The Recovered Life Show

(Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai - Go Unlimited to remove this message) You're listening to The Recovered Life Show, the

show that helps people in recovery live their

best recovered lives.

And here is your host, Damon Frank.

And welcome back to The Recovered Life Show.

So glad to be joining everybody today and

really pleased to welcome my guest, Joleen Atkinson.

Joleen is a clinical social worker and certified

life coach.

She's located in Davenport, Iowa and has a

company called Life Well Coaching.

Welcome to the show, Joleen.

Hi, Damon.

It's good to meet you.

Good to be here with you.

So great to see you on the show.

This is your first appearance.

And I'm thrilled about our topic today.

You know, we've wanted to do some stuff

about money.

Joleen, we are chatting a little bit before

we hit the record button here today.

And I told you that, you know, in

recovery, money is a huge thing.

I mean, people go out and relapse over

money.

People actually end up sometimes coming into recovery

because of money.

So we want to just talk about how

we really create a positive mindset regarding money

in our recovery.

Awesome.

So let's dive into it a little bit.

You know, you have a unique perspective because

you deal with people, you know, from a

therapy standpoint and also a life coaching standpoint.

And you've dealt with people that are in

recovery.

What are some of the common things that

you see where people, you know, Joleen, might

not have a great relationship and a great

mindset around money?

You know, we're not oftentimes taught about taking

care of our money in general.

So if you add the challenges of addiction

on top of that, it certainly can complicate

that.

So I think having a positive mindset around

money is so key in terms of helping

you recover financially and helping you deal with

the stresses around our money and potential debts

and problems that it's caused for us.

You know, it's interesting because I, you know,

I find money is definitely the top three

things that people are most concerned about.

I've never been in a 12 step environment,

sponsored anybody, done any accountability coaching for anybody.

That money hasn't been on their top three,

right?

And, you know, there's even a term for

it in the recovery community.

It's like, you know, financial insecurity.

Right.

And it's a huge driver.

It caused a lot of worry.

You know, I had a conversation with a

good friend of mine who's in recovery yesterday.

We were both talking about that.

It's just such a it's a common thing.

Why do you think this rattles people so

much?

You know, because really, typically I found that

things work out at the end of the

day, right?

You know, why is this such a hot

button issue for people?

Well, truth be told, you know, money is

necessary for our survival.

It's it's our way of, you know, compensating

for our needs in our life.

So it's kind of like, you know, if

you think about somebody who's trying to be

healthy in their eating, you can't go without

eating.

You know, you can't go without money.

So it's such an essential piece.

And, you know, we all come with ideas

about what money means to us.

We're taught from our parents by the words

they use, by the example they set in

their behavior.

We learn about what money means in our

cultural environment.

So there's so many messages that we may

develop unconsciously just from early childhood.

So those messages become pretty deeply ingrained and

sometimes we're aware of them.

And sometimes it's completely unconscious, how it plays

a role.

But we just we can't exist without money.

So all of those things come together to

create our mindset about money.

And if we don't take care of it,

our mindset and our money, it can cause

such devastating effects.

You know, and I know most of the

people who have come in, I know I

had this experience when, you know, 30 years

ago, when I came into into the whole

sobriety journey, I had just total financial wreckage.

You know, I was in my late 20s

and it was like things were leaving every

day.

I felt right, like just it was very,

very, very tough.

And then the whole process of getting sober

takes a lot of time and a lot

of emotional energy.

But through that process, I learned that my

relationship with alcohol, like how I thought about

alcohol, Jolene, totally different than my fellows, right?

Totally different from, you know, other friends that

I had that weren't alcoholics.

And I soon to kind of made the

link, hey, how I also think about money

isn't necessarily healthy either.

And I started to kind of put those

two together, like, hey, you know what, I

have to change my mindset in regards to

how I look at money and how I

look at, you know, where the source of

how that is being created.

I oftentimes talk with people about money being

like a relationship and to consider it that

way.

And we think about it's just an exchange

for goods and services, but truthfully, our culture,

we have a relationship with money.

So if you think about it and consider

kind of what your relationship is like with

money, do you show, do you ignore it?

You have no idea where your money is

at, how much you have or how much

you're spending.

Do you so is it neglectful in that

kind of relationship?

