Midlife Butterfly: Self-Discovery, Women Empowerment & Life Transitions

#22 - Healing Money Wounds in Midlife: Reclaim Your Self-Worth, Joy & Financial Freedom with Nadine Zumot

• Kena Siu • Episode 22

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In this episode of Midlife Butterfly, I invite my money coach, Nadine Zumot, to the mic for a radically honest and healing conversation about money wounds, self-worth, and what it really takes to break free from inherited money stories. If you're a midlife woman navigating transitions—like divorce, career shifts, or spiritual awakening—and you're ready to reclaim your joy, worth, and power...this is for you. 💸✨

We go deep into the emotional and somatic roots of money trauma and how healing your relationship with money is a direct portal to rewriting your self-worth, rediscovering your desires, and finally living from a place of freedom and alignment.


What You'll Hear in This Episode:

  • The 4 money patterns that might be quietly running your life (and how to spot yours)
  • Why your money story isn’t just about numbers—it’s about your roots
  • How self-worth and money are way more connected than you think
  • The unexpected ways your nervous system reacts to money
  • A fresh, body-based approach to healing your relationship with money
  • Simple shifts you can start making today to feel safer, freer, and more empowered with money


Connect with Nadine:



🦋 Reflection Questions for You:

  1. Which of the four money blocks—overgiving, underspending, overspending, or avoidance—feels most familiar in your life right now?
  2. What inherited money story are you finally ready to release and rewrite?
  3. If your relationship with money reflected your relationship with yourself…what would need to shift?

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You can find all the podcast details right here: http://midlifebutterfly.ca/podcast

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Join the Midlife Butterfly Community: http://www.facebook.com/groups/midlifebutterfly

For Coaching, Courses & More Visit Kena's Website: http://midlifebutterfly.ca/workwithme

Request a Free Empowered Call with Kena if you're interested in working with her: https://midlifebutterfly.ca/empoweredsession


Song: Reborn by Alexander Nakarada

Kena Siu:

Let's get honest for a second. Have you ever felt shame around money, like, no matter how smart or capable you are, you keep hitting the same money blocks. Maybe you watched your parents argue about it. Maybe you were told it was greedy to want more. Now in midlife, after divorce, a career shift or a reinvention, you're still carrying the weight of those old stories. But what if money wounds Leaving your body and healing them could change everything? Welcome to Midlife Butterfly. Let's dive in.

Kena Siu:

Midlife Butterfly, a woman in the sacred in between. She's not who she once was and not quite who she's becoming yet. She's unraveling, awakening, remembering. She's navigating life transitions, divorce, loss, reinvasion moves, with a burning desire for freedom, joy and solid fly. She's no longer afraid of her own wings.

Kena Siu:

I am so thrilled and excited to have this time the pleasure of having Nadine Sumat, which is a friend and also was my coach, my money money coach, so I am so excited to have you here, nadine.

Nadine Zumot:

So thank you.

Kena Siu:

So Nadine is a certified money coach and somatic practitioner who helped coaches, creatives and mission-driven humans heal their relationship with money so they can earn more, stress less and live out their boldest dreams. Nadine was born in Amman, jordan, has lived in Australia, france and the US. She currently resides in Albuquerque, new Mexico, with her partner, tommy, and their four baby, arby, which is adorable baby dog. Nadine brings deep financial expertise, expertise, lived experience and trauma informed magic to every conversation. Her specialty helping people unfactor money patterns with compassion, clarity and just the right amount of cursing which I love by the her podcast is Un-Fuck your Money, you can have a listen to it.

Kena Siu:

It's going to be added to the show notes. So glad to have you here, Nadine. Thank you so much.

Nadine Zumot:

Thanks for having me.

Kena Siu:

I would like to start first with your story. What brought you to actually become a money coach?

Nadine Zumot:

well, I am just very good at money, but I wasn't always good at money, so I grew up with a lot of scarcity. Money was very scary outside the house and inside the house we had a lot of things happen politically, geopolitically and economically around us in the 80s in Jordan. There were wars everywhere and my dad was very strict and money was used to really manipulate us, to control us. And when I finished university I kind of realized that I cannot escape money, that it's actually going to be that thing that I'm going to have to understand. So, like every other overachiever does, I studied the heck out of it. I studied money. I wanted to just control it, so it doesn't control me.

Nadine Zumot:

So I was in my nine to five I was reading all the personal finance books and, honestly, like my dad was strict with money because we didn't have much of it when we were growing up and he was really strict with every, every, every JD, every like, every cent Right, and he taught me a lot about money.

Nadine Zumot:

He taught me a lot about it, but perhaps in to maybe too much, maybe too much for a little child to learn about that much money, because I grew up with an underspending money block, which we're going to get into later on. Um, and that actually got worse because I left Jordan when I was 23, 24, I went to Australia and I was really on my own. So it was just me and money and I was trying to live my life in the most responsible way. And I was overly responsible and then fast forward. I don't know how many years later maybe 15 years later I started my business and that changed my the whole relationship dynamic with money, because it went from something that I needed to control to something that I needed to kind of allow magic to happen.

