Is your nervous system controlling your income?

Have you ever felt like your financial destiny is somehow entwined with the inner workings of your mind? 

Got money on your mind? 💸 🧠

In this episode, I dive into the impact your money stories could be having in your life.
A family history of financial stress can shape the way you approach wealth today, all the way down to the biological level. 

This discussion isn't just about recognizing these patterns; it's about shattering them at the level of your physical body to broaden your financial horizons and welcome a richer and more abundant life.

I get a little vulnerable and share my personal money story, and how it has impacted my financial abundance in very real ways. Ya'll, I've been actively healing my relationship with money for a while now. I've come a loooooong way. 

I end the episode by breaking down what I call the 'joybreaker' phenomenon and how it can stifle our experiences of abundance and self-worth. Through tales of my own adjustment to a surprising financial windfall, I showcase the techniques that expanded my window of tolerance for joy. 

I even gift you a FREE breathwork session at the end of the episode to help you expand your joybreaker.

Let me know what you think of this one, unicorn! I'd love to hear what strikes you. 🦄💸💸💸

ACTION FROM THIS EPISODE:

Expand Your Joy Breaker!

• Next time you receive a compliment or when something exciting happens, pause and really let yourself feel it: receive it, enjoy it, appreciate it, offer gratitude for it.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:05

Hi and welcome to Untethered with JennLis, the podcast that's here to help you break free, be you and unleash your inner brilliance. I'm your host, jenn, and in this episode we're going to talk about how your nervous system is controlling your income. Let's dive in. Hey there, unicorn, it's Jen. Welcome back to the podcast.

Speaker 1: 0:36

In Tuesday's episode we talked to Kate Northrup. Go listen to that episode before you listen to this episode. Usually I'm like it's cool, just listen to this one first. No, no, no. Go listen to that one first, because it's full of things that we all need to hear when it comes to money. And also, if you want to read the back of the magazine before you go to the front, that's okay. I'm a rule breaker. Y'all break the rules, break my rules that I'm setting for you right now. It's all good, do it your way. And also, don't skip that episode, because it was really good.

Speaker 1: 1:06

Kate does such a good job. We talk about very similar things. She is a master when it comes specifically to abundance. That is what she helps people to do. She helps people to do less and to welcome more. So striving less in our relationships, having stronger relationships. Striving less in our jobs, enjoying our jobs more Working less to have more money, stressing less about money and inviting more money into our lives. That is her expertise. She is a freaking master at it and I recommend going and listening to that episode.

Speaker 1: 1:51

But what I want to dive into, because in our conversation she talked about money stories, we talked about the nervous system. We talked about the imprints that are on our bodies from the time that we are born and actually long before we are born, that are impacting the way that we handle money, the way that we react to money, how much we can tolerate and that might sound really wild how much money I can tolerate, but that's actually true. Your nervous system can only tolerate so much money. Your nervous system is controlling your pocketbook 100%. This is true. I've experienced it myself. I know that it is true, and so I want to tell you my personal story, my personal money story, and show you step-by-step what I have done to expand my capacity for money and where I've tripped, where I've fallen and where I'm continuing to make some progress. I've tripped where I've fallen and where I'm continuing to make some progress.

Speaker 1: 2:45

So, going back for me, like many of us, I was born into a family, middle class family. My dad is in the airline industry. He worked in the airline industry. He's a machinist and that's a nice steady income. He made for a machinist. My dad worked his way up to making a nice, steady income.

Speaker 1: 3:07

However, I got five kids in my family. I am the middle of five children. My mom, obviously. When she's got four of us, we're very close together, me and my two older sisters like very close together. We're within almost four years of each other, and then my little sister comes along and then eventually my baby brother comes along and during that period my dad works in aircraft. If you work in the aircraft industry, you know that it is normal for those workers to go on strike during contract negotiations.

