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The need to control is an illusion of safety. When we feel like, oh, I'm in control and you then feel safe, that is an illusion of safety. It's not actual safety. True safety is your ability to let go and trust. Okay.
Monica Yates:Today, I have a spicy guest. She said some things that are controversial and I liked it, I have to say.
Kate Northrup:She has some edgy things to say about the masculine and the feminine and feminism in general. Breadwinning, money, receptiveness, surrender, trauma. We really covered a lot of territory. What I love about Monica is she and I have two two very similar things in common that are unusual, which is that our paths in business started with Well, mine didn't, but like, it was in love affairs with, learning about the menstrual cycle and then moving into nervous system healing from that place. So, she's the only other human I know who moved from periods to healing our nervous systems and I'm so excited you to meet her.
Kate Northrup:She is delightful. She is unfiltered. She is super fun. She makes a shit ton of money as a young woman, and, she's pregnant with her first, and I just absolutely loved getting to know Monica Yates. She has a brand new book called Becoming Her.
Kate Northrup:She is the host of the top podcast Feminine As Fuck. Enjoy Monica. Welcome to Plenty. I'm your host Kate Northrup and together we are going on a journey to help you have an incredible relationship with money, time, and energy, and to have abundance on every possible level. Every week, we're gonna dive in with experts and insights to help you unlock a life of plenty.
Kate Northrup:Let's go fill our cups.
[voiceover]:Please note that the opinions and perspectives of the guests on the Plenty podcast are not necessarily reflective of the opinions and perspectives of Kate Northrup or anyone who works within the Kate Northrup brand.
Kate Northrup:Welcome, Monica. Thank you, Kate. I'm so excited be here. Yeah. Well, I was saying that I'm so glad that you connected with me because as I was researching and getting to know you better for this episode, I knew of your podcast.
Kate Northrup:However, I was like, it is uncanny how similar, at least on the surface Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. What we do is. And I'm so excited to dive into that because when other people have found their own way in totally different ways to very similar conclusions, for me, it solidifies and it validates that all my crazy ideas are true.
Kate Northrup:Yes. So I love that you too got here, well, through a number of ways. Yeah. But that one of those things was in falling in love with your menstrual cycle. Like, that's not the usual path No.
Kate Northrup:For most people. So can you tell me how you fell in love with your period?
Monica Yates:Yes. I mean, I grew up hating being a woman. Like, I really did. I had really bad conditioning and programming just around men having it so much easier, and everything being harder for women. And, you know, I was always told women have the bad end of the stick.
Monica Yates:Next time I'm coming back as a man and just, you know, over time, obviously, that makes you feel like inherently shit, basically. Could I swear on this podcast? Okay. About being a woman. And so I grew up with a really bad period.
Monica Yates:Like, I my period would be so heavy. I would bleed through a maternity pad and tampons. Like, I'd be wearing the tampon and the maternity pad at the same time. I was constantly in pain, like, mostly female listeners, so it's gonna be TMI. Like like, huge blood clots.
Monica Yates:Like, not okay. Right? And, of course, you know, also in Australia, you just go to the doctor, and their solution is put you on the pill. Yeah. And, you know, I grew up in a very healthy family, so it wasn't like my mom would just pass, like, pass out pills to just fix everything.
Monica Yates:You know, we had a natural approach, but she wasn't taught this stuff. So she didn't know any better. So we go to the doctor. We go to the GP because you don't really do gyno's, like, unless you have, like, a specific thing in Australia. We went to the GP, and her solution is, like, go on the pill to fix this.
Monica Yates:I think a lot of women now know it doesn't fix anything. All it does is put a big fat Band Aid on it. So long story short, I was on the pill, and I was like, this is fabulous. I don't have a period, like, I can control my period, you know, all that kind of stuff. And also just like, yay, I'm not gonna fall pregnant, blah blah blah, all those things.
Monica Yates:And, of course, now I know, like, actually, I still could have fallen pregnant. Right? Because you could still fall pregnant on the pill, and it's just you know, you don't my whole thing is I am absolutely not anti birth control. I am anti true informed consent. Right?
Monica Yates:And we are not given all the information as women. And so then I was I I finished school, and I was actually training to become a ski instructor in Whistler, and I stopped getting the breakthrough bleed altogether. And no. Sorry. I started bleeding every two weeks.
Monica Yates:So then my doctor was like, oh, we'll just put you on a higher dose. I went on the highest dose, stopped getting my breakthrough bleed because it's not an actual period altogether. And I was then like, oh, you know, I don't think this is a 100% right. So then I came off the pill, and it took me eighteen months to get my period back. I lost so much weight.
Monica Yates:I was premenopausal. Like, if you saw me on the street, you would have fully thought I was anorexic. And I was eating more than my dad. I was skin and bones. I was eating so much food, wasn't able to digest any of it.
Monica Yates:So, like, I would go to the bathroom and, you know, like zucchini noodles, they didn't get digested. Like, they were there in the toilet. Wow. And what actually then got me just the period side of things to then really into feminine and masculine energy and trauma healing was because it wasn't the herbs. It wasn't a, you know, certain diet that I was on.
Monica Yates:It wasn't like I had to slow down my exercise. I was doing everything right in terms of supplement, nutrition, all the things. And what got my period back was I started dating a guy that was super into the kind of feminine and masculine. And, you know, I wasn't into the feminine masculine at that point because I had all this wounding around being a feminine woman Yeah. As many of us do.
Monica Yates:Long story short, he basically, like, forced me into my feminine in, like, a way that I deeply craved, but I also felt like, oh, this is so, like, naughty. You know? But I'm like, oh my god. It was so hot at the same time. And he forced me kind of into my feminine three months, and it takes ninety days for your follicle to come around to then ovulate.
Monica Yates:And three months into dating him, I got my period back. And I even write about it in my book. I tried to like contact him even, like years later, when once I'd done all this work on myself, because back then I was such a cold hard bitch. Like, I truly was. I was.
Monica Yates:I was so masculine. I had this, like, dichotomy in me, right, where I deeply wanted to allow a man to lead me, but I felt like that was so wrong even though I craved it. And, you know, he would say when we started dating, like, you you start to do you started tasting different. You know? And that's what got me into, like, wait, there has to be some correlation between me dating this guy and then getting my period back.
Monica Yates:And that's when I really started diving into the research and pulling all of these different pieces together of how men influence women's hormones. And that was really then the start of everything back in, like, '20 what was that? Like, 2016. And then things really picked up in 2018, and now here we are. Wow.
Monica Yates:Yeah. That was my journey.
Kate Northrup:Amazing story.
Monica Yates:Thank you.
Kate Northrup:Of course, it makes perfect sense to me that your hormones would shift through an experience of being able to finally let go and receive and be in your feminine. And not to say that being in your feminine is exclusively surrendering and receiving There's and letting many faces of the feminine which we can talk about, but that's one of the biggest ones that many high achieving women crave, is like, can I just put it down? And I'll never forget, I was dating a guy in New York, and I was taking classes at Mama Gena's School of Womanly Arts,
Monica Yates:he I was like Her and book was one of the first book I books I read on all of this postseason. I remember I was on the beach at Byron Bay. I read that book, and I was like, oh, like, wow.
