What Your Food Urges Will Reveal To You About Your Relationship with Money

Welcome to The Satiated Podcast where we explore physical and emotional hunger, satiation, and healing your relationship with your food and body. I'm your host Stephanie Mara Fox your Somatic Nutritional Counselor. You might be wondering, Stephanie, how does your relationship with food connect with your relationship with money? Often, how we relate to one thing is how we relate to everything. So you might reflect for a moment on what has shown up with food for you. Do you never feel like you're ever going to get enough food? Do you constantly worry about it? Do you fear having too much of it? If you feel a moment of peace and security with food, does anxiety immediately arise afterward wondering how long will that last? Now, do you interact with money in the same way? Do you fear you're never going to have enough of it? Do you constantly worry about it? Do you fear abundance with it? If you're receiving enough of it, do you have anxiety about how long that will last? Everything I teach and share here about the connection between your food coping mechanisms and your nervous system applies to your relationship with money. How you react and interact with money can also reflect how your body perceives money. Today, I chat with Sheridan Ruth, a Nervous System Specialist for Entrepreneurs. After needing to process past trauma and being a burnt-out coach, Sheridan discovered through embodied practices that there was a sustainable way to build a business. She began to merge the fields of trauma, nervous system, body-based tools, business strategy, and entrepreneurship, to support other coaches in becoming an embodied entrepreneur. She supports coaches with increasing their profit and decreasing anxiety with trauma and nervous system healing. We explore the connection between your nervous system and your relationship with money, Sheridan's decision making processing guide to making aligned decisions in your business, how your past experiences shape your perception of money, and healing your relationship with money through a practice of Focusing and increasing self awareness and compassion. So let's get into it! Welcome Sheridan. I'm really excited to have you here today. And I know for listeners, they might be a little bit curious about, oh, we're not really focusing on food today. But what I have found, in conversations with those I work with, and those who just struggle in their relationship with food is there's just such this overlap between food and money, you know, around abundance around enoughness, around how what's showing up in our nervous system around these things. So I would love to get a little bit more into your history first, and how you got into this work, combining just, you know, business building, relationship with money, and bringing in the nervous system piece.

Sheridan Ruth 03:18

Really how I got into this was that I struggled a lot with my mental health in different ways. So I started losing all of my hair when I was seven years old, when I was a teenager, I had pretty disordered eating and kind of tended towards binging and bulimia and I resonate with your podcast, because there was a depth of hunger that was just not ever satiated. And that landed me in an abusive relationship. And when I found the strength to leave him, he actually ended up committing suicide just a couple of weeks afterwards. And so I was kind of put into this pit of despair. And all of the the emotional stuff that I've been avoiding looking at or didn't have the capacity to look at took me into a diagnosis of complex post traumatic stress, I was having pretty intense flashbacks. And that was when all of this started because I'd go to the therapist and I'd do the things. I was a meditation and a yoga teacher at the time and that was helpful. But it was never it was never enough. It was almost very similar to that feeling of kind of like when you're eating or when you're making money or you're spending money. It's like, I've never I've never quite get into that point of satiation. It's never enough and nothing is like changing. So I got into this work because I was desperate. I didn't know what to do. I was on my yoga mat one day and I knew that working with my body somehow was helping. And so I started Googling and I ended up in the realm of somatics. I ended up doing quite a few different trainings. And because of my background in yoga therapy, I ended up creating a coaching business. It kind of landed upon me and I ended up with all of these really amazing, beautiful coaching clients particularly around self image and relationships and intimacy. And then a lot of my entrepreneurial friends saw that and said, Hey, can you help me with my money stuff? And I was like, I guess I can. And so it just very organically became or I was able to identify patterns in their nervous systems that we needed to heal and address so that they could receive more money, circulate, and spend more money and hold more money at the same time.

