Ep #141: The Hidden Ways Women Use Money Against Themselves

Welcome to The Money Coach School Podcast. To really excel at coaching women, you have to be skilled, confident, and even fearless at money coaching. If you're passionate about women holding genuine money power and love supporting women entrepreneurs, then this is the show for you. Now, here's your host, money feminist Kendall SummerHawk.

Hey, woman entrepreneur. Welcome back to The Money Coach School Podcast. So, first, I'm super excited to announce that we have officially launched me on Substack. Now, I have to confess, I have always really been terrible at social media, like really bad. I always felt like a complete misfit. I didn't understand it. I didn't get it. You know, I've been in business 23, 24 years, so I've been around since before social media was even a thought in somebody's brain. I think the main thing is I have zero interest in documenting my life in that me-me-me influencer world that social seems to want from you. And I have no interest in performing for an algorithm created by, yeah, the tech guys. No, thank you. And every year I hired an expert to help me with my social, I would spend like multiple five figures, I would spend weeks and weeks and weeks of time, and have nothing to show for it. Yeah, so it's a hard no.

And then I heard about Substack, and the second I heard about it, something clicked. I lit up like a full body yes. Right away, I knew this is it. This is my home. And I immediately created Feminine Money Mastery, which is the name of my Substack publication. So Substack is the place where I am spilling secrets on women entrepreneurs and money and what women are capable of creating financially. Because women were never taught how to create safety and stability and wealth, and Feminine Money Mastery is where that changes. So, I really hope you will join me inside of my Feminine Money Mastery Substack. The URL is Kendall-Summerhawk.com. So that's a dash like a little hyphen. So it's Kendall-Summerhawk.com. That’ll lead you right there and I'll also put it in the show notes. I really want you to join me over there. It's free. I'm actually moving my podcast over there. Like Substack is going to be my entire home. I'm really, really just loving it and really looking forward to it.

All right, so, go there and join me on Substack. And let's turn to our topic today, which is how to stop using money against yourself. And here's what I mean. There's a difference between motivating yourself around money and emotionally punishing yourself the entire way there. You know, a lot of women have spent years doing this without realizing it, using money to criticize themselves, pressure themselves, doubt themselves, withhold safety from themselves, and they question whether they're doing enough, making enough, becoming enough.

And so then what happens is money becomes this emotional place where, of course, you carry disappointment or fear or guilt or pressure or self-judgment. How could you not? The key point here is that most women were never taught how to separate money circumstances from self-worth, self-trust, or emotional safety. So, in other words, when money feels good, they feel good. When money feels stressful, they feel emotionally unsafe. When numbers drop, they question themselves. When progress slows, they start carrying shame or fear or pressure. And that's the conversation that we're exploring here today in this episode.

I want this episode to feel like an exhale, to feel like relief. Like realizing you were never supposed to carry money this way in the first place. You deserve a healthier emotional relationship with money, one where money stops becoming evidence against you and starts becoming something that supports your life and your future and stability and self-respect and all the good things. So let's talk about some of the most common ways women unknowingly use money against themselves emotionally. There's four ways I'm going to go through here in just a moment. But before we dive in, I want you to go ahead and click the follow button. Wherever that is around this podcast episode, click follow or subscribe so that you never miss an episode. I am your money coach, and every episode here is designed to help you increase your income, grow your profit, and feel in control of your money.

All right, so let's get into it. So, number one, this is not in any particular order, actually, but the first way I want to mention that women use money against themselves is women use money to measure their worth. So this is one of the deepest emotional patterns that women carry around money. Revenue drops, and a woman suddenly questions herself. A launch underperforms, and she spirals about whether she's still good at what she does or maybe it's a sign she's not supposed to be doing something. Don't be ridiculous. It's not a sign of that at all. Or savings is at a lower amount than she wants, and so she feels behind in her entire life.

Money stops being information or a tool or a resource, and it's become identity. And I don't want that for you. That is emotionally exhausting. Because business numbers, they fluctuate. That's just being in business. Some months are stronger. Some seasons stretch you. Some decisions take time to pay off. But women often experience every financial movement or moment, really, personally. So instead of saying, well, this is a business situation, it becomes, well, what does this say about me?

So the coaching question I want to give you here is, what would free up for you if you stopped translating money into a verdict, a referendum on your worth? The key point here is that money is feedback. It's not a definition of your value.

All right, number two. Women emotionally punish themselves around money. This one breaks my heart because so many women believe pressure is what's going to create financial change. It's not. And so they mistakenly get very emotionally hard on themselves around money. They replay mistakes repeatedly. They carry guilt around spending. They shame themselves for debt. I just did an entire episode about how debt is not a dirty word. It's episode 140 and you can go back and listen to that at the end of this episode and I'll also link to it in the show notes.

You know, women feel behind financially no matter how much progress they make. That is such a common way to punish oneself with money. And a lot of women are trying to create better money habits through self-criticism. But self-criticism never creates long-term financial peace. It's just money abuse, you know, self-inflicted. And it creates avoidance and fear about looking at the numbers. Again, I don't want that for you. I want something so much better for you.

