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The Role Sabotage Plays In Our Money Relationship With Jennifer Love – Real Estate Women

 

There is so much more to our relationship with wealth than the things it can afford us. It also goes deeper into our mental and emotional state and wellbeing. While working hard to earn, we can’t help but sabotage ourselves by being sucked into overwhelm and anxiety. It is time to develop a healthier relationship with money as Moneeka Sawyer sits down with Money Therapist, Wealth Philosopher, and CEO of the Living Wealthy Institute, Jennifer Love. In this episode, they discuss the different money personalities that can help inform us about how we are with money, the nature of money, and how we can learn to start living wealthy by making financial decisions that are in alignment with who we are. Join them as they take us further down into developing a healthy relationship with wealth and do what we can with it in the world.

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The Role Sabotage Plays In Our Money Relationship With Jennifer Love – Real Estate Women

Real Estate Investing For Women

I am so excited to welcome to the show Jennifer Love. She’s a Money Therapist, Wealth Philosopher, an ally of nature, advocate for emotions, top 5% internationally-acclaimed business advisor and dark chocolate enthusiast. She’s an award-winning five times career entrepreneurial with many years under her comfy Keds. She retired her high heels years ago. She is a thought leader with a heart that matches her name. Her degrees, Training and Research in Human and Organizational Behavior Psychology are the foundation of her clinical work.

She’s the visionary CEO of the Living Wealthy Institute helping rural leaders develop a healthy relationship with wealth free from overwhelm and anxiety by following a regenerative money equation for a holistic and nourishing experience. Leaders who know how to raise, manage, grow and contribute money can live soulful wealthy lives to become allies for future generations to come. She believes anything is possible while remaining grounded in science, real business practices and hard financial analytics. A former client once said about Jennifer, “With Jennifer, the only possible outcome is success.” Jennifer, welcome to the show.

Thanks.

Why don’t you jump in and give us a bit of your story?

It doesn't matter how much money we have. It's not about the money. It's about what's going on inside of us. Share on X

I’ll take us back to the three-year old me. The three-year-old me was standing in a dark hallway in my parents’ home in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. My brother is taking a nap in the other room. I’m hearing my parents fighting. I can hear my father punching holes in the walls. Before I knew it, my father is walking down the hallway past me and out the door. I turned and look at my mom. She’s sitting on the bed and she’s crying. I go to her. I crawl up on the bed. I see the cut up credit cards sitting next to her. She looks to me. She’s crying and she says, “We don’t have any money. Your dad’s leaving and he’s not coming back.” My father was an entrepreneur. We lived quite rich up to that point.

That was the day that we went from being rich to being in poverty for a while. I lived in an ant house. We call it the rat house. What was the impression that was made on me that day was watching my mother become financially disempowered and not ever recovering from that fully. That made a big imprint in my life. There were a few other imprints that were made that day too. If it’s okay, I’ll go ahead and share how those imprints were made, what I did with them and how they ended up sabotaging me in the long run. We all have our own stories and money narratives. This is part of the work that I’m doing to help leaders unpack this for themselves.

My story coming through that day was one, I’m not good enough because I’m not good enough for dad to stay. I’m going to save the day. I’m going to make it all okay for mom somehow and rescue her. That ended up turning into overcompensating through achievement. In high school, I was the gal who was getting great grades. I was on the flag team. I walked our high school down the Rose Parade. I was front and center doing that. I won an art competition. Universal Studios won the competition. This goes on and on, going all the way through Missionettes, which is the girl scout version all the way through. My list goes on and on.

By the time that I was 29 years old, I had already started three companies. One of my clients asked me to come over and take over as CEO for a short period of time. It’s a mortgage bank. This was what brought me from San Diego at that time to New York City. There were 100 people in that company. By the time I was 30, I was running a mortgage bank with over 100 people. It’s pretty impressive we might say. In my early 30s, I was the CEO of an award-winning wholesale chocolate company doing millions and all that great stuff. The problem was that, in theory, this all sounds great on paper. By the time that I was in my early 30s, while I had all the accolades, I had all the credentials, I was emotionally bankrupt. I had sabotaged my own ability to feel like I could live wealthy in my life.

 

During this time, I was also bulimic. I was bulimic for a few years. Behind the scenes, I’m a hot mess. In front of the scenes, I looked like I got it all together. I was miserable and suffering inside. I was making it all about the money. What the story that was running me was I got to save the day. I got to make it all okay. I got to prove that I’m enough. I prove that I’m enough. That was driving me. These are the kinds of stories that are driving us a lot. What did I do about all that? Clearly, I’ve been doing work for a long time to move through all of this for myself.