Stephanie Mara 05:27

Yeah, wow, I had no idea just the history of what brought you into this work. So thank you so much for sharing that. And, you know, really sounds like you had to go deep within your own body to heal a lot there. And it brought you a lot of wisdom and insight into relationship with all of these other things that we're constantly navigating as human beings as well. And I love that you brought in that body experience of enoughness like satiation, you know, when you just have that one extra bite? And you're like, Oh, yep, that was it. That was enough. But sometimes what I find is when the concerns around food start to dissipate, that money starts to come into its place. And this experience of what is enoughness with money. And I'm curious what you've explored with individuals around that what has been maybe even a somatic experience of a feeling like someone finally has hit like, oh, okay, I feel like I'm making enough here or have enough.

Sheridan Ruth 06:37

Yeah, that's actually, I'm curious to hear the way that you've seen it, because the way that it's manifested both in myself, and I think in clients is that it's very closely linked to our intimacy and our capacity. So our nervous systems capacity to be close with things that are important and to really receive the intricacies of the depth, really, truly receive the things that are important, I think about a lot around receivership. And if we liken that to food, right, so we have money, and we want to be intimate with it, we want to receive it, we want to feel that that juiciness of like oh, I have money to spend on things that I want, I have this sense of safety, or perhaps excitedness or belongingness, this yesness around money. And for some people, it can be difficult to receive. So they tend to be more constricted around it. And they budget a lot. It's very similar to food, they budget a lot like what are my calories? How can I control it? How can I track every single one of my of my dollars, how can I be like this. There are other people who might be a little bit more flippant about it, and they don't really care at all. And they don't really pay attention, and they don't care about what's nourishing. And then there might be people who just always want more, they just always want more. And it's that feeling of I am always consistently hungry. And ultimately, what's happening in all three of them is that we are trying to fulfill an emotional need of intimacy, or belonging or connection or of safety, a need that lives within the nervous system and need that the nervous system is wired, I don't like to use that word for the nervous system, but is oriented to to want to fulfill every single moment of every single day. That's it, what it's doing when we have somehow gotten our paths crossed, and we started using money to attempt to fill that need. But of course, you never actually feel the need. Because that's what it's not what it was made for. So there's always a problem. There's always that feeling of like something is off, and I can't put my finger on it. And I can't really, I don't really know how to fix it. And so we end up trying to be in the how if I can if I budget this way, or if I buy this thing or if I've just done a little bit more.

Stephanie Mara 09:06

Yeah, I completely agree with just my brain is firing on all ends, just all like everything you just described, like, well, that sounds like relationship with food. And that sounds like relationship with food. And just you know, when you have a tendency to show up with food in a particular way, it's kind of how we show up in every other area of our life as well. And so there are many different doorways into ourselves. Obviously here I focus on the first doorway we can take is with food, but money is a really interesting relationship to explore as well of like, how do you relate with it? How does your body respond to it? What beliefs did you receive around it? So this is just I really feel like an important conversation to also be in when we're healing relationship with food as well because it is all about how we are relating to ourselves, and how our body is responding to things and our general sense of safety. Like you use the word earlier like capacity. Like when you're having moments of feeling like you're not making enough, how does your nervous system respond to that? Or how has it already been responding and that the lack of making enough is actually giving you information that your nervous system has already moved into a different state? So I'm curious as you have worked with individuals around their relationship with money and their nervous system, like what have you discovered has supported someone in like, and I love that you're not going towards a number, you know, like finding the number because in most research around money, they're actually like, there's a cut off, I can't remember what the number is, might put it in the show notes. But there's like a number that it's like, Hey, if you're making this much, you know, that's to the point where you get a general sense of like, financial stability and safety and that, but anything above that isn't actually going to lead to more safety or more happiness. And there's always this more more and more and more mentality of like, more must be better. And we don't see that in the research. And we also don't feel it in our own bodies, like what I have seen is it just builds more fear, more insecurity, the more that you are focusing on the lack. Curious what you have found yourself exploring with individuals?