Nadine Zumot:

And that is how I started learning about inner child healing and how our early childhood experiences has a lot to do with how we relate to money in our later in life.

Nadine Zumot:

And I dug into all of that stuff and became a somatic practitioner still studying to, you know, to be fully certified in that, but I am, you know, certified to some degree and I this is what I do now.

Nadine Zumot:

I do this full-time, lucky for me I help people unfuck their money, as you put it, as my podcast is called unfuck your money. And I do it in a very holistic way because, um, not only am I happy to help people with the nuts and bolts and the numbers, but I also help people with their relationship with money, as in, like them, money are in a relationship and the relationship coach kind of thing. That's how I would like to say it. So we do inner child healing, we do a lot of emotional literacy, because most of our financial decisions are actually emotional, not logical. Of our financial decisions are actually emotional, not not logical. So I won't be fully holistic if I'm only teaching them about numbers and call myself holistic, right. So teaching them about the numbers, but equally teaching them about how to process emotions, how to talk to their inner child, talk to their different parts and their archetypes.

Nadine Zumot:

And you know that, ken, we covered that a lot inside of my programs and also doing a lot of nervous system work, because a lot of times it's not about how clever we are with money, it's not about willpower, it's really about dysregulation, and we will definitely get into that throughout this episode. Yeah.

Kena Siu:

Thank you. I love how you said, like when you were talking about your story, that you didn't want to allow money to control you, and I think that's such a powerful statement because we are so unaware or at least I was very unaware how controlled I was by money and how it affects.

Nadine Zumot:

I remember, oh yeah. I remember I remember when we started. When we started, that was in 23 2023 and I remember how things shifted very fast for you when we were uncovering that stuff, right, yes yeah.

Kena Siu:

I remember one article yeah, I one of the biggest. Yeah, I remember when we did actually our story about money. That was a very powerful practice that we did that. I guess we can also talk about it a bit later as well, for you know, for people to know what is it. I would like to dive in first with the question to know which is the difference between money block and money wounds.

Nadine Zumot:

I don't think that there's a difference. The word wounds it refers more to trauma, but the word blocks really refers to the behavior I would say. But it's same same but different. Like when I say money blocks, I don't know about other people. A lot of people use a lot of things out there the wild, wild internet, I don't care, but for me, use a lot of things out there the wild, wild internet, I don't care, but for me personally, um, the wound, it refers to the trauma, like what's the under lights, that okay, the, the submerged bit of the ice iceberg, and the block is really the behavioral pattern. But a lot of people, you know, I was talking a lot about money wounds and a lot of people were like I don't know what that is. And when I started talking about money blocks which is pretty much the same, I just changed the word people started relating more so it's just a matter of just changing a word, but really what they both are are protective patterns.

Nadine Zumot:

They really are protective patterns. This is how our nervous system keeps us safe, right, even though they they sound or they can look. To the naked eye they can look like bad money habits, but really they're very protective patterns and the way that we deal with them is very different to the traditional financial systems out there.

Kena Siu:

So, yeah, Yona, I really love your approach. I just said that is a holistic way. I love that so much because, I mean, we definitely are body, mind and soul and we need to take care of all these parts of us while doing this process, because money plays a big role in our lives.

Nadine Zumot:

It's playing a bigger and bigger role. I don't know if it's because we're getting older and we're noticing, or because the world is changing, but I feel like money is becoming more of a thing that can be used to control us. So that's why it's very important to take a step back and take and do a like, have a holistic approach to it. Um, that is going to really heal your relationship with it, so that you can actually be with it. Not in it, if that makes sense. You're not like controlled by it, but where you're actually working with it. Not in it, if that makes sense. You're not like controlled by it, but where you're actually working with it as a companion, as opposed to, uh, the boss.

Kena Siu:

You know what I mean yeah, I know what you mean, yeah and so like.

Nadine Zumot:

Taking a holistic approach will really help you take a step back and assess and actually put down your, your standard, how you want to, how you want the relationship dynamic to be right, instead of just being swept away by the status quo.

Kena Siu:

Yes, and that comes related, I think, a lot, at least for me, money was a lot related to my self-worth, definitely, definitely. So how does actually healing our relationship with money, can you know, can directly impact our self-worth or vice versa? Because, as you said, well.

