Release the Emotions Driving Your Financial Decisions with Bari Tessler

This week we're sitting down with Bari Tessler, a Financial Therapist and a pioneer in the Financial Therapy field. She has a Masters degree in Somatic Psychology from Naropa University, 1998. She then ran a bookkeeping business for therapists and artists. In 2001, she merged all her training and created a somatic-based Financial Therapy methodology that she has been teaching for 24 years. She is also the founder of The Art of Money, a financial therapy program and a Mentor Program for therapists, coaches and financial professionals.

Bari breaks down why 90% of our money decisions are based on emotions, not logic, and what to actually do about it. She shares her signature Body Check-In tool, why couples fight about money even when everything else is great, and how to start having real money conversations with your partner without it turning into World War III at the kitchen table.

Bari's reminder is that the way you were raised to think about money shapes every financial decision you make today. Join us for next week’s Money Talks, we’re digging into money stories, emotional patterns around spending and saving, and how to rewrite the ones that aren’t working for you. Click here to register for FREE and bring your questions!  

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Want to take this conversation one step further? Join us for our next Money Talks, a free 30 minute live session where we’ll dig into a question we hear all the time from women business owners: Budgeting for Businesses to Offer Benefits. Click here to register for FREE and bring your questions! 

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Transcript

Maggie: [00:00:00] Well, I hold a lot of stress.

Dr. Barb: your jaw.

Maggie: I sure do.

Dr. Barb: And it's interesting because we both do yoga, you do the hot yoga, I do the more gentle basic yoga. But what I'm learning so much because I've had these kind of pretty amazing teachers, is at the beginning and at the end of class, we really talk about what you're feeling in your body and where are you holding stress and really techniques to let that go and just be and not be rambling in your brain so much about everything that's going on in the world, which is hard to do.

Maggie: Yeah. So when people do that and they're like, where do you feel it in your body? Like, I always feel it in the same like two places. You know, it's never like, oh, interesting. That's a new spot. It's like pretty much always like my jaw or like my throat, you know?

Dr. Barb: Is it okay? Interesting.

Maggie: chest. But yeah, it's never like, oh wow, that's new and different. It's like, yeah, well it's, you know, so I'm always like, is that, does everyone feel this way? You know? You never know. I've never spent time in somebody else's body.[00:01:00] 

Dr. Barb: No, I feel it in my hips.

Maggie: Oh, I hear your hips are, there's a lot of emotion in there.

Dr. Barb: There's a lot of emotion. Yeah. And there's a lot of, I think I carry a lot of emotion in my hips. It sounds crazy, but you gotta work it out. But.

Maggie: maybe you gotta shake them out.

Dr. Barb: I mean, I work at that, right? I mean, I, it's, a lot of it has to do with playing tennis, but where does that end? My Achilles? But I think when you are in Shavasana, you can really evaluate.

Where your body feels like it's been worked or it's stress release or where you might still have more stress. But like we say, there's a book that says Your body tells the story, which is very similar to what our podcast guest has shared today around money. Money, emotions, and how to kind of do a body check-in when you're making big financial either decisions or [00:02:00] when you know you need to have a discussion about money.

And I love that we're expanding into this because money used to be just transactional pay. This, this is a dollar amount, you know, it's just black and white. When really the, what we've been exploring ever since. Purse strings has been evolving. We've been talking to so many experts. Yeah, money's a tool, but money plays a huge role in our emotions and our relationships and a lot of it, so much of it is just woven from our childhood.

Maggie: Childhood generations, I mean, all the things it's. But you know, you take a step back and you're like, yeah, well that makes sense. You know, it brings up emotions. Emotions are stored somewhere in your body. I think we've all seen that Disney movie with all the little emotions running around. And that's kind of what it feels like.

And so it's kind of nice that we can.

Dr. Barb: acknowledge it.

Maggie: acknowledge it, name it, name it, to tame it, you know, and, and make us not feel like, oh my God, why [00:03:00] is money, like, we're just talking about money. Why am I, why is my breathing getting so, like, why am I almost hyperventilating? You know? It's like, yeah, 'cause you're nervous.

'cause remember this time when you were a kid and you know, mom and dad did this, or whatever it may be, you know? It's amazing what's in our body and how our DNA works. I mean, let's not. Go down that whole route, but pretty wild,

Dr. Barb: and I love how she's like, what is this bringing up for you? Like. Even the next level, like what is this reminding you of? Like is, was there a situation that happened where, you know, there was something intense happening around money in your childhood that

Maggie: The weirdest thing is like when it's something that you've never thought, like you've never thought twice about maybe like never ever. And then you're like, why is this memory coming back? I didn't even know I still had that memory. Or even remember taking in that memory, you know, it's like, dude, there's this SpongeBob episode where he had people living in his brain and they would like run to the file folders and like pull something out in their head.

And sometimes that's how I just see the brain is like, we gotta go back to [00:04:00] that old file. Like dig, dig, dig in the folder.