Sheridan Ruth 11:28

I think there's two things here. Number one, money is an amplifier of what is what is already there, money is a neutral thing, but it will amplify what you're already experiencing all the tendencies or traits that you already have, whatever it is that you're inside for money, or lack of money in there and we're gonna experience that 100 times more probably akin to food, with family, maybe, whatever you're experiencing with food, go and live with your parents for two weeks. And watch that just like explode. Right. So I think that there's whatever's there is going to amplify, as well as the fact that our bodies, our nervous system is always communicating to us. It communicates to us through sensation, through feelings, emotions, thoughts, and through stillness. Now that sensation can be constrictive, or it can be expansive, the thoughts can be comfortable, or they can be uncomfortable. And the same goes for emotions. Comfortable or uncomfortable, or neutral, but different. And it's our job as individuals who want to live in the world in a way that satiates us in the way that makes us feel good. It's our job to actually learn how to understand the cues of our body. Now very similar to food, money, I can have a thought I should probably x y sed, or I should probably buy this thing, or I should probably save this money, or I don't have enough, or whatever that thing is, I can have a thought, that's a thought that's being sent from my nervous system to my brain based on the way that my nervous system has understood reality needs to be. It's not based on anything real objectively, that thought is never ever 100% true. And so what has been the most helpful for my clients is something that we would call tapping into our somatic intelligence, or what we call body based decision making. And it's a practice, you know, I'm going to be honest, it's not something that, I work with clients at minimum six weeks, and sometimes six months, and sometimes two to three years, because this is a practice. And we're always applying it in different ways. And we're always learning, okay, so I have this big decision to make around money. I have a wonderful client, and she had a really big decision to make, she was offered a job. And it was really well paid, and very prestigious, and the thing that she wanted always, but her body started speaking to her in sensation, and in tears, and in thoughts. So she had to take probably about 36 hours to go and sit with all of the content and the thoughts and the emotions and the sensations and make sense of it. What is it about this job that's making me feel this way? Does this mean that this is a thing I should step into? Does it mean that it's not, and she didn't, she decided not to take the job. And she found security and desires and in other ways, and she's very, very happy with that decision. And the best thing that can be done is just understanding how to read your body and what it needs and not the anxieties instead.

Stephanie Mara 14:25

Yeah. I'm very curious to hear more about this decision making process through more of a somatic lens. Could you share more about how you walk individuals through that?

Sheridan Ruth 14:36

Yes, we have a seven step process, I actually wrote a book about it. And what we need to do essentially is firstly need to understand that all of these different things and then we kind of do the same we just take inventory. So it's like okay, if I have this decision, what are the things that are coming up, I'm having these thoughts, I'm having these emotions. I'm having these sensations. That's a skill that you develop, that I help my clients develop by tapping into their body consistently. Being able to observe and notice what we feel, and you'll observe them this is comfortable, this is uncomfortable, XYZ. So we can kind of take inventory. When we take inventory, we notice what nervous system state am I in?, Am I activated and I need to go and regulate my nervous system? If I'm, if I'm not regulated, I need to go and regulate it. So that might be doing some type of breath work, or it might just be having a nap, whatever it is, it's like what does my body need right now, sometimes it's very regulating to your nervous system to actually process your emotions. And so we'll use something called an emotional alchemy tool. And it's just a way of allowing your emotions to complete their natural wave inside of your body. And then you find a sense of clear headedness. So we take inventory, we regulate, we probably do some emotional processing, and then we start untangling and untangling inside often looks like looking at the different parts of ourselves that have been activated in that process. So a part of you might say, take the job, or eat the cake. And part of you might say, don't take the job, don't eat the cake, it's understanding of looking at, okay, I have these different parts of myself and also getting curious, like, what what are the beliefs that they're believing about life? Are they believing that there's something better? Or is there a part of me that's believing I shouldn't be happy, we can take inventory of that. And then we want to choose an expansive and empowering experience. And that might be an expensive and empowering belief, we kind of feel into the body and you kind of want to find a somatic anchor of number one, who do I want to be as I make this decision? What are the seeds that I want to plant? What type of person do I want to embody, and then tap into something that feels a little bit more expansive, and that I'm saying that with a lot of nuance, because when we're doing something that is building capacity, or it's new, it might not always feel expansive, or good, but you can kind of find a place where you say, well, what are the new beliefs that I'm beginning to show myself are true? Or what are the new habits that I'm beginning to show myself as safe? And so you kind of find an anchor point, either through belief or sensation, or embodiment, and then you take an action, and the action is where the new pattern will begin to be constructed. If that action is really important, without the actual action, you're going to be doing steps one to six for a very long time without a lot of change.

