The Day My Financial Identity Died
Life as We See It: Strawberries, Yoga Studios, and the Stories Money Tells About Who We're Allowed to Be
Welcome to the FIRST EVER installment of Life as We See It!
I'm launching this new collaborative series with a topic that sits right at the intersection of survival and aliveness: our relationship with money.
My dear friend Teri Leigh joins me to explore how the stories we inherit about worth and safety can either keep us small or help us remember what it feels like to be fully alive in our own lives.
This isn't your typical personal finance article. It's a raw exploration of how money becomes a proxy for permission. Permission to take up space, to choose what brings us joy, to inhabit our lives fully instead of just surviving them.
But here's where it gets even better: After you read this piece, you're invited to join us LIVE for an exclusive Substack event on Saturday, September 20th at 12:00 PM EST. We'll dive deeper into how these patterns show up, respond to YOUR comments and questions in real-time, and explore what changes when we stop negotiating with inherited voices about our right to be alive and present.
This is your chance to be part of the conversation that bridges personal experience with universal patterns. Mark your calendars—this dynamic, interactive experience will help us all see these themes more clearly.
Ready to explore what happens when two perspectives meet around money, aliveness, and the courage to choose what brings us joy? Let’s dive in, my friend.
Alex...
I have a visceral memory of standing at the farmers market, holding a basket of strawberries that cost twice what I'd pay at Smith's.
These were organic, locally grown, and I knew they'd taste like actual strawberries instead of red-colored water. But some part of me was still calculating whether I deserved to spend the extra $4 on fruit that tasted SO much better (plus reflected my buy-local values) instead of just getting the job done with supermarket fruit.
I had the money in my account.
But my nervous system was treating those strawberries like an indulgence instead of a choice that reflected who I actually wanted to be in the world. I was running calculations that had nothing to do with my bank balance and everything to do with stories I'd inherited about worth, safety, and what happens to people who want things.
Money isn't just about money, is it?
It's about the invisible rules we learned before we knew we were learning them. The way our bodies respond to abundance or scarcity. The beliefs we carry about what we deserve and what safety actually looks like.
Teri knows this, too.
When she locked the door of her yoga studio for the last time, bankruptcy papers signed, she experienced something she didn't expect...
Teri…
I rolled up my yoga mat after my last practice ever.
The yoga studio was empty now, just me and my mat on the glorious beautiful bamboo floor.
Oh how I loved that floor. (20 years later, I still miss that floor)
It was a good floor that had provided stability, foundation, and structure for my dream come true. It had absorbed the sweat, tears, and footfalls of thousands of yoga students over the past two years.
I loved that floor.
It held me.
And now I had to walk off of it, one last time.
I turned the key in the lock and heard the deadbolt slide home with a soft click.
This was the official end of everything I'd built, everything I'd believed about myself as a business owner, a teacher, a woman who could make her dreams financially sustainable.
Two years of 6am classes and late-night bookkeeping.
That time, my 10-week-old puppy chewed through my internet cable right before class.
The youngest student who offered to mop my floors to pay for classes.
The oldest student who did the full hanuman splits to model to the rest of the class.
And the many times I cat-napped in the massage room cuz I believed that if I just worked harder, cared more, gave everything I had, the numbers would eventually add up.
And they did!
. . . until they didn’t.
When LifeTime Fitness opened the largest facility in the country just two miles away, offering free yoga to all new members in a specially designed mindfulness wing…and the local mega-church preached that my little Yoga Path was un-Christian, attendance dwindled.
My silent partner backed out, and I was left with no other option.
Bankruptcy.
As I pulled the key from the deadbolt lock, instead of the devastating grief I expected, something else happened.
A whoosh of relief..
Standing there on the sidewalk, keys heavy in my palm, I realized that even though I was teaching relaxation and deep breathing every single day, my own nervous system had been holding its breath for months, waiting for permission to let go.
The Financial Identity I Didn't Know I Was Wearing
Before the studio closed, I thought I knew who I was with money.
I was a responsible saver who paid her credit cards before accruing interest.
I color-coded my budget spreadsheets.
And, maaaaybe I was a bit obsessive about money….just a bit.
Opening the yoga studio felt like proof I'd followed in the footsteps of my entrepreneurial family’s history. I had a business plan, an angel investor, and a vision board with pictures of packed classes and peaceful faces.
