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169. Financial Therapy Explained: Transforming Money Stress into Strength | with Rahkim Sabree
14 Plays1 hour ago
Think therapy is only for emotions? Think again—financial therapy helps you heal your money story.
In this episode of the Spiritual Fitness Podcast, Eric Bigger chats with financial therapist Rahkim Sabree about how healing financial trauma can completely shift how you handle and think about money.
Discover the emotional and cultural roots of our money habits—from generational patterns to systemic challenges—and why financial therapy can be a game-changer. Rahkim also shares down-to-earth tools like somatic healing practices, ways to rethink your money story, and how to build supportive spaces for financial growth.
If money has ever stressed you out, this one’s for you. Tune in and start rewriting your financial mindset.
Key highlights:
- What is Financial Trauma? How systemic issues shape money struggles.
- Body-Based Healing - Using somatic tools to ease financial stress.
- Capitalism & Money Mindset - The impact of exploitation on your finances.
- Community Support - Why healing money wounds takes a village.
- Money as Empowerment - Simple reframes to feel safer and stronger with money.
About the Guest:
Rahkim Sabree is an award-winning Financial Therapist, Accredited Financial Counselor®, author, and speaker with an emerging voice in the fields of financial therapy and financial empowerment. He is the author of the soon-to-be-released book Overcoming Financial Trauma, which explores the intersection of money, trauma, and healing. Rahkim is particularly renowned for his efforts to demystify financial trauma among underserved communities. With a dynamic background that bridges financial services, public speaking, and inclusive financial wellness, he is dedicated to helping individuals and organizations challenge traditional views of financial freedom and personal growth.
Get his book Overcoming Financial Trauma: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1394341245?ref=cm_sw_r_ffobk_cp_ud_dp_2A05X2DGAFN42R3SF4DH_1&ref_=cm_sw_r_ffobk_cp_ud_dp_2A05X2DGAFN42R3SF4DH_1&social_share=cm_sw_r_ffobk_cp_ud_dp_2A05X2DGAFN42R3SF4DH_1&bestFormat=true&previewDohEventScheduleTesting=C&csmig=1
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/rahkimsabree
Website: https://www.rahkimsabree.com/
Substack: https://rahkimsabree.substack.com/
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Transcript
Introduction to the Spiritual Fitness Podcast
00:00:05
Speaker
Welcome to the Spiritual Fitness Podcast. I'm your host, Eric Bigger. And each week, we will explore powerful practices, inspiring stories, and expert insights to guide you on your path to holistic health.
00:00:18
Speaker
By blending spirituality and physical wellness, we support you in strengthening your body and soul. Whether you're a seasoned spiritual seeker or just beginning your journey, the Spiritual Fitness Podcast is here to help you unlock your inner potential and live your most vibrant, purposeful life.
00:00:35
Speaker
It's miracle season.
00:00:39
Speaker
Spiritual Fitness Podcast. I'm your host, Eric Bigger, and I'm back again with
Focus on Financial Trauma with Rakeem Sabree
00:00:44
Speaker
another episode. And today, people, ah this is an incredible episode. We get to talk about money, financial trauma. I want to talk about the wealth frequency, my fear of money.
00:00:54
Speaker
Also, me not holding money within my nervous system, so I gave it away. And I got the great financial therapist, ah Forbes mentioned, Rakeem Sabree.
00:01:07
Speaker
He's a financial therapist and he knows everything about financial trauma. Rakim, welcome to Spiritual Fitness Podcast. How are you today? Thank you for being here. And I just look forward to this discussion.
00:01:19
Speaker
How are you? Yes, sir. I'm good. I'm good. Thank you for ah for having me. This has been a long time coming. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Late last year, i think it was October, December. Um, and now we're finally on the discussions and, um, before I get started, I want to share with the audience and the who going to be listening and watching is that I discovered two weeks ago with my healer that I got financial trauma around money.