Stephanie Mara 17:21

Yeah, super powerful, I resonated with so many pieces in there. There's something similar that I also explore around when you are feeling your urge to engage in your food coping mechanism. Sometimes we have to be in the practice of slowing down and being with the urge to just make a decision. And notice, like how this is feeling in my body, because it's all information on nervous system state, for example, like it's very difficult to make the best decision for yourself when you are more in your amygdala, when you are more in the fear response part of your brain. And so just in how you were talking about, yeah, slowing things down. And being with all the many parts of you that are saying do this, do that, and noticing what state you might be in, like, it might not be possible with the state that you're in, and the parts that are present to actually make the most in alignment decision in that moment. Sometimes you actually have to name I can't make a decision right now. I can't go and just choose a food. I can't go and make the bestest like business decision or money decision for myself. Because what I'm noticing inside of my body is that I would be making this decision from fear. And not necessarily from my prefrontal cortex, where I do rational, logical reasoning that would be maybe in alignment for my future self.

Sheridan Ruth 18:50

Yes, yeah. And then that's the loving decision, that's love. And that that's the loving action and proving to your body and your body actually needs your nervous system needs to perceive that, oh, there were a couple of times now where I have delayed making a decision, and I didn't die. That sounds dramatic. But that's actually what it's looking at. I did not die, I can pause, I can go slower, how wonderful. I'm going to do more of that on automatic pilot more consistently so that I don't have to put so much energy into that prefrontal cortex to think about it.

Stephanie Mara 19:21

Yeah, it makes me think of in the research on the process of change. There's something called the pre contemplation phase, that sometimes we have to pre contemplate and be in that phase of change before we actually take action. And there's so much pressure externally to make decisions so quickly, that because of that pressure, that we're already living, maybe in a dysregulated state, then we feel pressure to make a decision as fast as possible. So we're making a decision that might not feel like the best decision and then afterwards, what happened, why did I make that decision? And you basically kind of had to leave yourself like, I don't know if you've explored that with those you've worked with of like, you kind of have to dissociate to accommodate all the parts and the external pressure to go at a pace that maybe your body doesn't want to go at or can't go at currently.

Sheridan Ruth 20:15

Yeah, well, it can't go at it. And so that's why you're dissociating. Because whenever something is too much, too soon, too often, the energy of the conscious awareness in the body says, Okay, well, I'm experiencing the too muchness in the body, it is outside my capacity of experience, therefore, I'm going to not experience it because I can't, because I'll shut down and I can't shut down. Yeah, I think it's really interesting as well, what you're saying around that pre contemplation because I think a lot about how energy in the nervous system it needs to have, it needs to complete cycles. So emotions need to complete a cycle, they need to complete a wave before they can be dissipated, or they can change to something else. And trauma needs to complete a cycle integration is to complete a cycle there, all of these cycles and systems changes the same, I actually need to enjoy and embrace the fact that you are in something that later on, you're not going to be in that habit. And like let your body experience, the incarnate embodied experience of the habit, before you change it. Let yourself become so present with it before you change it. There was a really wonderful mentor of mine. And we were doing this yoga, tantra, training. And the guys came and they said, does this mean that I need to stop smoking and eating meat? And they said, No, do it more, like be present with it. Just be present with it, be more present with it, and then just see what happens? And of course, the more they were more present with it, and then the more they continued connecting with their bodies, they began to learn, oh, my body's not really into this anymore. I'm not going to do it.