Do you have gratitude and show gratitude for

the money that you have?

Are you frivolous around it?

Irresponsible in your relationship with money?

Is it something that you show respect in

that relationship?

Do you value your relationship with money and

what it provides for you?

So that's just a context that I think

is a really helpful frame to consider because

it's not just a piece of paper.

It's not just a plastic card.

It's how you relate to the money that

you earn, how you relate to the money

that you spend and how you relate to

the money that you save.

So I think that's a really helpful perspective

to consider what your relationship like with money.

Yeah, you know, now we're going to go

a little deeper here, Jolene, because now you're

really tapping on it.

Because one of the things that I noticed,

because I'm a big fan of modeling, looking

at what's working for other people and then

copying what they're doing, right?

Just literally.

And at first, you know, for me, the

game was really early on is to find

these people who are doing it.

I was very lucky, you know, I had

people in my life that were, you know,

they were very successful.

They were in recovery.

They were in, you know, one person I

still have a relationship with today, you know,

and, you know, he's taking a chip for

35 years.

He had five years at the time that

I met him.

And, you know, was my sponsor.

Shout out to Kevin, if he's out there

listening to this.

And, you know, and he put me around

other men specifically that were at all different

levels.

Right.

And I started to realize something very interesting.

And I'd love your thought as a therapist

on this one.

I met people who were millionaires that had

financial insecurity.

And then I met people who were homeless,

Jolene, who were, I'm not going to say

they were fine without having money, but they

were not as worried with the people that

had the money.

And I started to realize, I said, something's

going on here.

This isn't really about the money.

You were talking about the relationship.

The money isn't really creating the fear.

What else is creating this fear?

So it's your mindset.

I mean, that's just the spot, you know,

it's spot on right there.

If you do, you approach your financial situation

from a scarcity mindset and from where you're

afraid of losing it or you're holding on

so tight that you're not spending it.

It's that scarcity and fear that drives the

relationship.

Or is it an abundant mindset?

I have what I need.

What I need will come to me.

Thinking about it from the perspective of, you

know, I have a positive relationship with money.

I take care of it.

That's an abundant mindset.

So you can have, you know, a broke

perspective and have lots and lots of money,

or you can have an abundant mindset where

it's the thinking around, I know how to

take care of what I have.

Yeah.

You know, it's interesting.

We have a guy that has been on

the Recovered Life show very early on when

we started the podcast, Jolene.

His name's Kevin.

He's a mindfulness and meditation guide and he's

been in my life for a long time.

And any time that I've had financial insecurity

and I've called him, he's like, hey, what's

going on?

I'm like, I'm worried about this or I'm

worried about that or I'm expanding my business.

And, you know, I've got to come up

with X amount to be able to do

that.

And he always kind of chuckles a little

bit.

And he says, you know, Damon, he said

you, a lot of the times you look

at financial issues as a people placed thing,

an institution, you believe that is your source,

but that's not your source.

So you get so locked on that as

well, it's got to be this client or

this job or this project or, or this

investment that you're doing.

And it really has nothing to do with

that.

You know, and he always laughs.

He goes, this is a spiritual game.

This really isn't, this is nothing to do.

And he says, if you lock on to

people, places, things and institutions as being your

source, if anything happens with those, then your

prosperity mindset evaporates and you're, you now have

nothing.

But he's like, you know, for you, God's

your source, you know, cause I'm somebody who

believes in God and, you know, and you

know, you need to look there.

It's beyond the people, places and things.

You know, do you find that to be

an issue?

Like people are so myopic and just walking

on to say, Hey, you know what?

Like it's got to be this way or

no way.

Well, I think what came to my mind

is I'm listening to you is the idea

of attachment and looking at it from the

perspective of are you attached to the money?

Are you attached to how it comes to

you?

You know, is it, is the perspective of

it that, well, if I don't have it,

if I don't have this account or I

don't have this business or I don't have

this item, your attachment is to that.

You lose your perspective.

You lose your ability to be in abundance,

to be prosperous in your thinking.

Like you were saying, it's not myopic.

It allows you to be open and expansive

in your view.

I don't mean to get like too woo

about, you know, that, but, but I do

think when we get so attached, it, it

locks us up.