Dr. Barb: That is so true. I love SpongeBob. So, you know, this was a really fun conversation. She's just loaded with tools and resources and ways to check in with your body and why this is happening. I mean, she's a somatic therapist. yeah, very interesting.

Maggie: Angie talks about chocolate.

Dr. Barb: Chocolate.

Maggie: All right, let's just get into it.

Gloria Steinem once said, we will never solve the feminization of power until we solve the masculinity of wealth. Barbara Provost and Maggie Nielsen are the team at purse strings that will help you navigate the ins and outs of financial independence so that you can be financially fearless. This is women in money, the shit we don't talk about.

Maggie: Bari, welcome to [00:05:00] Women and Money, the shit we don't talk about. We are thrilled to have this conversation today. And so before we dive in, can you share a little bit about who you are and what you do with our audience?

Bari: Sure. I'm very happy to be here. I started out training to be a psychotherapist. In my twenties, a somatic therapist, a body-centered psychotherapist, and really my topics were intimacy, couples relationships, sexuality, sensuality, grief.

 Body, things like that. Those were my topics. And then my school loan came due and,

and I realized, wait a second, I just trained as a therapist for how many years. I just did all of this internship work. 150 page thesis, worked in the mental health field for years. We never talked about money. How am I gonna pay back this student loan? And then we never talked about money. So, [00:06:00] how am I gonna work with my couples when they're fighting about money and how am I gonna start my own private practice and do my bookkeeping and what is my own relationship to money and money story?

And on and on. It became such a glaring, missing piece that I decided to do my own money work. I wound up. Starting a bookkeeping business. And so that was a little bit of an interim transition that I did after I got the master's degree and, finished graduate school and all of that training, I decided to run a bookkeeping business 'cause it was fascinating to me.

 I was throwing away my bank statements in graduate school and what do you do with these? And then I started learning bookkeeping and it just blew my mind that as a creative therapist, dancer person, that I could learn bookkeeping, that I could fall in love with bookkeeping. I fell in love with QuickBooks.

Dr. Barb: Wow. I don't think I've ever heard anyone say that before.

Bari: And I really, I fell in love with it. But then I realized that I, my [00:07:00] clients were therapists and artists and contractors. They didn't wanna have anything to do with their bookkeeping. They had no idea how to masters in psychology. They threw their books at me, said Do them, take them. And I wound up learning so much about people's relationship to money, spending patterns, saving patterns where their values were, family dynamics.

I saw it all, and so that was a little interim. And then 25 years ago in 2001. I started teaching my first financial therapy method, which is money healing, money practices and money maps. I can talk about that in tiny little groups in my living room of 10 people, and then it go to 20 people, and then 50 people and then online.

And then we had people, you know. Up to four or 500 people a year when I was doing a year long program with folks all over the world. So I've always loved teaching in groups. It's way more affordable for folks, it's more lucrative for me. And so much [00:08:00] change can happen when we're in a group. So much uns shaming can happen.

So much learning can happen. So that's what I primarily did for 25 years, is teach groups online. And always had a handful of financial therapy clients, mostly women and couples, and have written two books, two published books, and then last year decided it was time to take a sabbatical, a year long teaching sabbatical.

You have found me in the last few months of my year long teaching sabbatical and I'm just starting to come in. And I can share what's next on the horizon, but that's a little bit of what I've been doing for the last 25 years. Writing, teaching, doing private financial therapy sessions with mostly women and some couples as well.

Maggie: This is just such a, a fun journey. I first love when we all pay for our college education and come out and do something completely different. You know, like when I was getting my [00:09:00] Master's, it was always like, well, what do you wanna do with it? I was like, I don't know, but I'm getting it. You know? And then we just come around and it, and you used it eventually, you know, it always comes full circle.

It's not like the information goes away, but I love that. That's so funny. I've gotta ask, like, did you. What was kind of like your money story growing up? Did you guys talk about money at home 

Bari: Yes and no. I grew up middle class in Chicago. I grew up, my family owned some real estate. They manage real estate. My family with my uncles opened up the first gay bars in Chicago,

so in Boys Town, Christopher Street, and I worked at them as a 20-year-old. and so. You know, I grew up with entrepreneurs and I got to see the passion around that, but I also got to see the stress around that.

 And I, two very different parents. My mom was way more [00:10:00] frugal, but also very generous. You know, she's her ways that she likes to spend money, and then other ways where she's very frugal. My dad was way more of the spender, way more of the risk taker, so they were very different. And each of their strengths and challenges.

And there was a lot of power dynamics with my father that were not fun, that I had to work through. I made a lot of declarations as a young girl, like I'm never getting married. I'm never gonna depend on a man for money. I'm gonna do business different than my dad.

 well I got married at 35, had my first and only child at 40. So just a different path, right? Hit those milestones in a different way, different time. But I also had to learn how to make my own money, and that was very important to me. Even as a therapist. You know, that's really like you as a therapist, you're trained, you're not supposed to talk about money.

