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What if you could get more of what you want in life? But not through pushing, forcing, or pressure.
You can.
When it comes to money, time, and energy, no one’s gonna turn away more.
And Kate Northrup, Bestselling Author of Money: A Love Story and Do Less and host of Plenty, is here to help you expand your capacity to receive all of the best.
As a Money Empowerment OG who’s been at it for nearly 2 decades, Kate’s the abundance-oriented best friend you may not even know you’ve always needed.
Pull up a chair every week with top thought leaders, luminaries, and adventurers to learn how to have more abundance with ease.
Hello. Welcome to the first solo episode of Plenty. Today, we are talking about financial secrets. This is a super juicy conversation. I am sitting alone on the floor of the bathroom off of my office to talk to you about this because it is something that plagues all of us, usually, at one point or another in our lives.
Kate Northrup:So I want to start off by saying this episode is a special preparation episode for our Flow Workshop. The flow workshop is a three part workshop series totally for free. I am bringing you my best and it is for money healing and expansion. And it is happening October sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth live online. And you are invited to attend.
Kate Northrup:And this episode is to warm you up and get you ready to receive the most from Flow. Now if you're not yet registered for Flow, you can go overhead and do that at katenorthrup.com/flow,flow. If you are registered, I'm so psyched to have you there. We have, at the time of this recording, over 10,000 people who are joining us. But that number is climbing by the minute because our community is hungry for this.
Kate Northrup:But every journey that ends in the light usually starts in the darkness, including all of our lives. We all started in the womb, which is the darkness. And the darkness isn't always a bad thing. But one of the shadowy parts of money is, how much of a taboo topic it is in our culture and how much shadow behavior there is around money. Now one thing that makes this the case is that we have not been taught and it has not been modeled for us by most of the people who raised us how to be healthy with money and how to have healthy money conversations.
Kate Northrup:And thus, there's a lot of secrecy and there's a lot of lies. And I can tell you the problem with financial secrecy and financial lies is that they drain our energy massively. So imagine you are driving down the most beautifully newly paved road. We all know the feeling. Well, those of us who drive know the feeling, but most of us have ridden in a car.
Kate Northrup:And we know what it feels like to be driving down a piece of road that has fresh, freshly laid asphalt. It's very smooth and there's like sort of this sweetness to the feeling physically. We also know what it feels like to drive down a road that is full of potholes or if you're from the Northeast like me, full of frost heaves. You gotta go slower, you gotta avoid them, you can't just coast. So having financial secrecy and having financial lies creates potholes and frost heaves on your road of your financial life.
Kate Northrup:It's a lot of added friction. It's a lot of wasted and drained energy. It's a lot of bandwidth that's getting cut taken up. It's like having static in the signal. Right?
Kate Northrup:Like, you're trying to get in a radio signal, they're static. That's what having financial secrecy and lies is for your financial flow. And I wanted to bring this up now because we're not gonna have time to get into it in full depth because I have so many other things I wanna talk about and share with you to set you up for success during the flow workshop next week. But the financial lies and secrecy part is something that you can start looking at now so that come Monday when we do flow together, you will be set up to hit the ground running. So we were not taught how to talk about money in a healthy way.
Kate Northrup:In fact, many of us were taught that it's rude to talk about money or it was just never modeled for us. So if you think about what the energy was like emotionally around money in your childhood in the circumstances in which you grew up, was it really positive? Was it super clear? Was it truthful? Did people have loving amazing conversations about money in the same way maybe they had loving amazing conversations about what was for dinner or birthday parties or vacations or anything else that was maybe more joyful?
Kate Northrup:Or was there drama? Were there arguments? Was there a feeling of stress? Or perhaps it was just never talked about. So it was as though it didn't exist.
Kate Northrup:Now what happens and it's very confusing not only for children but then it really creates a lot of disorder in our adulthood is that when we are not taught how to have healthy conversations around money and when we are taught that it's rude or not okay to talk about money or when it's modeled that money is stressful, where there's a lot of arguments, of course, we are going to then develop patterns in adulthood of avoidance and secrecy. I know certainly in my family, money was a source of arguments and stress. And one of the factors that led to, my parents ultimately getting divorced. And to this day with my relationship with my dad, and his side of the family, there is a degree of lack of financial, transparency that creates friction in relationships and it's been like this my whole life with him. And I don't blame him for this, it's it's it's a legacy that was passed down and for me it's a legacy I am not going to pass down to my children because I see how much pain it caused in my grandmother's life and in my dad's life and then in my life in turn.
Kate Northrup:Here's the truth. Either you deal with your money or your money will deal with you. We have this honestly infantile delusion, which I had too, that if we just avoid our money stuff for long enough, somehow it will just kind of handle itself or someone will come save us. So maybe that someone is, you're hoping to marry somebody who really has it together financially and they'll come save you. Or maybe you're thinking it's your boss's job to come save you.
