Home - Denise Hughes Author Speaker Money Coach

True confessions. I tend to be a worry wart. Anxiety can overwhelm me at times. I over-analyze and desire to know the “why” of it all. This combination of brain chemistry isn’t exactly wired for fun times. It can place a halt on the flow of my life.

One of the things I want to share with you is the difference hiking has made in my life and why I am profoundly in love with it. When my feet move, my breath deepens, I sweat, and in a short while, my
body experiences a wash of calm. The thoughts circling in my head tend to disappear. My senses take over, and take me on a journey of beauty, witnessing nature around me. Kind of like an iMax theater experience. I begin feeling relaxation in my body and a sense of one-ness with all around me.

As my feet move, I feel my thoughts move as well. Movement of my feet, opens my mind and expands my view, literally and figuratively. Soon, creative solutions come forth, that did not have room to unfold, in prior spaces of constriction. New ways of framing a situation, a sudden ah-hah about how this thing of discomfort is a blessing in disguise and something I’ve been asking for is now seen. Space, way more space opens up for me…in my breath, my heart and my thoughts.

I begin to notice how the oak trees roots wind around rocks that could be perceived as obstacles. Yet, the roots got to where they were going to receive nourishment from the earth. So I ask, how can I go around my obstacles and get to a place of where I want to be? How might I approach this dilemma from a new way?

What’s this have to do with your money life? Everything. I invite you to take one of your money dilemmas to nature and “hike it out.” Feet to the earth, deep breaths, chest out, beauty magnifier on, soak it all in. FEEL the expansion. Ask nature to open you to a new way of framing your concern. Invite in a new perspective. Ask nature for creative solutions. See what comes. Let me know. I’m curious!

Denise Interviewed by Melanie McGhee

I had the wonderful pleasure of being interviewed by Melanie McGhee, a deep listener, a lover of rumi, a yogi, and a beautiful soul who helps others to open their hearts, come back to center and to live a life of who they really are.

Melanie says, “I have a foot in two worlds. I am an experienced psychotherapist and coach who specializes in the use spiritual technologies for spiritual and personal evolution. Listening deeply, I help people open their heart and come back to center. In that return to center, my clients learn to live a balanced life and develop a new lens through which to experience their inner world and their outer life.”

This is an interview exploring the relationship between money and yoga and how we can bring the energy of yoga to our money life.

This was a very fun interview for me to do and one of my first. Thank you Melanie my love for this opportunity being with you over this conversation.

And if you want to listen to Melanie’s TED Talk, you can listen here! Her teachings are life changing!

If we aren’t experiencing the spiritual fulfillment of “enough,” in our lives, the question then becomes, “What is necessary in supporting the energy shift in the body from a space of “not enough,” to “enough?”

It is important to remember this is NOT a cognitive process. It is a body process. Cognitive processes are intellectual, body process are experiential.

Our body experiences life through our senses, which in turn influences our nervous system. When our nervous system interprets experiences as nourishing and life sustaining, we begin to lay down new wiring…shifting from “not enough” to “enough.” When our root chakra is re-wired, money, as well as other forms of abundance begin to show up in our physical world and these forms have sticking power. Inner work creates outer results.

THE TOOL OF IMAGERY

Using imagery is one method of creating the shift to “enough-ness.” Why? Images are mental pictures that create a new experience in our bodies in the way of feelings. Imagery lays the ground-work for “what can be created.” If we can get comfortable in our bodies with imagining what “enough” feels like, we can begin to create an experience of “enough” for ourselves in our physical world. Imagery can help us move through our fear. In the book, The Science of Getting Rich, author Wallace Wattles tells us, “The Creative Power within us makes us into the image of that to which we give our attention.”

If we bathe ourselves in imagery that makes us feel good, then we begin to actually create chemical changes in our bodies. We move from pumping adrenaline (a survival hormone) to creating endorphins (a pleasure hormone). Imagery helps us to turn on our body’s internal pharmacy of good feelings, naturally.

FINANCING NEEDS FIRST, WANTS SECOND

Financing our true survival needs BEFORE anything else will also calm our nerve endings and give our body the experience of being taken care of. We can breathe more easily when we know the mortgage is paid, money is available for food on the table, gas to keep our cars running and our health care needs are met.

Happiness studies have actually shown that once our survival needs are met, more money doesn’t necessarily make us happier.

ENERGY and BODY WORK

Energy and body work is foundational work to support us in re-connecting with our core. Working with my breath in yoga has taken me to deep core places…and in these places I’ve uncovered lots of stuff getting in my own way of “receiving enough in.” As I’ve been able to open to more receiving in my own life, I find the quality of my breath change. My exhale is getting as long as my inhale. I am with-holding less. I find I can chant with greater volume and more depth. Constrictions are released.