Well, this is an interesting thing and I

love that you use the word attachment because,

you know, there's a lot of talk in

the recovery community about letting go of the

outcome, like where it starts to happen.

And, you know, you know, with in my

experience, it's hard to see in yourself, you

know, like I always say, like, I never

really see any growth in myself.

It's usually being around other people who pointed

out, then I become aware of it.

Now I can see the growth in other

people very easily.

And it's, it's interesting, Julie, because when, when

I do let, when I finally get to

a place where I, I, I unwrestle myself

with the control of the outcome, that's really

when the blessing happens.

Right.

How do you do that though?

Because there's a lot of people out that

are listening to this and are saying, man,

yeah, damn it.

You don't, you don't get it.

I'm, I'm stuck.

Like I'm three months late on my rent

check.

Everybody's after me.

Right.

Like, and I, it's got to turn out

this way or that's it for me.

So, so rephrase your question for me, if

you would.

Well, what I want to know from you

is like, and give the perspective of, of,

for the listener is how do you start

to let go of the control of that?

How do you start to let go of

the outcome?

Yeah.

And to start unpinning from that.

So other things can start coming in your

life.

Well, I think that's a really good question.

And I would respond to that by just

kind of looking at mindfulness and which is

awareness and intention, intentionality, looking at being focused

on purpose and knowing what it is.

That's important to focus upon.

And going back to what you talked about

earlier in terms of if, if you only

see one path, right, you miss out what

you miss out on what can be around

you and what you can notice and be

aware of.

So, so knowing, knowing how you are thinking

about money, how you talk to yourself about

your money history and the money narrative, the

story you have about, you know, what's going

to happen to you if you don't have

enough.

Or, or what solutions are possible to you

if you get stuck on that one view

or that narrative, like I'm not good with

money.

This is a problem for me.

And it, it, it narrows your view into

how you might expand and find solutions.

Yeah, I think this, this whole idea of

being open, not taking everything like I, you

know, I've had that, I've had that experience

learning when to say no.

But learning to be open about the outcome

because, you know, two things I've learned, you

know, in my recovery, I've had successful businesses

and, you know, have built successful businesses.

And one of the things that I've, it's

always happened in a way that I didn't

expect it to happen.

It typically was not my plan.

That that actually created the success.

Right.

And I think one of the things that

I've learned is that, you know, and this

is an interesting thing.

I was telling somebody the other day, Jolene,

it's like I had spent, I think about

like 15 years ago, I spent six months

trying to learn a particular part of marketing

for a business.

There was, and I literally had my head

handed to me.

I could not make that successful.

And when I put my mind to something,

I make it successful.

Typically, I could not make that thing successful.

And I was so bewildered by it.

I learned a ton of skills though.

And then literally 15 years later, all of

a sudden I'm given this opportunity where those

skills that I had invested in 15 years

later were like, that is exactly what I

needed.

In order to become successful.

And it was this thing that I worked

on was wildly successful.

And, and I learned something with that.

It was like, you know what?

Like I can't be so judgmental about like

the process of it all.

Right.

Like what, what do you feel people's job

is?

Like, cause everybody I know in recovery is

like, all right, now I'm sober for a

while.

I've got all this wreckage.

What's my role in it?

How do I get into action?

What do I need to do if I'm

at zero and I have a horrible relationship

with money and things are falling down?

What are the initial steps that I need

to take like right now to make that

work?

So I think I'm going to answer that

question from, from this perspective.

There's two things.

One is that there's some practical skills going

back to what you were talking about in

that experience years ago.

There are skills involved with managing your money.

And that's one component.

And then the other component is your mindset

around it.

So knowing how you think about money and

that relationship with money is important.

So take a two prong approach.

One is you have to educate yourself about

finances and you, you address your own stuff

by first of all being aware of where

you're at.

So if you're, if you have, you know,

$10 in the bank, you need to know

that some people have more than that.

You know, it isn't always just a zero

balance, but to know what is your income?

What are your assets to know where you're

spending is that I often will start with

people about creating a diary daily of what

it is you're spending money on, just so

you have that awareness, because without that awareness,

you're wandering around blindly, right?

So that's the beginning point is just knowing.

And you use the word judgment and that

that's such a valuable word from the perspective

of understanding and catching yourself when you're doing

that.