Speaker 1: 3:43

So I have some very specific memories from when I was a kid, of those times when my dad was on strike, not making any money, not going to work, four little kids in the house. I remember going and getting food from the place where they would actually offer food. It was great, the union supported their workers and we would go and get food. But I remember that and I imprinted the stress of my parents. There's no way that in that situation they didn't have some stress. My parents actually handled all of these things quite well and at the same time, the stress was felt. I felt that stress and I've even actually gone and done hypnotherapy on it and I actually felt stress in the womb from my mom around the idea of having three children. So it's like stress is imprinted on our nervous system. The way that we feel in regard to a situation is imprinted on us. So money stress when we're stressing about money. If your parents ever stressed about money, if your parents were ever in a situation like my family was in, where you're on strike or you've lost your job or you grew up with some kind of scenario like that, it really impacted me. Now it might not have impacted all of my siblings. That's what's so fascinating about our nervous system is that the way that it impacted me and the story that I heard and the story that I told myself during this time might not have impacted my siblings in the same way, but for me it was.

Speaker 1: 5:21

Money is scarce. You got to hold on to money because you never know when it's going to completely run out and you're going to be having to go and get government cheese. I remember getting these blocks of cheap Velveeta when my mom would go, which I actually loved as a kid, because who doesn't like that fake nasty cheese that somehow tastes delicious to our body and I don't even know what the hell that stuff is. But I remember that and it imprinted on me when I was a kid. I would not let go of my money. My mom will tell you. I hoarded every dollar that I got. I would hold on to it. When I had my birthday, I would just stick it into savings. I got a savings account at a very young age because I wanted to save my money. I saved and I saved and I saved and I saved, and it never felt like money was enough.

Speaker 1: 6:14

Even as I was building my hairstyling business, I was so focused on did I make enough this week? Do I have enough clients in this week? How much is coming in the doors? I highly, highly focused, without knowing at that time I didn't know that it was my nervous system imprint from when I was a baby, from when I was a child, that was controlling my desire to continuously hoard money, because I had this inherent fear in my nervous system that money is going to run out, and it was a felt sense, one of the things that Kate shared in this episode. She's like it's not just the thoughts, it's actually felt sense. Your nervous system goes on red alert. It sends you into your sympathetic and out of that nice relaxed parasympathetic.

Speaker 1: 7:02

When money, even a thought about money and I'm still dismantling these thoughts for myself around money, but even a thought around money might run out, would send my nervous system into full fight flight freeze. Every single time the idea of money comes up and it goes into a freeze. And the other story that I have about money is that you have to work hard to get money and that work is not fun. So these were messages that were imprinted on my nervous system as well, because I had this story about my dad's job, that he hated it. I had this story in my head that my dad didn't like his job and that he hated work, and I was actually interpreting things that my dad said and experiences that my dad had. He would come home from work and he would seem tired or he wouldn't want to go to work. Well, what my little child brain didn't know is that my dad wanted to spend time with his kids. He wanted to spend time with his wife, so maybe there were days when he wasn't wanting to go to work, or maybe something hard had happened at work and he came home and he just had had a hard day. But all it takes is one of those kinds of experiences for us to get it in our head Work sucks, work is hard, dad doesn't want to go to work, I don't want to go to work, and when I do go to work I have to work hard and it's going to be miserable and that's the only way that I can make enough money. And then I have to hoard that money and I have to make sure that you see what I'm saying.

Speaker 1: 8:37

These are the stories that I have lived with all my life and I share it because you might relate to one or some or all of them, because many of us have very similar stories. We wrap so much. I also wrapped my worth up in money, which is something that I didn't realize until a couple of years ago. We have a very complicated relationship with abundance and for me, all of these same thoughts wrap I mean hardcore my poor husband. As we have come into all of these realizations, I've realized how many years I simply could not accept his love. I could not accept, I couldn't receive it. And so there are ways in which our nervous system can only handle so much. You can only handle so much joy, you can only handle so much love, you can only handle so much money, and what I want you to know is that there's nothing wrong with that.

Speaker 1: 9:41

That's your nervous system doing its job.

Speaker 1: 9:44

It's doing its job. It's what it's supposed to do. We're supposed to stay at a certain level. That's how our body regulates itself. It knows how to do it. Your body is incredibly intelligent. Your nervous system is so freaking intelligent we don't give enough credit. That's what I love about Kay she's like it's the nervous system we need to give more credit. That's what I love about Kate she's like it's the nervous system we need to give more credit. We give so much credit to our brain. Well, it's our nervous system that is sending the messages to your brain that your brain is receiving and then responding, and then it's sending chemicals down into your body. But the imprint, the memory, is in your nervous system. Imprint, the memory is in your nervous system, and anything that is unfamiliar to your nervous system it's outside of your regulated zone, outside of your set point is going to send you into some kind of a tizzy, and this goes both ways.

