I grew up in a working class family in inner city Birmingham, UK. As far back as I can remember we always struggled for money. I was raised with a poverty mentality of being thrifty, making do, watching the pennies and being anti the rich and wealthy – with no awareness of the concept that my wealth comes from inside me.
We didn’t have a car or a telephone as those were luxuries my family couldn’t afford, holidays were a treasured rarity and don’t ask for the latest toys or craze as we simply had to go without. And when my Dad got made redundant for 5 years during the Thatcher years things got really tight. We, however, were lucky as we had a roof over our heads and food in our bellies.
It was difficult and my family had to rely on things like school uniform vouchers and free school dinner tokens that were offered by way of assistance. I always felt the stigma of this at school, I hated that we had to ask for and take government ‘handouts’.
This poverty mentality has dominated much of my life. I must study hard and do well at school so I can get a good job, have nice things and never go without. I must push in the way I work so I can earn enough each week to pay my bills and put some money in the bank.
The worry of not having enough money and the struggle to be able to afford things constantly nagged in the recesses of my mind like a background hum that tainted all my decision-making when it came to investments, purchases and saving cash.
MAKING A LIVING AND THE RESPONSIBILITY OF MONEY
Once I graduated from university and earned the title of Doctor in front of my name you would imagine that my attitude to money would have started to shift. However, I was up to my eyeballs in student loans and as a new graduate wasn’t very fast or efficient with my skills, so earning a decent income initially was very difficult.
I learned to be super-effective with my time management, cramming in as much treatment as possible when seeing a patient to maximise the return on each one I saw. In this though, I was always stressed – pushing, rushing and compromising the standard of my work and level of real care towards my patients.
This affected my behaviour towards myself, my team and my patients: but that story would be best served up in another blog. One thing I did see though, was that by working this way I could make a decent living.
I worked like that for 20 years, driven by the pressures and worries of providing treatment and making a living. The more money I had, the more responsibility with money arose in the form of:
- A mortgage,
- Car loans,
- Credit card debt,
- Tax bills,
- Owning a business,
- Business loans,
- Paying wages and
- Being the sole income provider for my dental practice and staff and my family.
On paper I am very successful – I own a thriving business, 3 houses, 2 cars, take 2 overseas holidays a year and can buy pretty much anything I want as the money is there in the bank.
Yet… up until very recently I was still carrying that poverty mentality I was raised with.
THE WORRY OF HAVING ENOUGH MONEY… EVEN WHEN I HAVE ENOUGH
I knew there was plenty of money in the bank and my appointment book could be solidly booked for a month in advance, yet I’d be freaking out if a patient failed to attend for their treatment or cancelled at short notice. I’d almost hyperventilate if there was a space in my daily schedule.
I constantly worried about paying the bills and having enough money to provide for my team and my family. I stressed about taking time off – could I really afford to be away from my practice for so long? And I felt the constant burden of the loans and mortgages I was responsible for. Even with plenty of money I still felt like I was struggling to have enough to make ends meet.
I have been working on healing my personal issues for quite some years now by applying the teachings presented by Universal Medicine, but I never made the leap that money, or at least my attitude to it, was something that needed healing too.
In October 2012 I finally made an appointment with a financial advisor. I had been putting this off for a few years even though my accountant had been on at me to sort out my income protection, life insurance and my will.
I sat down at the meeting prepared to be talking about income, debt, assets, etc and was really taken aback when the advisor asked me to put all my paperwork away for now and simply tell him how I felt about my business.
In our meeting I talked about my poverty mentality and much of what I have shared above. To this the advisor replied, “You see your business as a burden, as too much responsibility, and instead of focussing on what you do have and how well you are doing, you focus on the gaps in your appointment book. This makes you stressed. Do you think your patients want to see stressed Rachel or the Rachel who is full of the joy of the life she lives and the success she has?”
“You work hard so you can have enough to take a few days off and reward yourself for your efforts when in fact the way you live and everything you already are is your reward.”
I was totally floored. But what he said was the complete and irrefutable truth and in that moment I felt a massive shift as something deep within me let go – the relief was palpable.
I had been measuring my worth and success against a profit and loss statement and not on who I am and what I offered to my patients and the people around me.
My struggle with money was a reflection of my internal struggle to be enough, and to be more. But the reality was and is that I am enough just as I am. And that my wealth comes from inside of me and the loving life that I choose to live every day.
APPRECIATING WHAT I HAVE AND WHO I AM
That meeting was 8 months ago; during the time since, appointment bookings have remained constant but the takings of the practice have dramatically increased.
