Bring Down Your Money Wall

Welcome to the Soul-filled Cafe Vinca.

I am excited for people to watch your videos and dig into the conversation of our limiting walls.
This is such a timely topic.

I grew up with the “middle class” money pattern. Always felt like I was jumping through the next hoop to please someone. It’s why I found entrepreneurship so liberating. But it was eye opening to hear you discuss the “owning class” mentality of isolation. Everyone has walls to bring down.

Ok — bring on your juicy questions for Vinca! Glad you are hear.

Hi Vinca,

Thank you, heather, for bringing this great conversation to the table. I was raised with a middle class money pattern. I was also “purchased” by my parents in the form of adoption. I’ve done a lot of work around money patterns, and always come to that root place of being an “object” that can be bought or sold. So the pleasing others part for me had to do with deep survival as I was always threatened to be “returned” if I wasn’t a certain way. Well, I could never be a certain way. I could only be me. So now I am moving into a new business venture, and feel every pattern coming up to be reviewed. I have chronic fear and overwhelm-ment in the area of money. Do you have any suggestions as to how to move forward without slipping into these deep patterns that will certainly sabotage my efforts?
p.s. I was part of the last group of people to go through check point charlie on last day of east and west division. Very exciting time to be in Berlin.
I am very curious about your work.
Thank you
KB

Hi, Vinca,

Thanks to you for bringing this powerful topic to Heather’s wonderful Soul-Filled cafe today!

I definitely grew up in the “middle class” money pattern…we didn’t talk about money growing up (other than to say that we “didn’t talk about it”), and it has been very tough for me to learn to have open conversations about money, investing, and other financial issues. VERY tough. I have often felt like an ostrich who knows it is important to discuss money, but it felt so taboo to me growing up. I literally felt like it was not polite or nice to talk about money (and now I’m a business owner who HAS to talk about money!)

What is your advice to someone like me, who got the strong message NOT to talk about money…how do we get even more empowered about money?

Thanks so much!

Warmly,
Sue

hi Vinca, hi Heather!

Wow, I’m all about stories, and yours Vinca is an incredible one. I was riveted to the screen as you told of the incredibly courageous steps that you and your family took out into the street.

I was struck by the metaphor of it all, to begin with the pain of having no freedom, bringing down the wall, and next thing adventuring out to see the beautiful and previously inaccessible places of the world.

The money wall (or at least that’s how it shows up) has been a total fascination for me in my life, and more than a little bit frustrating. I work with clients, and notice that my rate has tripled in the last 3 years, and yet my income hasn’t changed. So weird. The wall is apparently, quite solid.

I find I’ve done SOOOOOO much work on this subject, from practical to deeply spiritual, and I admit I’ve learned so much about myself. And yet, the wall persists. Stubbornly. Truth is, it feels like I’ve looked under every nook and cranny of my life to find this wall, and can’t find it or feel it – only that it shows up in the bank statement – lol.

I would SOO love to hear your perspective on this, or where a person might start…

Alex

hi Sue, i am so glad you are talking about money!!! Make a point to talk about money at least three times a day – like brushing your teeth.

What do you love about it? What do you hate about it?

Your empowerment around money starts with being not “nice”. Check in with yourself of what feels right and what does not and then start voicing it. It’s a muscle you have to train to get comfortable with being uncomfortable.

Every time you are deciding not be “nice” it will feel very scary or wrong but that will be your liberation!!! And it will bring down your money wall:-)

Keep a journal in the beginning in case you can not physically voice it. Start reading it out loud so you hear yourself talk about money.

The more you create this open space for yourself around money the more successful and empowered you will be…

keep me updated
much love
Vinca

hi Alex, thank you for sharing:-). I love your stubborn wall because at one point in your life it was a form of protection for you that’s why you can’t feel it or find it.

My suggestion is to be gentle about it.
When you don’t feel save you will not be able to work on it.

When you do you feel save the most?
Create safety for yourself and then start looking.