You are not supposed to strive for money. You're supposed to just do your good work and somehow,

 money [00:11:00] appears, you know? And so I had to work through all of that. And then I also had to work with things around my dad and the pardon, 'cause he would be very generous at times, but then also had a lot of strings attached that weren't clearly.

 Spoken or I have lots of stories on that. I tell a little some of that in my book and you know, I'll just say that a lot of it was very uncomfortable. And then eventually I learned more in my twenties. How to find my own relationship to money, how to make my own money, how to live by my values, how to do business in a way that felt good for me.

And then years later when my father was dying, we had some really beautiful and hard conversations. So there was a lot of forgiveness, there was a lot of reconciliation, and I learned a lot of tough love from him and hard lessons. But, you know, I learned a lot of strength from him too. So that's a teeny bit of my money story a lot of generosity, some strings attached that were not clearly [00:12:00] articulated. Some power dynamic. Yeah. That were not fun. That's just a little bit of my money story.

Maggie: Yeah, I was just curious with throwing out the bank statements and stuff, you know, how it goes it's just always interesting if you just don't know or you know, some people are just known to just ignore it and it takes care of itself, which could totally happen, you know? 

Bari: Yeah, I mean, I remember, it was all paper back in the day, so I had, you know, the paper, what was it called? Your little wallet, and you had a little register that you would write in

you checkbook register. You know, my father, when I was in college had me fill that out and photocopy it to him and send it to him every week

Maggie: oh wow.

Bari: great. But then there were no conversations on here's your budget, here's your limit, how, here's how much. He just wanted to see that. So it was a strange condition. But then there was no discussions around, now what do I do? You know? And I had to work from age 15 on, he would send me out over a weekend and say, go get [00:13:00] a job.

And I was like, I don't know how to get a job. I don't know how to interview. I don't know what I wanna do. So he would just send me out to the wolves. But I had to learn quickly, how do I get a job? How do I interview, how do I do this? So yeah, but I did as a more creative person who grew up dance as a dancer and a therapist.

The bank statements came and I was like, I don't know what to do with these. I don't wanna deal with it. I'll throw it away. I'll just throw it away. And you know, everyone in the women I was living with in graduate school, they remember that. They remember those stories. So I spoke about all these other topics that were so important to me in graduate school when the student loan came due.

And I realized, how am I gonna pay this off? 'cause I was making $11 an hour.

Maggie: She's rich.

Bari: I couldn't get a massage. I couldn't bring a basket full of chocolate to dinners. You know, that was kind of my impetus of I'm doing such good work and that's very important to me, but $11 an hour is not gonna have me paying back [00:14:00] my student loan.

 And so there was a lot of things I had to grapple with, which is. How do you do your good work in the world? How do you create a business and a livelihood while also getting paid well and creating a business model that's really gonna work with the different phases in your life and learn about money?

That's why when I learned bookkeeping and that happened in one of my mental health. Programs. I was working in the milieu with lots of clients with pretty severe diagnoses, and the program director said to me, Hey, how about five hours in a back quiet room? I'll teach you Quicken and Excel and you'll do the books for the program.

And I just had to have a poker face 'cause. I was throwing away my bank statements at the time and I had a voice that said say yes, say yes, and I was terrified. I went in that back room and it was quiet, and he gently, as a good teacher, taught me how to work with [00:15:00] Quicken, how to use Excel. Really.

It was mind blowing It was incredible. I was like. Wow, this is really interesting. I don't have to be great at math. The bookkeeping systems and programs do it. It does it for me. And then I had a contractor say, I'll teach you QuickBooks. And basically, the contractor said, I'll pay you.

 15 an hour and then 20 an hour, you know? And I was like, oh, I see a way out. I see a way to move through some money ceilings that I'm not able to do with my master's degree in the mental health field, but I can do it over here in bookkeeping. I'm learning a new skillset that I need desperately, and I just trusted the trail, even though everyone around me was saying, what the heck are you doing?

What are you doing? You're a therapist, you have a master's degree. Why are you learning bookkeeping? Why are you doing bookkeeping for other people? It was so empowering for me to learn how to manage my own money and to see what the [00:16:00] numbers were. It, it just gave me such an incredible tool and skillset to eventually not only start a private practice later, but then to teach other people and then eventually create my other work from.

Dr. Barb: Wow. I also love something you said about as you were. Doing the bookkeeping, you could, like, you had a insight to people's money, habits, money mindsets, money behaviors. So thinking about women what are some things women got wrong or they were never taught? Like what kind of patterns did you see working with women? 

Bari: That's always such an interesting question for me because even though my husband has said, just call it 95% of your community is women because you're a therapist, because you're talking about money, emotions, the guys aren't gonna come to you. No. I've always had some guys, and I've always had some couples.

Dr. Barb: [00:17:00] Mm-hmm.

Bari: Right. So it's always been interesting. So it's the water I'm swimming in. It's always been hard for me to say this is what women have been challenged by. But I noticed even growing up myself, my father was talking about investments with my younger brother, not me. Right? And I'm the one who started and has been running my own business for 25 years, right? 

