🎙️ Is It Financial Stress Or Trauma?
🟣 Kim Uzzell on trauma, taboos & the body.
⏱️ The plan for your 6 minutes of financial self-care:
We meet an exceptional professional at the intersection of trauma & finance.
She helps us recognize the signs of financial trauma;
She shows us how to differentiate between financial stress and trauma;
And what’s the number one step to overcoming harmful money behaviors.
Hello there 💜
A month ago, when I started my quest to introduce you to professionals at the intersection of trauma and finance, I was looking for two types of experts:
👉 A psychology specialist
A professional with a deep understanding of trauma, particularly financial trauma, and experience in helping people with these challenges.
👉 A financial planning specialist
A financial planning professional with firsthand experience addressing clients' financial trauma.
But I didn’t find them.
Instead, I found one person who fits both of these profiles.
She’s called Kim Uzzell.
She was a UK delegate for the United Nations’ 68th annual Commission on the Status of Women this year.
She’s a Chartered Wealth Manager ( = She has the professional certification to help people manage their money wisely).
She’s a Certified Trauma of Money Coach and runs her CPD-accredited training in Financial Trauma Awareness (CPD stands for “Continuing Professional Development.” It’s an official approval certifying that the learning activities offered conform to industry standards).
Kim is a former stockbroker and investment manager, now a financial well-being consultant, mentor, and speaker.
I’m feeling proud and grateful to have her on Money Feelings today.
And excited for you 🙂
🟣 But first, if someone forwarded you this email, Money Feelings is your weekly dose of financial self-care designed to:
Kiss your limiting money mindsets and behaviors goodbye.
Grow your financial wisdom in style: less jargon, more emotion.
Increase your financial well-being, one feeling at a time.
If you don’t want to miss one:
You can also make yourself visible by sponsoring the free monthly newsletter or offering discounts on your services/products to Money Feelings readers:
If you want more information about Money Feelings, follow this link.
You can also follow me on Substack or LinkedIn.
🟣 Hi Kim! What made you specialize in the Trauma of Money as a finance professional?
I began my career in finance over 30 years ago.
Throughout that time, I have had hundreds of meetings and conversations with clients, and that's brought my attention to the fact that money fears and negative patterns of financial behavior aren't restricted to those at the lower end of the salary scale or people with no generational wealth.
The more I opened my eyes and my ears to both the spoken and the unspoken stories that people are carrying around their relationship with money, the better I understood their real fears and the expectations and reasons for holding back or taking too much risk or just not being able, comfortable even, to ask the right questions of their advisor or their accountant or their lawyer.
Because financial traumas and worries span all ages, genders, sexual preferences, social classes, cultures, salary brackets, and job titles.
Individuals and the financial industry tend to be quite blinkered, not because we want to be but because we don't know what we don't know.
However, we can learn, explore, and become more aware of what other people may be really thinking, feeling, and experiencing.
I've always been one of those people who want to raise their level of awareness, and I discovered behavioral finance and money mindset programs.
Although many of them are great, they didn't address some of the real-life matters affecting our day-to-day finances.
In searching for a qualification, I had to look to Canada to find something I felt covered this correctly.
However, as this focused very heavily on North American cultural requirements and demographics, I created a similar program covering more UK and European concerns.
And so the Financial Trauma Awareness Program, now CPD accredited, came into existence.
🟣 What is the difference between financial trauma and financial stress?
We're all likely to suffer some financial stress at some point or another in our lives.
Sometimes, that's an advantage because stress is not automatically bad.
If we had a financial deadline to meet, we might put things off until the last minute, but as we approach that deadline, we get a bit stressed, our adrenaline is higher, and we'll up our game to stop procrastinating and get things done.
So, whilst it's not always pleasant, stress can be temporary; it can be a driver. There's no long-lasting effect on our bodies or behaviors other than hopefully putting a reminder in our phones or calendars not to leave it to the last minute next time.
But when that stress is long-term or chronic and not easy or impossible to escape, it starts impacting us deeper, and we might find it very difficult to switch off from it.
Instead of being temporary, it follows us around, invades our thoughts, interrupts our sleep, and impacts our gut.