What I didn't realize was that I operated from the same inherited money story shaped by my Scandinavian heritage.
Work harder, and the money will follow.
Struggle equals virtue.
If it's not difficult, you're not doing it right.
I threw myself into 12-hour days, teaching back-to-back classes, convinced that my exhaustion was evidence of my dedication. When the numbers didn't add up, I worked more. When students stopped coming, I blamed myself for not being good enough, spiritual enough, business-savvy enough.
But, as much as I business-planned and strategized, I couldn’t account for the unknown unknowns. I most certainly couldn’t combat the corporate fitness giant up the road or the denouncing words of the local mega-church pastor.
The Inheritance I Didn't Ask For
The bankruptcy lawyer's office had fluorescent lights that made everything look sickly. As I sat across from him, listing my debts and assets, something became crystal clear: I had perfectly recreated my grandmother's relationship with money.
I'd inherited her scarcity nervous system and dressed it up in wellness language.
Every late-night panic about rent was her voice. Every time I undercharged for private sessions because "people can't afford much" was her belief that abundance wasn't for people like us. Every time I said yes to teaching free classes because I felt guilty asking for money was her shame about having needs.
When I sat down at the conference table to sign my bankruptcy papers, my lawyer said, "This might feel like the end of your world as you know it. And it is. But it's also the beginning of something you can't even imagine yet."
Now, nearly two decades later, I understand why he does what he does for a living. He’s an alchemical money magician, ushering people through a portal to financial change, should they choose to walk through.
Learning to Float
People kept asking when I'd 'get back on my feet', expecting me to get a “real” job, such as going back to teaching high school. But I realized I didn't want to get back to normal. Normal was the version of me who worked too hard and called it passion. That woman had to die.
Fortunately, GiggleBumps had another plan for me, just enough of a life raft to float me through a regrowth phase.
When I announced the studio closing, one of my students asked me to come teach private classes at her house for a group of her friends.
“I’m gonna have to raise my rates. Is $100/class okay?” I asked sheepishly.
“I’ll pay whatever you want to charge. And can I buy all your old blocks, straps, bolsters, and mats?”
A week later, I found myself at the end of her long driveway, pressing a button on a gated keypad asking for entry. I had no idea she was that rich!
“Will you come three times a week?”
I exhaled a deep breath, another whoosh of relief.
$300 per week.
I was gonna be okay.
The Slow Alchemy of Rewiring
The next fifteen years, I learned to inhabit money differently, one tiny choice at a time.
I started paying attention to my patterns with the same curiosity I'd once brought to yoga poses. I noticed how my body tensed when the bill came at dinner. I caught myself when I automatically said, "I can't afford that." I swallowed and retracted myself whenever I deflected compliments about my teaching with apologies about my rates.
I began practicing "financial mindfulness." When a student tried to tip me extra, instead of my automatic "oh no, that's too much," I practiced saying "thank you" and actually received it, while gushing gratitude, even though it felt so wrong. When friends offered to pay for coffee, I noticed the flinch of scarcity that wanted to refuse their generosity and consciously chose to let them love on me.
Each small act of receiving was like strengthening a financial muscle.
Those years weren’t always easy. There were months when I'd think I'd figured it out, only to spiral back into scarcity when an unexpected bill arrived. But gradually, I started noticing when abundance showed up in unexpected ways—a client who tipped extra, a friend who brought dinner unasked, a tax refund I'd forgotten about.
Transformation happens in tiny moments of receiving over rejecting, enough over not-enough, and learning a new language, one syllable at a time.
Full Spiral: The Other Conference Table
Fifteen years after my bankruptcy, I sat at another conference table. This time, I signed mortgage papers for my dream home – three bedrooms, a screened-in front porch, and yes, good hardwood floors throughout. They’re even better than the bamboo cuz they are over 100 years old!
The financial identity that died when I locked that yoga studio door and signed bankruptcy papers was replaced by something I couldn't have imagined: a relationship with money based on trust instead of terror.
Alex…
Reading Teri's story, I recognized something I'd been carrying without knowing it: the belief that financial transformation had to be dramatic, decisive, all-or-nothing. But she showed me something different, that it could be a slow alchemy of tiny choices, each one teaching our nervous system a new language of trust. So…
I bought the strawberries.