Dr. Barb: Isn't that

Bari: I also, you know, was on a panel, this was before the pandemic, where the stats for millennial women were that the women were still abdicating responsibility to their spouses in heterosexual relationships. And I was like, what? Why? You know what? So my work has always been with women geared toward women, and it's also always been.

 While I love the bookkeeping, as you can see, like crazy about, I love teaching people QuickBooks back in the day. I haven't done that for a few decades, but I've always had people on my [00:18:00] team who would sit down and hold your hand with a box of tissues and chocolate.

Maggie: I'll do my books then.

Bari: Right, right.

My husband just taught himself mint one night, taught himself. QuickBook another day, taught himself, and it's not a necessarily male female thing, but the people have always come to me, have known that 90% of our money decisions are based on emotions. It's the only sta I'm ever gonna give you. ' cause I'm not academic.

Right. I'm very much experiential learning and my work has always been in the trenches, like with a group of folks. So, so for women I'll say, and the men who've come to me, money is very emotional and it doesn't mean that one day these money motions are gonna go away. And that was surprising to me.

I think when I first started doing this work, I thought that [00:19:00] somehow the money, emotions would go away one day or that the money emotions were a different set of emotions than all the other regular emotions, but there. Anxiety, shame, anger, hope, jealousy, scarcity. I can go on and on, you know? But this is really important, I think, for all of us to learn.

 and so first up for me, what I call money healing is understanding what are the money, emotions that come up for you. Is it one, is it many? Is it a cocktail? And all the different money moments when we're going to have a money conversation with our spouse. What is the money motion that is present in the heat of the moment, during that hard money conversation?

What's coming up for you or afterwards or when you're going to make a money decision, you're going to buy a car, you're going to buy a home, you're walking into Target and suddenly you want everything. You know? So I can tell lots of stories about that, but for me. This work needs to happen first [00:20:00] before we get to the money practices and learn a bookkeeping system and look at your numbers, which I love.

And or before you can go into budgeting and planning. For me, this work is first. So knowing that 90% of our money decisions are based on our emotions, so taking some time to not ignore the emotions that come up, not pretend they're just, if you ignore them, they'll go away. Not look at them or be so scared of them.

And if they're scary, emotions are scary. They can be big for so many of us. But learning some tools to just stop and pause and say, what's the emotion that's coming up right now? Where is it in my body? Or sometimes you may not, you're like, what does that mean? So it's just is your, where do you have tightness in your body?

Oh, my. Jaw's really tight, or my shoulders are really high, or I'm feeling like I have a stomach ache right now, or a little butterfly. So just what are you even noticing in your [00:21:00] body in all of these money decisions or when you're gonna have a money conversation and giving you some tools, which goes back to my somatic.

 Training. So I'll tell a really short story. The very first night I went to give my first financial therapy class, the very first evening in a little circle in my living room the first night. I'm like, okay, everyone, let's talk about family history and your mom's relationship to money and your dad's, and tell me some positive pros and cons about your mom's relationship to money and everyone just glazed over.

In the headlights. Everyone just shut down. And I thought, what am I doing? I just spent a decade training as a therapist, as a body centered therapist. I'm asking them to talk about their money stories way too fast, way too soon. And I'm not giving them a tool. So the next week I came back and I said, let me teach you a somatic [00:22:00] tool, and we're gonna stop and pause and just check in and say, what do you notice in your body?

 On a physical level, are your shoulders up? Are they down? Is your jaw tight? Is it loose? What's the emotion that's present? Can you name it? Are you sleepy? Are you angry? Are you anxious? Are you feeling some shame to talk about your money stuff? What's coming up? Where's your breath in your body? Because sometimes people are like, I don't know what the emotion is.

But then I'll say, so, where's your breath in your body? Are you holding your breath? Is it up in your throat? Is your breath down in your chest or your belly? So there we all like when we check in with our body, it's different for everyone. You know? Some people go, I understand what you mean on a physical level.

My legs are crossed. What about sensations? Oh, I understand. Hot or cold. Other people might understand what's the emotion? And other people go, oh I can tell you I'm holding my breath. I'm to, I'm holding my breath right now. So we do a little body check-in [00:23:00] like that, and then people either can just be sitting quiet, observing what's going on with them, or we can talk about what's the emotion that's coming up, or I'm terrified to tell you about my money story.

I'm really afraid to be because of this, or I'm really angry still about my money story. I'm still really sad, or I'm still waiting for someone to come and save me. You know, I'm still waiting for someone to come and do this for me. I don't wanna grow up. I don't wanna do this part of life.

 So even just taking some time to pause and say, notice what's happening in this moment. Slow down. What's the emotion? What's going on? For me, that's, that is one tool. I know we're jumping to a tool, but really what this comes down to is that, again, if 90% of your money decisions are based on your emotions, then it would be really beneficial to learn what are the set of emotions that come up for you?