Kate Northrup:Yeah.
Monica Yates:And just like that eye it was eye opening. Right? Anyway, sorry. Cut you off.
Kate Northrup:She was here earlier today.
Monica Yates:Oh my god.
Kate Northrup:Of course she was. Of course she was. Yeah. Of course. So I love that.
Kate Northrup:So I was, you know, really learning about the feminine and the masculine more. I I grew up with some of this conversation, and I said to him, like, I wish because I am such a leader. Like, I was born on the first day of the astrological new year. I am a total Aries. I love starting things.
Kate Northrup:I am an excellent leader.
Monica Yates:K. And Fellow Firesign here, so
Kate Northrup:I love it. Amazing. When's your birthday?
Monica Yates:December 11, Sagittarius.
Kate Northrup:Love it. So no problem with leading or taking charge, but I so craved the relaxation of knowing that someone else had it. Yeah. And I said to him, I just wish you would take the reins sometimes. And he was like, I would love to if you would just put them down.
Monica Yates:Like if you would let him, right? Yeah.
Kate Northrup:He was like, you just have to put them down. You can't I can't have the reins if you won't let go.
Monica Yates:Yeah,
Kate Northrup:right. And that craving is so real. Yeah. Now I find that this is changing, but modern day feminism, certainly the feminism of the seventies, eighties, and 90s was absolutely wonderful. Stand on the shoulders of these women, also a bit of a backlash or a shadow of it was this thing of like, I don't need a man, I will be a man.
Kate Northrup:And it left us with this feeling of like, ah, I'm smart, I'm successful. A man is not a financial plan. I'm doing it for myself, but also can someone open the door, but also I feel bad about the fact that I want someone else to open the door and make a dinner reservation and just tell me what to do because I freaking love it when my husband tells me what to do. I'm like, thank God. Just give me instructions.
Kate Northrup:Oh, when I get the text from Hal of like, this is
Monica Yates:the plan. Basically, even just flying here, it was like, have you to be ready at 05:00. Make sure x y zed is packed. Here's what's gonna like, and I'm like, literally wet knickers.
Kate Northrup:Like, it is just the best feeling. That's gonna be the title of this episode. Wet knickers? I always say it's a panty dropper. So similar.
Kate Northrup:It's the Australian version. But they get Oh my god. So funny. So you meet I wanna know when this guy quote unquote forced you into your feminine. Tell me some practical examples of what that actually looked like Okay.
Kate Northrup:In your dating life.
Monica Yates:Okay. I've never even shared this. I love this question. Oh. So yeah.
Monica Yates:So I have, like, one vivid memory, for example, where he pushed me up against a wall, and I just even just saying it right now, I'm like, oh, I thought you just love that. Right? And and I just remember being, like, so turned on. Like, so, like because when when when you feel as a woman, like, he is in a healthy, sexy way, just, like, putting you into that surrender, which some of us, you know, high achieving, kind of leading women, we really deeply crave of, like, that forcing into the feminine because we don't even have to, like, do it for ourselves. So, you know, I was deeply craving that.
Monica Yates:And so he kind of, you know, put me against a wall and just started making out with me. And I remember feeling, like, so turned on, so soft, so like that exhale in my body, but then my head, like, this is so wrong. Like, get off me. You shouldn't do this. Like, this isn't.
Monica Yates:Because it was like, oh, I'm giving up my power. And that was really the conditioning of, like, if a man is holding open the door or doing something for you or leading, then I'm giving up my power. Other things would even be like, we so I was living in Melbourne at the time. He was living in Sydney. And, you know, I'd fly to Sydney, for example, and he'd pick me up with, like, flowers and all that.
Monica Yates:And I would always be like, like, when's the other shoe gonna drop? Like, even just that. Like, what does he want? Like, why is he giving me flowers? Like, the inability to receive.
Monica Yates:I know so many women struggle with that. Right? Where, you even if someone wants to give you help, it's like, well, what do I have to do in return? They can't just receive it. Or even, you know, somebody compliments you.
Monica Yates:You have to just compliment them back, even if you don't even like their outfit, instead of just being like, thank you.
Kate Northrup:Right. It was like transactional
Monica Yates:as opposed to Actually receiving the experience. Yeah. So like, yeah, him bringing me flowers, other little things like him just planning the date. You know, I'd rock up to Sydney for the weekend. He'd plan out the weekend, and I remember there being times where I'm like, well, I don't wanna do that.
Monica Yates:So, like, you know, I should just then be like, no. No. This is what I wanna do. This is what we're gonna do. Like, what I want matters more.
Monica Yates:And it's not to say you don't speak your truth, because there's a phrase that I created called empoweredly submissive, which really is that the the women that can truly be the most receptive and and submissive in a healthy way are actually the most empowered. Because in order for you to be truly in that surrendered state, you have to feel so safe to say no. You have to have that open throat chakra to put your foot down when you need to blah blah blah. But you just most of the time, we just don't actually don't want to because it feels so nice when someone else takes the lead. But, you know, back then, I just thought, no.
Monica Yates:No. Doing what a man has planned and me not getting a say or me not having a say, like, that is wrong. Versus, you know, there's two sides to this. Obviously, one, if I didn't wanna do that, I'm allowed to say I don't wanna do that. But then the other side of it is like remembering, well, you don't always get what you want, Monica.
Monica Yates:Right? And I think sometimes, especially these days with all of the female empowerment, it's like, well, my needs matter more. And we forget men wanna feel safe too in relationships. Men wanna feel heard. Men wanna feel listened to.
Monica Yates:They wanna feel seen. And like, even now to this day, it's like it's not all about me. If Hal, my husband, if he wants to do something and I don't want to, I'm gonna be like, let's go do it. Because that's just the give and take of a relationship. It's not just about us.
Monica Yates:And I think that back then, and I've noticed it even now with clients, and I remind them, and it's like, oh, God. They're like, oh, triggered, but this is actually so true, and this is so me. It's like, we get so into this female empowerment, and like, well, you know, my needs matter, and I gotta speak my truth, that it can get misinterpreted for us forgetting there are two people in a relationship. And there is that give and take, and sometimes, we have to do things we don't wanna do.
Kate Northrup:Yeah. And we actually can find pleasure in anything. The truth is that even when you don't want to do it, if we just also open to the experience, 99% of the time, we can just have fun. Wait. Can you
Monica Yates:give an example that you feel like recently for you?
Kate Northrup:What's an intangible way you didn't wanna obsessed with soccer. And okay. So already I'm like I'm out. A 100%. And we are seasons tickets holders to enter Miami, our local soccer team with Messi.
Kate Northrup:It's like a big deal for some people. For some people. Yeah. Not for us. Not for the listeners.