Kate Northrup:Or maybe you're waiting for leadership in the government to shift So the government will come and save you. Or maybe it's a family member or your parents or an inheritance or maybe you've not even really thought about it, but there is a nameless, faceless, amorphous financial savior that you're waiting for if you were to really be honest with yourself. And so part of the honesty starts with just identifying like, oh yeah, on some level I am hoping, waiting for, playing small and hoping that someone else is gonna come take care of this for me and I'm sitting in the back seat of my financial life. And what really needs to happen is I need to realize that I'm the one I've been waiting for. In my own life, in my early twenties when I was in a lot of debt, every single month I spent more than I made.
Kate Northrup:I was avoiding looking at my finances. I didn't know how much I made. I didn't know how much I spent. And I didn't know how much I owed. I was living in total vagueness, which is a subtle form of financial secrecy.
Kate Northrup:It's a subtle way of telling myself financial lies. Because I didn't know the truth, I was actually lying to myself. And what happened is the difference between what I was externally presenting to the world. So this young, dynamic, up and coming female entrepreneur in the New York digital marketing scene, personal development, spirituality scene was kind of how I was acting in front of the scenes. But behind the scenes, I was in total financial avoidance.
Kate Northrup:And I was not acting in an empowered way financially. And really, the truth is, I was afraid of being as powerful as I knew I could be. My mentor and friend Barbara Hewson, formerly Barbara Stanney, that particularly for women, our relationship with money, our at times fraught relationship with money is related to our ambivalent relationship with our power. Now there's so much cultural and historical context around women and our ambivalent relationship with our power. And one of the things you'll learn about during the flow workshop are the different layers in which our nervous systems are imprinted with scary experiences that we personally experience, that the collective experiences, and that our ancestors experienced.
Kate Northrup:And then you will also learn during flow what to do about that. So I'll save that for the flow workshop but for now what I want to say is, it makes sense historically and culturally that women would have an ambivalent relationship with our power and our finances, our financial empowerment is simply an extension, really a metaphor or an energetic extension for our relationship with our power. Power meaning our ability to make things happen in the world. Our ability to make our dreams and make work manifest. To shift our reality and shift the reality of the world around us.
Kate Northrup:So the kind of power I'm talking about is not power over, it is power with. So it's a conscious, healthy level of power. So for me, I was super afraid of what it would actually mean to be as powerful as I knew deep down that I could be, and so I played small financially. I used my financial avoidance as a way of siphoning my power so that I would essentially be dimming my light. And there's more layers there and I'll talk about it next week.
Kate Northrup:But I'm wondering as you're listening to this, does that land with you? And I will ask you, where in your life are you doing any of the following? Are you keeping financial secrets from your spouse or your partner? Are you keeping financial secrets from your family? Are you keeping financial secrets from your boss or a business partner?
Kate Northrup:And are you keeping financial secrets from yourself? In the 12 step world, they say, We're only as sick as our secrets. And what we know from the work of Brene Brown around shame research is that shame cannot withstand the light of day. There is so much wrapped up for us in our relationship with money and shame. And a feeling not that we have done something wrong, but that fundamentally we are wrong.
Kate Northrup:So if there are parts of your financial history that you're not proud of and you wish had gone a certain a different way, whether you have a debt story, whether there's a financial loss of some kind, whether you, you know, allowed yourself to be ripped off along the way by an ex business partner, an ex spouse, you know, a con artist, you know, whatever the situation may be, know that no amount of avoiding telling ourselves or others the truth will diminish the truth. Not talking about something doesn't make it go away. In fact, it only makes it fester. It only makes it rot worse. It only expands the problem.
Kate Northrup:Because we all know when we were little and we were afraid of the monster in the closet, all we needed to do was turn on the light and realize there was no monster in there. But if we sit in the dark with our secrets, we create a story that is often 10 times worse than looking at the truth or than telling the truth. So one of my financial secrets was that I was in credit card debt and I didn't know how much it was and I was so scared to look at it. And I thought that looking at it was going to be too hard. But finally, the disconnect between the person I was behaving as in front of the scenes and the person I was really being behind the scenes.
Kate Northrup:Finally, the disconnect between those things was so misaligned that it became too uncomfortable to keep pretending that things were one way when actually they were a different way. Right? Like, I looked really successful but behind the scenes I didn't feel that same level of success because I was behaving like a child when it came to my money. I was in avoidance. I had my head in the sand.
Kate Northrup:I was waiting for someone to come along and save me. And so, what I did is I got myself someone safe to help me look. And you will have that on Monday. We are creating a safe community in the free flow workshop for you to circle up with and make that commitment to bring light to your financial secrets, whether they are secrets you are keeping from yourself or secrets you are keeping from other key players in your life. What I found is when I finally got the courage to look It wasn't something I was gonna do alone.