What are the primary ones? Where do you notice some in your [00:24:00] body? And another question I like to ask, what does it remind you of. Yeah, I'll tell a little short story. Okay. And I, so we were years ago. Our Saturday morning with our son, who was four, going to get our coffee and we go to a new place and behind the coffee shop there's a green electric leaf car dealership.

My hus, this is when they were just coming out. My husband had wanted one his whole life since he was a little kid. This was his dream. I was like, we have one car, we don't need a second one. Right? This is, he was like, well, I'm the one who's riding the bike in the snow in the winter, so.

Maggie: Touche, Touche. 

Bari: And next thing you know, we're in the car dealership and we're, you know, meeting with the sales guy. He's asking us if we wanna take a test drive, we do a test drive, we come back and all of a sudden I notice. That I'm starting to like having trouble breathing. I'm starting to notice my breath is starting to go up the top of my head.

So I go honey [00:25:00] and car salesman guy, I'll be right back. I go to the bathroom and I do a little body check-in. I call this a body check-in. So this little tool of how to work with your emotions. Name them, sit with them, understand them, and then move on Is a body check-in.

So I go to the bathroom 'cause the bathroom. Great place. You know, you can splash water on your face. You can take a few deep breaths and just ask yourself, what's going on? What am I noticing in my body? And I noticed my breath was going up high. I was starting to hyperventilate a little bit, so I just said, Hi, anxiety, hello, breath hyperventilating a little bit. What's going on? And I just noticed what was going on. I felt it a little bit, I named it and they said. And then I ask myself, what does this remind you of? Oh, it reminds me of, I really don't like fast money decisions now. This was years ago, right?

But I really don't like fast money decisions and I'm just thinking about my parents' audit [00:26:00] from years ago and that, so we never know what's gonna come up. It's, I just did a little work in the bathroom, a little body check-in, and then I was able to say, okay. That's okay. That's good. Now what do you need to do?

I need to just see if I can get my breath down a little bit. Take some deeper breaths in the bathroom. All right, now what's next? Okay, next. I'm done with my body. Check-in in the bathroom. I don't need to stay here forever, but I've done thousands of body check-ins. So the first time you do it, you might be like, I'm hyperventilating and I can't calm myself down.

That's okay. Right. Second time it might be a little different third time. So whenever I finish a body check-in, I always ask myself, what is one little adjustment can I make right now to help me feel more okay right now? Or more calm? So in the bathroom it was, can I take some deeper breaths? Can I splash some water on my cold water on my face?

And then I said, what's next? What do I need now? I'm gonna go out and have a money day with my husband. In the car [00:27:00] dealership. So I went out, we wound up sitting and having a 10, 15 minute money date. We made up questions on the spot. Money date questions can be, can we afford this? Do we have the cash flow for this right now?

 Is this decision in alignment with our values? Will this decision hinder a larger goal of buying a home? So we just had a money date in the car dealership made the best decision we could and drove off the lot and we bought the car that day and that was that. But I needed that body check-in.

I needed to see what's going on, give my body and emotions a little bit of attention, do some work in the bathroom, come out, and then we get practical.

All right let's make some practical decisions here and have a little money date. So that's one of the ways that I do it. In day-to-day real life moments that happen all the time so it's not like one day the money motions are just gonna disappear, but the volume can decrease. You can [00:28:00] catch them quicker.

You can feel you are equipped with some tools to meet these big emotions that come up in all of these moments,

Dr. Barb: Yeah. What's interesting is. Your husband's approach to getting the car was quite different than yours, right? And so often when we're in relationship, we don't talk about what's your approach to money? You know, what's of value to you? Like my favorite question is, how much money bari would you go ahead and spend if you were out with your girlfriends without calling your husband and saying, I'm thinking about buying this purse.

It's $2,000, you know. Are you okay with that? Or do you just say, no, I'm gonna just do this. It's fine. He won't have a problem with it. Like, is there a number? Is it $500? You know, so I think approach to money when you're in a couple is very interesting,

Bari: So this is one of my favorite topics. [00:29:00] It's one of my favorite topics. 'cause no two people come together, even if they come from the same economic class. Then in, in how they then approach money, right? So we fall in love for attraction, but we also fall in love because our values are the same on the surface, right?

 Guess what? At some point we realize we're different or we spend money differently or we do money differently. We have different styles and approaches. So with couples, one of the first things is just guess what, at some point you're gonna be horrified that your partner is different than you I try to bring in some lightness 'cause it's so heavy, you know, with couples, right? They can have a great relationship, but money is where they fight. ' cause their styles and approaches and you know, and so, but couples polarize a lot. One person is more this. Bender I'm simplifying one's more the savor.

I'm just, we go to extreme. One person sticks their head in the sand, right? Doesn't wanna have anything to do with, ignore it. The other person is more the warrior or more hypervigilant. I can go on and on, or [00:30:00] one person feels they're the smarty pants because they got the finance degree and the other person maybe is more creative like me from their background and feels like I feel more stupid around money.