So that you can be aware and recognize

how are you talking to yourself about money,

which is your thoughts, right?

And being aware of it, not necessarily from

a shame based perspective, but from a curious

perspective, looking at it from like, well, how,

okay, here's where all my money is, you

know, being curious.

Here's where I'm spending it.

And then secondly, look at budgeting.

And that's a word that I know for

myself, I don't want to, I don't want

to budget.

That sucks.

That's really restrictive.

It's, you know, I'm either going to succeed

or I'm going to fail if that all

or nothing thinking that comes in my mind

with budgeting.

And the last thing I want to do

is like pigeonhole myself into all or nothing

thinking that's just not helpful.

But I did that with budgeting.

So I had to kind of break that

open and look at it from how is

budgeting, how can I approach this in a

way that I have the least amount of

resistance when I think about a budget.

And it's, it's very basic.

What are my needs, you know, rent, food,

clothing, and medical care.

Those are things that are my needs.

And then my wants.

What are the things that I desire?

Well, if I enjoy going out to eat

or if I enjoy buying something that might

be luxurious to separate that out and budgeting

first and foremost for what are my needs.

And I would put your debt within that

category, taking care of that, that financial wreckage

that may have happened is again, you're not

going to clear that out.

It didn't happen in a day.

You're not going to clear it out in

a day.

But if you're looking at it from the

mindset of I suck, I'm a horrible person.

I have all this debt.

I'm never going to get out of this.

It's just going to keep you spinning in

that emotional garbage.

But if on the other hand, you know,

here's what my debt is.

I'm I'm seven thousand dollars in debt or

I'm twenty thousand dollars in debt and you

look at it from a budgeting point of

view of, OK, this is solvable.

And if you need help from a professional,

get it there, you know, having allies and

help you through this, whether it's your mindset

or the practical skills of managing finances, get

that support.

So lay that budget out there and develop

a plan.

And then I think one of the biggest

challenges is practicing the skill of keeping your

word to yourself.

So if one of the I think hard

things with addiction is we lose trust in

others and we lose trust in ourself and

developing that muscle and building and strengthening that

muscle of keeping your word to yourself is

really important.

And not just with money, but with recovery

overall and sustaining that recovery so important.

So use that and apply the skill of

trustworthiness and developing that with yourself as it

comes to following your budget.

Another trap, I guess, that would trip people

up is by develop a budget, it's like

written in stone.

And I would suggest that doesn't have to

be the case.

You create a budget with your first and

iteration of it and you evaluate it, evaluate

it from the perspective of not the narrative

of I suck with money, but from the

from the perspective of, OK, what's working?

Where have I kept my word to myself?

You know, have I met my needs in

terms of my finances?

What didn't work?

I always start with what worked because we

so quickly move beyond that.

Whenever I ask people, you know, clients about

what, you know, let's evaluate this, what's working,

they might tell me one thing and then

can give me a list of 20 things

that they think is not working.

So shifting that balance, what's working, you know,

how are you following your plan?

What's not working?

And then the third question, what would I

like?

What do I want to do different that

keeps you out of that black and white,

written in stone kind of mentality?

I think that flexibility in budgeting is really

important to evaluate, pay attention to your successes,

acknowledge those and talk to yourself with kindness

around your budget.

You don't really want to answer to that

question.

No, this is good.

And why I love this so much is

that I'm just thinking of myself through the

recovery process and life.

Right.

And where was I in six months, a

year, 10 years, 20 years, 30 years, right?

Like thinking through and you said something early

on that I want to tap on here

is about awareness.

And I think this is a big thing.

Like the interesting thing that I've noticed about

recovery is it really preps you for dealing

with other issues.

One is because if you're able to get

sober, you're able to take on emotional pain

and weather through it.

That's one huge thing I've noticed.

Right.

Julie, like nothing, nothing to people who aren't

in recovery.

You know, they're tough, too, but people that

are in recovery that have recovered, that have

long term recovery, specifically, or have done it

for six months, a year, even.

You can handle some stuff, right?

You, you, you really can't.

We don't give ourselves credit for really the

amount of stuff that we're able to handle.

But you said this thing about awareness, how,

like, originally I had to become aware that

I had an alcohol problem.

The same thing, I have to become aware

that maybe I have a financial issue and

being able to look at that.