I’m the gal who moved from my twenties drinking two pots of coffee a day and not sleeping two nights a week to having a 2 to 4-hour morning ritual and routine. It’s a big shift in my life. What I learned through doing my own inner work and reclaiming my living wealthy power, I found out that I matter. I am enough. I care deeply. I have a lot of tenacity. I’m incredible at building things. I have great capacity for wealth. I began to unpack all that for myself to understand that what I needed was to become my own best friend, to find compassion for myself, to accept myself exactly as I was with what was happening underneath the covers, which was all this unprocessed emotionality.

It is interesting because someone who was very wealthy but couldn’t live like they were wealthy. People must think, “That’s easy for you to say. I like to get there.” There’s a whole range. You call it money personalities. There’s a whole range of money personalities from wealthy, not able to live wealthy, poor and trying to get wealthy. Could you talk a little bit about these money personalities and how that shows up for different people?

Before I do, to bullet what you’ve said, underline and bold it as well, you’re right. There’s an interesting distinction that a lot of people hold because a person has money that somehow their life is easier. I’m here to say, I work with those who are struggling financially to the millionaires, billionaires and everything in between. What I find is that we can all be prisoners inside of ourself. It doesn’t matter how much money we have. It’s not about the money. It’s about what’s going on inside of us. That affects how much money we have. Going to the person, the money personalities, there’s the avoider, which is the most common especially amongst women leaders and women entrepreneurs I find.

Often, emotions in this world are not given a space. Share on X

We’re avoiding money. Even those who might have a lot of money in the bank, they’re still avoiding. Maybe they’re emotional avoiders but they’re still avoiding money in some way. I’ve worked with those who’ve made $10 million and lost it twice. That’s its own form of avoidance and how they’re being in relationship with those in their life, their relationship with money, how that’s even happening and how that’s playing out in their life. We’re all avoiding. The avoidance isn’t necessarily just, “I’m not looking at spreadsheets. I’m not managing my finances.” It comes in these increasingly nuanced ways and becomes very sophisticated overtime. It’s the money avoider.

The second one is the one where we’re trying to keep up with the Joneses. This is where it’s never ever enough. There’s the cautioner. The cautioner we can think of the Ebenezer Scrooge. Ebenezer Scrooge is curmudgeon-y. He’s got lots of money. His finances are in order but they’re a prisoner inside themselves as well. They’re not happy. They’re not living wealthy. They’ll sacrifice themselves for $1. These are some of the money personalities. There are more. There’s a rebel as well who’s like, “I’m going to do whatever I want, whenever I want, however I want.”

I’m beginning to over time with some of the research I’ve been doing with my clinical work to identify a few more. We’ll see how those begin to express themselves over time. It’s been interesting to have my research and the research that I’ve been doing on these many personalities confirmed by some of the other financial psychologists out there and what they’re seeing as well. We can see that some of how we express ourselves as primarily through one of these forms usually or there might be a secondary. There’s a personality type test and many personality tests that we can take. If someone’s interested in doing that, they can certainly head over to our website. I’d be happy to walk them through it.

There was something interesting in your bio where you talked about being an emotions advocate. I know that a lot of these imprints happen through an emotional response, an emotional reaction or something that was emotional in our life with you watching your dad walk out and see your mom crying. There’s a whole image that happens that imprints in our mind. It creates an entire emotional response. For me, I wrote a book called Choose Bliss. Bliss is about allowing ourselves to have all of those emotions but not living in the emotions except the ones that serve you.

All of them are clues whether you’re in ecstasy or despair. All of those are clues about what’s going on in your life. Where you want to live is in that place where I call bliss, which is this deep sense of joy and contentment. It doesn’t mean that we don’t have all the other stuff and we don’t have challenges but we have to honor the emotions. Bring ourselves back to an emotional home that serves our life and helps us to feel joy. That’s my perspective on emotions. I’d love to hear yours since you talk about being an emotional advocate, which most people will not even talk about. I’d love to hear your take on that.

We’re living in a world where emotions are often especially the intense emotions. Even what we would classify as positive emotions is often poo-pooed. “Don’t get too excited. Don’t celebrate too much.” It can be too muchness. Often emotions in this world are not given a space. My story is a perfect example of how repressed emotion begins to express itself. I see and I hold that there are all these different aspects of ourselves. I call it the four worlds of humanity. Nothing new about what I’m about to say, spiritual, mental, emotional and physical aspects of ourselves. What is interesting is we are not listening to our emotions. Let’s say anger, for example. I’m angry that my father left but I’m not processing it because I’m pretending like I’m fine. It’s the “I’m fine” syndrome.