 So that's just one little thing. I teach couples how to have a new kind of money date and a new kind of money conversation and couples can be five years in, 10 years in, 30 years in. How do you start to have new money conversations with each other? Even just saying to your partner, Hey honey, can we have a five minute or 15 minute money date right now?

Or can we schedule it even instead of you get the credit card bill? And you're horrified by the way your partner is spent on something that's different than you. And you go running to them and they're in the shower or right before bed. You know, you try to have these conversations. So I'm always saying, let's schedule some money dates, even go out for dinner, go for a walk, go for a hike.

Schedule these, and I teach people how to begin [00:31:00] to talk about money in a new different way. And we don't do numbers like for, we started out with story time, so just tell me about. One of my favorite questions is sib. If you had siblings, how were you different than around money? Meaning my siblings, my younger siblings, they were more savers early on and I was more the spender because I just like things and was passionate about things.

So I was the more, like my dad and my siblings were more. You know, like my mom. And so just, even just starting to have like, what was your money role? How were you different from your siblings? What was your, how was your mom's relationship to money? Sometimes we don't even remember, but we'll have an image.

I can remember my mom. Kind of frantically paying the bills at the kitchen table. Or I can remember my parents fighting about money behind closed doors. So sometimes we'll have memories like that. So going back to couples, it's just we weren't taught how to have loving, compassionate conversations with our spouse.

 We're very different. We have different styles and approaches. [00:32:00] Not one way is the right way or the better way. We each have things to learn from each other. So even if you're five, 10 years. Into your marriage, a relationship, you've swept this under your rug and you have habits and patterns and behaviors that aren't working.

 How do you come together and say, this is where you're good with money, this is where you're good with money, or you know? So I start with story time first, and I talk about values next where we're different, you know, and then who's on what, so who's doing the bookkeeping? Who hates the bookkeeping? Who, me and I did our bookkeeping for years, and then as soon as I got pregnant, my husband said, I'm gonna take it over.

I was shocked. I was surprised. I was delighted. You know, he took it over. And then also, the last thing is how do you get on the same team with each other? So I know I'm, but I write about this a lot. Story time, values, getting on who's on what, and then. Making sure you're really on the same team. 'cause the couples, at some point, it feels like [00:33:00] we're not in the same team.

It feels like we're going to war with each other instead of no. What are our goals in life right now? Okay. Even when I was decided I was gonna take the sabbatical, me and my husband had to have many conversation. How is this gonna work financially? We've always been dual households, dual income households, sometimes 50, 50.

Sometimes I was, I made more. Sometimes he made more. Over the last 25 years, we have to talk about it. You know, there are times when he's needed a little transition before he's worked. He's had his own businesses and worked for people. Right. He can do both. I could only work for myself. You need to know that.

And so there were times where he was trying to figure out a next thing, and I, all right, we agreed. He gets six months to figure it out before he has to either get a job or start getting clients again. So we both had to really get on the same team. That we're in agreement. If I take this [00:34:00] sabbatical, then he has to increase his business consulting on his side in a significant way.

Is he ready for it? Is he willing to do it? You know, what's going on? So this is the first time, you know, my whole life that I've been with someone where he's been making more of our income, right? Because it was, as I said earlier, it was always so important. I always say there's one more thing.

There's always many, many more things. But remember I told the story of being in the car dealership and you noticed that we had very different styles. He was ready to buy the car that day. I was, and it really scared me. And then a year or so later, we went to buy a house. And who ran the show? Me We, we bought a home in 36 hours and I.

Something had changed in me and I was ready. We showed up in the mortgage broker's office. I had, we had all our numbers, you know, and I, and he was scared. He was really so right. It can change. You have to notice like, what's going on with you, what's going on with [00:35:00] you. So it's not gonna be always the same money story for each of us.

Maggie: I love when people kind of put it in their perspective of like, when you get married, you know, you're life is a business together, right? And so everything is kind of that same goal of, to have like the business grow of. Your house and your finances and those kind of things. And so it is that communication of like it's us two against the world versus like us two against each other to make this business thrive.

You know? And so like even for Barb and I being in business, we're never like yelling at each other what we spend on. It's like trying to understand each other's why and just wanting the business to grow together, you know? And are they always eye to eye a hundred percent of the time? Absolutely not. But like we sit there, we hear each other out and make the best educated decision from there.

 But it's how do you grow that quote unquote business together? Right?

Bari: Yes. And how do you create a space where you can have those open conversations and disagree and have different styles and approaches and different opinions? I had a [00:36:00] business partner for three and a half years, and it's like a marriage, you know, it is like a marriage and we had very different strengths.

 You know, she was great as a financial coach and could have a full client load. And I was great at giving the initial talks and HA and teaching groups, and we wanted to go at different paces and at some point I got pregnant and she sent me a calendar to get my stuff together and I was like I'm throwing up and pregnant.

I don't want a calendar. So, and then we hired someone to help us part ways after three and a half years, and we're still, we did that really. Elegantly, I think. And you know, I just saw her, this is, I mean, 17 years later and she's in town and we were just went on a hike together. So that's again, no two people are gonna have the same style approach.