What is your first memory of money? What money patterns did your parents have?

The other way to look at it is to find out what you are protecting by making the same amount of money? It could be a believe, a decision you made when you were young.

But again create a safe space for yourself to find out.

keep the conversation going
let me know your thoughts

much love
Vinca

Hi Vinca !! Hey Heather !!

Great seeing you here today at the soul-filled cafe.

Vinca, I’ve known you for months and NEVER knew your story about your family’s courage with bringing down the Berlin Wall. Fascinating !! I also love your authentic presence in storytelling. Excellent!

Also fascinating is the money pattern awareness in all three categories. The owning class with their money and isolation … the middle class with their desire to move up and the fear of falling back … and the working class.

Really enjoy your perspective and the personal accounts you’ve shared with us today.

Thanks so much and I hope to see you again soon !

Heather, we’ll finish our conversation soon too …

Love to you both,
Cherry

Vinca thank you so much for telling your story here. Your feelings as the wall came down and your family experienced freedom, and how precious it is, was so moving to me. Put things in perspective…how much we take for granted every day here in the states!

I was fascinated with your perspective of the “class systems” here in the U.S. It’s not something I have given a whole lot of thought to but of course we all operate within certain assumptions and ways of seeing the world.

I was raised “upper middle class” which is a fascinating place because America is an aspirational culture and, as you say, the classes are always “looking up” to the class above, which, in our family, led to a lot of debt. I certainly have the “be nice” thing vs. the “numbing out” that you mention as part of working class and owning class.

Although I’ve worked on letting go of what others think, acting from a place of internal power vs. being “nice,” I still think that I have a lot of the middle class patterns you’ve described, and they seem to be there regardless of how the money is flowing (in fact, I suspect that, when I go through periods of bringing in much more than I had in the past, these patterns contribute to the leveling out that often follows…)

I assumed before I watched the videos that I’d want to break out of the middle class pattern and learn how to adopt owning class pattern, but I cringe at the way you describe the owning class patterns of “being harsh” and “not caring what anyone thinks,” “being isolated” and trying to connect via buying things. Are those just the negative aspects you are describing from that class, and, for those who want to shift out of middle class patterns around money, what do you suggest we adopt instead?

Fascinating conversation…I look forward to your response! Heather thanks for another great soul filled cafe!

h KB,

thank you for sharing!!! I am so glad you are moving into a new business venture – you choose a wonderful healing tool. Every time we grow our business, all our hurts come up to be healed. So know that I am cheering you on…

Make sure you have plenty of support around you. You can only slip into deep patterns and sabotage when you are isolated. So for you it’s important to create lot’s of supporting connections. People you trust and that are good listeners.

Set it up that they reach out to you or you to them. But don’t leave it up to chance.
I would schedule phone calls in the mornings so you can brainstorm and release any feelings that might be in the way for the day.

What do you do KB?

I am so glad we met here:-)
keep me updated
much love

p.s. amazing that you were in the last group to go through check point charlie!!! it was an breathtaking time…

Hi, Vinca,

Wow, I really love reading everyone’s posts (and your wonderful replies) on this topic!

Thank you for your great suggestion about talking about money three times a day…what I love about it, what I hate about it…and letting go of ‘being nice’ about it, and being authentic about it instead.

I can feel myself breathing more freely even writing that…and that’s always a sign that I’m tapping into something that really works for me.

Kimberly, I really resonated with what you shared as well. One of the messages I got early on was that we were well-off and had plenty of ‘stuff’ growing up, but weren’t really encouraged to be authentic (as long as we were being positive, we could be as ‘authentic’ as we liked…we just weren’t encouraged to express anger or frustration or disagreement). So I wonder if I have equated money with being inauthentic? Very interesting to consider…your thoughts, Vinca?

Thanks!
Sue

hi Cherry,

great seeing you here!!! sending much love

vinca

[...] http://www.soulfilledlife.com/2011/04/20/vinca/ [...]

