What becomes possible when you separate your financial mistakes from who you are?

 

Christine Luken, Financial Dignity® Coach and Merchant Priestess™ joined me on the Get Ready Before Life Happens Podcast to talk about the emotional, physical, mental, and spiritual dimensions of our relationship with money.

 

What Stood Out: 

• Be aware of the emotions and stories shaping your money choices.
• Getting organized can create stability when money feels overwhelming.
• Don’t allow mistakes to become part of your identity.
• Pay attention to the words following “I am” because your self-talk can shape your confidence and financial behavior.
• Your emotions and bank account may affect your life, however, they do not define you.
• Make a plan for unexpected income that allows you to spend some, save some, give some, and enjoy some.
• Approach money as a resource that can amplify your values and help you do meaningful things in the world.

 

Bottom Line: When we recognize the emotions and stories connected with money, we can separate who we are from the choices we have made and take the next step with greater awareness and self-compassion.

 

 🎥 Watch this episode below: 

 

🎧 Listen to the podcast below or on your favorite podcast app. 

 

 

Connect with Christine Luken: 

 

• Website (here)
• LinkedIn (here)
• Instagram (here) 
• Facebook (here) 
• TikTok (here)  
• YouTube (here)  

 

Books: 

 

• Financial Dignity® After Divorce: A Woman’s Guide to Healing Her Relationship with Money (Amazon) 
• Manage Money Like a Boss: A Financial Guide for Creative Entrepreneurs (Amazon) 
• Money is Emotional: Prevent Your Heart From Hijacking Your Wallet (Amazon) 
• Provider Money Pleasure Money: The Energetics of Personal Finance (Amazon) 

 

Community: 

 

• Spiritual Women Building Wealth Free Community (here)  

 

Podcast: 

 

• Money is Emotional Podcast (here) https://www.christineluken.com/podcast/ 

 

Mentioned: 

 

• How Financial Abuse Begins and Why It’s Often Missed with Joy Slabaugh on the Get Ready Before Life Happens Podcast (watch or listen)
• What to Do When You Suspect Financial Abuse with Joy Slabaugh on the Get Ready Before Life Happens Podcast (watch or listen)

 

Bio: 

 

Ready for money to support your happiness rather than stress you out? Then you need Christine Luken, Financial Dignity® Coach and Merchant Priestess™, in your corner! Christine has coached hundreds of high-earning professionals, business owners, and divorcing women to organize their finances, build lasting wealth, and discover that money's job is to support their happiness—not be the source of it. 

 

The author of four books and host of the Money is Emotional Podcast, Christine blends wise money management with emotional intelligence while helping spiritually grounded women reclaim their financial power through the Merchant Priestess™ Path. 

 

When she’s not connecting with her global online community or coaching clients from her office in beautiful Kentucky, you can find Christine on the golf course, by the pool, or curled up with a good book, a fluffy cat, and a hot beverage. You can connect with her at www.ChristineLuken.com.

 

👉 Start Your Financial Readiness Plan: A free, practical plan that helps you create your in-case-of-emergency Financial First Aid Kit, organize what matters, and prepare before life happens. Start Your Free Financial Readiness Plan  https://www.tonysteuer.com

 

👉 Support Get Ready. Become a Get Ready Insider and help keep the Financial Readiness Plan free, support the podcast, trusted resources, and consumer-first financial education. You’ll receive access to the Get Ready Library. Support Get Ready here. www.tonysteuer.com/support

 

 

Transcript

 

 

Tony Steuer: The most powerful money question you can ask is: Who am I becoming in my relationship with money?

Welcome to Get Ready: Before Life Happens. I'm your host, Tony Steuer.

Today, I'm joined by Christine Luken. Christine, welcome back to Get Ready: Before Life Happens.

Christine Luken: Thanks for having me back.

Tony: This episode was inspired by one of your LinkedIn posts, where you talked about the four elements of money.

What led you to frame money through the question, "Who am I becoming in my relationship with money?"

Christine: It's been a very long journey for me, both in my own relationship with money and in helping my financial coaching clients.

My story starts when I was 26 years old.

I completely screwed up my money.

And it wasn't because I didn't know what I should be doing.

I was in a relationship with a guy who had terrible money habits. He was in and out of jobs and even in and out of jail.

I thought if I loved him enough, he would change.

And he did change. He got worse.

Eventually, I reached a point where I couldn't tolerate the situation anymore.

I broke off our engagement, returned his ring, and left the relationship.

But I needed help.

I'd gotten myself into such a financial hole that I couldn't afford my own place.

My checking account was overdrawn.

All my bills were behind.

And although my ex-fiancé had helped run up those bills, he didn't help pay them because everything was in my name.

I had to swallow my pride and my feelings of shame.