Pacing. Another thing with couples, they used to take my class together and one of them would listen to all the interviews and do fill out all the [00:37:00] worksheets, and the other person was like tell me one interview to listen to and I'll do that. And you, and that's okay. That's okay. Or one person really didn't wanna do the bookkeeping, but they would come in and if their partner would do the bookkeeping, then they would come at the end of the month and review everything together and see the larger picture and make decisions together.

 So that happens a lot where, or I get a lot of women who come to me and say, my partner's not willing or interested. And I say, okay, you go forth, you do this work, you do this work for yourself. And I can't tell you how many times. That because of the changes to what you, the weirdness that you gain about your own money stories, your own money emotions, your own money patterns, right?

And then all the new things that you learn. Like you might learn a new bookkeeping system on your own, and all of a sudden you what the, you know what the numbers are, you know what the family numbers are. Your partner's gonna at some point, [00:38:00] turn over and look back at you say, what are you doing? Like something's different and you're changing, or even.

 You are learning so much about yourself and you feel more empowered and more confident that even your tone and how you approach your partner, it's different. It's, Hey honey. I'm ready to have that money meeting, now I'm ready to have that money date. Can we schedule that? And the other partner's finally willing just because you ask differently.

 So I see that over and over and over. And I love when women are just, when they're ready, I say, go forth and start doing the work on your own.

Dr. Barb: Well, I was just gonna say, it sounds like what you're sharing with us is how women have shifted their relationship with money emotionally and how things can change for them.

Bari: Over and over and over and over. And I'll tell a story of a couple and how this has happened and, okay, so I worked with a couple and [00:39:00] he had got the, he had the finance degree, so he felt he was the smarty pants, you know, he knew everything. She, at the time was a new mom, a yoga teacher, and. They kept coming to their money dates.

It wasn't even a money date. It was just, they would start fighting, you know, it would wind up in tears. It wind up in screaming and swearing and fighting, and it just. They had no tools. You know, they had no space. And so she said, all right, I found this program. It's financial therapy. We talk about money, emotions.

And he was like, I don't need that. You know, and, but so he felt like his arm was twisted a little bit, but he said, I'll do it for you. I'll join this program, I'll join this work and I'll just see. But there's gonna be nothing for me to learn here. You know? I know everything and I'm the best teacher for you.

And what they learned is he learned that, guess what? In his [00:40:00] finance degree, they never talked about money psychology or money emotions or what's your money story. And so he did some deeper work around, guess what? He had his own money, emotions. He also grew up in a communist country before coming to the US he had some money, story work and family stuff to learn about and grapple with and some challenges and things he's had to overcome.

 and so he realized he's not the best teacher for her. Which was huge. He's not the best teacher for her. You know, he doesn't know everything. 'cause he kept whipping out the Excel spreadsheets during these meetings and she was like, get them away from me. I don't wanna see the numbers.

That spreadsheet terrifies me. well, she was just so grateful that he was willing a bit to, you know, come and do his own work and talk about money, emotions. She realized. That she needed, not an Excel spreadsheet. She wanted to learn how to use Quicken, not with him, [00:41:00] with someone else.

Like she got a different teacher to hold her hand, you know, with the chocolate breaks and all that. And she learned Quicken. She felt so empowered by that. So she just needed. To do it different than him. She needed to be more creative. I have lots of creative ways in my program that I teach people. I have people rename their categories to make it more fun and meaningful.

 I, there's a lot of that in my book and people love that. She, so she learned Quicken and it was so incredibly empowering for her. So she got a handle on the numbers, the family finances. I mean, she wound up going from being a yoga teacher, which is wonderful. To. Then what was the next thing she did?

But she eventually, she's a financial planner. She's a financial planner.

Dr. Barb: Yeah, heard these stories before. It's incredible. Right?

Bari: she's a financial planner. So again, it's not like her money motions just went away, but they found a way to have a new [00:42:00] kind of money conversation. They created a space where whether it was going out for dinner. Over a glass of wine. If you're drinking, you know, if you're not drinking wine, don't do that.

But, or on walks or whatever it was over the kitchen table to have a new kind of money conversation where he got to talk about his strengths around money. She got to talk about hers. They talked about their stories, their differences. And they just learn so much in that process and still have money dates, still have couples, money dates.

It's totally changed. So it went from fighting, swearing, arguing, crying. I can't say you're never gonna cry again around money. You know, if you learn these tools and stuff, of course you will. You know, the, when I got audited, I went to mail mailbox, you know, five, five years ago, and I had like seven fat envelopes from the IRSI

I didn't cry, but I went into like a full shutdown and freeze and for a week or [00:43:00] two until I realized, oh. I'm terrified. Oh, and I'm pissed, and oh, I'm, you know, so when there's a new money challenge, you're still gonna have big money, emotions to work with. But when you learn how to have more compassionate, loving, open conversations with yourself, with your partner, when you learn, oh, I can do that body check-in thing.

