You can be highly capable, deeply caring and good at your work — and still feel a wave of dread when you open your banking app.
You might earn a reasonable income yet struggle to send invoices, increase your fees or spend money on yourself.
Perhaps you work harder whenever finances feel uncertain. Or you find yourself agreeing to financial arrangements that leave you feeling resentful.
Sometimes the way we relate to money has less to do with what we know and more to do with what we've experienced.
Money can become a mirror for our relationships with safety, responsibility, belonging and self-worth.
And when trauma has shaped those relationships, its influence may appear in surprisingly ordinary financial decisions.
1. Why Trauma Can Change Your Relationship With Money
Trauma doesn't always involve one dramatic event.
Experiences of financial instability, coercive control, chronic stress, neglect or unpredictable relationships can affect how we respond to situations later in life.
Money may become associated with danger, criticism, dependence or having to manage everything alone.
A present-day financial decision can then bring up emotions or physical responses connected with earlier experiences.
Financial psychologist Brad Klontz and researcher Sonya Britt have explored how beliefs about money, sometimes called money scripts, are associated with financial behaviours including avoidance and workaholism.
Their 2012 research reminds us that financial behaviour involves more than practical knowledge.
Of course, not every money difficulty comes from trauma. Current financial hardship, economic pressures and limited access to resources matter too.
Try asking: What does money represent to me beyond its practical value?
2. Four Everyday Money Patterns That May Have Deeper Roots
Some patterns are obvious. Others are easily mistaken for personality traits.
Undercharging and overgiving
You offer discounts, provide unpaid extra time or feel uncomfortable receiving payment.
Perhaps you learned that being caring means asking for very little.
The deeper question may be whether receiving money feels connected with disappointing someone.
Avoidance and shutdown
Bills remain unopened. Financial administration gets postponed.
You know what needs attention, but the task feels overwhelming.
Stress can affect concentration and decision-making, making avoidance more likely.
Spending for temporary relief
After a difficult week, spending may provide comfort, pleasure or a sense of control.
There's nothing inherently wrong with enjoying your money.
But when spending becomes your main way of managing distress, the relief may be followed by regret or shame.
Constant financial vigilance
You repeatedly check balances, worry about future expenses or struggle to spend even when your needs are covered.
Sometimes vigilance reflects real financial uncertainty.
At other times, it may continue long after circumstances have changed.
Try noticing: Which pattern feels familiar, and what emotion tends to appear just before it?
3. Why Capable Women Can Still Feel Stuck
This is something I find particularly relevant for women in healthcare, therapy and other caring professions.
You may be skilled at helping others navigate uncertainty while finding your own financial decisions surprisingly difficult.
The overworking looks responsible.
The people-pleasing looks generous.
The self-sacrifice looks professional.
But competence doesn't automatically protect us from anxiety, shame or longstanding relational expectations.
Bessel van der Kolk's The Body Keeps the Score and Gabor Maté's The Myth of Normal have influenced my interest in understanding distress within the context of lived experience, relationships and bodily responses.
My professional training, including Linda Thai's Certificate in Somatic Embodiment & Regulation, has also deepened my appreciation of the connection between awareness, regulation and choice.
These perspectives inform my work without assuming that trauma explains every difficulty.
Try asking: Am I making this decision because it genuinely works for me, or because I feel responsible for keeping everyone else comfortable?
4. How Trauma Can Affect Money in Relationships
Money moves between people.
We earn it, share it, give it, receive it and make decisions about it together.
That means financial situations can activate familiar relationship patterns.
If conflict once felt dangerous, you may avoid discussing shared expenses.
If you learned that love must be earned, you may feel compelled to rescue others financially.
If money was previously used to control you, relying on another person may feel especially uncomfortable.
Sometimes these are the relational patterns I describe as wearing a money costume.
The immediate issue appears financial, but questions about safety, trust, power or belonging may also be present.
Try asking: What feels most difficult about this money conversation ~ the numbers, or what might happen between us?
5. What Money Trauma Therapy May Help You Explore
A trauma-informed approach doesn't begin by assuming your behaviour needs fixing.
It begins with curiosity.
What happens when money comes up?
What experiences might have shaped that response?
What practical circumstances need attention?
And what would help you respond with greater choice?
Depending on your needs, therapeutic work may draw on relational approaches, EMDR, Brainspotting, somatic awareness or parts-informed exploration.
EMDR has established evidence for PTSD, while evidence specifically supporting these approaches for money-related difficulties remains limited.
The aim isn't to promise a particular financial outcome.
It's to explore the emotional and relational experiences that may be making money decisions harder.
Try asking: What would I like to be able to do differently with money, even if some discomfort remains?
6. Safe Enough, Good Enough and Worthy Enough With Money
My Enoughness framework offers three ways to begin.
Safe Enough With Money
I don't have to solve everything while overwhelmed.
Perhaps the next step is opening one financial email rather than confronting every outstanding task.
Good Enough With Money
Being responsible doesn't mean being responsible for everything and everyone.
Perhaps you can recognise where you've taken on more financial or emotional responsibility than is yours.
Worthy Enough With Money
My needs, limits and right to receive don't depend on pleasing everyone.
Perhaps you can name your fee, ask for support or make a considered purchase without treating someone else's disappointment as proof you've done something wrong.
These aren't rules to master.
They're gentle questions to return to when money feels emotionally complicated.
7. What Change Can Look Like in Everyday Life
Change isn't necessarily dramatic.
It might mean sending an invoice without days of hesitation.
Opening your accounts with less dread.
Pausing before an impulse purchase.
Discussing shared expenses without automatically giving in.
Or recognising that a financial problem needs practical support rather than more self-analysis.
Sometimes therapy may be helpful. Sometimes you need an accountant, financial counsellor, legal advice or changes to your circumstances.
Often, both emotional understanding and practical action matter.
If you're experiencing financial hardship, Australia's National Debt Helpline provides free financial counselling.
A healthier relationship with money isn't about never feeling afraid. It's about having more choice in how you respond.
Money Is More Than Numbers ~ But the Numbers Still Matter
If you've recognised yourself in these patterns, you don't need to decide that everything is trauma.
You can simply become curious about how your experiences, relationships and current circumstances influence your financial choices.
Perhaps you begin by noticing what happens before you avoid an invoice.
Perhaps you practise saying no.
Perhaps you ask for support.
Safe enough to begin. Good enough to be imperfect. Worthy enough to have needs.
A different relationship with money can grow from those small moments.
Explore Your Relationship With Money
If you'd like to understand how financial pressure, bodily responses and earlier experiences may intersect, my reflective guide Money, Safety & the Body: The Missing Link offers a place to begin.
Explore Money, Safety & the Body: The Missing Link
I'm Sonia Skewes, an Accredited Social Worker (AASW) and integrative trauma-informed therapist offering online therapy across Australia and in-person sessions in Penguin, Tasmania.
My work draws on Relational-Integrative EMDR, Brainspotting and other integrative therapeutic approaches.
Related Reading
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12 Signs Money Stress Lives in the Body — Recognise the physical and emotional signs of financial stress.
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Why Does Money Stress Feel Physical? — Understand why money can trigger bodily stress responses.
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What Money Trauma Therapy Can Change — Explore the Enoughness framework and possible therapeutic pathways.
