Table of Contents
🌿 A Gentle Beginning
Shame is sticky.
It clings.
And when it comes to money, it often shows up early and stays quietly buried.
You weren’t born feeling shame around wealth, debt, having, or not having.
It was taught—directly or indirectly—and it became a layer you wore without realizing.
Today, we gently peel it back.
Not to analyze or diagnose.
But to breathe into the places where you once felt small.
So you don’t have to carry them anymore.
💫 Memory, Revisited
Shame around money might have sounded like:
- “Don’t be ungrateful.”
- “We can’t afford that—what’s wrong with you?”
- “People like us don’t…”
- “Why did you waste your money on that?”
It might have felt like:
- Hiding something you bought.
- Feeling guilty for asking.
- Dimming your desires.
- Not wanting to look at your bank balance.
Whatever it was… it mattered.
Because you mattered.
And your younger self deserves to be met with tenderness now, not judgment.
🕯 Try This
Bring to mind a moment when you felt shame about money.
It doesn’t have to be the “worst” one—just one you remember.
Where were you? What happened?
What did you make it mean about you?
What did you need in that moment that you didn’t receive?
Then gently ask yourself:
What would I say to that version of me now?
Let your current self offer the warmth that moment never had.
🌙 Parting Thought
Shame dissolves in the presence of love.
You don’t have to earn your way back to wholeness.
You’ve never been anything but whole.
➡️ Next: Lesson 4: The Performance of Security
🏡 Back to Course Home: Course Directory
➡️ Previous: Lesson 2: What You Were Taught
The Soft Wealth