I reached out to my dad and said, "I need to get out of this relationship, and I can't do it by myself."

Fortunately, he said, "I'm not going to pay your bills or bail you out. But you can stay with me and your stepmother for several months, and I'll help you make a plan to fix your situation."

That was the first step.

I had to handle the physical side of money, which I call the earth element.

Earth represents what we're physically doing with our money and how we're managing it.

I wasn't managing mine very well, even though I knew what I should have been doing.

I needed help getting organized and deciding what to do first.

I see this with coaching clients all the time.

People may think that getting organized, creating a spending plan, and paying off debt are the easy parts of money.

But when you're emotionally overwhelmed, those things can feel incredibly difficult.

Every part of your financial situation has a story attached to it.

When I reached financial rock bottom, every past-due bill had a story.

I remember receiving a Dillard's department store bill after leaving my ex-fiancé.

It included the Valentine's Day present he'd bought me using my own credit card.

Every time I saw that bill, I got angry.

But my dad wasn't emotionally attached to any of it.

To him, those bills were numbers.

He could look at the Dillard's balance, the past-due electric bill, and the car payment and say, "Here's what needs to be paid first. Here's how much to pay on each."

I needed someone who could separate the emotions from the immediate tasks.

It was almost like a tornado had hit my financial house.

Imagine coming home and finding the windows blown out and everything inside destroyed.

You'd probably want to close the door and walk away because you wouldn't know where to begin.

My dad essentially said, "Just look at this one closet. Clean and organize it. Don't worry about anything else yet."

And when that was done, we moved on to the next thing.

That's often the first step in improving your relationship with money.

Get organized.

Understand your spending.

Address your debt.

Build savings.

But before you can do any of that, you need awareness.

You have to open the door and look at the situation.

For many people, that's the hardest part.

As I began repairing my finances, I remember driving to work one day and realizing something.

I wasn't worried about money.

That was a shock.

For the previous seven years, I'd lived with almost constant financial anxiety.

Sometimes it was low-level anxiety. Sometimes it was overwhelming.

That's when I truly recognized the connection between money and emotions.

Our money affects our emotions, and our emotions affect what we do with money.

I was an honor-roll student.

I'd earned partial scholarships to college.

I was an accounting major working as an accountant.

And I still made terrible financial decisions.

I realized there had to be other smart people who had made money mistakes and felt ashamed about them.

That experience made me want to help.

And it introduced what I call the water element of money.

Water represents our emotions.

Emotions are always flowing and changing.

Sometimes they feel calm and peaceful, like a lake.

Other times they're like an ocean in the middle of a storm.

We even talk about waves of emotion washing over us.

Understanding how our emotions influence our financial behavior is incredibly important.

Most people are operating on autopilot and aren't paying attention to that connection.

Tony: First, I'm sorry you went through that. It sounds like an incredibly difficult experience.

As you're talking, I'm thinking about how we all have money mistakes in our past.

Almost everyone I've interviewed has something they regret or wish they could do over.

The important thing is how we move forward.

And you've created a powerful path forward from your experience.

You also talk about identity.

Why is identity such an important part of our relationship with money?

Christine: Because we can take our mistakes and make them part of our identity rather than simply saying, "I made a mistake."

There are two emotions that are closely related but very different: guilt and shame.

Guilt tells us, "I made a mistake. I did something wrong."

If I bounce a check at the grocery store, I might appropriately feel guilty about that.

Guilt can tell us we've acted against our values.

The healthy response is to ask, "What am I going to do about it? How can I make this right?"

In that sense, guilt isn't necessarily a bad emotion.

It can be a signal that we need to change course.

The problem begins when we internalize that guilt and make it mean something about who we are.

When I was getting out of debt, I felt a lot of shame.

I told myself I was a failure.

I was a hypocrite.

Here I was, an accountant, and I had debts in collections.

I should have known better.

I was making those mistakes mean that I was somehow a lesser person.

I knew for at least a year that I wanted to leave the relationship.

But shame makes you want to hide.

You don't want anyone to know what's happening.

Shame thrives in secrecy.

I stayed in that relationship much longer than I should have because I was embarrassed to tell my family how badly my finances had deteriorated.

When you recognize a mistake, you reach a choice point.

You can internalize it, feel worse about yourself, and hide from the situation.

Or you can acknowledge what happened and ask, "What resources and people can help me make this better?"

When you hide from a problem, it often grows.

Getting help is how you begin changing things.

Tony: That connects with conversations I've had on this podcast about financial abuse.

People sometimes ask why someone stays in a harmful relationship.

And as you're describing, shame can be a major factor.

The other person may also be manipulating or gaslighting them.

Christine: Absolutely. I have firsthand experience with that.

