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Are Your Money Stories Impacting Your Financial Success?

Mary-Theresa Tringale

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I remember the first time someone asked me about my money stories. I didn’t have a clue what they were talking about. Isn’t money just the green pieces of paper with dead presidents on them or the number (or lack thereof) in my bank account? What this person was trying to teach me is that money is so much more than that. As the Law of Perpetual Transmutation states, energy is always moving into physical form—and that includes money.

Money is energy. And just like many of the things in life that energetically surround us, we have stories about this form of energy that either help us or hurt us. This can be a hard concept to grasp if you’re a tangible learner like I am. I learn and understand concepts by seeing and doing with my very own eyes. So, understanding the concept that money is energy, or that how I think about it has an impact on how much I earn or save, was not an easy pill to swallow. I really wanted my lack of funds to be someone else’s fault. But I must say, once I did lean into this law, started to take responsibility for my money stories, and allowed myself the chance to rewrite them, everything started to open up for me.

So much so that I finally crossed a major milestone in my own personal entrepreneurial and wealth journey and earned my first six-figure year in 2020, during a pandemic no less. But it took a long time and a lot of inner work to get to this place. As many a guru will tell you, everything you see on the outside is just a byproduct of what is happening on the inside.

What exactly is happening on the inside? Stories—lots of them. We all have stories about money that we tell ourselves, and these stories either raise our vibe or send it real low. Perhaps subconsciously, you believe women shouldn’t earn more than their husbands, or you don’t believe you deserve to be successful. As the Law of Vibration states, everything is in constant motion, vibrating at a specific frequency, and this includes our thoughts. When our thoughts are high, we are high. When our thoughts are low, we are low. This is especially true as it relates to money.

High-vibe money thoughts = an abundance of wealth

Low-vibe money thoughts = scarcity and living in lack

So, where do we begin? Well, the first step in change is awareness. We need to ask what stories we are telling ourselves about money?

Let’s talk about what a story is by first talking about what agreements are. If you haven’t read The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom by Don Miguel Ruiz, I highly recommend it. My biggest takeaway from the book was actually the concept of what an agreement is in the first place. Basically, it’s the information we believe to be true about something. For example:

AGREEMENT: the sky is blue

We have agreed to assign the word “sky” as what we call the thing above us when we look up outside. We have also agreed that the color it turns on a clear day is called “blue.” I could just as easily tell you, “the sky is green,” but you wouldn’t agree with me, because you know the sky is blue. This is actually the agreement you have made about what these words mean and represent.

Still with me? Let’s try one related to money.

AGREEMENT: Money is evil.

Did that one strike a chord with you? This is an agreement that many people have. Why? Because it is what someone with authority in their life told them to be true about money, and they never knew it was something they could question. As Ruiz explains, “as soon as we agree, we believe, and this creates faith, which is to believe unconditionally.”

Now that we know what an agreement is, let’s move onto the story. A story is the narrative we give to explain our faith in our agreement.

AGREEMENT: Money is evil…

STORY: …because when people have money, they do bad things like cheat, steal, break the law, not share, and spend it all on frivolous materialistic things while others are starving and homeless.

So, the story is justifying the agreement, and it allows us to hold onto the agreement as truth for now and forever. Can you see how that agreement and story aren’t helpful? If this story belongs to you, I can tell you right now that you will forever have issues with building wealth, and you will always have resistance to money (desiring money, earning money, receiving money, saving money—all of it).

However, there is good news. Once we become aware of the stories and agreements that we tell ourselves, we can choose to either hold onto them or rewrite (reframe) them to better serve our purpose. Oftentimes, our stories (and agreements) don’t belong to us. They belong to the people who passed them on to us, such as our parents or their parents. Money stories actually tend to go back generations and generations. Thinking the way our ancestors did in the early 1900s or even 1800s doesn’t serve us on multiple levels.

So, how do we figure out what the the stories are that we do have around money so that we can rewrite them to benefit the path of our choosing? Remember, I started this story by sharing that I had no idea I even had any money stories, so how did I identify the ones that weren’t working for me? Well, lots of inner work with coaches, journaling, and allowing others to ask me really hard questions. I then then had to be honest and vulnerable with the answers.

It is a journey, and it can be a very uncomfortable one. But everything we want in life lives outside of our comfort zone. I highly recommend you bite the bullet and dig into the following journal prompts provided below. They will help you open up to having a real conversation with yourself to discover the money stories you are holding onto that are not serving your dreams and goals. Be as honest as possible with the answers. And then, try again. The more honest you are, the more you’ll see what is going on deep within. Then, and only then, can you begin to heal and rewrite your story into something that is helpful. You’ll learn to make new agreements with yourself that you can believe unconditionally.

Journal Prompts:
On Wanting Money:

What feelings come up for you when you think about sharing out loud to a friend how much money you want to make this year? Are these feelings that make you feel good? Or do they make you feel bad?

What did you hear from your parents growing up about wanting more money than you needed, or how about other people who wanted more money than was needed?

On Making Money:

What do you believe you would have to do in order to double or triple your income in the next six months? How does it make you feel?

What did you hear from your parents about what it takes to make money? How about what it takes to make a lot of money?

On Receiving Money:

If I was to offer to give you $500 right now, no strings attached, how would you feel? Would it be okay to take the money?

What would you do if you found a penny on the ground? What if you found a $20 bill on the ground? Would you react differently? Why?

On Spending/Saving/Investing Money:

What have you been told your entire life about spending money? When is it okay? When is it not okay? Why is one thing good and one thing bad?

Do you know the difference between investing versus spending? What does this look like to you? Would your parents see it differently? Would their parents?

Check out Creating a Money Story That Works for You, which shares how to rewrite your money stories.

About The Author
Mary Theresa Tringale

Mary-Theresa, based in Portland ME, is an accountability and money mindset coach. Running her own business, she works one-on-one with clients and oversees her signature programs, the Aligned & Empowered Project and the Money Magnet Accelerator. In addition, she also serves as the manager of events and sponsorships for WinterKids. In 2019, Mary-Theresa went through her own personal life transformation when her father was diagnosed with a brain infection, and her life was turned upside down. Finding herself at a low point in her life, she discovered Andy Frisella’s 75Hard (Live Hard) program and ultimately transformed her life for the better. By integrating consistent daily habits, she found herself aligned and empowered to live the life of her dreams, one day at a time. She utilizes the lessons she learned, and is still learning, in her own personal journey of finding abundance in health and wealth, to guide her coaching of others. For more info, follow her @mary.theresa.tringale on Instagram or contact her at hello@marytheresatringale.com.