Besides yoga, there are other forms of energy work. EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique) founded by Gary Craig is aimed at bringing equilibrium to energy disruptions in the body.

You can explore what energy and body work feels right for you. There is much to pick from.

TALKING TO OURSELVES IN THE SPIRIT OF LOVE and COMPASSION

Tending to our thoughts is important (what we say when we talk to ourselves). Root chakra affirmations can be: “It is safe for me to be here.” “I love the wisdom of my body and trust it.” “I am learning to feel the energy of love and support in the cells of my being.” “I choose relationships that give love freely.” “I am the creator of my own experience today.”

TAKING A SEAT AT THE TABLE OF OUR OWN LIFE

For us women, we give up our seats at the table of life fairly easily, in order for others to have before we have. Placing our needs and desires equal to that of others is a first step in giving ourselves the experience of “enough.”

It is in my fifth decade where I am now comfortable placing my needs and desires before that of others. I am into equal energy exchanges in all areas of my life. I no longer have the desire or bandwidth to give more than I receive today. I no longer allow my Catholic upbringing and negative emotions, like guilt, to come between me and the choices I know are best for me.

Creating enough for yourself financially, may look like fully funding your retirement account over fully funding your children’s education. It may mean funding something near and dear to your heart over the “want” of another. We need to begin to take our seat at The Table of Our Lives, using money as tool, to fund first our basic wants and our deepest desires.

CONNECTING WITH NATURE

Spending time in nature is my favorite way of creating an experience of “enough” in my body. Nature continually gives us overflowing bountiful sensory experiences and fills us up from the inside out. Beauty is everywhere. There is no experience of lack in nature. One daisy doesn’t have 4 petals while the rest have 16 petals. For all that exists, there is fully enough with equal beauty. Nature shows us that abundance is everywhere.

Connecting with nature through hiking is something I’ve enjoyed for years. Hiking with friends, sweating, while sharing our deepest heartfelt joys and sorrows with one another fills me up spiritually. For me, nature symbolizes and helps me internalize the sacred connectedness we all have with one another. When hanging out in nature, I feel more connected to myself, to others and to God. This feeling of connection gives me strength and a deep knowing that whatever is going on in my life, I have support and love…a soulful feeling of enough.

BEING GRATEFUL FOR WHAT IS

One year at my husband’s Tai Chi Retreat, his teacher taught us a “kindergarten gratitude” exercise for adults. Here’s how it goes: Close your hands into fists and raise them above your head. Think of things you are grateful for and as you do, release one digit for each thought of gratitude, until your hands are out-stretched in the air above your head!

That was about ten years ago and I am still doing this exercise daily. Over time, I have actually felt the change in my body’s chemistry. I used to be a complainer and focus on the negative. Truly, this simple little exercise has changed my life and my body’s chemistry.

What we focus on multiples. There is a spiritual shift happening regarding the American dream. Where the focus used to be on “more, better, bigger,” the shift is to be thankful for what you have and to live life in this space. This is a big spiritual shift.

INVITING MONEY to STICK AROUND in our ORBIT

Think about how good it could feel to invite “money” into your life in a more intimate way, like you would a good  friend. Get closer with your money. Think “hug” energy. Play with cushioning your bank accounts with money. To start with, begin creating a cushion of enough in your checking account and then other accounts. This shifts you from “living on the edge,” pumping adrenaline, to having room to breathe and relax more around money. Imagine money having the sticking power of velcro rather than the sticking power of a post-it when it comes to hanging out with you in your accounts.

THE EXPERIENCE OF ENOUGH AS SPIRITUAL FULFILLMENT

Spiritual fulfillment is an inside process. When I tune into the core of my being, listen deeply to body wisdom, and create experiences of “enough” in my life, I feel spiritually fulfilled. This is a sacred place and space. Money can’t buy it. We spend less when living in this space because our experience is one of fullness rather than emptiness. Once had and reclaimed, no one can take it away. It is my inner divine light and your inner divine light that brings peace and a sense of well-being to the core of our being.

Many of my clients come to me…as high earners…with a feeling of “never having enough money.” It doesn’t matter how much they earn, they always feel they don’t have enough. If this sounds familiar, please keep reading. This blog post is for you.

With clients experiencing “not enough,” in spite of earning well over 100K  (not including large bonuses), I often ask these clients to begin to create images of what “enough” would look like in their lives. When I hear, “that scares me,” “I’m afraid”, “I don’t feel it is OK to want more,” or this invitation brings forth great emotion” my experience knows there is often an issue at the root chakra.

The root chakra is one of the seven centers of spiritual energy in the human body according to yoga philosophy. This particular chakra is about support and represents our most basic of physical needs, that of food, clothing, shelter and other basic needs for survival. When energy is blocked in this chakra, issues of safety, trust and a denial of a basic self right to have and to be are present.