When we shove that emotion down and we don’t deal with it, it’s going to begin to express itself out in other ways. That might begin to express itself out in thought, which it did for me. “I’m somehow not good enough. I need to go prove that I’m good enough.” That was a thought process that I was having because I wasn’t dealing with what was happening for me emotionally with that imprint in my life and that experience. It started also showing up behaviorally. I became bulimic, its form of trying to sooth myself. I’m trying to move and process something out of me that I can’t seem to deal with. It’s expressing itself in another form. If I had continued with that, that could have brought all kinds of other things, stress, anxiety. It creates all kinds of things in our life, our hearts, cancer. We know this has been proven over time in science and research.

 

It also shows up spiritually over time. I call it the scar tissue that begins to build up when we’re not dealing. We’re not handling the repression in our life or the ways that we’re operating in our life that are not what we desire, that are not wholesome. In the spiritual aspect, what that might look like is I’m feeling very disconnected from my purpose. I don’t even feel like I belong. I don’t have a sense of belonging. What are my passions? What am I passionate about my creativity? I’m not even connected to it. I’m not even been doing any of it. Emotions have a lot to do with everything coming back to this. When we repress anger, sadness, despair, fear or whatever other emotion we can insert, it’s coming out in some way, shape or form. It just looks different.

Much like you, I see emotions as our friends. I’m like, “Come on, anger. Sit down right next to me. Let’s have a talk. What’s going on?” We hear a lot about emotional intelligence but we don’t necessarily know what that means. I see that emotions are packed. They’re like nutrient dense soil that’s super-packed with information about what’s going on. I call it our North Star. It doesn’t mean it’s right or wrong. There’s a very big distinction between our truth in the moment and right or wrong, good or bad. We’re not going to be dualistic about this. It’s, “What’s happening to me? I’m angry. No wonder my chest feels tight.”

What are the thoughts that are happening? I’m feeling upset that my father walked out the door. At three years old, I’m not doing this practice but I’m walking you through the example. “I’m angry about the situation. What do I need?” We can begin to understand what our needs are in that moment. What are our unmet needs? I believe that we’re walking around in a world with a whole bunch of people that have a whole lot of unmet needs. They are making all kinds of financial, world and business decisions that are based in fear, anger and sadness. They don’t even know it.

We’ve talked a little bit about the nature of us. Let’s move to the nature of money since we’re talking about being wealthy. Talk to me a little bit about your perspective on that. Tell us a simple truth about the nature of money.

I believe that the simple truth about the nature of money is that it’s our natural state of being. I think we’re born naturally wealthy. Why I bring nature into the dialogue and conversation is because I believe that nature is one of our greatest teachers. We’ve lost connection with one of our greatest teachers and gifts in life. That’s Mother Nature herself. I’ll give you an example. A couple of years ago, I was in Tulum, Mexico. It’s a great spot. I learned that the soil there is primarily made of limestone so it’s super hard soil. Most of the ecosystem has a hard time rooting down, especially in times of drought. Below this limestone and soil are these cenotes. Cenotes are caves that are filled with water.

Most of the ecosystem above the cenotes can’t root down to access in a time of drought, except that there are some trees that are strong and big enough to be able to break through that limestone, go down into the cenote and bring the water up into itself. Here’s a cool part. This is where it gets interesting to me. It begins to share the water with the ecosystem around it through the microbiome, fungi and bacteria in the dirt in the soil. It communicates with the other ecosystem around it so that it can support the system around it being incredibly generous with what it has to support what is suffering and what’s having a hard time.

We're walking around in a world with a whole bunch of people that have a whole lot of unmet needs. Share on X

Does it have to do that? No. Why does it do that? It’s because a more flourishing ecosystem creates a better environment for the trees. All that microbiome and the fungi, when it goes on the tree it’s supporting it. It’s helping it. It’s feeding it in its own certain way. The tree knows inherently that if all of the ecosystem is taken care of, that not only is it better for everyone, it’s better for me too. Nature has all these incredible, simple principles that I believe we can look out in relationship with wealth, money, how to behave, to learn from and reconnect with. To me, coming back to the question, I believe that our natural state is much like nature. It’s naturally being wealthy.

I believe that the biggest joy of being wealthy is what we can do with it in the world. It’s not who can we give to. I believe that people also do not value what they’ve been given. I don’t know if you disagree with me on this but there has to be some level of deserving your own respect and wealth. It was handed to you. You may go into that whole thing about, “I don’t deserve it. I’m very entitled.” There’s weird stuff that happens when things are given. However, I do donate. There’s a lot of stuff. There’s no need to talk about all that. The point that I’m trying to make is our ability as wealthy people to make the world a better place through the work that we do is the biggest joy of being wealthy and is the most fulfilling piece of it. I love that you talk about it that way because that was a perfect example of how that shows up. It’s not as obvious in our human community of how that works.