Nadine Zumot:

Well, restoring our sense of self-worth. It requires multiple components together. It requires defaming. It means that means like releasing the idea that there's something inherently wrong with us. It requires the self-forgiveness, a lot of self-forgiveness, for the way that we cope, for the way that we survive, because we didn't know better. It requires letting go of inherited stories, of letting go of stories that we survived because we didn't know better. It requires letting go of inherited stories, of letting go of stories that say that we're bad, that actually weren't ours to carry in the first place. It also requires reparenting and really learning how to talk to the inner critic, not silencing it, but understanding where it's coming from, to choose a new voice, to choose a better way to relate to ourselves. It requires a lot of nervous system regulation as well, so we can feel worthy in our nervous system, not just like affirm it, you know, in our brain. It also requires that we reclaim our desires, that we actually sit down and say what do I want?

Nadine Zumot:

Because a lot of times, when our self-esteem or our self-worth is low, we don't actually allow ourselves to have desires. Or maybe because of our trauma, because of our past, we were taught that having desires is selfish it's actually not, it's actually sacred and also boundaries. To reclaim our self-worth, we need boundaries and we need to surround ourselves with allies, with people that love us, to be in safe co-regulation and not being judged. So these are the things that I would say people need to start rebuilding their self-worth and once that is happening and it's a practice, right, it's not an every day, not like one and done kind of thing, it's a practice, right, it's not an every day, it's not like one, one and done kind of thing, it's a practice. Your relationship with money is just going to change because you're changing from the inside out and our relationship with money is an internal relationship, it's not just an external relationship. So that's, that's the long answer yeah, no, thank you.

Kena Siu:

It's a beautiful answer. Yeah, and I remember when, when I was in the program with you coming back, when I did the story of my money, my money study, and I noticed that a lot of stuff didn't even come directly from me, they weren't patterns, they weren't heritage, like you know, having a they weren't yours.

Kena Siu:

No, they were not. They were not mine, not mine. I remember, like just by noticing that, well, my grandfather arrived to Mexico from China when he was like 12 years old, so just thinking about that was just like a. It was like a breakthrough for me to understanding, like, okay, so that's why a lot of scarcity mindset patterns and it also came from my mom's family, so understanding those patterns it really helped me a lot and, as you said, because I thought there was something wrong with me and they were like no, it's just you know things that are passing to us without even knowing. So, questioning how our parents and then the people behind them actually had the relationship with money, it helped me a lot to heal yeah, definitely.

Nadine Zumot:

Yeah, I feel like I carry a lot of like misery baggage from my lineage. You know, I don't know for a fact, but I just feel like there's a lot of hard work that was in my lineage, a lot of hard work, and that's probably what I'm carrying as well. That money just comes from hard work, or actually we just need to work hard full stop and like money is just something that's going to be hard as well. Right, like that's probably my own story from my lineage. So it's good to understand what our stories are, what what has been passed on to us and what's not ours to carry yes, definitely yeah, that makes that it makes a huge difference.

Kena Siu:

What are some common money wounds, uh, or blocks, as we said, that show up more, like for midlife women, you know, especially like after divorce or a career shift or a big life change that they may have.

Nadine Zumot:

Okay, so I'm going to tell you the four most common money blocks that I see and that's my industry and then you tell me because that's your industry, yes of what you think are the most common for women in in transition. Okay, okay, sounds good, all right. So from my work, years and years and years of working and you know me, I'm a nerd, so I study things I don't just take, I don't just like look at information, I actually study and I investigate and I go deep inside of everything, I have concluded very safely concluded that we that money blocks come in four forms there's the overspending money block, the underspending money block, the avoidance money block and the over giving money block. So these are the four money blocks and, to answer your question, maybe I'll ask it back to you what do you think is the most common one? I feel like all four of them would be common, depending on the person's money story, the person's circumstances, the person's own past and history with money. I think all four of them would apply, don't you think?

Nadine Zumot:

yeah, I think so life especially the overgiving wound, I think for women especially, regardless of midlife or not or in transition or not, I think the overgiving is just prevalent.

Nadine Zumot:

It's a women thing, yeah, it's a program, it's a thing, yes, definitely, um, the overgiving one is like the most socially acceptable one, because people are like you're overspending, oh no, you need to look at your money. But I think the underspending and the overgiving are the most socially, um, acceptable adaptive mechanisms, because they're all coping mechanisms, they're all adaptive mechanisms for, yeah, to keep to stay safe and, kind of like, survive, right, but um, yeah, so I would say all four of them would apply to this case to answer this question okay, yeah, it resonates a lot for me.

Kena Siu:

The, the underspending, yeah, yeah, because then it's like, okay, we want to have the house and everyone to be okay or whatever. So we tend to prioritize others instead of prioritizing ourselves. Yeah, right, I remember when I was married, like if I would go to a store or something, or if I would travel because of work, I would think first about buying something for him. That for me, you know, so like interesting definitely yeah, yeah, yeah how can childhood experiences impact our relationship with money as an adults?