Kate Northrup:I'm super not interested in soccer. However, once a season, I go to the game and I pick my outfit, and I wear the pink and black. Luckily, have great colors, so it's pink and Their logo is super cute. The whole thing, I have a hat, I have my he even bought me Inner Miami Adidas. She she like it's a whole thing.
Kate Northrup:Okay. I plan my outfit. We go. I make it like my Sporty Spice night Yeah. And like Love it.
Kate Northrup:And then I make him go home at halftime. Yeah. Yeah. I love that. Like, you've
Monica Yates:made fun of something.
Kate Northrup:But and then I ask him all sorts of questions. I have a lot of commentary. He thinks it's hysterical because he's just like the things you notice Yeah. About these players that have nothing to do with the game. It's like absolutely ridiculous.
Kate Northrup:Women watching sports. This would be me. This would totally be me. And like, shout out Listen, I have girlfriends who are actually like die hard sports fans, and that's wonderful. I'm just not like that.
Kate Northrup:And so, I don't know, but I also want to be enthusiastic about what he's enthusiastic about, because what I'm excited about is a lit up man. Yeah. And, like, I want him to have lots going on beyond our marriage. Yes. And so I wanna support that and be enthusiastic about it.
Kate Northrup:I just don't go most of the time. Yes. But I
Monica Yates:go love once this we need we need a I think sometimes people forget that, you know, even though, yes, you're together in a relationship, I'm really big on your independence
Kate Northrup:Yeah.
Monica Yates:Actually can help make the relationship. So, like, supporting your man to go and do the things that he likes to do or do the things alone can literally, like, improve your sex life.
Kate Northrup:Oh, a 100%. Yeah. No. It's so much more interesting that he's, like, up to all these things and has all these together. Especially because we work together.
Kate Northrup:Yeah. We're, like, quite Yes. In it. Yeah. So I wanna know, how did so you and I have many things in common.
Kate Northrup:So the period thing, becoming obsessed with periods, number one. Number two Your girls are lucky, or maybe they're not, depending on those. Depending. Might not be lucky. Mom a taught lot about menstrual wisdom in the period, and I was super not interested.
Kate Northrup:So my girls will be who my girls will be. So the other thing we have in common is that we didn't realize when you don't grow up in an environment that's explicitly traumatic with abuse or substances or giant loss, there can be this feeling of like, yeah, my childhood was pretty good, I must not have any trauma. And I was reading about that with you, and I wanted to dig deeper because it was also later in my life that I realized, actually my nervous system was pretty jacked up, and we, especially in times of the internet and social media, we really love to play the Trauma Olympics of whose is worse and mine isn't, and that literally helps nobody. So can you talk about how you realized that actually you did have some nervous system healing to do?
Monica Yates:Yeah. One of the really big eye opening moments was after I had a really bad ski accident, and I was in a wheelchair, and we were still my family was still skiing. They were like, do wanna go home to Australia? And I was like, do not wanna go back to the summer, like, with this big leg brace on. Anyway, so they were skiing, and I was just mom left me for like an hour or something in the hotel lobby, and I was in my wheelchair, and then I was trying to get to the bathroom, and I was struggling.
Monica Yates:And this lady came up to me, and she's like, can I help you? And so she helped me get to the bathroom, and then we were talking afterwards, And I told her about the accident and what had just happened. And she she was then telling me about her husband that was basically about to die, she has two little boys. And I was like, oh my gosh. I have no reason to be complaining right now.
Monica Yates:I'm so sorry. And she said to me, and I will never forget this. She said to me, you have every reason to complain because you've had a change in your reality. And that for me, and I I've goosebumps that. Like, I share that story often because of what you said of so many of us that grew up in this, quote, unquote, perfect childhood.
Monica Yates:We can feel like that kind of programming of, I have nothing to complain about because somebody else has it worse. And, yeah, maybe, you know, somebody else has it worse, but all you're then doing is gaslighting yourself. Right? And when you understand that trauma is subjective, and trauma isn't about what you know, when you look back on your childhood, you might think, I had a perfect childhood. But that's not what you're looking at.
Monica Yates:It's about how you felt as a little girl or as a little boy in that instance. And your parents might not have actually been meaning to make you feel unsafe or unloved or unworthy or whatever, but you perceive that, and that perception is then what becomes the trauma. And understanding that trauma is subjective is really important because, you know, two people could have the identical situation happen to them, and one person finds that really traumatic and it affects them for the rest of their life. And another person, they didn't really perceive it as that traumatic, so it doesn't affect them. And I think for a lot of people, we can be looking at things from this, like, outside adult perspective, but we understand perspective.
Monica Yates:A child version of us doesn't understand perspective. And I was at a Tony Robbins event long time ago, like, maybe it was like '20 probably 2016 when I met the same guy. That's where I met him. And and I remember saying to my mom, which which is so fucked up. I said this to her.
Monica Yates:I said I said, I wish you gave me a harder childhood because then I would have this, like, you know, poor girl to hero story. And I really thought back then that the only way for me to help people because I always knew I wanted to help people. I always kind of had that. My name actually means to advise and counsel. Like, I always had that in me.
Monica Yates:And I thought though, like, oh, well, if I wanna be like Oprah or Tony Robbins or anybody that's helped people, they've all had these, like, horrific stories that they've come from and then made this name for themselves. And it's kind of like, you know, going to what you're going off what you said with the social media thing, it's like, do we idolize a little bit of like, do we idolize trauma? Do we idolize trauma porn. Yeah. Do yeah.
Monica Yates:My god. I love that phrase. Like, do we idolize a hotter upbringing because then it gives us permission to have a bigger life, do more healing, blah blah blah.
Kate Northrup:And what I'm sure you know, but I do want to highlight is that there's our personal traumas, but there's also our ancestral and our collective traumas. And our bodies are carrying those around just as much as our personal. And I love what you said about perspective. And and the truth is so many of the things that our nervous systems are carrying happened in childhood, and children don't have that perspective. And no one else can be the arbiter of what it possibly could be for us.
Kate Northrup:And I will say that by gaslighting ourselves, like you mentioned, and saying, Oh, that's not bad enough to count. We, A, aren't doing our healing work, so it keeps us stuck in those patterns, which helps literally nobody, actually the opposite. It only makes us to act out in unconscious ways. So A, it helps nobody, and it keeps us from actually doing the healing work. And then it also, as you are pointing out, glamorizes and romanticizes the it was so terrible, and then it was amazing, and then it also deepens the lie that suffering makes us more valuable.
Kate Northrup:And then we manufacture suffering in any opportunity we can find unconsciously.
Monica Yates:Right. And also, I didn't mention this before, but the I, like, I call it the micro trauma. Right? So the feelings of, like, not feeling enough, feeling like, oh, I have to get grade a's all the time in order to be loved, like, those little micro traumas that a lot of us have experienced, especially if you grew up in the quote unquote perfect childhood. You know, what I've actually noticed in my clients is often those people, they actually have more healing to do because they've been more unconscious about how those things affect them.
