This week I heard several stories from people about their relationship to money. There was a deep seated unconscious belief that was holding up their experience.

One woman began our session by saying, “I am afraid I am going to run out of money.” Having come from a very restricted life, she is now making huge brave changes – selling her house, moving to a new city, going back to school in a graduate program, buying a new house. She was aware that her family’s belief culture around money had a powerful effect on her, but she didn’t know quite how to change it.

A man I talked with has a very good job, which used to be fun and interesting, but now is weighty with demands and restrictions. He is feeling trapped and stuck. In his heart he wants to quit, “But,” he said, “money has to come from my job. Nothing comes for free. You have to work hard to get it. You gotta bust your butt.”

This man had had a carefully crafted plan in place that was going to lead to scaling back in his job and eventually gaining his freedom, but his plan seemed to be foiled now by the economy. He was feeling helpless to make things better.

He too comes from a family with scarcity in its map of the world.
As I tapped with both of these good people, I had an insight into something I have thought a lot about but hadn’t put together in just this way.

What beliefs or presuppositions hold scarcity in place?

Both of these people are smart and honorable. They have good intentions. There must be some way that holding on to a scarcity model of the world was serving them.