 That Bari talks about before I'm gonna go to the car dealership, or before I'm gonna have a money day with my spouse or my kids, or my teenagers or my parents, or I forget to have the body check-in before, but in the heat of the moment, I'm gonna take myself to the bathroom to do a body check-in. Or if I'm doing online shopping, I.

Pause and go, what am I doing? Do I really need this? Am I really hungry or thirsty, or something else going on here? So the body check-in can happen before these hard money conversations or decisions during it, even after as a debriefing, like, [00:44:00] oh, I just walked out of the mall with three bags. I've closed.

What just happened? Let me learn from that. What can I do different next time? What am I feeling? What was going on with me? So the Body Check-in is one of those tools for couples, for individuals to keep practicing daily.

Maggie: I think that story of the couple is a great example of like not every tool works for everybody. You know, the Excel spreadsheet used Quicken, you know, not just like I'm trying to be difficult and do something different, but like we see things in such different ways, especially if you're more of a creative or an analytical or how you plug things in.

And so, I mean, now. Got thousands of apps. I mean, pick which one. You know, me, I've tried 'em all. You know, that's part of the wanting to try everything, you know, which not always helpful, but you have so many options out there. And so you've gotta find what works for you. And it might not be the first thing that someone shares with you or teaches you.

It doesn't mean like. I'm bad at money. It's like, great, that tool not for [00:45:00] us. You know? Let's try the next one. You know, we'll just keep trading 'em in and out. Bari, I would love to kind of learn now what are you doing post sabbatical? What are we leaning into? Are we gonna get back to group coaching or new projects? 

Bari: I think I'm still gonna pause from teaching. 

Maggie: Yeah.

Bari: Yeah, I think, that's the plan is that's still gonna be on Hi hiatus. I needed a break and I think I'm gonna continue with a break, but the one thing I did get very clear about is that I am ready to create an imprint. And a lot of people are like, what's an imprint?

And imprint is, you know, as I mentioned, I had two published books with traditional publishers and. Now I'm ready to self-publish. So I have so much content from 25 years of teaching and literally, you know, I used to create handouts that every time I taught I was like, I learned something new from the students, from the group or what's working, [00:46:00] what's not.

 So all my online content, I feel like there, there's so many interviews and handouts and worksheets. So. I'm gonna create what's called Tiny Books. I mean, it's like a hundred pages and the first one's the Money Emotions Handbook. So I'm saying that for the first time, and we're working on that one now.

And so it's going to, of course, include. Some of the content that I've been teaching for 25 years, but we're gonna give it a fresh look. And the woman I'm working with we're doing things in a new way. We're gonna have a glossary of all the different money, emotions we're gonna have, descriptions, we're gonna have a glossary of all the somatic tools or.

 Things to do after you've checked in with your body. And what is one little adjustment that I can make right now to help you feel Okay? Lots of ideas there. So it's, the content's gonna be different. It's gonna be different in these tiny books. So I'm gonna be launching financial therapy press the fall, and with three books.

And then probably [00:47:00] some products too, because for money dates, I've always like to make that more creative and interesting and let your candle and eat your chocolate and, you know, do whatever you need to do to make it more inviting or to create rituals around it. So this is the financial therapy press is what's coming.

 That is certain. I think I'm gonna open up some private sessions again. But do the offering a little different than before. So that's on the horizon. And you know, I have a, I'm an older mom. I had my one and only son at 40, as I mentioned. He's graduating high school in four weeks and then going to Japan for a gap year, and then New York City.

And so there's just. There's a lot of, you know, large transitions happening and with me being 57 and yeah, just, just needing [00:48:00] to move into the next life phase. Yeah.

Maggie: Yeah. I love that. And I think you've shared so many great stories and tips today. I mean, I love when people share stories 'cause you can really see how that applies to your own life and all those different things. So I think this is gonna be a great listen for our audience and we want more details of when your books come out so we can add those to the show notes later just so people have those resources to go to.

But there is a question, you know, we'd like to ask all of our guests. And so to kind of to wrap up, what does financial freedom mean to you personally?

Bari: That's always such a interesting word, freedom for me. Even the tagline of my book, the Art of Money, A Life Changing Guide to Financial Happiness, it's like, what is one word that encapsulates a whole thing? So I don't know how to answer that. I mean, for me. It's more of like, what is a good life?

And so I'm gonna reframe the question a little bit. You know, it's financial freedom. It's what is a good life doing work that you love? Creating a wonderful [00:49:00] livelihood being present with yourself and your family during all these different life phases. And for me, it's adjusting and adapting and fine tuning my business model, you know, at different points along the way.

Like how much I wanna work, how little what my offering. So that financial freedom for me is, I think. Being able to just deeply listen to what life phase I'm in right now with time, energy, money, family and health, and adjusting work life around that.

Maggie: That's awesome. I love it. I love it. Well, this has been such a fun conversation. We appreciate you coming on during your hiatus and sharing your expertise. We can't wait to see where, you know, things grow and go and yeah. Until next time, be financially fearless. 

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