Tony: I'm sorry. I'm not trying to bring up bad memories.

Christine: You know what? I wouldn't take that experience back.

Because I went through it, I've been able to help thousands of people through my books, podcast, and coaching.

People feel they can lower their guard around me.

They know I'm not going to judge them because I've made plenty of mistakes myself.

I understand how they feel.

Tony: Since we're discussing this, what advice would you give someone listening who may be experiencing financial abuse or feels trapped in a relationship?

Christine: The first thing I'd say is that there can be a way out.

Abusers often use gaslighting, fear, and other forms of manipulation.

Whether you're married or living with someone, I recommend finding resources and support.

I wrote a book called Financial Dignity After Divorce, which focuses on practical steps for leaving a difficult situation and rebuilding financially.

It also addresses the emotional side of the experience.

Reaching out to someone for help is incredibly important.

That's often the first step.

Tony: And for everyone watching and listening, I've had other episodes on financial abuse, including conversations about how financial professionals can recognize it.

I'll include those resources and a link to Christine's book in the show notes.

If you or someone you know is experiencing financial abuse, there are organizations and professionals who can help.

It's important to find support and take steps in a way that's safe for your situation.

Christine: Absolutely.

And that leads beautifully into the next element: air.

Air represents the mental side of money, or our mindset.

The things we think about ourselves are incredibly important.

So are the things we think about money.

I recently recorded a video about the importance of the words that come after "I am."

What are you saying about yourself?

"I am bad with money."

"I am an emotional spender."

"I am always broke."

Those statements can become part of your identity.

But your emotions are not your identity.

And your bank balance is not your identity.

I can be a good, prosperous person and temporarily have less money in my bank account than I'd like.

That doesn't define who I am.

Our thoughts and emotions are closely connected.

If you keep telling yourself you're bad with money or you'll never get a raise, those thoughts affect how you feel.

And how you feel affects what you do.

The way you talk to yourself can create a downward spiral or help you move in a more positive direction.

Tony: That's fascinating.

We've covered earth, water, and air.

Let's talk about the fourth element: fire.

Christine: Fire represents the spiritual element of money.

For a long time, I had been conditioned to think that money and spirituality were separate things that shouldn't mix.

I grew up in a church where I heard messages about money being the root of evil and the virtue of being poor.

There was this underlying concern that money could corrupt your character.

When you absorb those messages, you may approach money with fear.

And when you approach money with fear, it can begin to control you.

I view money as my best employee.

I'm in charge.

I like to say, "Money is a wonderful servant, but a terrible master."

If you believe having money might compromise your values, you may actually push prosperity away.

But I see money as an amplifier of who you already are.

When you approach money with the right values and intentions, you can do amazing things with it.

I'd love to see more money in the hands of people who want to make a positive difference.

When good-hearted people prosper, the benefits can extend beyond them.

They can help their families.

They can help their communities.

They can support charities.

Bringing that spiritual dimension into my relationship with money was a major turning point for me.

Tony: I agree that money can be a powerful tool for doing good.

One person who comes to mind is MacKenzie Scott and the enormous amount of philanthropic giving she's done.

She's directed substantial resources toward organizations doing important work.

It's a great example of how money can create opportunities for others.

Christine: Absolutely.

And the wonderful thing is that you don't have to be a billionaire to give.

One of the most important things my dad taught me when I was at financial rock bottom was the value of giving.

At the time, he wanted me to donate to his church.

I had just started attending and wasn't sure where the money would go.

And I told him, "I can't afford to give. I'm homeless."

He said, "Christine, you're living in the spare bedroom of our house. You don't have your own home right now, but you're not homeless."

He offered to take me to a homeless shelter so I could understand what people there were experiencing.

I took him up on the challenge to start giving.

I said I'd contribute five dollars a week to the homeless shelter.

I wanted to be able to see exactly where the money was going.

That was 26 years ago.

Today, I give five figures annually to that same shelter.

But it all started with five dollars a week.

And giving five dollars still feels good.

Tony: That's such an important point.

Giving doesn't have to involve a lot of money.

And if you don't have money available, you can volunteer your time or share your talents.

There are so many ways to contribute.

Christine: Absolutely. Although I do think there's something special about giving money, even a small amount.

There have been studies where participants received money to spend.

One group was told to buy themselves something.

The other group was asked to spend it on someone else.

The people who spent the money on someone else reported greater happiness and satisfaction.

There's something powerful about generosity.

Tony: Before we get into our wrap-up questions, I want to talk about becoming a Merchant Priestess, because I know that's been a big identity transition for you.

What inspired you to become a Merchant Priestess, and what does that mean?

Christine: It's a long story how the name came to me, so I'll just say it was divinely inspired.

