Summary
In a live coaching Q&A, a participant asks how to deal with money without freezing up. Joe quickly surfaces that the issue isn’t really about money—it’s about not feeling deserving of safety, unconditional love, and pleasure. The person’s money freeze is actually a safety freeze: they avoid looking at bank accounts the way someone avoids a horror movie, using the lack of safety as a way to feel alive.
Joe demonstrates that going directly into the feeling of unsafety—rather than avoiding it—immediately shifts the person’s sense of empowerment. But when the participant says they’ll “make it a practice,” Joe warns this will become another source of self-abuse (failing to do it, beating yourself up). The real answer comes unexpectedly: appreciation and connection. When the person receives Joe’s appreciation, something shifts viscerally—that moment of genuine connection is the actual antidote to the safety wound.
Key Concepts
Key Quotes
“So many times we have money issues that aren’t actually about the money itself. It’s about some other relationship that we had in our life that we’ve transposed onto money.”
“Here’s the weird thing, man. The weird thing is you freeze around money, but you always have enough of it. You always feel unsafe, but yet somehow you always figure out how to be safe.”
“You’re going to tell yourself to do that and then the next step is you’re going to wonder if you’re going to do it. And then the next step is you’re going to fail to do it at some point and then you’re going to beat yourself up for not doing it.”
“That was appreciation. That was me looking at you with appreciation. That is your answer.”
Transcript
So many times we have money issues that aren’t actually about the money itself. It’s about some other relationship that we had in our life that we’ve transposed onto money. In this coaching session that happened during one of our live Q&As, we talked to a person who’s really struggling with money and finds out what they’re really struggling with underneath that is their relationship with safety.
How can I deal with money and not freeze up? Oh, cool. What scares you about money? Um, if I had to guess, I would guess that I don’t feel like I deserve it. What other good things do you not feel like you deserve? Unconditional love. Great sex. What are the other things you don’t feel like you deserve? Safety. Is that what you said? Yeah. Awesome. What are you holding back right now? Yeah. That’s so—yes. Right there. You’re trying to make yourself feel safe. Yes, I am. Right. There’s a whole bunch of people looking in. Trying to—there’s a whole bunch of people on this call who also don’t feel safe. Fair enough. You’re just the one who’s able to sit here and admit it.
So what’s going to make you feel safer? Trying to hold it back or feel it? If I could avoid either, that would be nice. You can’t. No, I can’t. Life is inherently unsafe.
So there’s this thing that you’re dodging. You felt it and now you’re kind of dodging it. And the more you dodge it, the less safe you feel. And the more that you’re with it somehow or another, there’s also a lack of safety, but there’s a groundedness it seems like. So let’s just dodge it for a minute. Let’s make sure that we’re not feeling—we’re not gonna physically—yeah. We’re just gonna feel that. Like we do with money. Just the same way we do it with money.
And now let’s do the opposite. Let’s just go right into that feeling of lack of safety. Here’s the weird thing, man. The weird thing is you freeze around money, but you always have enough of it. You always feel unsafe, but yet you’re safe enough to come here and have this conversation with me in front of all these folks. So where’s the story end and the truth begin in this? Like, what’s the truth about your safety?
That feels like it’s part of the problem. It feels fragmented. So answer that question, but this time answer it from while deeply in touch with that feeling of lack of safety. What’s the truth about your safety? I don’t want to feel sick. Some part of me doesn’t want to feel sick. How does that make sense? It totally makes sense. How do you feel alive and perfectly safe at the same time? You don’t look at the bank account because that increases the fear.
It’s like your version of a horror movie. That’s your entertainment so that you can feel that deep aliveness. But what we’re doing right now is giving you another way to feel it, which is to go right into the lack of safety. See, already—now you did it for just a couple minutes and now your sense of empowerment is so much different than it was before. Isn’t that crazy? It is crazy. That’s one of the ways empowerment comes to us—to actually feel and face the things that we don’t want to. It’s how we build trust in ourselves.
So I turn that into a practice—I just try and do that over and over again until it has no staying. That’s a pretty good way to make it into a lack of safety. Tell me more. What do you mean? Well, you’re going to tell yourself to do that and then the next step is you’re going to wonder if you’re going to do it. And then the next step is you’re going to fail to do it at some point and then you’re going to beat yourself up for not doing it. And then you’re going to feel not safe because you told yourself to do something that you’re not doing. Like typically that’s how that moves. Fair enough.
And there you are. Look at that. What’s that? What do you have to do to—what was that? That was appreciation. That was me looking at you with appreciation. That is your answer. That appreciation, that connection. Appreciate that thing. Connect with that thing. Appreciate yourself in that, in the doing of that. Oh, look—right. I’m with my lack of safety right now. And appreciate that. Cool. Thank you. Total pleasure.