And I know there's people that are listening

to this because this was me stacks of

bills, not opening them up.

I don't want to know what's on the

credit card.

I don't want to know what's in my

bank account, you know, from a negative.

And I just don't, I don't want to

know because it's too scary.

But what I love that you're talking about

is that when you can get past that

little bit and it is scary, like, let's

acknowledge it, right?

Jolene, it's terrifying.

But when you get past that, when you

could put it into a process, because you

could be just, you could have the awareness,

but no process.

Right.

You're, it's, it's not going to work.

You need a process, right?

Once you have that awareness, you have the,

now the process, putting it into the process

is really what it's about, isn't it?

Yeah, absolutely.

You know, having, having that a plan and

you can't create a plan if you don't

know where your starting point is, you know,

without direction, we'd wander aimlessly.

So if you have that stack of unopened

bills, you're, you're not aware of even where

your beginning point is.

But if you can push yourself past that

fear and anxiety about what might be there,

because we're going to conjure up a way

bigger story about what that's going to be

like than what reality is probably going to

be.

You know, we have a great imaginative brain.

And so if, if you can kind of

calm that down a little bit enough to

open it up and look at it, so

then you know where to begin, you know

where your start point is.

And creating that plan is key because then

you're not just wandering around having it all

pile back up again.

Well, it's interesting when you actually start to

know, you know, I had a situation in

my life where I had a friend who

owed a lot of money to the IRS

and he was just running from it, right?

Just running literally on a dead sprint from

it.

And when he finally got mustard up the

courage to find out what was going on.

Jolene, I'm telling you, it was a high

amount of money.

It was thousands and thousands and thousands of

dollars.

But at the end of the day, he

didn't realize that there was a thing called

offer and compromise because where he was at,

okay, when he made the money and where

he was at now financially, wasn't it?

And it ended up being a couple of

thousand dollars.

And he was able to like walk away

from it, but the years that it tortured

him to be able to do that just

by not looking at it, right, was horrible.

And, you know, I want you to talk

a little bit about this with people listening

to this and say, okay, I'm kind of

in this, Jolene, a little bit, I've looked

at it, I'm starting to work some of

the stuff that you're talking about, but I'm

having a hard time rebuilding my credit, paying

back taxes, student loan debt, all that other

kind of stuff.

Can I can I slow this down and

stop it?

I've got the right mindset now, but what

do I do now that I've got the

mindset and the awareness?

Well, I'll emphasize I'm not a financial advisor.

So, you know, but I do think that

there are resources available there to help people

really get a plan laid out and to

be able to create that day by day.

Structure to help just take that next step

and then the following step to be able

to approach it from a solution perspective, I

think is really valuable.

And we get caught up in, oh, I

made this mistake.

Oh, I messed that up or I'm avoiding

this.

Okay, let's look at it and take responsibility

for it, but it doesn't help to beat

yourself up in shame or to wallow in

that isn't valuable because it just keeps you

out of the problem solving perspective.

And so once you have that awareness and

you can take responsibility for the things that

happen to get you to this point, that's

what frees you up.

Then taking that responsibility then frees you up

for looking at solutions.

And again, if it's hiring or seeking free

consultation with debt relief agencies, for example, if

that's necessary to take advantage of that.

Yeah, I love this whole idea of becoming

clear and then taking action.

I don't know if you found this, Jolene,

in your practice, but I know with working

with men with accountability coaching and just working

with them and helping take them from, you

know, not a great place in the recovery

to really thriving.

What I found is, is that there's a

common thread here and this is in finances

as well.

And that is, there's a great amount of

time spent with people in recovery, Jolene, that

are unhappy because they're not getting what they

want.

But at the end of the day, when

really pushed, they have no idea what they

want.

So really, they're spending 80% of their

emotional energy through the day unhappy that they're

not getting something that they don't know that

they want.

If that makes sense, they're literally it's insanity,

right?

Like, and it's interesting.

Like when I woke up from that, I

was like going, oh my God, this is

just insanity.

Like, I think clarity is the game changer

here, don't you?

Because like, when you get clear about what

you want to have happen, then the choices

that you start making, hey, I'm not going

to go to Starbucks.

Like, you know, I'm somebody who, you, you

know, before the pandemic.