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What keeps most people feeling financially disempowered? It’s not disorganization, under-earning, overspending, or lack of savings.
It’s money shame.
In this episode of the Money is Emotional Podcast, I explain how to break the money shame cycle so you can achieve lasting Financial Dignity®!
Drawing on insights from Brene Brown’s brilliant book, “Atlas of the Heart,” I shed light on intense emotions such as shame, guilt, and perfectionism, and demonstrate how they manifest specifically in our financial lives.
The Difference Between Guilt & Shame
I would like to begin by distinguishing between guilt and shame. We often lump these two together, but there is a distinct flavor to each of these emotions when we fall short.
For example, let’s say you overdraw your checking account, and your house payment bounces.
If you experience guilt, you say, “Oh crap! I haven’t checked my bank balances in three weeks and forgot to transfer money from my savings account. I need to call the mortgage company and explain what happened. And I need to get back to my habit of spending time weekly checking on my finances.”
If you experience shame, you say, “Oh shit! I can’t afford another overdraft fee. My parents were right. I am so irresponsible with money! How can I be so stupid?”
Guilt: Focuses on the behavior. It acknowledges the mistake. It can drive positive change.
Shame: Focuses on you. It makes the mistake mean something about who you are. It does NOT drive positive change.
The Money Shame Cycle
When you make a money mistake and feel shame, you’re defining yourself by the mistake. The problem with shame is that it makes you want to hide. When you hide, you don’t get the information or assistance you need to improve. This leads to more mistakes, which only confirms that you are indeed terrible with money!
How do we break the money-shame cycle? Brene Brown says the antidote to shame is empathy, and I wholeheartedly agree. Discussing our financial struggles with an empathetic friend, family member, or financial professional can help us break free from the grip of shame.
Brene says it this way in her book, “The less we talk about it, the more control it has over us. Shame hates being spoken.”
I like to say that money is like sex. No one teaches us anything about it. We’re not supposed to talk about it. Yet, we’re supposed to be great at it! No wonder we have so much shame around money!
As the saying goes, “Your secrets make you sick.” Shame thrives in darkness and secrecy.
Empathy is the cure for money shame
Who in your life can you open up to and receive empathy for your financial mistakes? Just because someone is good with money doesn’t necessarily make them a safe person to confide in. I’ve heard stories from numerous women and men about being shamed for their mistakes by a financial professional. This is disheartening for me to hear because I know that shame does not help us improve our financial situations. In fact, I have been on the receiving end of it myself. Whether your shame is self-imposed or put there by others, it’s time to brush the shame off you!
When we drop the shame, we can receive empathy, along with the knowledge and assistance to improve our money situation.
Shame is the birthplace of perfectionism
I am a recovering perfectionist, and I fully admit it. Perfectionism is not about striving to do our best or pursuing excellence. Perfectionism is a performance for the approval of others. “Perfectionism tells us that our mistakes and failures are personal defects,” as Brene puts it in Atlas of the Heart. A fear of mistakes and failures characterizes perfectionism. This is counter-productive because most of us learn how to do things by making mistakes and course-correcting.
Certainly, there are things you can learn from a book, course, or podcast. However, other things need to be learned and refined by our own lived experience. Two months ago, I started a new workout program called Bodi Lava, a hybrid of yoga and primal movement. It’s been one of the most challenging and transformational workouts I’ve ever done. In fact, I've had to complete 3 or 4 rounds of each week of the program before moving on to the next one. Instead of this program taking me 6 weeks to master, it's going to be 6 months. However, the results I'm seeing on the scale and how my clothes fit speak for themselves. By the time I am finished with Bodi Lava, I don’t doubt that I will be in the best shape of my life at 51 years old.
However, if I were still clinging to my perfectionistic tendencies, I would have quit during the first round of the warm-up week. I would have said, “This is too hard! My body doesn’t bend that way. I keep falling over. This isn’t for me.” But the truth of the matter is that because I am learning by trying the moves, failing, falling over, and trying again, I am improving and eventually mastering them. Why would we expect money to be any different?
Perfectionism is not self-improvement. Perfectionism is about trying to win approval. That’s a losing game because you cannot control other people’s judgments and perceptions of you.
My friend, Derrick Kinney, who was a guest on this podcast for episode 56, says that failure contains the seeds of your future successes. However, if you are entrenched in perfectionism, it won’t even allow you to look at those “failures” objectively to pull out the lessons. Expecting yourself to behave perfectly with money is a recipe for shame.
Related: The Truth About Family Wealth Transfers: What You Need to Know