Discovering Personal Financial Trauma
00:01:44
Speaker
Right. So I've had this fear for years of I'll have money and I'll hold it. But when it's time to invest or put it, I'm afraid to let it go. Like it's, It's like a nervous system thing.
00:01:56
Speaker
And honestly, like I was thinking, like, who can I talk to that I feel safe, that I feel comfortable? And I think you had DM and I was like, Rakim, I think he can help me. I think this is the person who's to give me the wisdom, the insight, the understanding.
00:02:11
Speaker
of my financial trauma, what it actually means, and how, you know, our race or how people do money. So to the people who don't know you, can you just give them a brief introduction of who you are and how did you get to be this financial therapist?
Rakeem Sabree's Journey to Financial Therapy
00:02:27
Speaker
I love the intros. ah So my name Rakim Sabree. ah My background in banking originally, I spent about a decade in the banking industry, but financial therapy broadly and financial trauma specifically um kind of happened by accident, right? So um you hit on several points that resonate with me.
00:02:47
Speaker
um We look at money through a cultural lens. And so race has to be a part of the conversation. We look at it through ah like the social social class lens, right? A class lens.
00:03:01
Speaker
um And so my experience growing up was one of poverty. I experienced poverty. um So there were a lot of behaviors that I observed, um things that I picked up that I incorporated into my own practices.
00:03:13
Speaker
That weren't necessarily instructed, but it was just kind of like, this is what you see other people doing. um Third thing that you said ah that I really want to hit on a lot today is um nervous system and how you carry money in your nervous system. And and and we all do.
00:03:29
Speaker
um But there's not often conversations had that connect the two.
Importance of Recognizing Financial Trauma
00:03:33
Speaker
So after I left my banking career in 2021, I decided that I want to go down the path of entrepreneurship and pursue financial coaching because I'm like, OK, like I've been in money for a while. Like this makes sense. Right.
00:03:45
Speaker
um But not right. It didn't work. um It wasn't working for me. I knew what it is that I needed to do to talk to people about money. But something wasn't clicking.
00:03:56
Speaker
um And in that, i started i discovered financial and psychology by scrolling on TikTok, actually. I discovered Dr. Brad Kline, so our financial planner. And I'm like, whoa, what is this? Financial psychology.
00:04:08
Speaker
um So I started going down that rabbit hole discovered financial therapy. And so there is the Financial Therapy Association, um submitted a presentation to join one of their conferences and present on financial trauma.
00:04:23
Speaker
And when I got into this room of academics and practitioners, i mean, these guys are licensed and, you know, PhDs and, you know, all like super credentialed people. And they're like paying attention to me and what I'm saying and they're valuing what I'm contributing to the space by way of lived experience, not necessarily academia.
00:04:43
Speaker
um And also the integration with practice as a practitioner, having worked with people around that money. It made me feel home. And ah Financial Therapy Association is one of several professional homes that I have. ah um As of right now, I sit on the board of the Financial Therapy Association.
00:05:00
Speaker
um Great organization looking to really expand and grow the field of financial therapy as its own interdisciplinary field, not necessarily a subset of psychotherapy or of the personal finance space.
00:05:15
Speaker
And so since then, ah Rather, before then, I was talking about financial trauma, but I didn't have vocabulary.
Generational Trauma and Financial Behaviors
00:05:20
Speaker
Right. I'm talking about financial empowerment. And I'm like, you know, there' are these obstacles and these are how you navigate the obstacles. And this is what it looks like as a black man. And this is what it looks like as a millennial.
00:05:30
Speaker
And so I wrote a book in 2019 called Financially Irresponsible. And while I was writing that book, I was reading a book by Dr. Joy DeGroix called Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome. Yeah. and Dr. DeGroix talks about um basically intergenerational transfer of trauma by way of um slavery and subsequent events like Jim Crow and up through present day.
00:05:52
Speaker
But she talks about it through a lens of um what she has created, ah post-traumatic slave syndrome, um which is very similar to post-traumatic stress disorder.