Stephanie Mara 21:54

Yeah, yeah, I'm wondering, just coming back to the experience of money and what this is also making me think of is how often sometimes your money trauma is where even your food behaviors can come in later. Like, if you grew up, you know, with actual financial insecurity growing up, or poverty or whatever was going on in your household. If there were money arguments, you know, there can be so much fear around money, that food maybe sometimes comes in as a place of like, well, I can feel abundant here. And then as you maybe heal your relationship with food, there's still that fear or the experience of lack of abundance with money that I'm wondering how someone kind of starts experiencing in this nervous system, somatic way that we're talking about just experiencing money differently.

Sheridan Ruth 22:43

Yeah, if food is your life jacket, because you had financial trauma and financial trauma could just literally it could be that you really wanted a pony. And your dad said a couple too many times, we don't have enough money for that. Financial trauma is something that we all experience every day when we listen to the news, and they talk about those rich people. But a part of us wants to have more money, because there's a dissociation there's a disconnection and incongruence, and that is unsafe with the system, so we're always experiencing financial trauma, no matter what happened. And also covid was financial trauma for so many of us just lost ways of of having security through finances. So there are two things I think here we can deal with the discomfort of that financial trauma through the way that we relate to food, wanting more of it, not wanting to control it, etc. And I think that, for me, personally, the way that I've gone with it, my clients, and I will touch that financial trauma, and as a result, their relationship with food will change, particularly around coffee. I notice my clients often message me and say, I've noticed that I'm drinking less coffee. Yes, that's correct. And so I can see how if you were to address food first, what you might end up doing is just using the tools that you used for food, you can use them on money, and it might also at the same time, if there are people who are finding that as their relationship with food improves, their relationship with money becomes more uncomfortable, that would actually be a very valid response because we no longer have the band aid of controlling or eating extra. So it might get easier and it also might get a lot harder and a little bit more confronting and both are correct.

Stephanie Mara 24:30

Yeah, I agree that as you start to it's kind of like what you were saying earlier that first you have to be in relationship in your body when you are thinking about money interacting with money, having to spend money, having to receive money, and allowing yourself to first be with your bodily reaction around it. Not make it bad, not make it wrong, not make it something to be fixed that it's like okay, my body gets highly scared when I need to spend money. My body gets really anxious when I have to receive money, like whatever it might be for you just first allowing yourself to be with that experience. And you know, then what?

Sheridan Ruth 25:13

Acceptance, love and curiosity. It sounds really annoying for me to say that I'm aware of that. But it's the answer. There was a really wonderful study done by Albert Wong on something called Focusing. Now Focusing is something that we use in the somatic therapy space. It's something that's also been used in the yogic therapy space, it's not a new thing, he kind of popped a name on it and put a diagram on it that made it easier for us to understand and did this really great study. And it shows that the individuals who are able to engage with their sensations in this way of kind of, and the only way I can do this is, is to move my body. And I'm kind of like, kind of, like, get into this contemplative state where I can kind of look at myself and go, ah, like, okay, so I'm noticing that I had like a bowl of cereal, I'm pretty hungry. Like in the bottom of my tummy, I'm noticing that I was also looking at new shoes. And I'm noticing that, noticing that I ate the cereal, but I still kind of feel like having a piece of toast. And I'm also thinking about how I don't have the correct outfit for this weekend. And I'm also worried about if I'm going to be ended up getting a sale. And I also feel like I'm too busy. And hmm, isn't this all very interesting. And I'm kind of noticing that that feels like a like a like a tingle in my belly, and my jaw is kind of tense. And I'm noticing that I want to check my bank account, my hands kind of want to move there. And so when I can engage in, in something we call Focusing, which is this curious observation of where I am from a place of benevolence towards yourself, of a love of, ah, this is my lived experience isn't that interesting, when I can get there, one of two things will happen every single time. Either one, the discomfort will dissipate, because it just wanted to be seen. It just wanted to be given the space to complete its process or two we will become so curious about it, that we will learn what it's actually trying to tell us and it will start to tell us and this isn't going to happen guys in 90 seconds because you listen to a podcast, this is a practice and there has to be a level of trust. Your body actually needs to trust you that you're going to listen to it. And most of the time, it needs somebody else there. While it's learning to trust you. That's why we have that's why we are practitioners, because your nervous system has seen that what it's got going on inside was too much for you at some point. And so it wants the presence of another nervous system to say if anything was to happen, there's two of us now and we're breathing together. And we have mirror neurons, we can handle this together, because you're not alone. And so we kind of want to access that. So that one, it will disappear by itself, it's spontaneous. Or two, we can begin to get so curious about it that we learn what it needs in order to change.