Speaker 1: 10:38

This is what I find so fascinating to think about, and what I think about a lot and support people with breathwork is that there's two sides. We're toggling back and forth there's positive stress and there's negative stress, and we're always moving between the space. We want to have a lot of space for our nervous system between those two, between the edges of your positive stress and the edges of your negative stress, and in your nervous system we call that your window of tolerance. It's like this is what I can tolerate. I can tolerate this much abundance, I can tolerate this much love. I can tolerate this much of the negative side of things too, while continuing to keep myself regulated and continuing to keep myself poised and responding in a way that is going to be supportive and helpful to me and the other person, and that goes to both sides.

Speaker 1: 11:35

That's what I call the positive stress. I call that tripping your joybreaker. We can only handle so much positive emotion before the breaker flips, before your nervous system flips out, before you go into a crying spell. Spell when we flip our joybreaker in the positive direction, in the positive direction, when we receive a windfall of money suddenly you get a raise out of the blue, $10,000 extra. You get this raise. Or say you get on a call with someone and you sell one of your coaching programs and they buy in and it's $2,000 and you're like, oh my gosh, it's my first coaching program that I've ever sold. You'd never done that before. You've never done that before.

Speaker 1: 12:21

It's natural that you're going to flip your joybreaker like, oh my gosh, I maxed out. It's natural that the next day, that 12 hours later, that a few hours later, that in that exact moment, you might start to have your nervous system go into high alert. It's going to say, oh my goodness, can't handle max out, redlining, and so you might cry. You might feel a sudden urge to go and take a walk. You might start to have this flurry of thoughts that are trying to bring you back down. You might have a whole bunch of negative thoughts that might try to bring you back down. You might have a whole bunch of negative thoughts that might try to bring you back down into the space that feels comfortable and a familiar hell is where your body wants you to be. It does not want you to be in an unfamiliar heaven, because your body knows how to keep you regulated. But you know that this joy is good, and so it's a matter of reminding ourselves that this is safe and signaling safety to ourselves, and you can do that in so many ways, and I'll give this example that we talked about a little bit in Kate's episode, where I overnight, this was the wildest money experience I personally have ever had.

Speaker 1: 13:41

I was working a job in Wichita, kansas, and I came out here to Portland, oregon, and I had applied for this job that I thought was like whoa, this is my dream job. This is right now, my current dream job. I applied for it, I went through the process. They ended up offering it to me. I asked for a certain amount of money and they gave me more. They more than doubled the salary that I was making at the previous job, and my nervous system was like what the fuck? Whoa, whoa, nellie, what just happened?

Speaker 1: 14:09

I remember just sitting there and thinking yesterday I was worth this much and today I am worth this much, and I couldn't quite nothing in my body, nothing in my brain could wrap its mind around what had just happened, and so I sat and I was like I need to grapple with this, because this obviously shows that my worth is not tied up in money, because yesterday somebody said this and today somebody said this and I was like I don't even know if I can show this new job, am I worth that much? So I was having all of these wild thoughts. I was like I'm just going to go take a bath, I am going to simmer in this, and I took a bath and I sat in the bathtub and I remember just crying and I was crying for the version of me who was accepting so much less the previous day and I was crying for the version of me who was up, leveling into this new level. And I had this hour long bath where I was just simmering in that and what I was doing by being in water and crying, and at the time I didn't have breathwork as a tool I definitely would have breathed. That's what I will do these days I will go out in nature and I will breathe, or I will go take a bath and I will breathe.

Speaker 1: 15:31

I was regulating my nervous system to this new level of abundance and if I hadn't done that, if I hadn't had some awareness, I had previously done a little bit of self-development work and so I knew, I recognized that I was wrapping my worth into the money and I was like, how was I worth that much yesterday and worth that much today? And the realization that I had, of course, was like, well, it's not what you're worth, it's simply what somebody, what I'm receiving, it was me opening up my receiver a little bit more. It was showing that, wow, I have done the nervous system work to open up how much joy and how much abundance I can receive. And so then the universe offered it to me, and still it was right at the edges of my nervous receive. And so then the universe offered it to me, and still it was right at the edges of my nervous system. And so I regulated and that opened me up to be able to receive more. And that's how this works.

