“It feels like I have an ‘upper limiter’ on my income…”
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A reader writes:
“I’ve been noticing what I think you call a tangle, a really big one, in me. It’s about money, with other stuff all mixed in. There’s a retreat I’d really like to go to. I’m getting little mental ‘youTube’ downloads practically every hour, of attending… yet I have no idea how I will afford it! Somehow I always seem to find a way to pay for things I really want to do, but this is an issue that causes major stress. It is great that the money ‘shows up’ somehow, but I wish I could feel more sense of agency in that, and more predictability.
“I’m a highly trained professional, too, competent and experienced in several areas, am a conservative spender, and have no debt…yet it literally feels like I have an ‘upper limiter’ on my income–like no matter what I do, it won’t go above a certain amount. There are so many different ‘somethings’ going on about this, it is just more than I can track. Also, there are several parts feeling critical of other parts… I’m hoping you might have seen people untangle this kind of issue before? If so, it would give me hope to hear about it.”
Dear Reader,
Using Focusing for an issue like this can be very deep… and I thank you for asking about it, because many people may not realize that the experience of being chronically short on money can be an emotional issue that Focusing can help with.
Especially since you’re a “highly trained professional, a conservative spender, and have no debt,” and especially since you “somehow” always find a way to pay for things you really want to do, the picture that is coming through for me is of someone who has a part that is not wanting her to have too much money… and that this is a hidden part.
Hidden parts can have great power. I’ve often told the story of my writer’s block. I wanted to write — I didn’t know why writing was so hard. Nothing shifted until I sat down to do Focusing assuming that I had a part that DIDN’T want to write. I invited that part… and it showed up! It started with a tightness in my chest, turned into a feeling of “ducking,” and showed me that, to it, writing felt like exposing myself to the danger of my father’s sarcasm. Then it released.
So my suggestion to you, dear reader, would be to sit down and do Focusing with a part of you that doesn’t want you to have more than a certain amount of money. The part that sets that “upper limit.” It’s important to remember that you aren’t calling it out to lecture it or get rid of it. You need to be Self-in-Presence, genuinely curious. Aren’t you curious? I know I am!
“I don’t want to leave you too far behind…”
You said it would give you hope if you knew that people had untangled this kind of issues before. Yes, it has been done. The case I know best is my own.
It was about seven years ago, I believe. I owned my own home, had an assistant for my business, many things were going well. But I kept coming up short for money. Even though the money would finally come through, first I would be put through painful anxiety.
I told all this to one of my dear Focusing partners, and she suggested a session on this topic. When I invited the part of me that was uncomfortable with me being relaxed about money, I started to get images from my childhood. I saw the faces of my mother and father, and got the feeling of the life I lived with them. My parents had never owned their own home or had any savings. In my body I got a feeling like a poignant longing, and the words came, “I don’t want to leave you too far behind.”
After I had thoroughly sat with that part of me and acknowledged it, it began to change. I felt a flowing warmth, and a sense of my parents wanting me to do better than they did. It wouldn’t be like leaving them behind. But I could have told myself that in my head a thousand times. It wasn’t until I felt it in my body that I really got it.