00:06:04
Speaker
yeah um And so basically it talks about how not only are we passing down behaviors, ideas, beliefs culturally for our safety that come from a time of, um you know, just we know what happened during slavery. yeah um But also as well as it continues to show up.
00:06:24
Speaker
And so i was like, wow, this is super powerful. um I wonder if there are parallels between these behaviors and money. Yeah. And so I said ah generational trauma, financial trauma. So I started using the term financial trauma.
00:06:40
Speaker
Getting associated with these organizations, like the ah Financial Therapy Association specifically, I learned that financial trauma was a term that had already existed. um i just never heard about it. And my critique in that first presentation that I gave at their conference was...
00:06:56
Speaker
um there is a disconnect but between the academia that defines or creates these terms and the people, like everyday people. Why do I not know what it means or you know even how to recognize it? And most people don't. So um since I've been talking about financial trauma for almost half a decade now, many people have told me or credited me with being the first point of contact and hearing the phrase financial trauma.
00:07:23
Speaker
And so a lot of my work today um centers around not only exposing people to the phrase, but expanding the definition um as it is recognized or received by academics.
00:07:35
Speaker
You got to the space of poverty and then you talk about generational trauma, which was slavery, but was passed down, what comes through. And I was it so interesting because I was rushing to get on this interview because I was on a call with my mom and we're having a very deep healing relationship about our relationship or like me carrying a mother wound.
00:07:55
Speaker
And I was telling her, I said, mom, some of the things you might can't see is not because you didn't want to. You just didn't have it because of what was transferred through your vessel, through your body and your brain. I said, mom, you did the best you could as a mom.
00:08:08
Speaker
And I had resentment in a way that I didn't understand. But now that I'm older, now I'm able to plant seeds of like what a financial part of my life comes in from my mom and my dad.
00:08:20
Speaker
Right. Yep. And I think I want to ask you, why do you think one, the word financial trauma or irresponsibility, whatever to turn out, why is it that not visible? Like, why don't we know about that?
00:08:34
Speaker
Two, what, Do you believe, do you believe that that's why black people as a race, you know, statistically are more poverty stricken or in that environment? Is it because of what you
Economic Systems and Financial Trauma
00:08:49
Speaker
discuss? The first question i want to answer, um the reason why I feel that financial trauma is not socialized um in the way that it should be or in the way that it could be.
00:09:02
Speaker
is because um when we recognize that financial trauma exists, it's an indictment of the dominant economic systems that we navigate, right? um Most conversations around money, um particularly in the personal finance space, leverage guilt, shame, scarcity, fear, right?
00:09:24
Speaker
um And so when I talk about financial trauma, I talk about those as sources of financial trauma, ah right? Wrapped up in, identify six sources of financial trauma.
00:09:36
Speaker
And so they're wrapped up in these different sources where people are um embracing the workaholism, right? ah Hustle culture, um scarcity, keeping up with the Joneses.
00:09:49
Speaker
All of these things that we hear about and um when we go through traditional financial education courses or programs or you're listening to influencers, they're like, you know, you got to save more, you got to invest more, stop spending so much.
00:10:03
Speaker
But people are not understanding why they're spending the way that they are or they're averse to saving or why they can't save, right? Why they don't make enough money to save, right?
00:10:14
Speaker
And so we start pulling back the layers of why it speaks to, um like I said, it's an indictment of the systems that we navigate. And so it takes more of the, it takes most, if not all of the blame off of the individual and points it back to the systems that we navigate. And of course, you know, you don't want to take responsibility.
00:10:36
Speaker
Because it's a deeper wound. And it's true. Because I remember, Rakim, in 2021, had in my account, right? and i'm like yes But somewhere in my nervous system, I kept thinking, I got to invest in my business. I got to invest in my business. I got to invest the money.
00:10:54
Speaker
So I spent $7,500 on a coaching program, right? And then I spent another $2,000 on someone developing my app, It's Miracle City. And it's still in the app store and I haven't used it since.