Monica Yates:So then, you know, when they're 16, 17, you know, 25 years old, etcetera, they keep attracting in these unconscious, you know, situation. They keep they keep attracting things in unconsciously, which then continues to exacerbate the trauma. It makes that kind of feeling if I'm not enough become bigger and bigger and bigger, where then they come to me at 35 or 40, and it wasn't even like the childhood stuff was actually, quote unquote, that bad. It's all of these other adult situations that have then become so traumatic as a result of that. You know, even the other day, I was on a consultation call, and this woman, she said to me, she said, you know, like, I don't really need a therapist.
Monica Yates:Like, I'm a very positive person, so, like, I don't need help with those things. But just before, she'd also told me, I don't feel like I'm enough. I always wonder why my boyfriend, like, why is he with me? Like, what do I have to offer? She doesn't feel safe to be seen, especially in the workplace.
Monica Yates:Like, she doesn't feel like she's kind of bold enough and strong enough, if you will, and a few other things. And I'm like, it's it was interesting how again, like, was that gaslighting. Was like, well, I'm positive, so I don't have any healing to do. And I think sometimes that, you know, we cannot give ourselves permission to do the work in any capacity, whether it's money work, whether it's trauma work, whatever it is, because we think, well, I'm not in this deep, dark hole. And why do we have to wait until we're in this deep, dark hole to give ourselves permission to do any work.
Monica Yates:I think that it's a beautiful place to also be in when you're like, life's actually really good, but I just want more for myself. But a lot of women don't give themselves permission for that. Even with the money stuff, I feel like that's a classic case. Well, I have enough money, so I shouldn't be asking for any more. I'm sure you see that all the time.
Monica Yates:All the time. And it's it's that permission piece as women. Like, we aren't given, and we aren't giving ourselves the permission to be happier, to have a better life, to want more, to make more money, etcetera. It's so true.
Kate Northrup:I've seen you talk about being a breadwinner and how that can affect the polarity in our relationships, and I'm wondering if you can speak to, I work with a lot of women who maybe run a business and have become the person who's more financially responsible. Maybe they're not the 100% the breadwinner, and there was a time where my mastermind was completely by accident, pretty much exclusively women who made all the money in their in their marriage. Okay. And for some, that was to the detriment of their marriage. For some, it wasn't.
Kate Northrup:There were, you know, a number of things that could come up, and and I have shared on the podcast my own journey around this as the face of our brand. I can get into, like, my, I would say, my, like, lower expression self has historically this has done a lot of work around this, but has historically gotten into,
Monica Yates:like, it's but also, like, I just wanna say, it's hard being the breadwinner. Like, I'm like, even though I talk about it, and, like, we'll get into this, you know, never in the history of women have we ever made so much money, had so much on our shoulders. And so when I talk about this, I love to just remind women, especially when they're asking me, like, it's it's hard. Right? I'm not sitting here being like, oh, it's so easy being the breadwinner.
Monica Yates:Like, I've figured out how to make it shitloads easier, and I'm sure you have too. Right? But it requires it requires work. Because it's not like many of us have had parents that were in this dynamic where we then knew like, it was modeled to us in a healthy way. Yes.
Monica Yates:Definitely not. I did
Kate Northrup:grow up with a mother who made a lot of money.
Monica Yates:K.
Kate Northrup:And sometimes it was modeled in a healthy way and sometimes not. You know, it's just like a variety. So I'm curious, just go so, like, for context, you work with your husband. Yes. Yes.
Kate Northrup:And in what capacity?
Monica Yates:Yep. So Tell me
Kate Northrup:your Yes. Constellation.
Monica Yates:So I started the business well, I mean, I started the business a long time before it actually, you know, was making any money, but it not an overnight success for anyone wondering. Yeah. Yeah. Because I really, like, I so I just had to clarify that. I'm like, it really was not it took me four years to get to a point where I was like, oh, I'm making enough money to be able to live off this.
Monica Yates:You know, it started as a food blog. Like, you know, it yeah. No way. Yeah. It did I did not wake up in the morning going, oh, this is my purpose.
Monica Yates:Didn't happen for me. Anyway, so when I met Hal back in 2022, I had already made like, I was already making 7 figures a year. I had a very well built out business, very sustainable. I'd been doing it for a long time. And so, yeah, I mean, the business started making a lot of money 2018, a lot in 2019, and then it just kind of scaled from there.
Monica Yates:And so by the by the time I met him, I was I mean, to give some context, like, when we met, he couldn't he thought I was daddy's money. Like, he didn't you know, he was very, very new to this world, and so he had no idea.
Kate Northrup:So anyway A lot of people don't even know our world exists. No. They don't. It's like, wait.
Monica Yates:What? Yeah. When he saw my apartment in New York, he was like he was so worried that I was basically going bankrupt and just having all this debt. I had to be like, this is my
Kate Northrup:bank account for him. He'd be like, oh, okay. Everything is okay. She's not completely delusional. Yeah.
Kate Northrup:She exactly. He really thought I was,
Monica Yates:and I'm like, fair enough. Right? Anyway so so he then started working for me oh gosh. May it's it's been, like, maybe two years now. And, you know, in the beginning, it was there was there's multiple dynamics here.
Monica Yates:Right? He works for me, and I am the breadwinner. And it's like my business pays him. Right? It's not just like, oh, I'm the breadwinner, but he works somewhere else.
Monica Yates:In the beginning, it was really hard, to be honest, because, you know, I had already created this really successful business. I didn't trust him in the business because, like, the trust was built, and he had no idea this world existed. He you know, it wasn't like he was running his own business, so he understood all the entrepreneur stuff. And also, like, yeah, it was hard to let go of control because this is my baby. Like, I know what my audience needs.
Monica Yates:I know what is right. And he's coming in with this man brain, you know, which can sometimes be hard. Now, I am like even just on the way here, I'm like, my god. I would I could not do this without him. Right?
Monica Yates:Like, I love working together now. I'm so so so grateful for it because it's also allowed me to be more in my feminine, you know, yes, in work, but also outside of work, which has been really great. But in terms of, like, the breadwinner dynamic, so, yeah, he you know, we say that we, you know, depending on the context, we either work together or he works for me kind of thing. But, I mean, technically, by paper, he works for me, but we don't treat it like that. Yeah.
Monica Yates:Especially with where we are now and where we have been for at least the last kind of, you know, year and a half in business, the support that he brings, the ideas that he brings, like, I am so grateful to have like like, us women on the team will always just be like, oh, thank God for the men because we can all really appreciate what the men bring. And just like, I could never have an all female team. Let me just say it like that. Because I just love the groundedness that he's able to bring.
Kate Northrup:I so feel that. Yeah. I have had an all female team at times because Mike has from day one, he started helping me build, like, in 02/2011. Yeah. Wow.
Kate Northrup:So it's been a long time. Yeah. Yeah. But then he was doing some other things, and then and then I I basically unconsciously took a torch to the whole business and was like, oops, I burned it down. I'm so pumped.
