From shame to strategy: Understanding and healing financial trauma
By Victoria MejicanosAFRO Staff Writervmejicanos@afro.com Maxed out credit cards, overdraft fees, car repossessions and a 385 credit score once defined Steven M. Hughes’ financial reality. Years later, working as a financial therapist, he now recognizes what he was experiencing wasn’t just poor money management, it was financial trauma. Although financial trauma does not have a […] The post From shame to strategy: Understanding and healing financial trauma appeared first on AFRO American Newspapers.
Black News 
By Victoria Mejicanos
AFRO Staff Writer
vmejicanos@afro.com
Maxed out credit cards, overdraft fees, car repossessions and a 385 credit score once defined Steven M. Hughes’ financial reality. Years later, working as a financial therapist, he now recognizes what he was experiencing wasn’t just poor money management, it was financial trauma.
Although financial trauma does not have a clinical diagnosis, it shares characteristics with PTSD, such as hypervigilance and emotional reactivity. According to Hughes, financial trauma can be experienced mentally, physically, emotionally and physiologically—meaning the actions taken as a result of financial trauma may cause financial trauma in others.
“Financial trauma is the experience that we have around money that may change a behavior or our thoughts around money,” said Hughes. “A lot of people don’t even know that they have experienced some type of financially traumatic episode that has literally changed the grooves of their brain and how they think and feel about money.”
Experts say that everyone’s experience when it comes to financial trauma is different and can occur in people’s formative experiences through what they observed or heard in their environment, as well as their experience with direct financial hardships such as not being able to afford food, displacement and evictions.
These experiences then shape how people view money and make financial decisions as they age into adulthood. In some cases, that may look like avoiding bank accounts, feeling anxious about spending or carrying shame tied to past financial decisions.
Bethel Habte, an accredited financial counselor and the founder of Good Bones Financial, calls these experiences “money stories.”
“I think that everyone wants to be heard for who they are and what their experience is. The way that I think about money stories is helping people understand that unique fingerprint, that unique narrative that they’ve built throughout their lives.”
Hughes said many people focus on fixing surface-level behaviors such as budgeting without addressing the underlying cause.
“If you’re somebody who just feels like ‘I’m bad with budgeting,’ or ‘I can never pay off debt’, or ‘I’m never doing the right things with money,’ odds are you are working on the fruit, not the root,” said Hughes.
For Habte, building an intentional relationship with money starts with small steps. Rather than trying to address financial issues all at once, she encourages people to begin by paying attention to their everyday spending habits. She recommends tracking three purchases each week and reflecting on the emotions tied to each purchase as well as what prompted the purchase and how it felt afterward.
That process, she said, can help people better understand if they are spending above their means and why.
She also emphasizes the importance of approaching finances with compassion, especially for those who were never taught how to manage money.
“Being mad at yourself for not understanding how to manage your own personal finances is like being mad at someone who’s getting in the car for the first time and not knowing how to drive,” said Hatbe. “Money is the least interesting thing about you. Looking at it will make it less scary.”
For Hughes, a rapid way to make change is language. Hughes uses affirmations with his clients to help them rewrite their “money story.”
“Affirmations have the ability to rewire and reprogram your brain to think the statements that you are feeding it, and thoughts become things,” he said. “The quickest way to get some help is changing the way you talk to yourself about money. That is generally the last place that people will [look], but it is the first and fastest way to impact the way that you manage and think about money.”
The post From shame to strategy: Understanding and healing financial trauma appeared first on AFRO American Newspapers.