I still use the title Financial Dignity Coach, especially on LinkedIn, because it's a more professional setting.

But even though that's a great title, I didn't feel it fully represented who I was.

I have a very rich spiritual life.

For a long time, that was happening behind the scenes of my work.

I wasn't fully acknowledging how my spirituality influenced my relationship with money.

Then the term Merchant Priestess came to me, and it resonated deeply.

The merchant represents the businessperson and wise money manager.

The priestess, or priest, represents someone who communicates with God.

For me, it's about allowing my spiritual life to inform my business, my money decisions, and the way I interact with money.

I now have a group program for women called the Merchant Priestess Path, where we combine wealth building with spirituality.

It looks different for everybody.

It's not about following one particular religion.

It's about developing a relationship with the divine and allowing that relationship to influence how we conduct business, invest, and manage money.

For me, it feels like a beautiful way to move forward rather than keeping all those parts of my life separate.

Tony: I love that.

When I saw it in your newsletter, I thought it was a wonderful expression of what you've been talking about.

Money isn't something that exists in isolation from the rest of our lives.

It connects to everything.

And as you said earlier, when we give money too much power, it can become a terrible master.

We've all seen examples of people who allow money to control their lives.

Christine: I let money be my master when I had the least amount of it.

Tony: That's a powerful observation.

And we can probably think of a few people who have enormous amounts of money and still don't seem to have enough.

But that's another conversation!

Let's wrap up with the Get Ready Hot Take Trio.

These are three quick questions I ask all my guests.

What's one money myth you're trying to break?

Christine: One myth I'd like to break is that income is the most important financial number.

People can become so focused on making more money.

"Make more money. Make more money."

I want people to ask different questions.

How much money am I keeping?

How much am I investing?

Am I building my net worth?

Increasing your income is wonderful, but you also need to manage that income wisely.

Otherwise, you can end up chasing more money while spending it just as quickly as it comes in.

Tony: That's where lifestyle creep comes into play.

You start making more money, so you buy a nicer car or upgrade your housing.

And your spending rises along with your income.

One way to make progress is to save or invest part of that raise or bonus instead of immediately increasing your expenses.

That's money for your future self.

Christine: Absolutely.

And you don't have to save every dollar of it.

I actually have a plan for my unplanned income.

Whenever I receive unexpected money, I generally divide it up.

Ten percent goes toward giving.

At least ten percent goes into saving or investing.

Ten percent I allow myself to blow on whatever I want.

And the remaining 70 percent usually goes toward whatever financial goal my husband and I are working on.

So even my unplanned income has a plan.

And I give myself permission to enjoy some of it.

Tony: I really like that.

Giving yourself permission to enjoy some of your money is important too.

Sometimes people become so focused on saving and financial independence that they forget about enjoying their lives along the way.

Christine, let's get out the time machine for a minute.

If you could go back and talk to your younger self, what advice would you give yourself about money?

Christine: It would probably be about the guy.

I'd tell myself, "Leave him now!"

Tony: That's good advice too.

And maybe somebody listening needs to hear that.

Leave him now. Or her.

Money and life are connected.

The decisions we make in one area can have a tremendous impact on the other.

Christine: One hundred percent.

Tony: Last question.

What's your number-one tip to change the way we think about money?

Christine: Start paying attention to what you're saying about money.

Open a note on your phone or grab a notebook.

For the next week, write down the things you catch yourself saying about your financial situation.

Then, at the end of the week, read through them.

Ask yourself, "Do I really want what I'm saying?"

If the answer is no, start rewriting those statements in a more positive way.

For example, instead of saying, "I'll never get out of debt," you could say, "Every month I'm paying extra toward my credit cards, and I'm making progress toward becoming debt-free."

Then, when you catch yourself using the old negative statement, replace it with the new one.

Awareness is the first step toward changing your money mindset.

Tony: I love that.

Awareness is the starting point for making changes in almost any part of our lives.

Christine, where can people learn more about you, find your books, and listen to the Money Is Emotional podcast?

Christine: They can find everything on my website, christineluken.com.

All of my books are available on Amazon.

And you can listen to the Money Is Emotional podcast wherever you get your podcasts.

Tony: Fantastic.

For everyone watching and listening, we'll include those links in the show notes.

Christine, thanks again for coming back to Get Ready: Before Life Happens.

Christine: Thanks for having me. I enjoyed it.

Tony: This was fun.

And thank you, everyone, for tuning in to Get Ready: Before Life Happens.

If something today changed the way you think about money, please share this episode with a friend and subscribe.

You can also visit tonysteuer.com to learn more about the Financial Readiness Plan and begin preparing for life's important financial decisions.

And if you'd like to support the show, you can become a Get Ready Insider.

Because when life happens, the way you think about money matters.