My obsession with cash flow and the need to make money had stopped me from fully enjoying my work and being in the moment. I was constantly swimming upstream, acting like a dam across the money river, slowing down or holding up the flow completely. It stopped me fully appreciating what I have and what an incredible person I am.
By letting go of my strangle-hold on the purse strings of my dental practice and focussing on the person who is booked in rather than the gaps in my schedule, I have been able to just be myself with my patients and let my love and passion for dentistry shine.
So now when I discuss dental needs with a patient, they can feel there is no pressure to have the treatment as there is no undercurrent of desperation and money worries driving the conversation.
This has led to a higher level of case acceptance and patients booking for the best treatment options rather than compromising their dental care by opting for a quick fix or cheaper short-term option… and hence a significant increase in revenue.
Who would have thought it?! When you stop focussing on money and start enjoying what you do, the rewards start to flow as a by-product of appreciating oneself – and one of these is more income.
But the ‘rewards’ for me go much deeper than this – I have more fun with my patients, my team and family and have found a renewed passion and appreciation for my profession. And most significantly, I no longer feel like I carry the dental practice like a dead-weight around my neck.
When the bills come there is always sufficient money available and plenty left in reserve in the bank, just in case. Taking responsibility for my financial affairs and knowing my family will be taken care of if I get sick or should die is a wonderful gift I have given myself when it comes to money.
But the greatest gift was finding a financial advisor who was able to connect to me as a person and have the wisdom to work with me to break down the poverty mentality that was holding me back from being fully free to be me, to enjoy my life and work knowing the wealth inside.
By Dr Rachel Hall, Holistic Dentist, Brisbane
Related Reading:
You and Money Part 1 – Building a Healthy Relationship with your Personal Finances
787 Comments
This is a very interesting blog because so many of us struggle with money issues, I have never before stopped to consider what you have presented here Rachel,
“My struggle with money was a reflection of my internal struggle to be enough, and to be more. But the reality was and is that I am enough just as I am. And that my wealth comes from inside of me and the loving life that I choose to live every day.”
So many of us struggle with ourselves we have this inner turmoil that we are not enough that there is something wrong with us. We look outside of ourselves for acceptance and recognition but because the goal post of society are constantly changing we can never feel complete. It seems to me Rachel that you are asking us all to stop and look within and so discover the true essence of who we are. In the connection to our essence we are complete.
“…the way you live and everything you already are is your reward”. How wise and true this is. Why are we so drawn to the negatives instead of our wealth and being? A lesson for me to appreciate every little thing i am and can offer.
That sentence stood out for me too Christina Mehew, I feel it is important to just take a moment to stop and appreciate the way we live every day is a reward in itself because there is such a wealth of joy in just being who we naturally are there is nothing that can come anywhere close to this feeling. And it is so worth appreciating because for most of us it wasn’t always like this quite the opposite I’m sure.
“You work hard so you can have enough to take a few days off and reward yourself for your efforts when in fact the way you live and everything you already are is your reward.’ When we can let go and bring quality to everything we do, we do not feel we are missing out if we don’t get ‘me’ time at the end of the day, which actually is only about us switching off. When we take the whole ‘me’ into everything we do, life feels rich and effortless.
Our spirit doesn’t care if it is rich or poor it’s all the same it just wants to keep us in the distraction because then it has control over us.
When you pick life apart as you have done Rachel then you get to see what’s really going on behind the scenes but most of us don’t take the time to do that, we don’t question things or examine them, we allow them to rule us and therefore dictate our lives to us. What you have done Rachel is a clear example of how bringing awareness to something helps to change that thing and bring the power back into our own hands.
I know what you mean Alexis as I had personal experience of this recently, I was talking with friends and we were as you say picking apart an aspect of life that we had only wanted to read from a surface level. When we started to pick the tendrils apart we got to feel how hooked we were into a way of thinking which when put under the microscope just didn’t make sense. This allowed us to let go of some of the ideals and beliefs we had been hanging onto by understanding they actually had no substance. This was a very powerful reminder of what can be achieved when we work together.
“When you stop focusing on money and start enjoying what you do, the rewards start to flow as a by-product of appreciating oneself ” This truth is a reflection that many on the hamster wheel of security in money would benefit from pondering on.
I love my job, I really do, so much so that it often feels like fun. I enjoy the challenges as I get to appreciate how good I am at sorting out potentially difficult situations. My job is a non stop opportunity to appreciate myself and I seize that opportunity, I really do. I have avoided the managerial role that I have just stepped into for so long because I always told myself that I didn’t want the hassle and wouldn’t be very good at it but that simply wasn’t true, I’m great at so much of it and the things that I’m not great at, I can easily learn. It has come as a bit of a shock as to how small (minuscule) I have been keeping myself and for so long. But not any more I can feel that it really is a case of how far I choose to take things.