00:11:08
Speaker
Because unconsciously, I felt like, so when I spent, what was that? You know, 75, that's almost 10,000, right? When I had that 80 to 7,500 left in my account, I started having back problems, my lower back.
00:11:21
Speaker
And there's a book by Louise Hay called You Can Heal Your Life. And it gives you all the emotional causes of the pain in your body. And it was lower back is lacking financial support.
00:11:33
Speaker
I had this ideology of like, oh, I got money. Let me invest in my business because this is what they tell me, right, in the entrepreneurship space. And then there's a part, Lisa and I'll culture where get the bag, get the bag, get the bag. I remember I had a show 2021 as well.
00:11:51
Speaker
twenty twenty one as well i made a of money.
00:11:55
Speaker
and ten minutes ah s lot of money But I didn't know what to do with the money, Rakim. I didn't know what to do. So I just, I remember I had like this $37,000 sitting in my account. It looked great.
00:12:06
Speaker
But I didn't know what to do other than save the money. Eventually, i even gave it away. Or I put it in a savings or stock account. But what I'm saying is I was the only one in my family to kind of create that lane for myself.
00:12:22
Speaker
And I didn't have no one I could open up to about it. right It's not that it's not fair. It's just not fair to yourself that you don't know where these programming, this behavior and these
The Physical Nature of Trauma
00:12:34
Speaker
patterns, financial trauma is coming from.
00:12:38
Speaker
And I talked about this on a previous podcast. My money story started at 16 when I gave my grandmother all my savings for the phone bill and it was bittersweet. So over time, every time I got money, I found the way to get rid of it unconsciously, even if it was for a good thing.
00:12:55
Speaker
And I'm like, oh, my nervous system can't hold the money. What is that about? And so yeah for you and in your history of research, how do we...
00:13:08
Speaker
recalibrate or structure our nervous system to be able to receive wealth to create it and expand it. Like, what do you think and what do you know from that? Because i feel like that's all life is, is nervous system regulation and everything.
00:13:21
Speaker
Dating, relationships, money, physique, everything is nervous system. In pursuing this, right, this path, coming from a money background, I had to do a deep dive on the mental health side, right? And it's specifically understanding trauma.
00:13:36
Speaker
One of the books that I read in preparation to write the book that I just wrote is called My Grandmother's Hands by Resma Menekim. Resma talks about um racialized trauma.
00:13:49
Speaker
And ah you'll notice the theme as I talk about ah yeah let's talk about what I talk about, but talks about racialized trauma and he's ah ah she's a trauma therapist, but he's also a somatic healing practitioner.
00:14:00
Speaker
And one of the declarations that he makes in his book that was um a game changer for me. was that trauma is not um it's not a psychological event. Trauma is a body event.
00:14:12
Speaker
So that's not when we approached trauma. we We approached it through a lens of um psychology or therapy, whereas like talk therapy is um the approach that a lot of people will take towards addressing trauma.
00:14:28
Speaker
um But a lot of times the talk therapy is not sufficient because not only are you having to relive the trauma, right, by talking about it, you're not finding a way to move that trauma or metabolize that trauma out of your body.
00:14:44
Speaker
And so a lot of um his book and the practices that he talks about in metabolizing race-based trauma involves somatic healing. So he and I had an opportunity to talk in between edits and um just really big fan of him and his work.
00:15:01
Speaker
But that was a thing like that I incorporated. I said, okay, we need to incorporate somatic healing into the overcoming piece of ah financial trauma.
00:15:13
Speaker
And because we don't often recognize money as ah root of trauma, um and because we often don't have conversations about how that trauma can be, likely has been transferred across generations. Yeah.
