We all have money wounds – have you noticed?

Often we think we’re the only ones. If we feel inadequate about money – as many people do, especially women – we generally keep it to ourselves.

Money is one of the main things people feel shame about, and naturally we hide that shame. We all tend to think everyone else has it together, and we’re the only ones “pretending.”

Actually, our culture is wounded about money, so how could we not be?

Most of our wounding we inherit from our families, often passed along from one generation to the next. We absorb pain and anxiety about money as we grow up, maybe hearing our parents fight about it, or being scolded for wanting something they can’t afford.”I’m not made of money,” I used to hear as a child.”Money doesn’t grow on trees.”

Or maybe it’s the opposite problem. Perhaps we were indulged and given too much by our parents, who either lived on credit cards, or were determined to give their children everything they had lacked. Either way, we wind up not knowing the value of money, perhaps even feeling weakened, not developing the muscles of self-reliance that come  from making one’s own way. By being given too much, we have been robbed of something essential we truly need – our own strength and confidence.

There are so many wounds around money. Some of them are universal. Nearly everyone in our culture believes that they don’t have enough – even rich people feel this way, I’m told. And the more you have, the more you can fear losing.

Even though the saying goes that “money can’t buy happiness,” we act as though it can. And we’re encouraged by the media to want more, to crave things, to engage in a feeding frenzy of acquiring.

We’re taught to measure ourselves and value our worth by our money and material goods, and to compare ourselves to others. Our insecurities are exploited by advertisers to get us to spend money to feel better about ourselves. Hence money becomes equated with what will heal our ills, what will fill our lacks. By this very function of money, it becomes associated with our woundedness.

And the spiritual creative types among us, who reject material values, are just as wounded. We suffer deprivation, feel disempowered, and often lack the respect that our more outwardly successful neighbors get.

None of this is our fault. We can’t help being conditioned by the world we live in. It’s hard to find the right balance, to achieve a healthy relationship with money in our culture.

What is needed is a balance of the spiritual and the material, an awareness of gratitude for all that we have, and a dedication to serve the world in the ways our soul came here to do – and to be recompensed for our service.

Humanity is growing and changing. Our relationship to money, both individually and culturally, collectively, are among the focal points of that change.

What will the new world look like in regard to money? The decisions we make today in our awareness, our actions, and our relationships, are contributing right now to that new world!  What choices are you making? How would you like the new world to look? What choices can you make to create greater health and balance in the all-pervasive area of money in our lives?