We can feel quite physically sick to our core. That's because trauma is in our body. The stress then stays inside our body and brings itself to the forefront whenever we want to say what we want.
Perhaps we know the questions we want to ask our advisor, but they get stuck in our throats.
Perhaps we feel quite sick or anxious, and it stops us from doing what we really want to do.
So when the stress seeps into that ongoing and automatic body response, it stops being simply “stress,” and it starts becoming a trauma response.
So if you feel it in your stomach or if you go hot and cold at the thought of talking about money or if you're literally tearing your hair out, that's a trauma.
🟣 What would be some signs that someone needs professional help dealing with financial trauma?
We often see people working on their money mindset but repeating the same behavior patterns.
It doesn't matter how much money mindset work they do or how much they want to change.
Nothing is really working.
That's a sign that it's not money mindset work that's needed, but potentially, it's money trauma work.
We can also listen to what we say.
We know that trauma is held in the body. So if somebody is “feeling” a certain way, that feeling is within their body, and it's a sign that trauma help is potentially needed.
Words and phrases like:
“I feel sick just thinking about money,”
“I can't look at my banking app,”
“It makes my stomach churn,”
“I can't get the words out.”
Although you might think they're just throwaway phrases, they indicate that something other than money mindset work is needed. And we need to support it in the right way and explore it further.
Other common signs include a very common one which is trying to fill a void using money, like retail therapy, buying something to make ourselves feel better.
There's that “feel” word again.
It could also be giving money away when it's received because we're trying to buy somebody's love, approval, affection, or time.
So many people please others by spending money on other people before themselves, even when they can least afford it. This is a very physical response.
Other common signs are addictive behaviors, taking too much risk, chasing money by working longer and harder, always having to prove our worth in some way, or perhaps trying to fight a bargain.
Some people might think that's just being money-savvy, but it depends on whether you fear money and always want something cheaper or prove something by getting a discount.
That could indicate that there's money trauma in play in some way.
🟣 What does Trauma of Money coaching look like? What can you expect if you're interested in it?
Contrary to popular belief, it's not the event that is traumatic but our responses to it.
Two people can experience the same event simultaneously, but they will have very different ongoing behaviors and feelings about it afterward.
For example, you may have siblings who experienced ongoing financial stress growing up, heard their parents arguing about money, and saw the family home repossessed when interest rates rose.
But those siblings may have very different responses.
The first sibling may take the course of action and the belief that they just won't put themselves, their children, or their partners into a similar situation.
They'll be sensible and prudent with their money to ensure that happens. They'll carefully save, do their research, invest properly, and not take too much risk.
They'll ensure that they always have a financially strong position.
They will be open in their conversations with their partners so that they talk about money instead of arguing about it.
As a result, they have a very healthy relationship with money.
But sibling number two may decide that the best way to avoid repossession or arguing is to never talk about money or own anything.
As soon as the money conversations start, they shut it down, or as soon as money comes in, they get rid of it as soon as possible because if they don't have it, nobody can take it away from them.
Sibling number one feels very safe and secure. They've got money in the bank and a growing investment portfolio. Perhaps they've got a property that they've paid their mortgage off because they've worked hard to do that.
Sibling number two may feel safe because they haven't got anything for anybody to take away from them.
We've got one event, but two very different responses, and one of those is a trauma response.
It is common to have one family member who looks at the other and thinks, why aren't I more like them?
How do they manage to make their money last, and I can't?
We look at somebody very close to us who's been in the same situation as we were growing up.
We are not achieving their financial success; we often beat ourselves up over this and tell ourselves that we must be failures.
It's important not to assume that everybody should behave the same way just because they've been in the same situation.
As professionals, we mustn't jump to conclusions. Instead, we should be respectful and ask sensitive, exploratory, but compassionate questions to understand their feelings.
And that can take some time.
It can take time to unwrap the many layers, as financial trauma responses might go back years, decades, or even generations.
For some people, once they've identified what's really going on, it will all click, and then journaling about it or talking about it may be sufficient.
For other people, deeper subconscious work, such as hypnotherapy or other forms of therapy, may be required.