00:15:29
Speaker
um That trauma lives in our body and we don't know what to do with it. We don't know how to to make it move. So when we talk about nervous system regulation, um there's a whole part of um the book where I talk about not only recognizing how our evolutionary responses to stress, fight, flight, freeze, fawn,
00:15:49
Speaker
show up in our money behaviors, but also how we can start to recognize by doing like but somatic body scans and um other practice ah other practices related to somatic healing, um breath work, and there's what's referred to as top-down regulation and bottom-up regulation. So top-down regulation is um full of more on a cognitive behavioral side where it's like, I can recognize my safety in this moment, even though my body is triggered and I'm not understanding why my body is triggered. The analogy that I use in the book is like the smoke alarm, right?
00:16:25
Speaker
This is probably going to be really resonant with the audience. Like there's this like joke within or pointed at the black community. don't know if it's necessarily within the black community where um we hear the smoke alarm chirp.
00:16:39
Speaker
Like you're you're recording a TikTok video or you're doing a podcast and you just hear the like the constant church. But what's interesting about the science of that is we become desensitized to that church. So if you're living in that space, you don't hear it anymore.
00:16:53
Speaker
The only people that hear it are people who are not used to being in that space. um And so if I can use that same analogy when it comes to how our nervous system responding to a threat, real or imagined, specifically as it relates to money, because um money is not a physical threat like a lion or a tiger or a bear standing in front of you, um but it's a persistent behind-the-scenes threat, your nervous system is recognizing the threat and it's reacting to it.
00:17:25
Speaker
But because you can't rationally see the threat or because you're socialized not to rationally perceive the threat as threat, the chirp, you stop caring. Right.
00:17:36
Speaker
um And so your body's telling you constantly, hey, there's danger, there's danger, there's danger. And you kind of mute. That response through socialization, through just everything. We learn to hustle through it or suck it up or work harder or pull yourself up by your bootstrap. A lot of these narratives that, um again, leverage guilt, shame, fear.
Healing Practices for Financial Trauma
00:17:58
Speaker
We learn to bury and ignore what it is that our body needs or what it is that our body is telling us. um Once we can recognize that our body is perceiving a sh threat because our brain does not have the ability to distinguish between a real or imagined threat, yeah um then we can start taking steps towards what healing looks like.
00:18:20
Speaker
And was' in as I was doing the research, um what I found to be very interesting and true of my own experience is that we naturally try to regulate, but we're not recognizing what it is that we're doing as regulating, right? So if you look at um tapping or um size, I'll go throughout the day and I'll just notice myself go, oh,
00:18:46
Speaker
And it might happen multiple times throughout the day. um Until I started becoming trauma-informed, trauma-aware, I did not recognize that throughout the day as I'm sighing, like, that's a somatic response to some kind of stress that I'm not paying attention to.
00:19:04
Speaker
And so um if you are somebody who fidgets or you are somebody who taps, yawning, um sighing, and mean not not yawning like regularly, but excessive yawning, sighing, like your body is constantly letting you know, like, hey, something's up.
00:19:20
Speaker
But we just kind of write it off and like, oh, no, like, I'm good. I'm good. I got to keep going. Culturally, um there are practices that we engage or that we have engaged with over time to um incorporate somatic healing that we just don't recognize as a part of the healing process.
00:19:39
Speaker
So that can be drumming, dancing, um movement through ah yoga, through working out, through running. That can be wailing circles.
00:19:50
Speaker
um So that was a thing that can be something intentional like a martial arts. So I practiced Wing Chun Kung Fu for a while, um yoga, Reiki. All of these things are different somatic outlets.
00:20:03
Speaker
But because, again, somatic healing um is considered like a new age, even though it's it predates all of the the medical stuff that we do now, um practice, it's not recognized on the same level as like something structured and formal like medicine or you know, pharmaceuticals.
00:20:23
Speaker
And so in part of the financial healing piece, specifically related to trauma, we need to reclaim some of those practices that can show up in music, that can show up in art, that can show up in movement and fitness yeah um with a focus on ah metabolizing the trauma that we have related to money.
