Money Content On IG Makes My Pits Sweat
Money Movement with breana | Tomorrow June 22nd
I was in the instagram vortex and I came across a video from a Black femme sharing some financial advice. This creator said every year for the last twelve years they have maxed out their ROTH IRA.
Immediately, my pits started to sweat. I felt ready to scroll past and shame bubbled up at my impulse to ignore this person’s victory.
I watched the video and made the intention to bring the teensiest bit of mindfulness to what happened in my body as I listened.
I felt myself freeze, feel rage, grief and waves of embarrassment.
This creator detailed making money at twenty-one and finding herself with extra. So much extra that she reached out to her Mother for advice on what to do with it.
This is an experience that is so foreign to me it is almost maddening.
At 21, I hid under my duvet in a shitty (always cold) basement apartment in the Inner Sunset, frozen with fear and indecision about my looming and incredibly expensive student loans. What got me through those moments? Cigarettes — a luxury rolled in shame. My pack of friends were a lifeline and the petit joy I afforded myself.
I WAS NOT MAXING OUT MY ROTH IRA. It took me another decade before all of the financial equations of my life balanced out and I had money to be curious about anything outside of my basic living expenses.
Listening to this reel, I felt embarrassment because I lived paycheck to paycheck into my thirties and could barely conceive of my dollars extending past rent, food and transportation expenses. Rage because people having parents who are helpful — this remains so triggering to me.
There are members of my family I can’t speak to, let alone ask for advice or support, because the interaction will take from me so substantially and require weeks to recover.
In my family, the efforts and opportunities I have taken on financially have inspired the people I come from. My Father had his first car payment and credit card after seeing me do it. My sister bought the same car as me trying to figure out how to afford a car, insurance and gas with rising California prices.
One of the most substantial forms of grief I carry is the sadness and exhaustion of teaching myself how to care for me. The complex grief and systems necessary to learn how to pay bills, talk to financial institutions, eat food, do laundry — simple shit like that. I imagine some humans grow up in families where these lessons are shared and passed down. A lot of my adult life has been spent teaching myself and now I use that learning to help others.
This year I was certified in the Trauma of Money™ method and use that knowledge in my Financial Liberation Coaching practice. I work with individuals and organizations in Capitalism Harm Reduction. Capitalism Harm Reduction is my framework for aligning resources (time, labor, money and love) with our values so we can live a liberated life and age and die with dignity.
And still, here I am stressed by people on the internet talking about their investments and successes — what the actual fuck.
Money grief is a son of a bitch.
We experience the grief of having and not having resources. The grief of commodifying one of our most precious resources: time. The grief of trying to exist within a system that is build to extract and destroy us. The grief of functioning within interconnected ecosystems that value profit over our rivers, the air, the cottonwoods, our neighbors who fly and slither and swim.
I believe that when we attend to our grief we create movement.
It is inhuman to face our resources and lackthereof alone. We were never meant to care for the parts of life that are messy and complicated in isolation.
Financial tasks like calling the IRS, negotiating insurance premiums, reviewing contracts, responding to bill collectors take so much energy from me. And the task itself is really the lightest part of the weight. The weight of the task looming overhead sucks. The internal conversation every time I write “Call the IRS” on next week’s to-do list and then on next week’s to-do list… into infinity.
Money grief is exactly why I hold Money Movement with breana because caring for our financial wellbeing doesn’t have to happen alone and grief is easier to carry together.
You’re invited comrade —
Join me tomorrow Monday June 22nd from 12:30-2:00pm Mountain
for Money Movement with breana
This invitation is in pursuit of relief. Relief from shame and fear at the ways capitalism has its way with us and our financial lives. We are actually in this together. And for 90m we will create some movement of the tasks that suck.
I will share a story about seeking financial liberation. We will set intentions. And then we will body-double.
Bring your budget, bring that debt notice that you have felt nervous to face, bring your taxes whatever has been stressing you. May this shared time be the catalyst you have been waiting for.
And then, let’s celebrate.
Because moving towards financial well-being, even simply showing up at all, is worth celebration.
Get your tickets here.