Kate Northrup:It was easier to do because I was with someone who told me I was lovable no matter what. I had to really get into a place, and we'll work on this next week as well during float, where I could feel, and this has taken years, it started a little bit, where I could really feel the truth that my financial reality had nothing to do with my inherent worth as a human being. And when we can really feel the truth that our inherent worth has nothing to do with our financial reality, whether that financial reality according to society is completely amazing or whether it is not. That's what we have to really get, that our worth is inherent no matter what and I'm going to lead you through how to access that place next week during flow. But I found that place and then I was able to do the math and actually look at my numbers and stop telling myself financial lies.
Kate Northrup:And here's what was so amazing and I want to pass this along to you as an invitation. What was so amazing is that the truth of my situation, the actual number, the amount of credit card debt I was in was actually worse than I thought. Okay? So the number was higher than I thought. However, knowing about it, like actually telling myself the truth felt 800,000,000 times better than I ever could have imagined.
Kate Northrup:So even though the actual number was worse than I thought, knowing the truth felt amazing. I will never forget the day I added it all up. I was sitting on the floor of my studio apartment in New York City. It had these beautiful, it was a pre war building, had these beautiful narrow pine floorboards and I had this zebra printed rug from Pottery Barn, this little three by five rug in my teeny tiny living room. And it wasn't a living room, was a studio apartment but the corner that I decided was my living room with my loveseat.
Kate Northrup:And I added up the numbers sitting on the floor with all my papers in front of me and the number was worse than I thought but I felt like a freaking superhero. Why? Why did I feel so energized in that moment? I felt so energized in that moment because I had reclaimed all the energy that I had previously been leaking through the friction of not telling myself the truth. We massively underestimate how draining it is to be avoidant, to try to ignore the truth, and to lie.
Kate Northrup:It takes a lot of bandwidth to keep secrets from ourselves and from others. And when we finally tell the truth, that conversation with ourselves might be uncomfortable. That conversation with someone else might be uncomfortable. But I can nearly promise you, at least this has been the experience for me and thousands of students, that telling the truth financially will free you. And then there's that great Gloria Steinem quote, the truth will set you free but first it'll piss you off.
Kate Northrup:Right? And so you might get angry, you might have some others, some grief, some anxiety, there might be other feelings and I promise you, I will show you and we will do something with those feelings next week during flow. You are not alone. I've got you. You are safe and the truth will set you free.
Kate Northrup:So, right now, admit to yourself, where am I telling a lie financially? What financial secret am I keeping? Is it from myself? Is it from my spouse? Is it from somebody else?
Kate Northrup:Where are their financial secrets? And when are you going to be willing to tell the truth? Maybe it's today. Maybe it's this weekend. Maybe it's after the flow workshop.
Kate Northrup:I don't know. But your soul does. And you are listening to this right now because it is time. It is time to set yourself free. And here's what's really amazing.
Kate Northrup:Money loves clarity. Money loves clarity. And so when you start to get clear and start telling yourself the truth, looking at your numbers, being clear with the key players in your life, it is incredibly magnetic to resources because money loves clarity. Money loves it when you tell the truth. Just like if your spouse is lying, you can tell.
Kate Northrup:Just like if your kid is lying, you can tell. Just like if your mother is lying, you can tell. Money can tell when we are lying, and money does not feel safe when it is not surrounded in truth and clarity. And so if what you desire in your life is more abundance and more prosperity, you need to stop with the secrecy. I hope this message found you today exactly where you needed it to find you.
Kate Northrup:I hope that you feel the fierce love that this message is delivered with with for you today. I love you so much, and here's what I know. When you have the courage to face your money full on, head on, life gets better and better and better. And you are safe to do so. And I promise you, during the flow workshop, I'm gonna hold your hand and we're gonna take these steps together so that your outsides match your insides.
Kate Northrup:So that whatever you are portraying on the outside, whatever level of success you have externally or whatever level of success you desire to have externally can be matched and met by what is happening behind the scenes with the stuff that people will never see, but that you will know about. And so you can get integrated. You can get aligned. And just like those little marble games that our kids have where you line up all the holes and all the blocks with all those little holes and you drop a marble through and it goes down the little shoots and goes, you know, pops out the other side, We are going to get you into alignment so that you can open up wider to the financial flow that has been available for you all along. You don't have to work harder.
Kate Northrup:You don't have to sacrifice your values. All you need to do is step into alignment. And it begins with telling the truth. Thank you so much for listening. If this episode was helpful for you, share it with a friend, share it on social, screenshot, tag me at Kate Northrup, text a friend, subscribe to Plenty if you haven't already, leave a review, and if you haven't signed up for Flow yet, head over to katenorthrup.com/flow.
Kate Northrup:Buckle up. What I've got for you next week is going to blow your freaking mind. You and your finances will never be the same in the best way possible. I will see you next week, friend.