Kate Northrup:Please save me. I super created a damsel in distress moment so he could come in and save me because I was like, I guess it would have been so much healthier to be like, hey, babe, can you come back and run this company But he with size twenty twenty. Whatever. I created a lot of drama and chaos so that he could come in and white knight it, and he totally nailed it. So I really feel that that foundation, also the straightforwardness.
Kate Northrup:You know, I love just the straight shooter. Mike and I are
Monica Yates:running Two points.
Kate Northrup:Yeah. That's it. We're we're running a mentorship together, like a mastermind mentorship together, which we've never done before. That's fun. Wonder how that's going.
Kate Northrup:We just started, but I'll just tell you, even having him, and there's one guy so far in the program also as a participant, And I was like, woah. Just how much less they talk. Oh, I know. They can get the same point out in half the amount of time. Oh, this is efficient.
Kate Northrup:So, yeah, like, deep out of men. Love them. Yeah. Okay. So there's a chapter in your book where you talk about, like, where have the masculine men gone, and, like, what is so there's my mother has this phrase, which is probably not PC, but I mean, this You brought an Australian on.
Kate Northrup:Like, if the Australian is coming on I love it. It cannot like, it's r rated. We don't do yeah. We don't do PC. So my mom refers to sort of like the airy fairy, like deep in their feelings men as two what does she call them?
Kate Northrup:Two pound frizzies. I literally have no idea where that is. Okay. So it's like the whole, like, soft boy thing. Or what do they call them?
Kate Northrup:Like, soy boys. Oh, I've never heard that.
Monica Yates:Yeah. People say soy boys. I say soft boy. Okay. Just like on it's like the dead fish handshake.
Monica Yates:No one's gonna give me a dead and I'm like, I immediately hate you. Limp energy, floppy. Yeah. Really gross. Floppy.
Monica Yates:Really gross. No wet knickers.
Kate Northrup:Yeah. You're right wet. Knickers. Not a panty dropper. So I wanna know what, in your perspective, what happened Now listen, it's great.
Kate Northrup:Men can be more in their feminine, women can be more in their masculine. I was hanging with a woman the other night who is firmly in her masculine. She is consciously with a man who is more strong and is feminine, that works great for them because it is a that is who they are, and they're expressing their innate selves, and so that's perfect.
Monica Yates:Beautiful.
Kate Northrup:For those of us who are really craving the like, thank you for having me sort of feeling like we like being directed. Tell me what to do. Yeah, literally. What has happened with men in your opinion? Because you also do work with men, which is unusual for I just find that that's unusual for women in love it.
Kate Northrup:Women in our space. They're so straightforward. Right? Where I give them the homework, and they're like, oh, done. Like, they like, they do it, and I'm like, oh, wow.
Kate Northrup:Like, they actually just do it. You know? Anyway. Don't have to leave you 35 boxers about their feelings about it.
Monica Yates:There's no boxers.
Kate Northrup:Like, I don't get the messages. I'm like, hey. Checking in. No. Nothing.
Kate Northrup:Crickets. I'm like, alright. Like, anyway but I love working with women. Right? Because I it's just a different it's a totally different experience.
Monica Yates:Totally. Totally different. So, yeah, what's happened with men? I think there's multiple layers of it. But one of the big things, and that I really address in my book, and you kinda mentioned it before, Kate, is that, you know, there's been all these waves of feminism.
Monica Yates:And, obviously, the first, second, and even kind of third wave of feminism, important. Right? Especially when it comes to the equal pay and our ability to vote. Like, we I'm not saying those things weren't important. What's then happened, though, is it's kind of become a manhunt.
Monica Yates:Right? Feminism we've we've gone so far from the definition of feminism. You know, it originally was for all of us to feel equal, and now it's like, oh, women are basically better than men. That's what it's really become. And, you know, then we obviously had the me too movement.
Monica Yates:Again, first first wave of it, so important. Right? So so so important. But then we had the second wave of it, and it was actually there's quite a bit that I put in this book about it. There's been, you know, many cases of women kind of abusing the Me Too movement, which is a real shame.
Monica Yates:And these men, they lose their whole lives, their whole reputation. They can never get a job again. They can never get the respect again. And when, you know, after the court case, when they actually realize, oh, the man is not guilty, or the woman finally goes, actually, I've made this whole thing up, because there are cases of that. Where is the public apology for the men?
Monica Yates:There is none. And, you know, this isn't to say that there isn't, of course, the situations where men are abusive and blah blah blah, but I think we also forget as women that there are bad women in the world. There are abusive women in the world. Even just on the note of, like, you know, sexual abuse, do we ever talk about men's sexual abuse and how they also are in that they they are
Kate Northrup:also Certainly not enough.
Monica Yates:You don't. Right? You don't hear about it. You probably you probably actually know some men that have had some kind of sexual abuse. Who have been sexually abused.
Monica Yates:And that really affects them. And would they ever, you know, feel comfortable talking about that? Most of the time, no. And not just because, like, that's really hard for a man to talk about, taking that out of it. But because how many women would go, yeah, but you're not a woman.
Monica Yates:You don't know what it's like to be a woman and have this happen to you. And it's right. They don't know, but we don't know what it's like to be a man and have this happen to them. And so the second wave of the Me Too movement, what we've seen, and this is not just like anecdotal research, this is, like, hardcore research, is that men, they do not want to be put in work positions with women as their subordinates. So many men are now basically like, more than half of men in the workplace, they actually would rather not get the promotion or climb the corporate ladder if it risks a situation with a woman where she misunderstands what he says, his directness, his shortness, and that causes a HR nightmare.
Monica Yates:I did a survey for about five years with men, and they wrote in anonymously, and there's many stories in the book about with, like, what they shared. Just giving them a platform to be like, can you share what it's like being a man? Like, I have no information from you. Right? Like, I'm not gonna track you down.
Monica Yates:I don't even know what your name is kind of thing. Actually, don't know what the name is, but no, like, last name, email address, that kind of thing. And, you know, there are stories of men where they've been wrongly accused of something in the workplace. HR's even admitted, we know you didn't do this, but we cannot risk having a bold man like you in the workplace in this kind of climate. And I'm like, it's you know, many people have said this.
Monica Yates:This isn't just me. If you are a, you know, man in today's world, especially a white man, you are in the worst place to be in. And it just makes me sad. Right? Because it's like, this whole point of feminism, the whole point of us fighting for all of this, it wasn't even it shouldn't have been just about us.
Monica Yates:It was meant for us to feel like equals. We got there, and now the pendulum has swung so far to the other side. And I'm not gonna say we all need to go back to being housewives. My whole mission with the book is to give women the permission to be the woman they wanna be, and to help women to realize that the way that we can make men feel safe to be the masculine man again, to hold open our doors and whatnot, is through us. Right?
Monica Yates:Like, I've realized that the way that we make men become men again is not me just talking to them. It's not me telling them this is how to be a masculine man. Because that's all well and good, but they don't feel safe to be a masculine man. It's we have to do the work as women. We have to say thank you when a man holds open the door.