00:20:48
Speaker
And my history of doing this work on myself, this deep healing work, a lot of consciousness work, spiritual work. The thing I've been missing most of my life is being in my body. But growing up in Baltimore, where it's so much the environment, because I want tap into that part of the body and the mind of life.
00:21:05
Speaker
It was so intense. It was negative. There's a lot going on. So I never felt safe. And so over the course of doing all this work, I'm just always in my crown chakra, right? I'm up here.
00:21:16
Speaker
But I'm not transmuting I'm not transforming this information, this knowledge within my body to push out my frequency. So sometimes if I'm speaking, it might go over your head because I'm not grounded. So that's what I realized about breath work for me.
00:21:33
Speaker
is prayer for the body. Because when I'm meditating, my mind's still gone. But when I'm breathing, I can't be so in my thoughts. And then I just, after five minutes, it's like I'm regulated, I'm safe. And I'm like, I can feel my presence.
00:21:53
Speaker
My voice is deeper. I don't have to speak as much. And these little things that might be tedious actually help us more.
00:22:05
Speaker
And last but not least, I realized the more I slow down, the more I can expand. And in times when I made the most money in my life is when my nervous system was relaxed or I was having fun.
00:22:19
Speaker
So can you talk about... the benefit or the power of your environment regulating your nervous system, your environment expanding you in a positive way to help you if any money wants. Because I think when you're in a safe space, it's easy to kind of talk about the tough things or easy to kind of maneuver the things that might make you feel uncertain.
00:22:45
Speaker
Can I go the opposite direction first? Yeah, you can go however you want.
Advertising's Impact on Financial Decisions
00:22:48
Speaker
yeah Yeah, so um I like that you talk about environment because um by the default, our environment um is dysregulating to our nervous system, right?
00:22:59
Speaker
just If we look at the science of um advertising specifically, ah There was, ah now I'm going to forget the name, he was a nephew to Freud, and he instructed these large companies on advertising practices that connect um people's feelings to the product.
00:23:23
Speaker
right And so his big campaign was around cigarettes and actually convincing women that it was sexy to smoke cigarettes.
00:23:35
Speaker
And it was a huge success. Well, his approach to to advertising was so successful that not only have other companies incorporated it, But even governments have incorporated it um into their propaganda, into, um you know, what what makes you feel patriotic and um who is the bad guy, right?
00:23:58
Speaker
When we acknowledge that most of the decisions that we make around money are emotional and that companies have invested in understanding how to tie our emotions to the products that they sell and that all day we're being bombarded with advertisements Some way, shape, or form that tell us in order to be loved, in order to be safe, in order to be um attractive, in order to make more money, in order to whatever, right? Fill in the blank that we need to spend.
00:24:31
Speaker
If you don't have a plan for your money, then it's going to be really easy for you to give it away. And in exactly the way that you described, right, where you're like, I hired the business coach. I hired somebody to do the app.
00:24:43
Speaker
um I have a very similar experience in year one of entrepreneurship. And I'm like, I'm not even bringing in dollars, but I hired a coach. I hired a marketing agency, right? um And I spent about the same amount of money.
00:24:55
Speaker
yeah And I'm like, I put that on a credit card. So it wasn't money that had in my account. So I'm like, now I'm in debt. And I'm like, what what's going on? But it was because the messaging that I was being told was very similar to the message you were being told.
00:25:07
Speaker
In order for you to perform at this level, you need to spend this money. In order for you to be successful, you need to have done this thing. um And so we learned to make those associations based off of the environments that we're navigating, whether that be um physical environment or digital environment, which is, you know, even more scary today with AI because...
00:25:29
Speaker
um With the use of AI, our perception of reality can be um ah manipulated to an exponential degree yeah um around like what but you know we have to figure out. like Is this real? Is this person that's talking to us real? like What is the message behind it? What's the intent here?
Environmental Influence on Financial Healing
00:25:48
Speaker
um In response to this environment of dysregulation, So my recommendation is around building community.