And they were sweet, juicy, and I wouldn't have traded them for anything.
I felt my body relax just a little more with each berry I ate, my body remembering what it felt like to simply enjoy something. To be delighted. To taste the literal fruits of choosing aliveness over safety.
Teri's story reminded me that our relationship with money isn't really about money at all.
It's about whether we believe we're allowed to inhabit our own lives fully. It's about the difference between surviving and actually being alive in the world we're creating for ourselves.
Those strawberries were just strawberries. But they were also the taste of permission to be present, to savor, to choose what brought me joy instead of what kept me small.
What would change if you stopped negotiating with the voices that tell you to settle for less than what you actually want?
A Note From Teri
The Path to Financial Freedom
What I've learned through this fifteen-year metamorphosis is that most of us are trying to heal our money stories with the same thinking that created them. We read books about budgeting and manifesting, but we never address the inherited nervous system patterns that keep us stuck in cycles of scarcity and struggle.
We can't budget our way out of inherited trauma,
and we can't manifest our way to lasting wealth.
This fall, I'm offering a 9-week journey called Abundant Money Mindset—a program that combines the spiritual work of healing inherited money patterns with the practical work of building real financial stability.
Applications are now open for a small group of people ready to do both the inner healing and the outer work on the path to financial freedom.
If you are interested in learning more about the program, you are invited to learn more here:
About Teri
TeriLeigh is a grounded mystic who helps sensitive souls embrace their spiritual gifts without losing their real-world footing. With over 30 years of experience, she's taught 200,000+ students and worked one-on-one with 2,000+ clients as a spiritual mentor, chakra expert, and creator of the MindfulSense method.
Known for her rebellious approach to wellness, TeriLeigh challenges conventional spiritual teaching by making mystical concepts accessible through plain language and embodied practices. She believes your sensitivity is spiritual intelligence, not something to fix. Her synesthetic gifts allow her to translate complex energetic experiences into practical tools for nervous system regulation and emotional healing.
From bankruptcy to abundance, divorce to deep love, TeriLeigh writes with vulnerable authority about the messy, beautiful journey of spiritual awakening in midlife. She lives in Minnesota with her husband "Hobbit" and their wonder corgi, Tosha, turning everyday moments into mindful magic.
About Alex
I’m Alex Lovell — political psychologist, yoga therapist, and writer.
Lived homeless. Been divorced. Survived a seven-car pileup with a semi. Fell in love with questions that don’t have easy answers. I’ve met a lot of thresholds. Even the one before death.
These days, I split my time between research, writing, and holding space for people figuring out who they are after everything shifted.
This Substack is where I make sense of things out loud.
I write for people in transition — between roles, beliefs, relationships, selves.
The ones quietly wondering, “What now?” but allergic to one-size-fits-all answers.
Sometimes I quote research. Sometimes I quote my own nervous system.
One speaks in data, the other in sensation. I’ve stopped choosing sides.
Free subscribers get weekly articles and insights (sometimes twice a week!). Paid subscribers get the Thursday Offerings, seasonal companion pages, post-nidra audio, and live slow sessions. Join me?
Oh my gosh! This is the best example of a collaborative article you both and you inspire me so much!
It's been the same with me about money. Tiny tiny choices adding up. Not feeling guilty for booking a cab instead of using public transport because I was exhausted. Not feeling shame, and later even demanding from my parents to buy things for me (told myself it's okay because i never let them pah when we go out, and I love receiving from them in tiny ways). Not flinching when I've to depend on my husband during low business months.
It's been one step at a time. One day at a time.
And this post made me feel seen than ever before! So thank you thank you thank you for this!
I was raised with a scarcity mindset, as was my husband. Somehow we have managed to operate from an abundance prospective. Where there times when money was tight in a 40+ year marriage? Yes.
But even then my hubby still insisted we focus doing what was needed, even in times when less income was coming in. (And no, that did not include running up debt on credit cards.) What was making gifts, rather than buying a bunch of tat for big bucks.
It meant staycations instead of expensive vacations. It meant playing board games with the family, or having a video night in, instead of going to the movies or out to dinner.
It also gave space for building relationships with each child and learning to genuinely have fun together.
Congratulations on your launch of "Life as We See it"!