What you described that being generous, being in relationship with our wealth, that’s how it can be. It’s not for everyone who has wealth. It’s not but it can be. Much about that state, which is what I call living wealthy, that natural state of beingness, feeling free, feeling full where it’s regenerative rather than just like, “I want to suck it all up and store it over here for myself.” That is not a natural principle. Money is meant to flow. Money is simply energy. In fact, money only becomes what we make it. Money, I believe, is that quietness in space, that nothingness. Money is what we make it mean, what we make it be through our energy.

This is how I see it here. If we clear ourselves of what is blocking us, clogging us, the traumas, the stories, the emotional pain, it’s so much easier for everything to flow in and out. I had a vision several years ago. It’s a cool vision. I drew myself. It was on a New Year’s Eve evening, intention setting, party. I loved it. I had this vision of myself. I was standing out in nature with the trees and the birds. My face was tilted up to the sun. The sun was beaming down on me. My arms were open wide. I’m standing there feeling totally free and open. The sun was pouring these beautiful rays, different colors, red, orange, yellow and white into my heart.

I was standing there not needing to do anything just receiving it. Out of my stomach was a magnification, 10 to 100 times bigger light coming out of my stomach feeding the world. I was being filled. I didn’t need to do anything because it was coming right through me. It was like I was a prison for more being shared. That is how I hold myself in my life. The only way that we can live into that fully, that kind of an experience where it’s like receive and share, however sharing means for you based on your values, I hope. That’s what’s possible but if we clear it.

You have created something that you call the living wealthy model. They know that we’re going to do a deep dive on this, which I’m excited in EXTRA. Could you give us a high level what that means?

The first phase of the living wealthy model is getting awareness. This isn’t a new concept out there in the world. Getting awareness of what is identifying what’s happening inside of you. That’s what we’ve been talking about in this conversation in a certain way. It’s getting clear on what are the emotions that I’m having, what thoughts are those creating, what’s happening for me behaviorally and how’s that showing up in my purpose in life. We can’t get around it. I work with a lot of folks who have done a certain amount of personal or spiritual development. They come and meet with me. It’s like a whole other level.

I had a client at the end of 2020. She’s like, “Jennifer, I feel like I was the marble and you were Michelangelo. You created the Dave.” I said, ” Let’s make sure that we’re clear here. I handed you the pick. You were Michelangelo creating your own David.” That’s what the experience is. It’s like taking away all of the things that don’t belong there. Once we have an awareness of what is there, that creates understanding, it creates another level of understanding about what’s going on inside of us, how it got started, why. We get to this construction zone, I call it. In this construction zone is a constructive choice.

We can either beat the hell out of ourselves. The three-headed drama lama, I call it, comes out. The bully comes out. My expression of the bully is the Hulk. We all have it. Is the bully coming out? Is the victim coming out? Is the hero coming out? What is that looking like? It’s this inner critic that we all have in here. Do we understand what happened by the unpacking, getting the awareness, identifying what’s there and going, “No wonder?” In which leads us down the path into compassion for ourselves. When we can access that compassion, we can get to this place where we can move into acceptance, acceptance of what is. We can move into forgiveness, whether that’s of self or of other. With that, we can then begin to excavate.

This is where I have a lot of fun with clients. I take their hand and I’m like, “Come on. Let’s go inside. Let’s take a look. Do you see all that shit over there? Let’s clean it up. I’m getting the dump truck. We’re backing it in. Get the shovels. Load it up. Let’s get this out.” What’s left is all this beautiful gold inside of them. It’s like, “How do we clean this all up? How do we get that gold inside of you to shine so bright?” We enter then into the phase that requires discipline. It’s integration. I call it the practice field. This is where I do a lot of practices, all kinds of practices of clients. We often think that, “I got the information. I’m clear on what is happening inside of me. I’m good.” I’m like, “Did you decide that you got the awareness, you’re going to go climb Mount Everest? You went. You got the backpack, some of the equipment and you’re going to go up to the summit. Is that how it goes? No.”

 

We don’t expect ourselves to do that in a physical aspect. Somehow when it comes to our mental and our emotional aspect, we seem to have a lot less patience. We got to enter that integration practice field for quite a while so that the full alchemy of remapping that whole humanness can happen. Once we do and we’re fully committed to that process, then we enter embodiment. That’s where we become liberated where possibility, choice and freedom like I was describing that flow. Freedom is possible where we are open and live wealthy. That’s the wealthy living model.

