The unexpected turning point in this coaching session: after the participant feels into their unsafety and experiences a shift in empowerment, they want to make it a practice—to go into unsafety over and over until it dissipates. Joe warns this will become another source of self-abuse.
Then something happens. Joe looks at the participant with genuine appreciation, and the participant visibly shifts. Joe names it: “That was appreciation. That was me looking at you with appreciation. That is your answer.”
The answer to the safety wound isn’t a practice of facing fear. It’s appreciation and connection—the felt experience of being seen and valued by another person while in contact with your vulnerability. The participant had been unconsciously using money avoidance as a substitute for aliveness. What they actually needed was a way to feel alive that didn’t require fear: genuine human connection and appreciation.
“I’m with my lack of safety right now. And appreciate that.”
The instruction becomes: appreciate yourself in the midst of your unsafety. Not fix it. Not practice through it. Appreciate it—and yourself for being in it.
Related Concepts
- Money blocks are often safety blocks
- Felt gratitude, not performed gratitude
- Connection enables accomplishment
- Turning insight into practice can backfire
- Facing the feeling you’re avoiding is how empowerment comes
- Fully allowing the victim experience naturally creates empowerment