You deserve a relationship with money that includes self-respect. And that's the key point here on this one. You deserve a relationship with money that includes self-respect. You create empowered financial change when money stops becoming a source of emotional self-attack. So, self-respect, what that can sound like financially, what it can sound like is you say, I'm willing to look at this honestly. I can learn new money habits. I'm becoming someone who handles money more intentionally. I don't need to emotionally attack myself to create change. I'm allowed to improve financially while still liking myself, while still loving myself. All right? Let me actually, I'm going to flip that around and say, I am allowed to love myself while improving financially. I like that way even better.

All right, let's go into number three. Women use money to withhold safety from themselves. This pattern is subtle, but it is incredibly common. A woman reaches a financial milestone, but still doesn't let herself feel supported or really enjoy the win. The business grows, but emotionally the finish line keeps moving. There's always another number she has to reach before she's allowed to breathe easier. What's happening is women are unknowingly postponing safety. I always call this moving success targets. They're putting that off into the future, that feeling of safety. And you know this is you if you say things like, I'll finally relax when, when something happens, such and such happens. Or I'll finally feel stable when, I'll finally feel okay when, you know, when the debt is gone, when savings are bigger, when revenue becomes more predictable, when the next launch succeeds, when there's more certainty.

So what happens is even while life may be improving financially, your nervous system will still feel all that pressure because that's what it's been being trained to do. So the checklist here of signs you may be withholding safety from yourself is you minimize financial progress very, very quickly. Or you move the goalpost constantly. I know I'm super guilty of that one. You struggle to acknowledge growth. Rest feels emotionally uncomfortable, and enough never really feels like enough.

So the key point on this one is that you deserve to experience emotional support during the process of building wealth, not only after everything becomes perfect, because you know what? It's never going to be perfect. And it's great to have goals and reach a goal and celebrate the holy heck out of that and then create a new goal. That's awesome. That's not what I'm talking about. What I'm talking about here is really delaying yourself feeling that sense of achievement and pride and success and safety. Underneath it all is safety.

All right, number four. Women make money carry every fear that they have. I actually think I need to do a whole episode just on this because this is something that I discovered about myself a few years ago. So I've witnessed it about myself and I've witnessed it certainly from coaching thousands of women entrepreneurs on money. And here's what it is. Money becomes the emotional container for everything, specifically fear. Fear about the future, fear about getting it wrong, fear about instability, fear about disappointing people, fear about success changing relationships, fear about losing everything. And what I've witnessed is that once fear gets attached to money, women start seeing everything through that lens. So then a decision becomes a money problem. A setback, yeah, becomes a money problem. A period of uncertainty, you guessed it, becomes a money problem. Relationship issues, yeah, becomes a money problem.

Poor money, right? Poor money. It's taking the heat and the blame for everything. Well, that's not fair. So even when money isn't actually the thing creating the discomfort. What is happening is that fear is being projected onto money. And that's why this pattern is so powerful to recognize. So the key point here is that money becomes simpler, easier, when you learn how to separate fear from money. You learn how to process fear without placing all of it onto your finances.

The coaching question I have for you here is with anything that comes up where you're feeling fear, you can ask, is this truly a money problem? Or is it a fear showing up through money? Interesting question, right?

All right, so to wrap up here, you need emotional capacity around money, not just more money. Of course, you need more money. We all want more money, but you need emotional capacity around money. And what I hope this episode leaves you with is the realization that money was never meant to be something that you use against yourself. Money is a resource, not a weapon. Money was meant to support or is meant to support your life. It's meant to help you create choices and opportunity. Money is meant to give you breathing room and a sense of security, and most of all, freedom.

So the more supportive you become with yourself around money, the easier it becomes to create these things, the security, the breathing room, the opportunity, the choices, and the freedom. And it's not because money changes, money actually doesn't change. It's because your relationship with yourself is what changes. And that may be one of the most important money skills that you can ever learn. Because when you have that as a base, as a foundation, and then you layer on the practical, there is no stopping you from creating your financial freedom.

So if this conversation resonated with you, I would love to continue it with you inside Substack, Feminine Money Mastery, because these are the exact type of conversations that I'm writing about there. The emotional patterns underneath money, the ways that women have been conditioned to relate to money, financial independence, and what becomes possible when you create wealth on your terms. Substack is totally free. You can subscribe at Kendall-Summerhawk.com, so that's a little dashy line. And I'll also link to it in the show notes. All right, my beautiful soul. I hope this episode was helpful for you and I'll see you in next week's episode. And I hope to see you on Substack.

Thank you so much for tuning into this week's episode of The Money Coach School Podcast. If you enjoyed this podcast, make sure you follow so you never miss an episode. Also, I would so love and appreciate if you would leave a 5-star review. Your review supports women just like you in discovering all of the juicy tips and insights I’m sharing here on how to coach women on money.

And if you want to learn how to excel at coaching women on money, definitely go to KendallSummerHawk.com and check out the wealth of money coach trainings that we have for you. Thanks so much for being part of this money coaching movement and for tuning into the show every week.