Money is Morally Neutral: Banishing Shame From Your Financial Mindset

Shame has an impressive ability to rear its ugly head when it comes to money. Many of us experience money shame for a myriad of reasons: budgeting pitfalls, too much debt, not enough savings, or a failure to attain certain markers that are viewed as evidence of success, like buying a home or starting a family.

But shame has the power to keep us in a cycle of wildly unhelpful self-talk.

Many people aspire to develop healthier money habits but struggle to change their behaviors. Instead, they hit a shame-engulfed wall. Breaking through requires the removal of shame and self-judgment.

By asking the right questions and exploring our deeper, underlying values and opinions about money and its role in our lives, we’re able to push past our psychological barriers and start making real change toward finding financial bliss.

Listen to this episode to learn:
- The difference between guilt and shame and how both can feed your relationship with money
- The importance of asking yourself ‘why’ you value certain money habits over others
- The first step you can take to remove shame from your relationship with money

KEY TAKEAWAYS:
- Shame keeps us stuck in a vicious cycle of bad habits.

Changing financial habits is tough work. It requires discipline, intention, and sometimes stepping out of our comfort zones. But often, even when we have the best of intentions, we fail to stop the behavior that is contributing to the problem we’re trying to solve. Engaging in negative self-talk, fueled by shame, keeps us stuck — repeating the financial habits we’re trying so hard to break.

Before you can fix the behavior, you must first fix your shame surrounding the behavior.


- When experiencing shame around money, ask yourself ‘why?’

So often shame surrounds financial decisions that society dictates for us. We buy a house because we “should”. We prioritize paying off debt because “that’s what you do.”

The next time you’re feeling shame surrounding a self-perceived financial shortcoming, stop and ask yourself “why?”

Why do you actually care about achieving a particular financial goal? There is no right answer. But ensuring your money decisions and priorities reflect your personal values is an essential step to eliminating shame from your relationship with money.


- Money is morally neutral.

Money is not good or bad or happy or sad. It is an exchange of energy and it is limitless. What you buy with money or the things you do to get more money may indicate your values, but it only comes with shame if we give it the power to do so.