Thank you for having me!!!
what a treat:-)

i am so happy to answer the juicy questions!!!

A great movie for getting to know owning class patterns is “The King’s Speech”, for working class patterns “Rocky”, middle class movie would be “Pleasantville”.

I love that you embraced the entrepreneurial route – just what you needed.

much love
Vinca

I love the movie references. Will need to rewatch for the patterns.

And thanks, Vinca, for the affirmation re: entrepreneurial route — it has its own challenges! But I do love moving away from the pleasing of others to creating my own path and making choices b/c they are inspiring for my own journey.

Wow –KB, wonderful to have you here. Another Berlin waller.

Thanks for sharing about your own history and how it has impacted your life.
The fact that you *see* your patterns to me is always the beginning of the healing of them. So I commend you on that.

Yay Sue. So fun to have you here.

I was brought up in the same soup of messages!!

This is great advice, Vinca! Can “see” where NICE plus BRINGING DOWN WALLS are just not a fit. The Berlin Wall would have been there forever if everyone politely waved at it.

Thanks for being here and sharing Alex and sharing about your stubborn walls (which sound like they are ready to start crumbling…)

Yes! Thanks for “stopping in” — and so glad you got to learn something new about the wonderful Vinca. She has quite the history!!

Hey Kimberly!

I also found Vinca’s video to be very enlightening. What I see is how much we need a whole new blueprint for money and entrepreneurship. The words giving and flow and “plenty” and trust come to mind…

Would love to know both you and Vinca’s thoughts on a “brand new paradigm” for money mindset.

Thank you Vinca! I love your suggestions. They sit SO well with me. I am going to sit with them now and see what I discover. I love the protecting question in particular – that one keeps jumping out at me saying… ‘pick me! pick me!’
Alex

Thank you, Vinca…

Yes. That was an extraordinary time to be in Berlin. I will never forget it.

Thank you for your kind response. I do feel support is the key. Definitely. When I isolate, it only leads to madness.

I have worked for over 20 years as a high profile makeup artist for mostly the entertainment industry, but also people with high profile lives. I am venturing into teaching my 1st workshop on the deeper aspects of beauty that catapult healing and nourishment to our spirits – and consequently to the world around us.

You are a brave and admirable woman so thank you so much for sharing your story here…

And, thank you Heather for putting these amazing women together!

Warmly,

KB

hi Kimberly,

great questions and thank you for sharing:-)

== I’d want to break out of the middle class pattern and learn how to adopt owning class patterns==

freeing yourself from patterns is more important then adopting any patterns…

trying “to learn how to adopt owning class patterns” would be an example of your middle class pattern – trying to fit in

any pattern of any class has it’s good and it’s bad
“not caring what anyone thinks” would be a liberation for middle class

don’t try to adopt a pattern but rather become aware of your own thoughts around money and the patterns it holds for you
and start working on them…

I love you name
Scheider is german

much love to you
let’s keep talking
vinca

hi Sue,

i love your thinking!!!

keep the “breathing more freely” in mind – this feeling you want to have all the time
with every decision you make around money and expressing yourself

==So I wonder if I have equated money with being inauthentic?==
good question and something to sit with and connect with
and give yourself the space to feel it too

keep me updated
you are doing great!!!

much love
vinca

hi KB,

i love your move into teaching workshops…
you have a lot to share!!! The wonderful thing is that you can use your life story
to heal yourself and but also heal others by sharing it…

i looked at your share from above and used some of your words:

Beauty can not be “purchased”
Otherwise it will always come to that root place
of being an “object” that can be bought or sold

I was always threatened to be “returned” if I wasn’t a certain way.
Well, I could never be a certain way. I could only be me…

i think you should use this in your website, flyer etc because it’s you and your powerful story
it will speak to a lot of women

when you struggle with your new business venture
hold on to the thought on how many women’s lives you can change for the better
by sharing your beautiful story…

then take a breath and jump (it’s feels like free fall)

much love
v

Vinca yes I do have some German in both sides of my family, so that’s a connection we share!