Nadine Zumot:

It has everything to do with childhood experiences. That's my take is that how we relate to money now has a lot to do with what we've gone through in childhood Not necessarily directly with money, but whatever we've experienced in childhood and how we internalize our sense of self-worth, how we internalize our sense of belonging, our sense of acceptance, what we learned about conditional or unconditional love this all has a lot to do with how we relate to our finances later in life. So you tell me how you finance. I could probably help you connect the dots to your childhood, which I did, by the way. Yes, but that's kind of my jam kind of thing.

Kena Siu:

Yeah.

Nadine Zumot:

Yeah.

Kena Siu:

Hmm, like can you give us, I don't know like an example?

Nadine Zumot:

Yeah, so with your example, you said you've, you had the underspending and the overgiving wounds, right, yeah, okay, so when we did your money history and your money story and all that, yeah, what? How did we go back and how did we link it to your own sense of of everything when you were a kid?

Nadine Zumot:

yeah, oh yeah, it was definitely my, my sense of unworthiness yeah, and the thing is, it's not that your parents I don't think that your parents were like you're unworthy. Some parents do tell their children they're unworthy, but no, it was super subtle with me.

Nadine Zumot:

It's very it's very subtle, right? Yeah, because it's as simple as you go to the shops and you ask for something, and maybe they really don't have the money for it, or maybe you have too much of it. Whatever it is, they say no, but it depending depends on the day and which side of the bed you, you, you woke up on it's, so it's so temperamental, it's for real, though. We can internalize this like oh, my cousin has it and I don't. I must be a bad girl, I must be unworthy, I must be. You know, I don't think we would use the word worthy or unworthy when we were kids, but it must be like something's wrong with me.

Nadine Zumot:

I'm bad, you know so a lot of times, because I would imagine that we all grew up with imperfect parents. They're humans. They might be exhausted, they might be drained, they might be tired, sick, not available anything, or emotionally immature. Let's just put it this way. A lot of what they or how they're related to us relationally is going to tell us a lot about ourselves, right? Yeah, so that also translates into our relationship with money. Let's say you grew up with a single mom, right, your mom had to work all the time, and let's say that you needed her to help you with homework and she's like, oh my God, I'm tired or something. You could internalize this as my needs are too much, and you grow up as a people pleaser. Or you grow up with no needs. I'm somebody that has no needs. And what happens to your money? You just give it to everyone else, right? Like you earn your money and you overgive it. Or you earn your money, you underspend it, like you keep hoarding it and you don't enjoy life because you don't even know what you want, you don't even know who you are.

Nadine Zumot:

But it's not like the one incident. I don't want to scare people. It's usually a bunch of incidents that happen, it's just not the one. Maybe it's the one we don't know, because trauma is very subjective. It's not objective. It's what happens inside of you as a result of what happened to you. So it's not about being overly sensitive or overly anything. It's really how you took things, how you internalize things, how things were presented to you and so on and so forth. It's so like no two people no two people that have the underspending wound, for example, had had the exact circumstances growing up, or no two siblings internalize the same trauma, let's say, because each person die digestion digests things very differently yeah, you know when, when you were given the example I I it reminded me to.

Kena Siu:

I have a cousin, we have the same age and her mom is a single mom, like as we are three, we're three siblings and sometimes you know, yeah, as you say, like I will ask for something, and then probably my mom will say no, no, not now, or whatever. And I remember this very case, I don't know, probably we're like seven, eight years old, something like that we went to this store and then we like this little, like a little booklet, you know. So they said, okay, we're gonna buy them. Of course there were a lot of, you know, with a cover, different designs and whatever, and I finally chose one and she also wanted the same. You know how we are right.

Kena Siu:

And and then at the end, if I'm not wrong, I actually end up say telling her okay, you can take this one, because she used to have like the way my aunt and she still is again, it's a story right, like we need to heal her or we don't heal it anyway. So in this case, like she will over give to her all the time. I guess, because of the fact that she was a single mom, she wanted to give everything else to her right. So she will spoil her to a certain level too. And at the end I remember I just needed to give up the little booklet that I love to, you know, for my casting. So she will be okay because she was having like a tantrum or something, and then I just show something else. But at that time in, I mean, I didn't know how am I gonna know that? You know that my cussing was acting that way because of how my aunt, you know, treated her for being a single mom.

Nadine Zumot:

You're not, you're not meant to know exactly, and she probably didn't know at the time no, of course, and she probably doesn't know at this time.

Kena Siu:

You know, but that's what I mean, like I it's, it's as you said, it's how we internalize or how we interpret the different situations that we experience and then from there, how we think and how we start, as you said, like being the people pleaser or, you know, having all other these other, um, protecting mechanisms or or things like that sorry, I had to turn the light on.

Nadine Zumot:

I was. It was getting really dark in my head. It's nighttime here. Yes, I really resonate with that, because a lot of times what we do is we compare. But we all compare right, Even now we compare. But when we were kids we would compare, of course.

