Book Review: It’s Not Your Money by Tosha Silver

I’m curious, what feelings come up for you when you read the title of Tosha Silver’s book, It’s Not Your Money? Do you scoff or disapprove? Are you intrigued? Perhaps something else entirely comes up for you, or a mix of both. Today’s book review is focusing on a book that deals with a popular topic on this blog: money mindset.

However, Tosha Silver’s background is not as a money coach or bookkeeper (like myself). Her works originated from her love for and desire to share yogic philosophy. Her unique background gives this book a powerful spiritual charge. This book was an excellent and insightful read. Here are my top three takeaways:

#1: We’re Not In Charge

The title of this book is central to its philosophy. Throughout, Tosha tries to communicate that we alone are not in charge of what happens. She encourages the reader to “release doership,” embrace surrender, and give everything over to Love. Specifically, she speaks of Divine Love, her vision of a higher power. She suggest surrendering over to this power.

Now, if you’re reading this and raising your eyebrows, I get it. Surrender is nice and all, but applying it to your money in our competitive and driven world is no small feat. However, this book makes a wonderful case and provides a clear framework for doing just that. Much like Lyne Twist’s The Soul of Money, this book encourages us to see money like water – just a part of the flow in the universe.

This piece of the book was interesting for me to read. It reminded me of some other money mindset work that I have read and written about, which emphasizes the importance of releasing financial anxiety and other money baggage. Surrendering the care of our money and our wellbeing over to Divine Love is also, probably not coincidentally, a great way to release financial anxiety.

#2: Language Matters

During the book, Tosha outlines a 5 step process. One of these places great emphasis on the language we use around money. Specifically, she encourages us to examine the language we use around our financial situations. Another piece of this process also delves into working with prayers and affirmations. She introduces “Change Me Prayers,” which are meant to help the reader give up who they used to be to the Divine, in order to allow for change. Here’s one of these prayers below:

“Change me, Divine Beloved, into one who fully trusts that all true needs are always met through your bounty. Let me surrender and allow You to be my Source for All. Let me breathe, relax, and let you lead. I am safe. I am peaceful. All needs will abundantly be met. I am Yours completely.”

Isn’t that prayer beautiful? Definitely not your typical money mindset work! As a fellow lover of affirmations and an appreciator of words, I deeply resonated with these elements of her approach.

#3: Make Space

Another piece of this 5-step process is decluttering. Tosha invites the reader to “let what needs to go, go, so that what needs to come, can come.” This is an exercise in detachment, another theme running throughout the book. She writes, “Detachment is not that should own nothing, but that nothing should own you.”

As a Marie Kondo fan, this was not necessarily a new concept for me, but an exciting one nonetheless. In the past, I’ve talked about reviewing and refreshing your finances occasionally. The idea of incorporating an emphasis on decluttering and detachment is exciting and something I just might try out!

In sum, this book was an excellent book about money mindset work with a deep spiritual emphasis. I’d recommend this book not only for folks interested in money, but also for those less interested, too! The spiritual emphasis makes it inviting for those who tend to eschew material focus.

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How to Use Affirmations to Transform Your Relationship With Money

Speaking your desires aloud holds real power. In my last post, we talked about a couple exercises that involved saying something aloud and recording the emotional sensations that came up. Now, let’s dive into the world of money affirmations. We’ll explore how they counter our internal self-talk, how they work best, and dealing with your own resistance.

Contradict Your Money Recordings

Affirmations are meant to contradict the money stories you’ve recorded in your brain. Often, your beliefs about money come from past adverse experiences, or people who told you discouraging things. For more ideas on how to dig into your past and discover the roots of your money recordings, read “How Your Relationship With Money Affects Your Finances (and What You Can Do About It)”.

Once you’ve identified the early sources of those money beliefs, you can use that information to pick the affirmations that will work best for you. The negative things you regularly tell yourself about money that you might have been dealing with from a young age are the areas you need to work on. Affirmations are excellent tools to use!

For example, let’s say when you were growing up, you were taught that money was the root of all evil. If you want to work on this area, you might choose an affirmation like “Money is a benign resource.” Choosing an affirmation that directly correlates to where you need healing will increase its transformative power.

 Transformative Words

Affirmations work by creating new positive stories about money . They help you rewire your brain and create new neural pathways. They also put your attention on money in a positive way, which can naturally lead to proactivity around your finances.

You will likely find this benefit of working with affirmations has a cumulative effect. You can experiment with this by working with an affirmation for 30 days. Choose one that’s specific to a money issue you’re dealing with. Write down exactly what your situation is like when beginning the experiment. At the end, write down again what the nature of the situation is now, and note the differences. Any changes that result are likely due to actions you’ve taken, even small ones, during the 30 days. The positive light that money affirmations shed on your finances can be enough to help you create transformative change.

Facing Resistance

You may notice that when you work with money affirmations, they activate your resistance. This is especially true if you’re using affirmations to contradict old money recordings. When this happens, it’s good to notice those feelings. What does that resistance bring to the surface? You can decide to delve into those feelings to see what healing needs to be done there, or you can stick with the affirmation a couple more times, just trying it out and letting yourself feel all the feelings that come up.

If you enjoyed this quick guide to affirmations, you might like to read my free e-Book, 9 Secrets to Financial Self Care, which provides you with nine more practices to help you incorporate financial self care into your work and life.

☮

Angela

Image by  Erriko Boccia 

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