So it's really important that clients research qualified trauma-informed financial coaches to get the right support in a safe environment.
🟣 From your coach's perspective, is there an exercise you recommend to help people uncover financial trauma?
Everyone and everyone's perception of events is different.
Therefore, it’s important to recognize that there's no one-size-fits-all response or set of actions to take.
But if somebody is wondering whether they need to do mindset work or trauma work, I'd ask them to pay attention to how they are feeling.
Is there a physical response to money?
So not how they think or what they think, but how they feel.
And if they feel things in their body, if they have stomach-churning, heart-racing, or sweaty palms when they're thinking about money, or they can't look at their bank statements or whatever it might be, then that potentially is a sign that there is financial trauma to be uncovered.
I'd also suggest they look back at some of those experiences and ask themselves how they feel about them.
Some might look back and say it doesn't really affect me.
Others might discover how these experiences are really impacting their responses and behaviours today.
“I felt ashamed.”
“I felt embarrassed.”
“I felt really disappointed.”
“I felt that I couldn't trust somebody.”
These answers could indicate that there's financial trauma there.
It helps to give a good starting point for a qualified, trauma-informed financial coach to support the person further and ensure that he or she gets the right help, guidance, and results.
🟣 What exercise would you give someone to help them cope with financial trauma in their day-to-day financial decision-making?
One of the most important things that I believe we can all do, whether we are advisors or clients or potential clients or parents or partners, friends, colleagues, or community members, is simply talking about money more openly and honestly every day.
A lot of the trauma responses are because we haven't been able to talk about things and express them at the time or in the immediate aftermath of when we recognize them.
We hold on to these things instead of talking about them.
And then we feel that it's uncomfortable, difficult to raise, and shameful or embarrassing.
Encouraging easier conversations about money generally to end the taboo that we still have around money will help those conversations be easier and, hopefully, stop some of those negative responses from lodging in our bodies.
As advisors, we're used to asking questions of our clients, and we're used to talking about money, but we don't always talk about it in a way that genuinely addresses somebody's concerns, fears, and experiences.
And yet at the same time, our clients may be uncomfortable or fearful in some way, but they feel uncomfortable saying so.
So the advisor asks the questions, and the client says everything's fine. The advisor takes that answer at face value because the client has said it's all okay, but it couldn't be further from the truth.
Therefore, the client may feel quite out of sorts, concerned, worried, or a little stupid about the whole situation.
And that's a real shame because what happens then is that they go away and hold onto that further and add another layer to their financial trauma instead of being able to genuinely deal with what's bothering them, where their fears are, and explore them in a way that not only helps them but helps other people that they can then go and talk to as well.
It's a ripple effect.
We must encourage broader, deeper, more empathetic, respectful, exploratory, non-invasive conversations around money.
We want to ensure that our clients make informed financial decisions that they genuinely feel comfortable with, which is good for them.
They go home feeling they've done the right thing.
It's also good for the advisor because the advisor knows they've done a great job and are doing the right thing for the client.
It's good for the industry, too, because people will trust us. People will trust their advisors, and trust is one of the things that you don't have if you're in trauma.
So just talking about money, getting that ripple effect going, shifting the conversation from something we're a bit embarrassed or ashamed of to something easy to talk about will be good for us all.
And that would be my biggest, biggest suggestion for everybody to start doing.
-
Thank you, Kim!
Et voilà
Well done for dedicating the past 6 minutes to your financial self.
What did you think?
I hope you found some value for yourself or someone you know. If you did, let me know by clicking on the 💜 at the bottom of the newsletter.
It means a lot!
I research and write Money Feelings for you 🫡, so never hesitate to share your feedback, ideas or ask questions. You can do it in the comment section below.
You’ll receive two more emails on the topic of 🟣 Trauma 🟣 this month:
[Week 1] 🧠 Discover ✅
[Today] 🎙️ Deepen ✅
[Week 3] 🎧 Master
[Week 4] 🪞Reflect
But for now, take good care of yourself, and
💜 Share the love
If this session is useful to someone you know, please forward this email or click the share button below.
💜 Like | 💬 Comment | 💌 Share
👇👇👇👇