00:26:01
Speaker
um And so when we talk about and using your environment in a positive way, that's not by way of necessarily physical location, although certainly being in an environment where um your physical safety is something that you have to question and wonder about is going to cause dysregulation.
00:26:19
Speaker
um And if you can get out of that environment, then, you know, certainly get out of that environment. But I'm talking about the environment of um our minds and the people that we engage with that shape, like what our thought process is.
00:26:36
Speaker
um I talk about culture in a very different way in that culture is usually associated with language, religion, ethnicity, music, food, like those kind of things. It's often not examined through the lens of um like workplace culture, through the lens of um regional culture, through the lens of culture.
00:27:02
Speaker
country culture, right? So, you know, America has a culture. um Through the lens of economic culture, so capitalism. um And some of the values associated.
00:27:13
Speaker
But what's ah beautiful about culture when we start to kind of like deconstruct and um and examine culture is that we also have the ability to define culture for ourselves.
00:27:24
Speaker
And in the process of defining culture for ourselves, we can invite other people to share in that culture, right? And so when you curate the people that you spend the most time talking to or you the people that you spend the most time with,
00:27:40
Speaker
That can be a healing step. um And I don't want to um understate that is a healing step in not only healing financial trauma, but healing any kind of trauma, because as human beings, we are um social creatures.
00:27:59
Speaker
And there is a theory um known as polyvagal theory that speaks to how not only um is our um entire like nervous system connected throughout our body and reacts based off of threat and based off of um our feeling safe, but it also reacts based off of socialization and co-regulation with the people that are around us.
00:28:26
Speaker
And so if we are around people who um we perceive as constantly needing saving, we become a superhero, right? um If we are around people who we don't feel um we're on the same level as um or who we feel are um outside of the scope of what is possible for us, then we may become the victim.
00:28:53
Speaker
And so um what we look for um through this lens of the vagus nerve and polyvagal theory is how do we establish safety with the the ah community that we're around, right?
00:29:05
Speaker
um And in establishing safety with the community that we're around, like, Is this environment conducive? Is this environment safe? Is this environment making me feel comfortable? um Again, we can establish culture that says instead of spending money ah on going out and buying drinks, why don't we do something that costs less and talk about ways to grow our money or talk about ways to circulate
Cultural Narratives and Money
00:29:31
Speaker
our money?
00:29:31
Speaker
yeah or And then I feel like these are cliche examples, but I think that it's kind of necessary, right? um Because so much of the conversation that is standard within um community circles, particularly within the black community, are around um chasing the bag.
00:29:51
Speaker
Right. Like what like how are we going to spend this money? Like who we who are who we trying to impress or how are we trying to establish safety by way of spending our money into safety?
00:30:04
Speaker
What is the thing that I have to buy to signal to say that I am um not core? And so like a lot of times for us, for people in general, but for us, spending money is our way of trying to establish safety because in our mind,
00:30:25
Speaker
Yes, we're Black, we know that we're Black, and we know that um how Blackness is perceived in the world that we navigate. But if I could be Black with money, I'm safer than if I'm Black and I'm poor.
00:30:36
Speaker
Our brain does not have the ability to distinguish between a real or imagined threat. So what you think is happening is happening, right? um If we can reframe what we think is happening,
00:30:51
Speaker
then um we can change how our body is reacting to it or how we perceive safety. And as a result, how we kind of rest in that safety. Yeah, and it's powerful because language matters.
00:31:04
Speaker
Even the word of, i learned something, think it maybe was Deepa Chopra book, Seven Laws, Spiritual Laws of Success. And I think they change spending from circulating money, right?
00:31:15
Speaker
As a different frequency or not saying things are expensive. How could I afford this? Asking your body, your mind, your nervous system, how can I?
00:31:26
Speaker
And the most important thing is that What is money to us? Right. Like what is money? Is money something to look good and show off? Is money something you use to invest?