Stephanie Mara 28:00

Yeah, I know Focusing very well. So I'm glad that you brought that in. And I'll drop the book, both yours and the Focusing book in the show notes. Just for individuals who want to learn more about Focusing because it is a supportive practice. And it is exactly like what you just did. It's it can even feel like a little bit boring.

Sheridan Ruth 28:20

So boring, especially, do you remember when you were learning it in the training, I was like, okay, Albert, like we get it.

Stephanie Mara 28:26

We're literally describing and repeating back exactly what is happening by second by second. And while it may feel simple, and a little boring, it actually is very validating. We are supporting ourselves in feeling seen. It's really powerful when also someone does it for you. You know, you can even ask a family member or a friend to say I want you to repeat back exactly what I am about to say to have them do that. Because when you hear the words that you just said out of someone else's mouth first, you can process it differently. You can hear it in a different way, it can land in your body of like what is it like to hear also the words like you're just instead of speaking it, you're listening to it, and be in your body of like, what is my reaction to hearing these words that I myself just said, and it can be just again, a powerful practice to engage in and that you know, when you're having a reaction or wanting to you know, have an impulse with food or money or whatever it is to be in that experience just describing to yourself, what do I notice in wanting to reach for food right now? What are the thoughts that I'm thinking how am I feeling and I get it, it can feel so hard in the moment. This could also be with money if you struggle with that or you find yourself, because sometimes patterns of you know, overspending or something like that can come up as well, where I know a lot of individuals sometimes there's an overlap where binge eating is expensive, you know, like you are spending a lot of money on a lot of food and then consuming all of it. And it may not be the place where you want to be spending your money, but you're also getting so much emotionally out of the binge eating that it feels like a difficult cycle to stop. And so I just want to normalize that it's not the easiest practice to be in when the urge feels so strong. You know, I often tell a story of the first time that I practiced being with myself in the middle of an urge to binge and I literally wanted to crawl out of my skin. So it's not the easiest place to be in. So you might start smaller of noticing something like, could I describe to myself the felt sense or the thoughts of wanting to go drink a glass of water? Like something that's so small of like, could I describe to myself what it feels like to have to go to the bathroom? What does that feel like? Could I describe it to myself? What are the thoughts that are coming up? So something that doesn't have a lot of risk, or even nervous system activation involved, that you could start to practice this.

Sheridan Ruth 31:05

That's actually a task that I give a lot of my clients, especially when they're ones who are pretty identified pretty much pretty heavily with having experienced some type of financial trauma is guys, how often do you notice that you don't go to the toilet when you need to? Because that's neevous system regulation, you don't need to do 1000 different breathwork practices go to the toilet, when you need to have a glass of water, when you need to. Just start with can I be more attuned with when my body tells me that it needs to go to the toilet? And could I practice listening back to that? Because that's a very similar, if not the same muscle as how can I be attuned when my body is telling me that I have physical hunger versus emotional hunger? And physical satiation versus being completely stuffed?