I appreciate your suggestions “don’t try to adopt a pattern but rather become aware of your own thoughts around money and the patterns it holds for you.” This is a brilliant piece of advice as it is all about consciousness, yes?

And great insight about wanting to adopt another class pattern is an example of the middle class pattern exerting itself!

This is so helpful and I look forward to learning more from you!

Many blessings, kimberly

Hi Vinca,
You are a magnet, like you have a hidden secret that everyone wants in on, and that is very telling towards our patterns around money (everyone wants it!). I am looking forward to checking out your free audio training and learning more about how my money patterns are impacting my life for good and bad.
Kind regards,
KimberLee Schaumburg

Vinca…..

SO funny that you captured that in what I shared. Part of my work has been about the value of beauty if there isn’t an economic component to it. Example: Women often go to great lengths to appear more youthful in order to get a job, a man, more status etc… so there is often an economic component underneath the quest. This is always an interesting relationship to me. The relationship between beauty and economics so you are very intuitive for picking up on that.
I want to follow your work. I will look closer at Heather’s site to see how to reach you otherwise. Really brilliant work you are doing. Have you written a book on this class structure? You definitely should.
Thank you so much for your feedback. Much appreciated.
KB

I am finding that detaching emotionally is a good thing. I am a highly sensitive person and often wonder if my “feeling” so much throughout the day and the getting tired I feel from it, could ever decrease (in a good way). I feel that if it does, I could keep moving both physically and mentally from choice to choice. It seems like less headaches and more money could result. I’ve begun the detaching process, yet I believe it may take some time – I’m already 53;-)

hi Julianne,

you are never to old to change!!! 53 is young…:-)

When you talk about emotionally detaching what does that mean to you?

there is a great book called
“The Highly Sensitive Person” by Elaine Aron
great resource for you

money is made out of plastic or green paper
it just is…
but we attach a lot of emotions to it

Is that what you are talking about? wanting to detach from those feelings?

let me know
much love
vinca

hi KimberLee,

i love the magnet idea!!!

This is a great metaphor:

dinner conversation with different households with different money patterns:

working class question at the dinner table: Did you have enough food?
middle class question: Did you like the food?
owning class question: How was the presentation?

When you have a sales conversation with clients it is really helpful to know their money patterns because it will effect their decision very much to commit to you or not.

let me know your thoughts
much love
vinca

Hello Vinca,
The pattern I lived with as a child was where one parent spent money saying “if we need it, we’ll buy it”, leaving me the idea that all necessary items could be obtained with no problem. The down side is that they were purchased with the knowledge that my other parent would be angry about the spending. So there were hidden purchases (I assume). Also had grandparents who gave my parents money for big ticket items like houses, furniture, etc., so the “pattern” there was that there would always be someone available to help purchase what we needed. In a way, each of these have followed into adulthood but not in an advantageous way. Somehow each of these beliefs leads to insecurity at being able to support myself, a thought pattern that I want to break. Any ideas?

Liz

hi Liz,

thanks for sharing!!!

giving you a big hug from a far…

in your head there is probably a lot of back and forth going on?
Yes – No, No -Yes? When parents have complete opposite patterns of spending money you, as a child created an inner dialogue to try to fix the situation for you parents so that there would be no conflict.

i think your inner dialogue is going on in your head all the time? And it probably takes up most of your energy so by the end of the day there is nothing left for you? Please let me know if i am wrong:-)

i think you are not insecure – i think you need to learn to redirect your energy towards you instead of being absorbed by the endless back and forth in your head still trying to fix and find a solution that you could not as a child.

let me know your thoughts
if it resonates or not
much love
vinca

I am wondering why there want a video on working class. I am in the process of breaking down that wall and working for myself doing things I love. You are so sweet and centered and strong and I would love to hear about breaking through working class patterns.

Hi Ashley — I think Vinca addresses the working class pattern in Video #1.