Just as we train our bodies at the gym, we can practice self-compassion to train our minds and undo decades of unhelpful mental habits. We can gently interrupt harsh judgments and offer ourselves acceptance and kindness instead.

After working with thousands of clients for nearly four decades, I’ve observed that our habitual thoughts and behaviors often stem from when we were as young as five years old. At that tender age, we are like puppies - malleable and highly impressionable. Unfortunately, many of us continue to base our financial decisions on the emotional blueprints established back then.

Why practice self-compassion? Consider these potential benefits:

• You’ll feel more at ease when making decisions about money.
• You’ll gain greater resilience and patience while reducing reactivity.
• You might even find yourself with more money.

Let’s explore each of these benefits in detail.

Every time you judge yourself, you're reinforcing neural pathways that cultivate a more critical and less creative mind. Self-compassion, on the other hand, has been shown to calm our nervous systems and reduce stress (and shame). Personally, when I’m feeling less stressed around money, I am less impulsive and I make wiser decisions.

It’s not usually a good idea to interrupt others, but you have full permission to interrupt your self-critical thoughts. Through my practice of interrupting negative thought patterns, I have developed more resilience and patience. My mind has become less reactive because I know how to quell those reactive thoughts by noticing and acknowledging them before they escalate into harsher self-judgments.

Now, you may wonder how compassion relates to money. As I’ve learned to soften my inherited belief that “money is more important than anything,” I have become less allegiant to that belief and more open to seeing money from other perspectives. I’ve stopped being so drawn to risky investments, and have eased up on my workaholic tendencies which would surely have led to burnout. As a result, I’m making more money over my lifetime, even if I’m making less in a single year, and I’m buying less on impulse. We make more objective financial decisions when we’re feeling positive about our money situation in the same way that we tend to make wiser food choices when we’re feeling better about our bodies.

There’s a freedom that comes from reducing rumination. The thought that money was more important than anything used to dominate my day, hindering my creativity and my brain’s potential. But after only a few months of offering compassion to the recurring thought, it began to surface less frequently and with less intensity. Imagine what’s possible for you if your persistent thoughts about money begin to lose their grip. You’d gain mental clarity and a more expansive view of life. Think of a moment when you felt that sense of spaciousness - where were you and what was happening? How might you recreate that felt experience?

When applied with intention, self-compassion is a powerful tool for transforming your relationship with money, and yourself. 

Wishing you an abundance of self-compassion.