Stephanie Mara 31:48

Yeah. And then when it comes to the money piece, how would you kind of find a correlation there?

Sheridan Ruth 31:55

That's difficult, because it's not about satiation. Money is not happening inside of your body. So it comes back to the decision making process. So how can I really learn what my true needs are? I need to use the toilet versus not. The way that I would liken it is, how can I learn what my true needs are? Because they might notice that I want to buy some boots. And that is a true need. Maybe that is a true need, you know, it's winter. Need some good boots. But how would I know the difference between wanting the most expensive pair of boots that are available? That might feel like a good idea, my mind is telling me that they are versus wanting the cheapest pair of boots. But how can I feel into my body? And the end game is how intimate can I be with my experience or the thoughts or the emotions or the sensations that I feel around that decision? And how can I just be benevolent about it and love it? How can I love it? How can I be intimate with my experience? That's the way that we end up holding more and receiving more, being intimate with the experience of money. So really noticing how you feel? What thoughts do you have? What emotions do you have? What sensations do you have, and having enough loving awareness to actually want to lean into that even more.

Stephanie Mara 33:07

Yeah, I really appreciate that you're bringing in this concept of what is satiation with money. Like, does that even exist? And it makes me think of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. That satiation of money could be like, are my basic bottom of the triangle, are those basic needs met? Do I have a roof over my head? Can I feed myself? Do I have shelter? Warmth? Water? Some sense of safety? Are all of these needs met? And I have enough finances to do that? At that point, yeah, that might be okay, that association with money and anything above that could be towards, you know, how does money help you towards self actualization. But it kind of goes into that decision making process of how am I utilizing my relationship with money to feel in alignment with myself, where every time you decide to spend or receive money, it's a reflection back to self of like, is this helping me kind of like cocreate the person I want to be in the world and how I want to maybe leave this world after I'm not here anymore.

Sheridan Ruth 34:17

Yeah. And I think that that's a really lovely place to see it because having financial security and a cushion of financial security as a decent cushion of financial security is self love and self care, and being able to advocate for yourself and go to your employer and say, actually, I think I would like a raise, and having that great, intimate conversation. Or being able to advocate for yourself and look at your budget or plan for retirement or build a business is self care. And I say cushion because the body needs like that level of safety because we don't really we don't want to strip down into having real true financial hunger that's actually not going to serve anyone. Nobody benefits from you being poor. So having financial security and prosperity is self care. So can you do it in a self caring, self loving, and a self curious way?

Stephanie Mara 35:11

Yeah, it makes me think of the window of tolerance. Like if we're making actions that push us out of what we can tolerate, that's actually not very helpful. And so yes, you want to maybe stretch yourself to grow and evolve, while still staying in what your capacity is. So it makes me think of that buffer is kind of like, Hey, this is helping me stay in my window of tolerance that I know I'm going to be all right here.

Sheridan Ruth 35:35

Yeah, exactly. So it's like, I want to have a buffer below that, I know that I could get sick or something could happen, like, you know, I could decide that I really need to go on a holiday and I would be able to do that. I could, whatever it is, I want to have capacity and a buffer there. But I also want to be consistently expanding my window of tolerance, I want to be in situations where I make decisions that feel a little bit scary, you know, maybe it means making an investment, when you would rather see that money in your savings account, maybe it means doing something that's a little bit financially risky, because you want what's on the other side, and you believe in yourself, and you love your desires and your vision and your creativity. But we want to be expanding our window of capacity to feel supported by money to feel nourished by money to feel satiated by money. It's neutral. It's not going anywhere. And a very loving action that I believe people can take is to have this neutral tool and say wonderful, how can I use this tool to love myself and to love other people and having more of it doesn't mean that I keep all of it, maybe I decide that I want to employ somebody, or maybe I decide that I want to donate it. Or maybe I decide that I'm just going to leave it behind for my kids to have great education. But for most of us who end up in spaces like this, we have really, really big hearts. And are very aligned with our values. And so more money is going to amplify more of that. And it's going to make it probably a little bit easier for other people to live in the world because we end up being the people who support small businesses.

