Intro to Ancestral Financial Planning
We must look, analyze, understand, and forgive. Then as quickly as possible, chuck it
Marianne Williamson
Last year was heavy!!! It was hard for us to even think about our money. Myself included. The other day I was listening to Beit Simkin, my woo woo Ally in the fight and thought it was time to write a post about a portion of my book.
In this blog post we will talk about Ancestral Financial Planning. The rationale behind this conversation is derived from countless women that I’ve worked with young and old, it’s the reason why I started writing a book, and jumped into financial industry. There is a huge disconnect between being a woman/ woman of color, trauma, and money.
Trauma
Trauma is the aftermath of a terrible situation or it be subtle like when someone says “oh you must be smart because you’re Asian” or “All black girls are good at dancing.” Our trauma or neglect of trauma has affected us to where we are today. Dr. Mark Epstein, author of The Trauma of Everyday Life explains that we have traumas that are explicit such as loss of death, accidents, or abuse. Those shake us to the core. Some of our traumas are subtle, “emotional deprivation of an unloved child.” And it is hard for most people to know what to do about it. . . It’s rare for someone to get through life without experiencing trauma. Traumas for every bodies Mommas.
As someone who has one toe in the tech/finance/education industries it’s crazy that ALOT folks in all of these communities past/present don’t really look at the past as a reflection to move forward. We either get stuck and vent about the past or we neglect the past and only focus on the future. All industries have positive intentions, but we if all neglect the past and previous traumas in our jobs, homes, environment and how it effects others it can be detrimental because: our identities, particularly around money, have been carved out by societal, cultural, and individual forces. Our traumas also craft our money identities.
Ancestral Financial Planning looks at the trauma that you’ve experience and sees how our past scenarios dictate our future. It also looks at your families money habits rich or poor, black or white and ask the question ‘okay based off my identity how much of my money habits are mine or how many are traits passed down to me from my mom, ancestry, society?’
Ancestral Financial Planning
Ancestral Financial Planning looks at the trauma that we’ve experience and sees how our past scenarios or habits dictate our future and money. It is very hard for us to look at the past, because most of are BUSY. It’s been estimated that 50 percent of Millennials have a side hustles. We are trying to Live our best life, but we are stuck in the student loan trap. We often get frustrated with our families, because they are not in the same boat and they didn’t know that America would be stuck in a trillion dollar trap. So it’s a lot.
Money is a social construct and it’s important as women to get a bird’s eye view of everything. Creating a bird’s eye view is important because often times we get frustrated with ourselves, and we often blame ourselves for our money problems. And of course, us spending too much on avocado toast is a problem, but it it’s only 0.5 % of the problem. Our society always bared a dirty secret: for centuries, people have been barred by laws through discrimination.
There were countless times where someone who wanted a job, was denied because of their last name. Or they wanted to get into the STEM and people said girls aren’t qualified. A lot of those experience brought fear and trauma to us all even if we weren’t present. These traumas have effects our views on society.
Let’s actually look at an example:
I can remember when I was a kid and I loved to whistle. I’d whistle all day, and I remember one of my family members would say don’t whistle, because a
Whistling Lady and a Crowing Hen Never Have a Good End
So I would stop whistling. Come to find out this is an old Southern Saying. It means that women should not to act like men. It is bad for a women to do what men do. The thought that whistle is a masculine is interesting and it had a very negative connotation. Something bad if we act like men; perhaps we will even be punished”. Not only is it a Southern thing, but in Irish Culture they would say “A crooning cow, a crowing Hen and a whistling Maid boded never luck to a house." So here we have a weird dynamic. Black People and Irish People saying that women should not whistle, but actually they are closely connected.
Side Note: If you know someone whose last name is O’Brien or O’Malley and they are Black, there’s a story behind this.
Around the 1800/1900s Irish and Blacks “commonly found themselves thrown together with black people and the Irish fought each other and the police, socialized and occasionally intermarried, and developed a common culture of the lowly,” According to Noel from the Root. Blacks and Irish folks had worked together side by side in the South, New York, Philadelphia and other northern cities. The problem was when race was in the forefront, many Irish people complained that Free black people took their jobs. Doesn’t this remind us of what’s happening in another community right now? 🤔🤔🤔
The Irish who immigrated to America in the 18th and 19th centuries were fleeing caste oppression and a system of landlordism that made the material conditions of the Irish peasant comparable to those of an American slave.
Societal circumstances have always created duality between gender, race, and class. It also makes sense because we are all connected in this world. The good, the bad, and the ugly.
Our Consciousness through is very relevant to how we live. To scratch the surface of these problems it is essential that we create a bird’s eye view and uncover our how our identities create inequalities based upon our identities and we can start the path of understanding grieving and building.
When do we get to the money part?
Our money habits are far beyond our day to day. For some of us, the gift of having a high paying job is achieving the American Dream, For some us we were told that we should apply to the best colleges and it matter how much it cost, take out those student loans.
Our societal past is still dealing with the same monetary problems that folks were dealing with in the 1900s.
This is the big problem with the finance industry. Myself included. We focus on the act of taking care of our money, but neglecting to see how and why our past creates our money habits.
The good news that there is an emergence of Financial Therapy that is slowly growing traction, looking at the past to create new money conversations. There are tons of money accountability programs that try to flip the switch on our financial habits.
This is also the big problem with DIYing your finances. Yes it is good to start investing and paying down debt, but it’s so much more. It’s planning and understanding that our habits, values, trauma also plays a huge role in our everyday lives. For instance when I am stressed I will purchase a cup of coffee and tackle a “problem.” That is apart of my trauma.
Some of y’all have read this and said girl, you are crazy, but I’m trying to figure out something different when it comes to our money, because a lot of folks aren’t.