Blocks in this chakra are aligned with a core belief, that love or a part of oneself will be rejected if “MORE” of any form of abundance is allowed in. Money is one form of abundance, as is relationship, living on purpose, new opportunities, health and love.

Please understand it is at this base level, at the core of our being, where the spiritual energy of “not enough” lives. This energy lives in the cellular memory of the body’s experiences and is expressed in the feeling of deprivation, lack, or scarcity.

How did this cellular experience come into being? Usually from early trauma, neglect or basic needs not being met early in our development. We weren’t nourished in ways we needed to be nourished. Each of us has our own story around this (I certainly know the story I’ve carried for years).

The stories we hold to be true about “not enough,” at the cellular level, are linked to limiting beliefs at the cognitive level. Here are some examples of Root Chakra beliefs contributing to “lack.”

EXAMPLES OF LIMITING ROOT CHAKRA BELIEFS

(these aren’t rational. they usually live in our blind-spot. that’s why we may not be aware of them)

“If I have more money I won’t be loved.”
“My family outcasts friends and people who appear to have more money than they do.”
“If I earn more than my husband, he will find another partner because money means manliness to him”
“If I have more money, I will be abandoned.”
“If I have more money, someone will take it away from me.”
“Whatever I create will be taken from me anyway.”

These internalized beliefs from long ago, that truly don’t belong to us, were given to us as hand-me-downs from other,s and we have lovingly taken care of them for much of our lives.

Earning more money won’t fix the experience of deprivation in the physical world. Because what will happen is that when more money comes in, limiting beliefs will place a teflon coating on the new earned money and it will go right back out of the orbit that it is trying so hard to come into. Why? Because MORE money will begin to create an experience of enough. And, the core energy in our body is telling us it isn’t safe to bring in more. Something bad will happen. So our behaviors (ways of thinking, doing and feeling) find ways to keep the FEELING “of being broke” alive…while keeping the experience of “MORE or ENOUGH” out of our orbit.

This is sometimes why people spend more than they earn. Our money choices are supporting the current wiring of “not enough.” It is a reason why we spend money on season tickets for the Giants and say we can’t afford healthcare…or spend money on hobbies and entertainment while struggling to pay the rent. When we make money choices that keep us living in the RED (a place of deficit in our bank accounts and bodies) we are re-creating the “not enough” experience that keeps us living in survival mode.

IF this blog post resonates with you, I invite you to KEEP IN TOUCH a couple of ways here.

(1) Drop me a note and let me know if I can support you and help you shift out of the “not enough” space into “enough.”

(2) Stay TUNED for next week’s post on how to begin creating this shift.

Here’s to YOUR “enough-ness!”

Yoga has been a part of my life for over 30 years and it is only recently I am seeing how lessons in yoga can apply to one’s money life, especially with the roller coaster market going on. Here’s how.

The breath is the life force in yoga. It is called prana. Working with the breath controls the mind and balances energy in the body.

LESSON #1:

MOVEMENT FOLLOWS BREATH (not the other way around)

Yogic breathing increases oxygen to the brain, soothes the nervous system, brings clarity of thought, improves concentration, stills the mind, and increases our ability to deal with complex situations without suffering from stress.

The breath opens both mental and physical places of constriction. This is why “breathing into a pose,” deepens one’s pose. The breath relaxes the body, while softening the mind’s fear that the body can actually do the pose.

So, how is this relevant to dealing with Wall Street?

What if we breathed into Wall Street? What if we oxygenated our fear and relaxed our inability to control the markets? Instead of making quick jerky movements (selling, buying, or getting out of the market all together)…

What if we took deep breaths first, cleared our minds and let in the knowing (mentally and emotionally)… it is the nature of the market to fluctuate, some days more than others. Can we embrace the knowing that markets are doing what markets do? That as long as we have sought wise counsel in managing our assets, to “let them be” and detach from the ups and downs…

LESSON #2:

“IT IS WHAT IT IS”(in this given moment)

In yoga, labeling the breath is bringing attention to your personal rhythm of “inhale, pause, exhale.” Your rhythm “is what it is.” No need to fret. If you want to extract more mental and physiological benefits from your breath, practice deeper inhales and more emptying exhales.

What if we “labeled” our finances in the same way with centering clarity. “Savings is what it is right now.” “Debt is what it is right now.” “Cash Flow is what it is right now.” If we want to improve our money picture, it can be done slowly and sane-ly “from where it is right now,” with calculated, practiced, rhythmic movements (healthy money habits).

Knowing and labeling “what is,” places us in an observation mode, a space of non-reactivity. From this space of clarity, we can then make adjustments to create more full breaths or a different financial picture.

There is tremendous power when we are in a state of observation. This space allows us to better respond than react to “what is.” Good for yoga and good for money. Don’t you agree?

As I gain more insights in relating yoga concepts and money, I will be excited to share them with you!