Kena Siu:

Yes, and um, how can we start shifting? You know our little inner critic, or parts? I know I know you call them protecting parts and I love that because I remember when, when we went through the archetypes, it was like just by seeing them as a protected part and understanding that they have a role and it's okay and we have them all in a certain way or another, yeah, and welcoming them instead of rejecting them because they are part of us, yeah, that was very, very, very healing for me, certainly so yeah how can we then start then just shifting that little critic, you know, like saying, oh, I'm not good with money, or uh, as you said before, like I have to, to work hard to be able to have money to start shifting those tough wires you know?

Nadine Zumot:

yeah, in our mind let me tell you something. I, as we're speaking it's it's May right now I am currently putting together a free program. It's a five-day mini course on how to do exactly that, on how to reset your finances, how to reset the way that you think about money, just to shift everything. But by the time this goes live, hopefully I'll have a link to the program in case somebody wants to join it. It really takes you step by step. So the first thing I would say is I can't help you if you're not aware that you have these patterns right. So the first thing is if they're listening to this, they probably are aware that they have something going on, so let's just assume that yes, although I don't want assumptions, but let's just, let's just say so.

Nadine Zumot:

The first thing I would do is I would try to be as close as possible to what my money blocks are. Which of the four money blocks do you resonate with the most? The underspender, the overgiver, the overspending or the avoider? It's usually a combination of a bunch of them, right, but there is going to be a primary one. So we start there, so we uncover what your primary money block is.

Nadine Zumot:

The other thing I would say is you really need to have an aligned cash flow system. We cannot just do the emotional work without the logical work with money. Right, we need to do them in tandem. We cannot just, we can't just do all the emotional work, which I love, but we need to do it hand in hand with the logical work, because the nuts and bolts of money is important. They are very important as well. So you need to find an aligned cashflow system. The one that I teach is the bucket system. I talk you on how to set it up for yourself. In the program you still use it yeah, that's brilliant, yeah awesome oh my god, my work is done.

Kena Siu:

No, it's, it's very useful. I mean just yeah, it is. I've been using mine.

Nadine Zumot:

I set mine up 20 years ago and I never had to change anything. I've moved countries, changed banks. It's the same system. All I need to do is just like copy and paste. It's great.

Kena Siu:

Yeah, the other thing is oh, sorry, can you give a little brief to people to so they can understand what, uh, what is this?

Nadine Zumot:

well, yeah, um, you, basically you know how, if you have a drawer and it's full of clothes and you get these like Ikea dividers and you put these dividers in and then all of a sudden your drawer has like a section for knickers, a section for bras, a section for t-shirts and a section for pants let's just say it's a very big drawer. That's exactly what we do with your finances. You, usually, when people start working with me, their money is all piled up in one bank account. So we um use their journal, use a spreadsheet, whatever rocks their boat. Um, we um uh, kind of like look at their expenses and then we divide the. We divide these expenses into sub accounts within their main bank account. This way, they're not mixing and matching their finances. They're. They know that this money is earmarked for for bills, this money is earmarked for groceries, so on and so forth, and for savings, etc. So it's really a really cool way to organize your finances, and I'm a Virgo so I teach it very well.

Kena Siu:

Yes, I know you do, I teach it very well and you know what I have to say this that, yeah, having those buckets, as you said, just knowing that the money is there, that I'm not going to spend it if I have it in my main checking account, it's a relief it is a nervous system friendly way.

Nadine Zumot:

Oh yeah, definitely definitely yes, the other thing I would also say is to to start, you know, having a better relationship with money is that you need to learn how to set proper money goals. The money goal systems out there are not nervous system friendly. They can be, they can be really sexy or they can be really smart or they can be whatever you want to call them but they're not nervous system friendly. So I developed a system when so I looked at all the money traditional goal setting methods out there and I applied the polyvagal theory on them and I now teach a system that is stress free. So you need to learn how to set goals that are achievable, because that is very healing. When you set a goal for yourself that you can achieve, it is a very, very healing thing that you can do for yourself.

Nadine Zumot:

The other thing is, of course, the inner work. The inner work is inner child healing. It is understanding your emotional landscape, understanding the main emotions that come up when finances are happening, and understanding what are the emotions that you're actually scared of. Because when we're scared of emotions, when there are emotions that are no-no for us, that's when we distract ourselves with, with shopping right. So we need to understand what emotions are okay for us. When emotions are not okay for us. What emotions are not okay for us? What emotions drive us to um, to over overspend, for example, or underspend, and learn how to process these emotions, because every emotion has it's a system, it's a whole like system in your body. You need to learn how to process it out. The other thing I would also say is you need co-regulation. You need, you need a therapist, a coach or a practitioner that is going to take you through, or you need a safe space to kind of digest and integrate all this together. You cannot do this alone.

Kena Siu:

Yeah, I totally agree.

Nadine Zumot:

You agree, I tried even me with my knowledge, me and my training. There are some certain sticky money blocks that I need someone to help me with?