Appreciation is the biggest gold someone can have.
Rachel, your financial adviser gave some wise advice… ‘You see your business as a burden, as too much responsibility, and instead of focussing on what you do have and how well you are doing, you focus on the gaps in your appointment book. This makes you stressed.’ This advice could apply to us all in one way or another, for most of us like to pick holes in our gaps rather than appreciate what we do well.
When we let go of the mind games that come with a poverty mentality we allow the space for the wealth within to be revealed.
The more I focus on the real and true me the more I have an absolute knowing that I am loved and cared, when we open our hearts to God our lives become abundant beyond any measure.
I recently spoke to someone about money and they mentioned that my finances are just another aspect of my relationship with myself. I can relate to this blog so much at the moment. As I look at my life it is amazing but I have yet to claim it and appreciate all that it is and more importantly, all that I have chosen and all that I am.
This is so true and can feel how often I have used my relationship with money as a way of beating myself up rather than appreciating the wealth that I have in my life regardless of what is in the bank.
There is nothing in our lives that is not an ‘aspect of our relationships with ourselves’, our relationship with ourselves is the start of all things.
The more I feel enough within, the more my relationship with money is changing. Money is not and never an issue; it is the relationship with self that needs to be developed and built on to live a greater level of love in the body and hence a flow of money into our lives.
When we allow ourselves to connect to the real truth of life, to our essence and our soul, there is no question that the real wealth we all have is indeed inside. And with that we are all equally wealthy, its just up to each of us to live that wealth or not.
Value the wealth inside and we cannot but start to value how we can look after ourselves and buy things which are supportive.
I love that at an age of 11 years old I had my first job, I totally started to understand what it meant to make money and value what takes to have money. What I have started to recently really feel and understand that it is not about the money but the quality and expression in the way I work. Not to hold back on any account and really go for it. I am working on letting go of the belief that has capped me that money doesn’t actually have any say as to how much I am prepared to give.
There is much to learn and ponder on with just these few words you have said here ‘with no awareness of the concept that my wealth comes from inside me.’ As that is exactly where true wealth does come from. Within.
Money is a topic that always brings up a lot in people. I am learning to not contract on not earning a lot of money, where I would almost want to spend as little as possible. Sometimes spending is also needed to keep moving and start new things.
Equating the amount of money that we earn with self importance is something that we’ve all done since the beginning of time, especially men. It’s really quite an ugly trait of ours and has absolutely no roots whatsoever in truth. For me the most significant thing about earning money is how we do it, i.e. do we do it at the expense of others or in support of others?
I have been with a lot less work the last few months and could feel how my old thoughts about being worthy as much as you earn trying to creep in. Focussing on something bigger everyday than myself and staying steady with knowing who I am and what I offer to clients, colleagues and the people around me has been super important.
If everybody in their job would focus first on people and connect to them what would our world look like? We all would be so much better off, for a lot of problems would be stopped in the beginning phase and we would realize that working is always about people first.
Money does not buy joy and a sense of inner contentment, patients feel what is going on, how great that you are bringing it back to love, ‘By letting go of my strangle-hold on the purse strings of my dental practice and focussing on the person who is booked in rather than the gaps in my schedule, I have been able to just be myself with my patients and let my love and passion for dentistry shine.’
ThIs poverty mentality is a deep ‘contractor’: keeping you small and not appreciative what you bring each moment. I have experienced that the poverty mentality applied to work always thinks in ‘time is money’, so when work was not billable, it was less. When I started my own company, this way of thinking kept creeping in. In fact I was saying to myself: certain moments are less valuable then others ánd I am not valuable when there is no money paid for what I do. This blog confirms my shift over the past years: let go of the human doing & performing bit and connect to the human being bit again. It is me that I should value in all moments and encounters.
In a taxi the other day we drove past a door of a business with hundreds of flowers outside, I asked the taxi driver what they were for and he told me a young guy had committed suicide, he went on to say that the guy was very rich and had everything, he went on to say that it just shows you can have everything on the outside but if you have not got the love on the inside it will never mean a thing.
We are shaped in every-way for life to give us the lessons that will be for our greatest evolution it is up to us to use them wisely.