Speaker 1: 16:29

Your nervous system can only tolerate so much goodness, and that's okay. And when we tap the edges of our nervous system and we go into some kind of a tizzy, we can regulate. We have tools, you have tools. If you've listened to an episode of this ever on the Thursday, there's a little breath work at the end. That is a tool. That is a tool that you can pull out anytime. You can join Brilliant Breathwork, where we really go deep into doing breathwork, meditations, teaching you how to go into a meditative state which is deeply supportive to your nervous system. You can go out in nature. You can go for walks. You can go sit on the beach if that's something that is available to you, go sit in the water All of these things. There's so many tools that are right at our fingertips. There's Kate's program that she's offering so many tools that are at your fingertips that can support you in opening up to more receiving.

Speaker 1: 17:28

And it starts with the next time that you receive something wonderful, something great. It could be anything. It could be a compliment from somebody. Next time you receive a beautiful compliment from somebody, instead of brushing it aside or being like, oh no, no, oh, this old thing, I got it at TJ Maxx on sale. Don't do that Midwestern shit. Say thank you, and not only just say thank you, but let yourself feel how awesome it feels for somebody to compliment your sweater. This does look really good on me. I really love this sweater. It's wonderful hearing that it made somebody else smile, that they like it. Maybe they'll go get one of these sweaters for themselves too. Let yourself feel the goodness of that and it might. And then watch, watch, girl watch. It might actually tap the edges of your nervous system because so many of us can't even receive a compliment.

Speaker 1: 18:30

I remember my mom saying this to me I'm in cheerleading. In sixth grade my mom was our cheer coach and she said somebody told me that my leap looked really a herky. Do you remember a herky? If anybody was a cheerleader, it's where one leg goes out and the other leg is bent and you jump up. I was really good at herkying and somebody was like dang, that's a good herky, what a hilarious word, that's a good herky. And I brushed off their compliment. And I remember my mom saying you need to learn how to receive a compliment. The problem is I never learned how to receive a compliment. I did not know how to receive a compliment until very recently. Y'all, I didn't know how to really really receive it.

Speaker 1: 19:17

Receiving it means feeling, it, means appreciating it, means understanding that that kind thing that somebody said to you feels really good to them. It feels good to both parties. And if you deflect it, if you bounce it off, it feels good to nobody. It just goes off into the ether. They don't get the joy of seeing you experience that compliment. It doesn't feel good and that's what my mom was recognizing. In that perky moment she was like, oh God, that didn't feel good for the person who offered it. Jen just threw it in the trash. But if your nervous system, my nervous system, couldn't receive it, it didn't know how. I didn't know how to sit with that beautiful nugget of a compliment that somebody had shared for me.

Speaker 1: 20:05

So if you want to start to open up your money receiver, you want to start opening up your abundance receiver, you want that wallet to get a little bit bigger. When it comes to money, relationships, joy, fun, it starts with the minutia, the teeny, tiny moment in your life when you receive something and you get to feel it. It could be having a hug with your child or a hug with your partner and really feeling in the moment that hug. It could be eating a strawberry, really enjoying what that strawberry feels like, tastes like the texture, the color of it before you even put it in your mouth, what it feels like as you swallow and it enters. This is where our nervous system learns oh, I can feel that. Oh, I want more of that. Oh, it's safe for me to feel more of that it starts at this very, very base level.

Speaker 1: 21:12

So I hope that these stories, I hope that this conversation is supporting you in seeing how it isn't just the thoughts that you have, it's not just your mind. We don't have to go in and tinker and fix all the thoughts and do all of the affirmations and do all of the things. We simply have to learn how to signal to our body that it is safe. Because even as you enjoy that strawberry, the texture might feel like too much, it might feel a little bit overwhelming to even feel that level of the chew. It might feel really overwhelming to receive that compliment. And so when it feels overwhelming and when we might flip that joybreaker, we can take a few breaths. We can breathe in to the nose, we can breathe out through the mouth.