Nadine Zumot:

oh yeah, definitely, because, again, money plays a big role in our lives, like every single day, and if we are afraid, like for me was the scarcity mindset it was just so, so insane that you know like not buying something or using things in less quantity because I didn't want it to run out of them very fast finish yeah, or or like when you, when you like something and you buy it, buy like thousands of it so that you never run out, and then, like a year later, you're like why the hell do I have all that?

Kena Siu:

yeah, that too. Or even sometimes, you know, like, um, I remember what, uh, with my ex-husband, like at one point we would have a budget for, you know, for for the groceries, and then at one point we kept growing in our jobs, we were making better money, you know better quantity of money, and we stood with the same amount of money for budgeting and then we didn't want to spend more in things that we actually wanted to eat and it was like, you know, and that was one of the reasons of our relationship, and I know it came more from my side, that scarcity mindset. But it's just crazy how we limit ourselves by having a bad relationship with money and we stop really enjoying life.

Nadine Zumot:

How did that protect you, though, at the time.

Kena Siu:

That's a good question. I'm full of them. Yes, I know. Question I'm full of them. Yes, I know. How did my scarcity mindset protected me? Yeah, it was a way to feel safe. Yeah, it was really that Because I felt like if I would run out of it, then I would not have enough Then for food or for rent or for you know other things that I needed to cover.

Nadine Zumot:

So there is, and was, some wisdom in that right. There is a wisdom in it, so we cannot poo-poo all over it.

Kena Siu:

We can't. Oh, no, no, not at all. No, no, no, and I know it was there for a reason. Yeah, you know. So, yeah, so, understanding and healing, that it's so liberating it is. Yeah, I understand. Yeah, mm-hmm, that it's so, it's so liberating it is. Yeah, I understand. Yeah, yeah, I don't know if I interrupted you for the steps that you were saying that are going. No, I was done. Okay, I just wanna, I just want to double check that. I just didn't cut you out. Okay, that's good. Yeah, what are some signs that our nervous system is dysregulated when it comes to money?

Nadine Zumot:

well, there's a lot of signs. So what do you know about the nervous system?

Kena Siu:

responses kenna for me was the freeze response the freeze response. Oh yeah, the first response yeah, well for me was the main one, but yeah, I know it was. Yeah, we have the fight or or fight and which I'm missing, one uh, that's okay.

Nadine Zumot:

So our nervous system is wired to protect us, right, it doesn't care about us thriving, it just wants us to survive. And the way that our nervous system protect us, right, it doesn't care about us thriving, it just wants us to survive. And the way that our nervous system protects us is through four mechanisms fight, flight, freeze and fawn. Okay, so the thing is, when money because of our past, when money triggers danger in our nervous system, or if our nervous system is already activated, already dysregulated, we I'm going to use the word misbehave, but it's not really what I mean we act out with money. So in the fight response, our nervous system is activated towards control or even aggression, and that financially can look like hustling nonstop. Our nervous system is activated towards control or even aggression, and that financially can look like hustling nonstop, like you have to earn your worth. It can look like obsessively tracking money or micromanaging every penny. It can look like rage or irritability when we're dealing with money issues. It can look like getting into conflicts about money with clients, with your partner, with your friends, with yourself. I asked a client of mine once like, do you have any arguments with money? And she's like with myself and feeling like, oh, I'm hyper independent, I'm going to figure it all on my own, I don't care, I don't need anybody else. That is signs that your nervous system is in a fight response when it comes to finances, or it already is in fight response and also in in finances. You know what I mean. It's like one thing that leads to the other, the flight response. It looks like the avoidance, that run away from money kind of thing avoiding your bank account, avoiding the bills, avoiding your any emails about money, dissociating or like going away or changing the subject when the topic of money is coming up, overworking or taking too many projects because you're scared. That's a flight response. Always chasing the next big thing, the next big, what's it called? The next big launch or the next big I don't know idea, without finishing anything. Feeling like you're always, like you always have something new pop up. Also being a manifestation junkie, also like always looking for manifestation to come and save you. You're running away like, oh, my god, I can't look at my reality. Manifestation is going to save me, okay.

Nadine Zumot:

The freeze response is when our nervous system is shut down or overwhelmed, and it can also look like avoidance, but it looks different Because the flight response you're actually running away from it. The freeze response is total like you shut down, you're like you're frozen, you dissociate, you're like you're ghosting your money. You feel paralyzed when it comes to doing any financial tasks. You have brain fog, dissociation, even numbness. When you try to budget or plan and you're fine right. But when somebody asks you about money, you just really numb out. You don't know about your numbers, you don't know anything about them. And then we've got the phone response, which is when the nervous system seeks safety through pleasing and appeasing and especially for entrepreneurs, that can look like undercharging or over delivering.