Monica Yates:Like, when a man want you know, like, pushes the elevator to the side so we can get out first, we appreciate that versus saying, no. No. It's fine. You can go. Or when a man wants to put our bag in the overhead bins
Kate Northrup:Always on the airplane.
Monica Yates:Yeah. Even if you can do it yourself.
Kate Northrup:No. Like, I have amazing muscle mass, and I always I can definitely lift my suitcase. But, like, I'm always saying lift your suitcase.
Monica Yates:It's the best. And, yeah, and the and the point is
Kate Northrup:for your help.
Monica Yates:Because the point is isn't to say, oh, I can do this. If you have two arms and you got yourself out of the house and onto that airplane Clearly. Everybody knows. Like, you lifted the suitcase off the bed. Right?
Monica Yates:You can lift the suitcase. And when we as women are constantly trying to flex our you know, really what I say is, like, we're trying to flex our enoughness, that actually is showing how insecure you are in your womanhood, in your femininity being a woman. And I say this because that was me. You know, back in the day, I was so I didn't feel enough inherently as a woman. I thought the only way to really be, like, enough in today's world is to basically be a man.
Monica Yates:So what did I do? I would prove that I could do everything that a man could do. Excuse me. Now, I don't need to prove that. Now, I'm insulted, especially being pregnant.
Monica Yates:Now, I'm insulted when, you know, a man just walked through the door in front of me. I'm like, seriously, dude? Yeah. Right? And but it's hard because I am
Kate Northrup:the repopulating the planet. Planet here.
Monica Yates:But, you know, but it's hard, Kate, because I was recently on an on a on a plane ride, and I was really struggling to get my bag up. You know, when people are like they've got, like, dumb shit in the overhead lockers where I'm like, this could go under the seat, and you still wouldn't even know it's there. Right? Like, it's anyway, and I couldn't get my bag up, and nobody was helping me, and I was getting all hot. And the only woman that was about to help me had a broken arm.
Monica Yates:And of course, there's all these men around, and they weren't helping. And these two men then came up to me afterwards when I was waiting for my bag at the, like, circle thingy at the end. And they were like, hey, we just wanted to say we're really sorry for not coming up to help you. And I was like, it's okay. You probably didn't know whether I was gonna accept the help or not.
Monica Yates:And they were like, honestly, that's exactly what it was. We were like, do we go up to her? Do we ask? Do we try to help her? Or do we not?
Monica Yates:Because they shared. We had, like, a full on conversation. And they basically shared, you know, I've been in situations before where I go and help a woman, and my boss gets chopped up. Yeah. Yeah.
Monica Yates:And so it's like, it's that whole thing of, like, I'm damned if I do. I'm damned if I don't. Men don't know what they're allowed to do anymore, and that's why I say we, as women, need to be the ones to let them lead. We need to ask sometimes. We need to give them that permission.
Monica Yates:And then when they do it, we need to deeply, deeply appreciate it. And, like, I'm that chick that's like like, even today, when I was at a restaurant, this guy made a joke about me being pregnant. Like, not in a mean way, in a nice way. Like, oh, yep. She has to pay the bill because she ate it all.
Monica Yates:And I and and he was like, oh, I didn't mean to insult you. I was like, no. You didn't insult me, like and then he said, congratulations or whatever. And I was like, thank you for just saying that because I can't tell you how many people even, they look at me, but they don't say anything. And I'm like, I'm pregnant.
Monica Yates:Like, you're not gonna say the wrong thing. But, you know, so many people are like, oh, don't know whether I can say it, don't know whether I'm gonna insult her. We're all so afraid. This guy was European. So he like, in Europe, we just say what we wanna say.
Monica Yates:Right? And I'm like, yeah. That's why we all love Europe.
Kate Northrup:Well, it's the beautiful thing about Miami, I have to say. It's like a un PC place because it's so multicultural. Okay. We're not all playing by the same rules, and it's actually quite refreshing. Yeah.
Monica Yates:That would be nice. Well, that's why I love living in Atlanta because the amount of times I'm at home depot trying to pick up this soil, like you're not pregnant. Trying to pick up this soil on the back of the cards because I have my whole, like, veggie patch obsession. And I like, we were, like, early into living there, and this guy, like, not in a sexual way, he was, like, maybe 60. Right?
Monica Yates:He's like yelling at me from three rows over. And initially, I'm like, what does this guy want? Like, why is he yelling at me? You know what he was doing? He was telling me to stop lifting the soil so he could come over and lift the soil for me.
Monica Yates:And, you know, it's just we don't we talked about this kind of at the beginning. We don't receive. We don't know how to ask for help. We don't know how to just say thank you. And I believe that it's it's gotten to this point because of this, like, overactive radical feminism and the female empowerment that's gone too far, essentially, where we women, you know, it's a combination.
Monica Yates:We either think we're better than men, or for a lot of us, we think that we are so much worse than men that we have to be men in order to feel worthy as women rather than actually realizing the beauty and the privilege and the worth that we have inherently as women. And so whilst we can pick our own bags up, I don't want to. Yeah. I don't need to prove it to anybody. Right.
Monica Yates:You know? So yeah. So beautiful. Thank you.
Kate Northrup:I do wanna circle back because I realized, like, we got into your situation with breadwinning, but I did wanna ask you for those who are in a situation where they are finding that their nontraditional dynamic where the woman is making all or more than, where that is affecting their polarity. What are your recommendations in that scenario?
Monica Yates:My first recommendation would honestly be heal your relationship with money, so go to Kate for that. Great.
Kate Northrup:You're in the right place if you're listening to plenty.
Monica Yates:Yep. Right. Heal your relationship with money, and I say that because, obviously, we all know that if we have a really messed up relationship with money, then this situation's gonna be 10 times harder because we're not gonna feel like, oh, it's just gonna keep flowing. We're not gonna be Because
Kate Northrup:it's it's rooted in scarcity.
Monica Yates:Right. Exactly. We're in this, like, scarcity tense energy in our body. So that would be number one. Number two is you need to redefine what what it means for him to be the provider and the protector.
Monica Yates:Right? There is the the yeah. Back in the day, the way that he was the provider and the protector was what he brought home from the workday, but that's actually not the case anymore, which is a beautiful thing. And I give the example of, like, you know, you could be with a man that's making millions more than you and, like, he's flying you around the world, blah blah blah. But if you do not feel like he has got your back, if you do not feel protected by him, if he's not sending you the text being, like, send me the Uber driver's name so I can track your status.
Monica Yates:Like, I love it when when I'm, like, away from Hal. And if my location is off for some reason, he'll be like, your location's off. Turn your location on. I'm like, yes. Track me, babe.
Monica Yates:Like, I want that. You know? Like, just even as, like, a little example, there's so many ways that they can provide and protect that's irrelevant to money. So one, you need to know that for yourself and your particular relationship. Other thing that I would say kind of a little bit on this note is that a lot of us have devalued the feminine qualities.
