, you have to let more people see you.

That fear of judgment, or criticism, or rejection can be very strong. And so, as you’re about to show up and show your face, remind yourself that you’re not going to die. It sounds like a very simple solution, but your primitive brain really, really feels that by showing up and exposing yourself something terrible is going to happen, right?

We’re always talking about that lion that’s going to jump out at us and maul us, and hurt us. Your primitive brain is going to really, really be running wild and want you to run back into the cave to protect yourself. So, just keep reminding yourself, “I’m okay. I’m safe. I’m not going to die; I can do this.”

The more you show up, and the more you get visible… Like, the first time it might be horrible. It might feel really, really raw and really vulnerable. But then you do it a second time, and you start training your brain that, “Oh, yeah, you’re telling the truth to yourself,” that you showed up. You went to a networking event and you didn’t die. Or, you did a Facebook Live and you didn’t die.

And by the way, I have a funny story. The first time I did a Facebook Live, I don’t even remember how many years ago it was anymore, I’ve been on Facebook for a gazillion years, it seems. But I did a Facebook Live and it was sideways. I was using, then, a tablet not my, not my phone. I don’t even think that I had a smartphone at that time.

So, I just had my tablet to do the Facebook Live and I had it turned the wrong way. And so, I showed up sideways. Luckily, somebody helped me turn it around. But people were trying to message me, and give me comments, and tell me that it was sideways.

I was just so unfamiliar, such a newbie on Facebook, that I had no clue. Somebody just said, “If you want to show up and grow your business, you just have to do Facebook Lives,” so I did. And you know what? It was sideways and I didn’t die. And here I am, to tell the story years later. So, remind yourself that you’re safe, you’ve got your own back, and nothing horrible is going to happen.

Alright, those are three pretty conventional ways. Although, people might say that going back into your family of origin story is a little woo-woo, or the forgiveness work is a little woo-woo, whatever it is, I think those are very conventional methods. They’re very accepted, and they work.

Here’s the fourth way that you can unblock the flow of money. And that is; ask yourself, “If I knew how to unblock the flow of money, what would I do?” It sounds a little bit unconventional to start asking yourself questions, because you would think that if you knew how to unblock the flow of money, you would have done it already. But so much of the time, we’re spinning in these circles of, “I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know what went wrong. Something’s gone wrong, and I’m feeling overwhelmed.”

We don’t even stop to ask ourself the most simple and basic question. Here’s what happens; when we’re spinning in the “I don’t know,” we put a big, huge roadblock on our path to more money. It just doesn’t flow, because we’ve said, “I don’t know.” And so, the money just stops flowing.

So, I want you just to imagine your money situation like a toilet that is blocked. See, this is why it’s so unconventional, because now we’re comparing money to toilets. But the flow of money is like the flow of water, and it’s somehow blocked.

If you showed up into your bathroom, and you looked at the toilet, and it’s blocked, you would say, “Well, if I knew how to unblock the toilet, what would I do?” And you’d say, “Hmm, I would probably go get the plunger.” Then you go get the plunger, and you plunge away a little bit, and you can see if you’ve unblocked the toilet. Ninety percent of the time, that’s what works.

But maybe it doesn’t work. So, then you have to say, “Huh, well, that didn’t work, what else can I try?” Then, you would probably go get the snake. I think that’s what they’re called in most countries, I think. That’s what I call them. But you just… You have to push it down, because it could be that the block is a little bit further on the pipe. So, you would get that snake and you try to push whatever that blockage is, through the pipes.

I think that a 98% or 99% of the times, and these are just made-up statistics, don’t quote me on them, but between the plunger and the snake, you’re probably going to unblock most blocks in your toilet. But if those don’t work, it’s time to call the plumber.

When I was growing up, we would call Roto-Rooter. In Israel, we don’t have Roto-Rooter. But there are usually plumbers, in most cities and towns, and for you, it actually might be Roto-Rooter. If you don’t know how to do it yourself, then you also know how to use a phone and call someone to come and help you unblock your pipes.

As a business owner, who has been in existence for a while, you know how to make money. If you just stopped and asked yourself, “Hey, how do I unblock the flow of money? How do I make more money?” You go back and you look at all the things in your business that are working. There were some things that were working, some things that were not working, and you just do more of what’s working, trusting that it’s going to keep working.

Here’s something that I also want to offer you: That you can think about your business and the flow of money, in a longer-term perspective. It could be that the flow of money, today, is blocked because, we spoke a little bit about visibility, it’s time for you to grow and expand. Expand your reach and expand your audience to reach more people.

If you would ask yourself, “How do I unblock the flow of money to reach more people?” It might be, again, showing up more on social media, going to the networking meetings. Maybe you reach people, but you’re not consistent. You have an email list, but you send out an email once every whenever the wind blows. It’s not weekly. Or, maybe you’re committing to every other week, or maybe you’re committing to once a month.

But if you want to unblock the flow of money, and you want to show your audience that you are a going concern and a serious business… If you commit to sending an email on a regular basis, it can be weekly or every two weeks, whatever it is… What are the things that a business, that is showing up regularly and welcoming clients into the doors of the business… Virtual brick and mortar business, however your business works.

What do those businesses do on a regular basis? Do they advertise regularly? Do they have seasonal sales? Do they run trainings, like I did a training last week? What are the things that people in your industry, that business owners in your industry, do to show the world, to show potential clients and customers that you’re here, and you are open for business?

Alright, my friends, let’s do a recap of the four ways that you can unblock the flow of money to you and your business. Number one, is to do some healing around your family origin story of money. Number two, is to do some forgiveness work and forgive yourself for your past financial mistakes. You were younger, you were more naive, less well informed, it’s time to forgive, let go and move on. Number three, is to step up and get more visible. And number four, is to ask yourself, “If I knew how to unblock the flow of money, what would I do? Or, what would I be doing right now?

Allow your brain to get creative and answer the question. You might write down ten different possibilities of how you can unblock the flow of money. Then, you get to choose the one, or the two that seem most likely to bring in new clients, new money, new abundance to you.

Have fun with your business. We’re here for our business to serve our lives. We’re not here for our lives to serve our business. We don’t want to be in angst, and heaviness, and just yucky feelings around our business. We want our businesses to be places that we love showing up in, daily.

Alright, my friends, that’s what I have for you today.

I would also like to make a special announcement. The doors are now open to my coaching program Wired for Wealth. It is a six-month coaching program. We are going to be working together, in a small group, to really unblock the flow of money to you, so that you can welcome in more abundance. So that you can receive more money, and so that you can grow long term wealth.

If you would like to schedule a consult so that you can talk to me about that, you go to my website, DebbieSassen.com/wealth. Schedule a free 60-minute consult, and you can ask me all the questions, and I can share with you all the information that you need to know about the six-month coaching program. We start June 22nd and I look forward to seeing you there.

Bye-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.