Nadine Zumot:

To avoid conflict and to keep make sure that people like us, maybe we discount our work when we don't really need to or want to. We avoid setting boundaries boundaries especially with like payment plans. Um, when people owe us money, we prefer not to mention it, just because we don't want to like rock the boat kind of thing. So I don't think that we're in one response like I don't. I can't say like you're always in flight response. It's usually a combination of of one or the other, just like I was talking about the money blocks. It's not just like one, it's just usually a combination of them.

Kena Siu:

So yeah, yeah, thank you for sharing that, because I think we're not aware like we usually talk about the nervous system in you know, based on stress or you know at work or something like that. But yeah, definitely, yeah, we don't usually put it into money, into that relationship.

Nadine Zumot:

Yeah, not many people do actually, but it's important to know these things, so I'm glad that you asked no, yeah, definitely, it is important and I can relate to, yeah, the four of them same it was. It was a mix all of all of them. I still relate to them. I mean, we're not perfect, right? We're always doing the work it's a practice.

Kena Siu:

Yeah, it's a yeah, it's definitely a practice and, as you mentioned before, it's about having that awareness to really noticing and because, yeah, I remember one of the things that I learned in and when I was working with you was really sinking into my body.

Kena Siu:

I knew a vague idea about the nervous system by then, and when, yeah, when we started like no start, like feeling it in your body, and I was like, oh my God, like when I will feel like this kind of like tiniest in my chest for, I don't know, having to spend on on something or because I I knew I didn't have enough money or you know. So, learning to, yeah, feel the body, to understand how, how my system was working, and then trying to figure out, okay, what is it that then I have to do or that I can do to then improve the level of whatever I was in the scale. You know, it was very, yeah, it was very healing for me to understand that, because I always put it more like in the mind. It was very healing for me to understand that Because I always put it more in the mind, because I was really like, okay, the numbers, I knew up to every penny. And my mom still tells me that when I was a kid.

Nadine Zumot:

So you weren't really in freeze, you were more in fight. I remember you being, you were fighting me at some point I'm like calm, calm down.

Kena Siu:

I'm not money. Yeah, that's true. Yeah, it was not freeze. Yeah, it was more fight. Yeah, because I remember like having conversations about money. It was a big struggle with me. I will know about every penny and, yeah, I will have also discussions in fights in my head with money. Yeah, it's very interesting how we function as human beings. Definitely, yeah, yes, can money trauma live in our body?

Nadine Zumot:

Where else is it going to live? Do you think it lives in the brain? It doesn't live in the brain.

Kena Siu:

It lives in your body. Where else is it going to live? Is it? Do you think it lives in the brain? It doesn't live in the brain, it lives in your body. Probably that's why I probably that's what I'm asking that, because I thought it was in my mind, even though now I just said yes yeah.

Nadine Zumot:

So as the saying, as the buzzword says these days, the body keeps the score. Yeah, your, your money trauma, your money blocks. They live in your body and that's why I can. I combine somatic healing with um, with money coaching.

Kena Siu:

I think it's a beautiful, magical combination and you give us an example, in that case, of what you do as a somatic work with healing our money wounds so you know when you mentioned that you would have arguments in your head about money yeah I would probably in that case and we probably did that many times is that I would slow you down and help you kind of tap into your body and sense into where you actually feel that.

Nadine Zumot:

Where do you actually feel that sense of fight? And the body will reveal things. I, you know, I cannot tell you now what happens, because there is like a third force between me and you. There's like a third thing that happens and it's usually the body just tells us a story. You're, let's say, you can feel that fight in your hand, or you could feel that fight in your chest, or you could feel that as like this explosion in your, in your belly. We'll go there and once we tap into that, a story will come up and that's what.

Nadine Zumot:

When we start doing the somatic release yeah, it's. I cannot say exactly how it happens, because it's I've done this a million times and every time well, not a million thousands, honestly every time it has a different outcome or a different story, a different release, a different. It's just amazing what the body can hold and how, when you learn or when you work with someone that knows how to teach you to speak to your body, how to speak to your younger parts, you can really unravel and liberate yourself from a lot.

Kena Siu:

Yeah, yeah, you can really unravel and liberate yourself from a lot. Yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely. I remember a lot. We did a lot of inner work. Yeah, that little child needed to be heard. I remember that. Hell yeah, what are some powerful yet practical first steps that we can start doing to heal our money wounds?

Nadine Zumot:

That is what I was saying, that's the program that I'm going to be running, that five-day program. So really understanding that we have blocks, what the blocks are? Creating a cash flow system, doing the inner work, setting achievable financial goals and doing things with people in celebration, celebrating the small wins, but also like healing with people as well. So co-regulation, that's my standard. Like these are the five steps that you know we don't do them in sequence, but these are the five things that need to happen to start unraveling our survival responses, to start resetting our relationship with money to where the dynamic is healthier okay I sound like a broken record but honestly it's not.