Monica Yates:We've devalued the more traditional feminine tasks at home. And this is for women and men on this note. You know, we we spend two hours doing the laundry and making dinner and tidying up the house, and we think we've wasted our time. We've been unproductive. Oh my gosh.
Monica Yates:I didn't do these three hours of work I needed to do because I was doing all this laundry. And we've devalued what that brings to our family. And so even just starting to actually like, it can be helpful. I used to do this in the beginning. It could be helpful to put, like, a dollar value in your mind on the value of you folding your children's laundry or his laundry.
Monica Yates:And also then, when he's folding your laundry for you, you actually are able to feel the value of that. Like, I remember when Hal and I first started dating, and he's, like, not into this stuff at all. And so he was very uncomfortable if I was like, oh, it's fine. Like, I'll I can pay for the hotel because, like, I wanna take this hotel. And he didn't fully get it.
Monica Yates:He didn't get, like, the whole, like, I need the vibes and the energy, like, you know, because to him, it's like, if there's a bed, then we're fine. Right?
Kate Northrup:Absolutely suggests to me that we stay in a Residence Inn with the kids, I'm like how's I stop doing it now. Like and now he does it as a joke, but I'm just like, babe. Yeah. Like, such a hard No. Note.
Kate Northrup:Like, it's such a hard note. Oh my god. I just love it. I feel like they can have so much to bond about. Just like, two men trying to deal with the women that want the vibes.
Monica Yates:Anyway anyway, and so, yeah, when we were first started dating, I I would share with him, like, just an FYI, like, you booking the flight, sending me the details, like, dealing with the bag, getting me in the Uber, like, and just telling me what to do and where to be, this is the value of that to me. And I would put a number on it. So so I it would be helpful for me, but it would also be helpful for him to understand that, you know, that is how much I value these things. And I think for a lot of us women that are the breadwinners or are making just, like, a large amount of money, and even just, you know, if you listen to this podcast, you're in this kind of group. You've probably done work around valuing the things that somebody else would be like, oh, I can just do that myself.
Monica Yates:It's a waste of money to have somebody else pay to do that. Right? Right. So we all can value, you know, somebody else doing our laundry for us. I think that can be a really, really helpful thing for us to to do and also to then share with our partner.
Monica Yates:And then the other thing would be for no. I mean, one more tip that I could give everybody. I mean, I would be let go of control. Yes. I would say that one.
Monica Yates:Like and I know that's so much easier said than done, but you've gotta remember that the need to control is an illusion of safety. When we feel like, oh, I'm in control, and you then feel safe, that is an illusion of safety. It's not actual safety. True safety is your ability to let go and trust. Right?
Monica Yates:And so working on your control issues and the trauma around that and your why you actually feel the need to control in order to feel safe is really important. And I say that because, you know, you kind of elicited to this before of, like, we'll get into the whole kind of, like, the nuances of feminine energy. Right? But I'm really big on now. It was different, obviously, when I first started my business because the world was kinda different.
Monica Yates:I've realized women now don't benefit from, like, here's a list of feminine qualities. Here's a list of masculine qualities. It puts us into overthinking. Totally. I have clients that are like, oh my god.
Monica Yates:I've been too masculine all day because I've been directing and having discernment, I drew a few boundaries. And anyway and so the control, you know, if you are I give the example. If you're a Virgo and you're like, oh, but I love planning the holidays and blah blah blah that lights you up. Okay. Well, that could technically then be Yeah.
Monica Yates:You in your feminine. Right? Even though, you know, you planning the holiday is technically a masculine thing. But if you planning the holiday is because you don't trust him to plan the holiday well enough, that is a trauma response. Yeah.
Monica Yates:Just to make that example of a nuance Perfect example. That is a trauma response. So, like, when I I don't plan the holidays because I well, I don't really wanna plan the holidays. And the one time Hal let me pick the hotel, it, of course, was, like, the furthest it was beautiful. Right?
Monica Yates:Like, if anyone like, it's in like the hills of the Italian Dolomites, blah blah blah. But of course, he was like, it is four hours from the nearest fucking airport. Like, of course, you pick this. Of course, the one time I let you pick it, it's like in the worst geographical location. It was beautiful once you were there, but we got there at, like, 4AM.
Monica Yates:Anyway, he'll never let me go with that one. And after that, I was like, yeah, I fully trust you to just always plan hotels because he thinks of things that I don't think of. I understand there are plenty of women who really get off to the planning of trips, so and that can then be still you and your feminine. Just notice that difference, though, with the control.
Kate Northrup:And is it a feeling in our bodies when we're trying to be in control? How do we know?
Monica Yates:What's the sign? Because you won't feel safe to let go. Yeah. Like, your body, like, somatically, will not feel safe to be like, oh, okay. You plan it.
Monica Yates:Right? And I and I wanna say, if you're first dating this guy, so the trust is being built, it's gonna be harder because the trust is being built. You're like, but do you know what I want? Blah blah blah. But then even still, how can the trust be built if you don't give him the opportunity to show you he knows what you want?
Kate Northrup:You'll love this. So when Mike and I Mike and I first met platonically, and then, like, he did a lot of follow-up. I was unclear if he was networking or pursuing me. Anyway Really not networking? Really not?
Kate Northrup:He was leaving long, thought out comments on my blog Oh, wow. Back in 02/2010. What a hot way for a man to be chasing you back then, right, on the blog. I don't know what's going on. But anyway, due to my intuition, I quote unquote randomly invited him to drive across the country with me for five days.
Kate Northrup:Out of the blue, barely knew the man. And twenty four hours later, he was like, I'm in, and also he emailed me a complete itinerary for the trip including the items he needed me to bring, the items he would be bringing, and where we would be staying each night. Like, he had already planned out the whole thing Hot. And mapped it out, and I was like, okay. Yeah.
Kate Northrup:Like, what you do to that? Right? You're like, oh, like, half the greatest. Right? It was amazing.
Kate Northrup:Yeah. And so that was that was one of my first signs, but still, I I thought that it was gonna be a platonic relationship, which was hysterical. It's funny. So many women will be like that.
Monica Yates:Right? Of, like, like, when I told my girlfriend, oh, yeah. I'm going to Atlanta for a comedy show. She's like, hey. One, Monica does not go to comedy shows.
Monica Yates:Two, Monica does not go to Atlanta. And I'm sitting there like, no. No. No. Like, yeah.
Monica Yates:It's not a big deal. I just, like, met him skiing. Like, it's not a thing. She's like,
Kate Northrup:oh, yeah. It's not a thing. Yeah. It's a fucking thing. Got to get pregnant.
Kate Northrup:Exactly. Oh my gosh. Okay. As we kind of, like, round things out, I'm curious about your relationship with money. My show's called Plenty, and it really is about tapping into our source of abundance.
Kate Northrup:But it's also about money. And I wanna know, you have been making a large amount of money for a young woman. Yes. And I wanna know what edges, if any, you've come up against with that.