We’re going to do a little deeper dive in EXTRA. What does that look like?

I’m going to share some contemplation questions to get the ladies here started on the first phase of awareness by helping them unpack and identify what’s there.

Ladies, that’s going to be cool. Let’s stay in tune for that. Jennifer, could you tell everybody how they can reach you?

It’s easy. Head over to JenniferLove.com or you can find me on Instagram @TheJenniferLove.

I know that you had a free wealth assessment. That’s at JenniferLove.com.

That’s right. Free wealth assessment gives you a lot of great insight into what’s going on for you with your wealth and living wealthy.

Thank you for that. Are you ready for our three rapid fire questions?

Yes, ma’am.

Jennifer, tell us one super tip on getting started investing in real estate.

My tip here is to leverage your network. A lot of what I see, whether it’s investing in real estate or investing in your business doesn’t matter. People think that they don’t have the network that can support them in doing the funding. I call bullshit. I wrote a Huffington Post article several years ago. There are 600 people that want to fund you and those 600 people are in your own life. There was a New York Times article several years before that showed how the average person, the average American at least, knows 600 people in their life who would be willing to support them in some way, shape or form. Not necessarily direct money but be able to connect them with other. I’ve done a lot of fundraising over the years with my own companies and with other people. I’ve helped to raise over $100 million. I know a little bit about asking people for money. Whether that comes to real estate deals or anything else in your life, you can leverage your network. There’s one tip here. Sit down. Make a list of the 600 people you know and ask.

What is one strategy to be successful in real estate investing?

First of all, investing yourself greatly. Making decisions when you’ve got all that stuff inside of you is not going to go so well in long-term. Believe me, I know. The second suggestion I have here is especially for the newbies or those who are still figuring it out. Put on your science lab hat and make it the experiment. It doesn’t have to be perfect upfront. It’s not like you’re going to get all the great returns right away. Make it an experimentation process and go in like a scientist. My grandfather was one of the first scientists in the United States to work on penicillin. If he hadn’t put on his science hat, where would we be?

The same rings are true for anything in our life, including being successful in real estate. Start by being realistic. Invest in real estate based on your values. That might mean doing it a little different. Maybe one of your values is sustainability. You’re all about investing in revitalization. You can still make great money investing in real estate based on your values. Make sure that when you’re making these financial kinds of decisions that you’re doing it in alignment with who you are. That’s part of living wealthy.

Running our businesses through our values, through the filter of our values makes it much more meaningful too. What would you say is one daily practice that contributes to your personal success?

I started out there with the morning routine and ritual. That is huge for me. I’ll share what that looks like. For me, that’s breath. That is contemplation. I spend time in the mornings contemplating. It’s where all the magic for me. I’m a 4:00 to 6:00 AM wake up time. Contemplation, meditation, visualization, all of the things but also pandiculation. Pandiculation is a form of stretching. It’s like what the animals do. It’s not stretching out as far as we can go range of motion. It’s resistance against so that we create the tension to get rid of the tenseness in our body. Pandiculation is a very powerful way that I open my body up. I open my heart up. I open my mind up. I turned myself on. I have a connection practice where I connect with myself and the planet. That’s my morning ritual.

Money is meant to flow. Money is simply energy. In fact, money only becomes what we make it. Share on X

Thank you for that. This has been amazing. Thank you so much for what you’ve shared on this portion of the show.

You’re welcome.

I can’t wait to talk in EXTRA more about the living wealthy model. Ladies, thank you for joining Jennifer and I for this portion of the show. Stay tuned for EXTRA. We’re going to be talking more and doing a deep dive on how to get started in that living wealthy model, which is what we’re all here about to live wealthy, blissful lives. I’m excited about that. If you are subscribed, stay tuned. If you’re not but would like to be, to go to RealEstateInvestingForWomenEXTRA.com. You get seven days for free. You can download a ton of great content and then stay or not, whatever you prefer. For those of you that are leaving Jennifer and I, thank you so much for joining us for this portion of the show. I look forward to seeing you next time. Until then remember, goals without action are just dreams. Get out there, take action and create the life your heart deeply desires. I’ll see you soon. Bye.

 

 Important Links

• Jennifer Love
• Living Wealthy Institute
• Choose Bliss
• @TheJenniferLove – Instagram
• Article – Top 600 People Who Want To Help Fund Your Business
• RealEstateInvestingForWomenEXTRA.com

 

About Jennifer Love

• Here’s How »

• https://blissfulinvestor.com/

• LinkedIn

• Twitter
• Facebook
• Instagram

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