Kena Siu:

It's nothing fancy, it's just yeah, no, uh-huh, no, yeah, and it makes sense. It has to be all of those together. Yeah, that's, that's yeah. That's the only way you cannot put the. It's, as you said, as you mentioned at the very beginning, it's a holistic approach. We cannot just work on one thing, because it's too many things at the same time.

Nadine Zumot:

It's definitely definitely yeah, yeah, and you got to do the work. There's no, I mean there's. I'm not going to be the one that's going to tell you it's going to be easy. And if somebody is going to tell you you can do it in, like I don't know, three months, whatever they promise you out there in the wild, wild internet, it's going to be long and it's going to be. It's going to take years to. If you really have a lot of money blocks, it's going to take years. It really is. It might. It doesn't have to be painful if you know it can be very enjoyable. We had a great time in our program.

Kena Siu:

Yes.

Nadine Zumot:

But it's. It's going to take a while and it's a practice. What I mean by a practice? I don't mean that you have to practice it. I mean just like you don't finish yoga. It's not like you know a game on the internet of like on on your computer. When you finish it and you get the princess and you're done. It's like yoga. You always will do yoga. It's the same with money. You will always, always have a holistic money practice if that is the type of approach that you want to take with it yeah you know what?

Kena Siu:

I want to mention something when we were on the program. Uh, because I remember from my side was the scarcity mindset, and I remember there was another person that she struggled with her money relationship because she had a lot of money in her family. I remember, yeah Right, so it's incredible how it works either side. So it doesn't matter. I do think that all of us, we gotta improve the relationship with money, so it doesn't matter if we have, if people had a lot of money or have less money or had never had money like all of us. It's, it's a relationship that we really need to, to heal, to live better that's what I always say.

Nadine Zumot:

I'm very good at money. It's not because I'm rolling in it, it's because I know how to hold fifty50 or $50,000 or $500,000. Like they don't freak me out. That is what it actually means right now, in this day and age of like overwhelm.

Kena Siu:

Yes, yeah, this has been brilliant, nadine. I really appreciate all your wisdom and your life experience brought in here. Thank you. I don't know if you would like to add something else. This call something that you want to share, either if it's related to what we have talked or something else. Whatever is welcome.

Nadine Zumot:

Nothing. I'm just very proud of you, Kenna. You've come a long way and I'm very proud of you and I'm proud of your podcast and I'm happy that you invited me to be on here. You and I'm proud of your podcast and I'm happy that you invited me to be on here and yeah, I just wanted to add that that you're doing great and you look great and I think so good to to hang out and talk about stuff thank you so much.

Kena Siu:

I really appreciate you and I appreciate your, your words. They're they really, they really mean a lot and uh, yeah, and I'm very glad, uh, for us to have this conversation and I'm I'm sure I'm gonna invite you again so you can talk more are you sure it's recorded?

Nadine Zumot:

look, look how I freaked you out.

Kena Siu:

I checked. I know I freaked you out no, it is, it is well thank you so much, nadineine, again, and we're going to be sharing Nadine's workshop information in the show notes for everyone who would like to join. It's going to be for free and you can start working in your relationship with money so you can live better Definitely. Live better Definitely.

Nadine Zumot:

It really affects your quality of life, doesn't it? Yes, better, definitely it really. It really affects your quality of life, doesn't it? Yes, it's one of the best things that you can do for yourself is heal your stress with money, because it's really gonna improve your life.

Kena Siu:

So oh, yes, yeah it has it has in in in myself. So I know, and I know that that the work that you do it's so passionate. It's in yeah, I remember and you know like cursing and everything, and I remember it was just like, yeah, like this is it? It's just like it's so passionate, so, from from your core and your heart and it's just magical. So thank you so much.

Nadine Zumot:

Thank you, so much. Thanks everyone for listening. Yes, thank you everyone instagram is at nadine if you need to connect. If you're going to listen to this episode, tag us. Tag canna and I on your stories.

Kena Siu:

We'd love to uh reshare oh, yes, and also yeah again.

Nadine Zumot:

Uh, nadine's podcast is on the unfuck your money podcast, so check it out you're gonna learn a lot from there, so yeah, yeah, people are like, why do you put everything for free on your podcast? And I'm like, well, who am I to gatekeep the podcast?

Kena Siu:

is a great resource. Yes, it is. Yeah, okay, thank you. Thank you. Thank you for tuning into Midlife Butterfly. If this episode lit a spark in you, hit that subscribe or follow button on Apple Podcasts, spotify or wherever you love to listen, so you'll never miss the magic. If you're feeling generous, drop a review on Apple Podcasts. It helps this empowering content reach more souls ready to transform their lives. And don't forget to take a photo of you while listening and share it on your socials. You can tag me at Ken as you, so I can celebrate you and your expansion. Until next time, keep spreading those wings and living in joy, growth and pleasure.

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