MY MONEY MUSE

I met her, finally.

"It was about time," she signaled to me, as she sat down on my right shoulder, crossed her legs, and began filing her nails.

Last month, I started a course to cultivate a better relationship with money. I was excited to find myself ready to dive into one of these big taboo themes of life (money, power, sex). In the second module of the course, The Inner Dimensions of Mastering Money, Judy Wilkins-Smith invites the listener to start talking to money. She assures us that we are not crazy if we do, she works with executives and perfectly sane functional humans that–when they eventually take her advice–are hooked.

I notice my attention heightening. For a slight moment, an internal voice begins formulating some critique, ridicule or self-judgement, but there is no chance for it to finish its objection. A young confident woman has shown up in my mind’s eye. She tilts her head to one side, her big wavy hair following "Jeez, hello, you finally see me?". She seems happy to receive my attention.

This is my internal representation of money. Although it makes no logical sense, it immediately makes total sense to me. Up until then, I had imagined money as a very distant thing. Far away, not graspable, grey, intimidating and not in reach for me. I had experimented with statements like 'I would like money to be my friend' and 'I would like money to be by my side', but those words hadn't been matched by any type of viscerally aligned or pleasant experience. Quite the opposite, the free spot by my side and "money" (my concept of it) were miles apart.

Nima, my money Muse, communicates to me that she is bored by focusing on her nails and not looking much at me. I feel an immediate love and appreciation for her. I also notice she is unlike me, not just because I have never filed my nails. I get the sense she doesn't think very highly of me, yet she is absolutely by my side. She shows this by taking seat on my right shoulder, very close and intimately. There is an intimate connection between us, although it is clearly fresh and yet to be more established.

I notice a big relief for the implosion of the impersonal grey money concept and, in its place, the sudden presence of this seemingly kind, confident and a bit mysterious female character. I am super curious.

Who is this Nima? What does she want to tell me? Or teach me?

Thanks to my work with Internal Family Systems (IFS), I was familiar with visual and physical characters that we can communicate with trough different channels: visual (like how I could see Nima in my mind’s eye); physical (we can feel their sensations in our bodies); feelings (they can show us their emotional landscape through our feelings) and cognitive (we can talk with them). In IFS, we work with characters that are parts of our selves developed during childhood. They are similar to roles in Gestalt Therapy, such as the inner critic or hurt child.

As I converse a bit with Nima, she changes shape a few times to show me that she is powerful and she can take on many shapes. She reminds me of the trickster. She is feisty, like most of my parts are. She seems a bit young, in her feistyness and desire to prove herself. She is now standing on my left and I notice my inner superstar showing up on the right. They seem to get along well, same age and mutual appreciation. I communicate to Nima, without judgement, that she seems young, and she agrees with me. She lets me know that “she would like to grow up”.

Her main message, though, is age-independent she affirms me: "Make me a request. So I have something to do." Preferably bold and ambitious.

Impressed by this whole spectacle, I say goodbye so that I can take some time to ponder what request I would like to make. Later that evening–really that evening–I receive a message of my colleague that he has left 95.5 euros in an enveloppe for me. Apparently this money was supposed to be reimbursed to me in January (6 months ago) but got lost on the way.