Speaker 1: 22:08

We can do a practice that I learned from Kate, actually called havening, where you take your fingertips, the fingertips of one hand to the fingertips of the other hand, and slowly move your fingertips down to your elbow and back up and saying you are safe. You are safe to feel loved, you are safe to receive that compliment. I am safe to eat this strawberry really slowly and taste all of the flavors. I know this might sound wild y'all, but we can't A lot of us can't and so doing this little, tiny practice is going to open up so many possibilities for you and it's going to open up your wallet. Thank you so much for listening to this episode.

Speaker 1: 23:02

As always, we are going to close this Thursday thread with a moment to breathe together. One of the things that is deeply supportive to us when it comes to money and regulating our nervous system with money is to allow ourselves to be curious, rather than judgmental, of where we currently are feeling and thinking and our beliefs about money. So what I'll encourage today in this very short practice, is to let ourselves be curious about what could be and what is. If you're able to, relaxing back in the chair that you are in, we will close down our eyes in this breath practice. If you're driving, you can simply listen in keeping your eyes keenly on the road. If you're walking, you can soften your gaze along the way, just being sure that you're paying attention to your surroundings.

Speaker 1: 23:55

Taking an inhale into the nose, filling up your belly and, on your exhale, relaxing down into that surface beneath you. Breathing into the nose once more, filling up that belly, exhaling completely through the mouth, letting your body be completely held and supported by that surface beneath you, even inviting the question. What might it feel like to even more deeply let my body sink into this surface, almost feeling like that surface is reaching up that chair beneath you, the floor, your seat. It's reaching up and holding you when you're ready. We're going to begin a very gentle patterned breath two breaths into the nose and two breaths out through the mouth. That's it continuing that patterned breath to into the nose, to out through the mouth, and inviting back that curiosity. Just like you checked in to see if you could let your body be more supported.

Speaker 1: 25:58

Asking yourself, what if I could let myself be supported financially?

Speaker 1: 26:11

What if money came to me easily, too into the nose, too out through the mouth?

Speaker 1: 26:25

Inviting this curiosity around money, this curiosity around money.

Speaker 1: 26:43

What if I could let making money be fun?

Speaker 1: 26:45

What might it feel like to invite joy around money, continuing to breathe and letting your body respond in any way that it wants to respond, not judging anything that's coming up, any sensations, and asking yourself is it possible, could it be possible, for me to shift my beliefs around money?

Speaker 1: 27:30

Do I see other people in the world believing different things about money than I do. What if I decided to let money flow to me more easily, inviting your nervous system, inviting your body to experience a shift along with this breath, to allow yourself to be curious and to wonder, without necessarily needing to know the answer right now, Knowing that this loving door to curiosity will support you in opening up to more abundance in your life. When you're ready, releasing control of that patterned breath, drawing in one final inhale, filling the belly through the nose, pausing at the top, when you're ready, releasing that hold, maybe with an audible sigh, letting your body be supported and held, maybe even a little bit more, by that surface, relaxing and inviting a sense of ease, feeling the natural flow of your heartbeat, maybe placing your hand on your heart, your hand on your heart, tapping into the sensations of how easily your heartbeat simply flows.

Speaker 1: 29:36

Committing yourself to inviting curiosity around your money stories, around how your nervous system responds to money. Beautiful curiosity, without judgment and compassion for any stories that might be existing that haven't served you up until this point in your life. Thanking yourself for offering your body and your nervous system this moment of breath when you're ready, fluttering your eyes open and making eye contact with something in the room, letting your vision recalibrate back to the here and the now. Thank you so much for taking the time to listen to this episode and to do this practice. Healing our money stories and our abundance stories is powerful and it's going to help shift more and more people and more and more systems of our world into a place of abundance, less competition, less scarcity and won't that be a beautiful thing? So thank you. Speaking of thanks, I appreciate so much that you listened to this episode.

Speaker 1: 30:59

If you enjoyed this episode and gained something out of it, I encourage you to share it with a friend. You can share it with all your friends by taking a little screenshot of this episode and putting it on social media If you put it on your Instagram stories or your Facebook stories and tag me. I will always reshare your posts. I'm untetheredjen on Instagram and you can grab all my links in the show notes. Thank you again for listening. You just keep shining your magical unicorn light out there for all to see. See you next time, bye.