I did something I haven’t done in years and to cut a long story short I found myself buying a lottery ticket, what was really interesting is that I found myself in the proceeding days leading up to the draw fantasizing on what I would buy, what I would say. I realise I wasted a lot of energy wishing for something whilst completely forgetting to appreciate the moment.
:“You work hard so you can have enough to take a few days off and reward yourself for your efforts when in fact the way you live and everything you already are is your reward.” This is wonderful advice from a financial planner.
That is a lovely sharing Elizabeth, choosing to live all of ourselves is gorgeous to feel, ‘ the way you live and everything you already are is your reward.’
Gorgeous Rachel, super inspiring ! Overcoming this poverty mentality seems like a lot of fun! Simply because we are made to enjoy what we have and what we do, not hold back on this true quality that we have and are able to express out 24/7. And to not shy away from the true succes we all have inside and know well.
Rachel I love this, as it helps me appreciate how much I have changed in recent years as I indeed had a real “poverty mentality” and that meant that I never felt I deserved the love and incredible life that I had. Today I am learning to embrace it, and it keeps growing day by day.
To let go of the attachment and stranglehold money can bring from beliefs and ideals we have chosen to align to and hold is very liberating. It may bring up a well hidden and subtle jealousy in others but that is a good thing as I continue to make my life about connection to my essence and the quality of love and authority I bring.
We do ultimately know that so called ‘riches’ are not the be all and end all, yet we can chase them thinking they will solve our dissatisfaction with life.
True wealth will always come from within.
Reward consciousness is tied heavily to money, we can believe if we are good, work hard, then we will be rewarded with money. The problem with this is as soulful human beings we are already much more than ‘good’, as we are love, and there can be no reward that can match simply being the fullness of ourselves. Reward consciousness is also quite insidious, it can be hiding underneath our intentions to make life and work about people, etc, yet we may still be subtly seeking the reward of money. Reward consciousness also has religious overtones in the sense that some outside power such as God sees us as less, and we prove ourselves with work and good behaviour and then the rewards come. It’s a very mixed up state of thinking compared to the simplicity of providing money for ourselves because it’s loving to do so.
“My struggle with money was a reflection of my internal struggle to be enough, and to be more. But the reality was and is that I am enough just as I am. And that my wealth comes from inside of me and the loving life that I choose to live every day.” We don’t generally consider ourselves as enough or love as wealth. If we have experienced poverty this can also add to the belief that we aren’t enough, but we will be when we have money. We have this wealth of love we are born with inside us, yet we can spend our whole lives chasing things outside of ourselves that are not true riches at all.
Rachel, this is really interesting; ‘I had been measuring my worth and success against a profit and loss statement and not on who I am and what I offered to my patients and the people around me.’ I can feel that often we do not appreciate who we are and what we offer and instead we focus on the doing and see how much money we make and what we produce as our measure of success, rather than who we are as a person. Thank you for sharing this, it is really helpful and makes me realise that appreciating myself and my qualities is key.
Rachel, I can really relate to thinking like this in the past; ‘being anti the rich and wealthy’. I can feel now how judgemental this was and how there was a lack of understanding and a lack of love for others. Now that I understood, care about and accept myself more I can feel how much more love I have for others and that judgement simply is not there anymore.
‘but never made the leap that money, or at least my attitude to it, was something that needed healing too’. Yes, my attitude needs healing to and going to sit with this!
I can relate so much to what you share Rachel. I saw responsibility and working full time as a burden, taking up all my time, with very little free time for me! But here’s the thing when I am working lots and just getting on with work, I have less issues, as I am in a momentum of moving and being of service, and everything else just gets taken care of! Working is really good medicine, plus when I am busy, I get so much more done, as I feel more focused, confident and purposeful.
‘Who would have thought it?! When you stop focussing on money and start enjoying what you do, the rewards start to flow as a by-product of appreciating oneself – and one of these is more income’ Indeed a priceless gem to take with me today.
‘You see your business as a burden, as too much responsibility, and instead of focusing on what you do have and how well you are doing, you focus on the gaps in your appointment book’. Wow what a revelation, and how we focus on what we don’t have and not on what we’ve already got as I can very much relate to this, mainly focused on what I don’t have… which makes me feel less and then there is no appreciation of what I do have!
Life is rich, simple and full when we are ready to accept its natural flow and that we totally deserve it. Doubt this and you will create perpetual drama.
The wisdom that came through your accountant is something you rarely will find in this industry, what a gift from heaven to show you your wealth comes from inside of you and the love you live on a daily basis in your work and family life.
Beautifully summed up Annelies, that true wealth resides within us which is our connection to our divinity and the Ageless wisdom.