Monica Yates:So around with specifically money or even just like outside of money? Well, it be like outside of money.
Kate Northrup:Could be around like visibility or just like success quote unquote whatever. But if there is anything where you had to grow and expand around money,
Monica Yates:I I kinda wanna know reason why I say that is because, yeah, I mean, I made my first million in a year when I was 25 or 26, and it it that didn't cause me to lose a lot of friends. Starting my business caused me to lose a lot of friends and, like, quote unquote friends. Right? And, I mean, it didn't affect me. I've always been very kind of like, well, if you don't like me, like, fuck it.
Monica Yates:Right? I'm glad that I had that to lean on kind of thing. But I also noticed, especially when I this started when I was still living in Sydney, where people would treat me differently when they actually started to realize how much money I was making. I remember in 2019, I it was I'd like I had like 40 or 50 x to my it was like I went from making, like, 30,000 the previous year to making $600,000 the next year. I So dramatically.
Monica Yates:Yeah. That is. And so I remember people just starting to treat me differently, and me just thinking, like, why? I'm the same person. Like, I acted no different.
Monica Yates:I didn't even, like, really started dressing differently. Right? I was just like, you know, my mom did say at one point, like, babe, now that you're making this money, maybe you can like throw out the fucking the the jumper, which is what do you guys call a jumper? Like a sweatshirt? The sweatshirt that has like holes around
Kate Northrup:the neckline. Alright. Fine. It's time
Monica Yates:to throw one out. But Okay, mom.
Kate Northrup:Yeah. And so I did make sure I got an investment on my
Monica Yates:clothing, but that was a really big edge in the sisterhood wounding part of it. And I feel like a lot of women, that can hold them back. And even starting their business It is
Kate Northrup:incredibly common. You know, even as women being like Who what are people gonna think?
Monica Yates:I don't want people to see this on Instagram. Mhmm. I don't want so and so, or like a family member to see it on Instagram. And so that was a really that was a big edge that I had to come up across. I mean, I grew up with an intensely scarce relationship with money.
Monica Yates:To the point, Kate, where when I was still living in Sydney, this would have been, like, 2018, I would not buy breakfast food because it was cheaper then. Because I would have to spend less on food each week. Like, an extremely scarce relationship
Kate Northrup:So you would just skip breakfast.
Monica Yates:Skip breakfast. Because not because I wanted to. I am like breakfast is my favorite meal. Right? Okay.
Monica Yates:We have like meal
Kate Northrup:in the day, I will spend less money.
Monica Yates:Correct. And so I wouldn't buy breakfast food. And I didn't do that for for too long, but it really to me, it was like, oh, this is great. I'll then have more money kinda thing. So I had a really, really scarce relationship with money.
Monica Yates:And I can't even remember what starts up like, what got me into money mindset back then. But when I started doing the money mindset work and reading some books and then getting into the and investing in courses, it really just became so apparent to me that, like, this has just been handed to me. Right? Yeah. My my dad was very scarce with money because of his upbringing.
Monica Yates:I mean, they lost everything moving from The UK to Australia. Like, they, like, came on a boat, like, even realize that. They came on a boat kind of thing. They lost everything. And so, of course, his relationship with money was really tight.
Monica Yates:But what what was interesting, and I'm sure you've seen this case a lot, it wasn't that money was tight growing up. Like, I went to a private school. My parents are still together. Like, we lived in New York and then Australia. We would travel every year, but it was just that programming of save, save, save, save, save, and don't spend.
Monica Yates:Because if you spend, then you have less. And it wasn't until I understood the energetics of money and really like, oh, that money is an energy. It's not actually like a physical thing. Right? It is just an energy and like the whole energy and motion.
Monica Yates:That was a really big thing for me of like energy emotion. Then what I realized, once I kind of healed that, I knew for me that what worked really well is I'm somebody that really feeds off environments. So I always had to be in, like, expansion, expansion, expansion. And so even in during 2020, I was stuck in London then during COVID, and I wasn't gonna just have, like, a one bedroom apartment for just me. What did I get?
Monica Yates:A townhouse with three bedrooms and a backyard. Because I knew investing in that environment, the the flow on effect was gonna be so big for me. And that's when I made my first million that year. And it wasn't to say it was the house necessarily, but it's just like, I cannot tell you and I know you talk about this. I think you did a reel on this the other day of like, you know, one of the number one sources of stress and reasons for divorce is money.
Monica Yates:Yeah. Is stress around money. I think a lot of people, they don't invest their time, their money, their energy into healing their relationship with money, but they fail to realize the dramatic impact their relationship with money is having on every area of their life. Mean, to the point of like food, like what you're eating, to your like, to health, to to your sex life, to your relationships
Kate Northrup:There's not an area of festive touch.
Monica Yates:Everything. And so when I I mean, yeah, I won't keep rambling, but it wasn't so much that I came up on that many edges. It was like I just realized that I always need to keep doing the money mindset work. I always say that to my clients of, you know, we live in an economy. Everybody around you is fucking scarce.
Monica Yates:Everybody is like, oh, this, that, the other on the news. Like, everybody's scared about money. And so it's one thing where it's like, don't stop doing the work on this, whereas I really believe and I see with, like, feminine energy work. My whole, like, philosophy and how I built my whole business is you heal your trauma, you go in, you go deep, you rip the Band Aid off, and then once you've pulled all the shit away, you don't have to go to a retreat every year and do 500 courses because now you're just continuing to integrate, to embody, to, like, literally just, like, become her, like the book. Heal, embody, radiate.
Monica Yates:Right? You just you just keep going naturally becoming yourself. But I think with money, it's different. I think with money, you have to keep surrounding yourself with the positive messages around money, doing the journaling, doing the affirmations, doing all of that. Because otherwise, it'll like, the scarcity will come back because of how bad our environment is.
Monica Yates:Wow.
Kate Northrup:It was just like a great commercial for my business. Keep coming back. Yeah. We need Monica back at the podcast. Right?
Kate Northrup:Thank you, Monica. It's so fun to get to know you. Yeah. It's been great. I'm excited to continue, you know, offline.
Kate Northrup:If people wanna connect with you, get your book Yes. Learn more, where should they go?
Monica Yates:Website is the best place, monicayateshealth.com. The book is becoming her. I mean, it's an extension of a lot of what we've spoken about today. And for any women listening that really feel like they need a permission slip to be the woman they wanna be. This isn't about, oh, you have to be a successful entrepreneur.
Monica Yates:If your dream is to have chickens and bake muffins all day, this book is gonna serve you. This book, I wrote it so that women could feel like they could be their version of a woman. Not, oh, we've been taken out of the housewife, and now we all have to be the girl boss. So, yeah, Becoming Her.
Kate Northrup:Becoming Her. Yeah. Get your book. All the links will be in the show notes, and then you also have an amazing podcast.
Monica Yates:Yes. And my podcast is Feminine as Fuck. Amazing.
Kate Northrup:Easy to read about this. Yes. Easy to read about this. Thank you for being here. Thank you, Kate.
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