Stephanie Mara 37:05

Yeah. So I'm wondering, you know, for individuals that are listening to this, and maybe they have a conflicted relationship with money, I always like to offer an initial baby step like this is a beautiful place that we're going to of how this neutral thing, it's like a piece of paper like that always makes me, just even when you said that, like makes me just like brain blows up. Like, yeah, it's just a piece of paper, like how much meaning we put on this. But it does mean a lot based off of our life experiences and what we've navigated and what we've been taught around this piece of paper. And so where can someone start? Yes, there can be this beautiful journey. And we can build and create a really safety producing relationship with money. But if someone is maybe just getting started, or in the middle of their journey, what would be a baby step you would offer to them?

Sheridan Ruth 37:55

Yeah, I feel inclined to offer two and one of them we've already offered. So I'm going to really highlight it. The first one was I have a podcast and I have a episode on the somatics of money. And so it might be helpful to go into that. It's about 20 minutes long. And we go into that a little bit more as it relates to trauma and attachment theories, I would go there, and I will make sure you guys can look at it. It's on embodied entrepreneur, just search money, and you'll find it and then the second step would be to become aware. So see if you can kind of go around and just start noticing what are the sensations that your body gives you when you go and pay? Or what are the thoughts that you're having? So do you experience buyer's remorse? Or do you feel compelled and just start noticing them and you kind of keep zooming out until you stop judging? So if you notice, like, oh, I noticed that I feel tense when I do my grocery shopping because x y Zed. Oh, okay, I noticed that a part of me feels upset about myself for doing that. Oh, I noticed that a part of me is judging the part of me that's upset, I noticed that I'm thinking about my mom that I judged myself for judging myself for judging myself. And just keep zooming out until you get to a point where you're like, ah, there's a lot going on. And practice doing that for a month. See what you learn. The next step will reveal itself.

Stephanie Mara 39:15

Yeah, such great little baby steps. And it is a practice, you know that it's a continual showing up for yourself and also inviting and compassion, you know that you may actually hit on some things within yourself that you had no idea your body was still holding on to and also meeting yourself with kindness and compassion that you've been doing the best you can in your relationship with all of these things with the awareness that you've had in any moment. And sometimes we are not aware of things until there's something that has shifted in our nervous system where we're ready to be aware of something.

Sheridan Ruth 39:50

Yeah, your body will never give you more than what you can handle in that moment.

Stephanie Mara 39:53

Well thank you so much for being here and sharing your wisdom. How can individuals keep in touch with you and your wisdom and world?

Sheridan Ruth 40:00

Thank you, Stephanie. Go and look for embodied entrepreneur and there you will find that podcast. You can also just find me on Sheridanruth.com That's s h e r i d a n r u t h. And I would love it if people to come say hi, because I really love kind of knowing where you all come from and being able to share. I have quite a few different episodes of Stephanie's that I'm a big fan of so we can just like fangirl over you.

Stephanie Mara 40:28

Well, thank you. I'm so glad that the podcast has also been supportive to you and thank you for coming on here and just sharing everything that you've been exploring around this relationship with nervous system and money.

Sheridan Ruth 40:38

Yeah, thank you so much for having me. I appreciate it.

Stephanie Mara 40:40

Yeah. And to everyone listening as always, any questions, any insights, any aha moments that you're having, reach out anytime. I will leave our contacts in the show notes and I look forward to connecting with you all again soon. Bye!

Keep in touch with Sheridan here:

Website: ⁠www.sheridanruth.com

Instagram: www.instagram.com/_sheridanruth_

Resources: Focusing by Eugene Gendlin