00:31:40
Speaker
Is money something for safety? Because some people go to the end of the world just for money, but there's no pain inside. I have the privilege to coach a lot of wealthy people and the way they view money is so different than how I grew up.
00:31:57
Speaker
with the lack of it, just in environment. And when you're not around it, like you said, if your environment's not showing you that there's healthy ways to make money and view money, you're going to think you always got save, hold it, you got to spend it to make more because it's hustling. oh I'm a hustler. I'm just going to re-up.
00:32:15
Speaker
And it's sad because I love Dame Dash, but always preached on these podcasts about you got to put up your own money, you got to be your own boss. And I looked up the Dame Dash. A lot of us probably had it.
00:32:27
Speaker
Right. And we can take on a texture of that energy and our frequency thinking that's the right thing to do. Where some people are really good at getting loans and using credit or they're helping a friend out.
00:32:40
Speaker
The biggest thing I want people listening to know that wherever you are in your money womb, your money journey, your money story, it's OK. I've recently been doing affirmations.
00:32:53
Speaker
ah One of the affirmations is I release guilt and shame around my finances. I release guilt and shame around debt. I release guilt and shame around money because I want to train my subconscious in my mind and that it's okay.
00:33:09
Speaker
Right. But if I think it's not, I'm to go back into this cocoon like, oh, my God, i don't know what to do with this money. I'm just hold it for my life where I could have been invested in a stock market or I can and invest in in someone like you to help me grow it.
00:33:26
Speaker
So in this moment, do you have three practical ways that people can view money so they can feel safe when it comes to money? I want to answer that
Financial Trauma Across Socioeconomic Levels
00:33:37
Speaker
question. Before I answer that question, I just want to make it this comment really quickly, because so often do we have these conversations around money and around mindset and the target is the individual that's struggling, right, or the individual who um has struggled.
00:33:53
Speaker
Yeah. and often the people who are left out of the conversation are the people who have achieved the high income or the people who have achieved well yeah and so um i want to be clear and saying that um the safety that we all seek as human beings extends in both directions, right? There are people who have, like you said, they travel the end of the world to to have money.
00:34:17
Speaker
they They achieve this, but they feel empty inside. Why, right? um And so this conversation around financial trauma is expansive to more than just the low to middle income people that are trying to like figure out how to make it.
00:34:30
Speaker
It extends into the people who have made it and they're still there. are um They're a slave to money just at a higher income level. Right. Or at a higher asset level.
00:34:41
Speaker
And so they may still be ah pressured by the same messaging that we receive because. to now I need to hold on to all of this money that I've accumulated or hold on to all this wealth that I've accumulated because i don't want to be ah poor person, right?
00:34:56
Speaker
um And so this idea around um not having money has been a negative socialization that we have because, um or not because, period.
00:35:08
Speaker
Negative socialization that we have around money, period. And so when we look at things like the criminalization of um the unhoused or homeless people, um now we see that ah socialization codified into law, right?
00:35:21
Speaker
um We observe it as we navigate um just our experiences growing up. You don't want to be the poor kid. um You want a wealth signal. You want to wear the name brand. Now, like on social media, you're hearing all these narratives about the billionaires who wear the T-shirts and Wealth is quiet. It's not flashy.
00:35:39
Speaker
But, you know, there's trauma that is associated with having money and people who know that you have money and the expectations that come with having money to the people that you are you engage with. So um I really want, you know, anybody listening to know that a financial trauma is not exclusive to individuals who are poor, who are struggling or who have previously been poor.
00:36:01
Speaker
um Now, to answer your question, ah three reframes when it comes to money is, um you know, we recognize that money is a tool, but you know, rather we say that money is a tool, but I don't think that we actually recognize that money is a tool.
00:36:15
Speaker
And i'll go I'll go as far as to say this. um It's a made up one, right? Like it's a construct. And we opt into this construct because in a lot of ways we have to, right? We need to get money in order to have food. We need to get money in order to have clothes.
00:36:32
Speaker
We need to get money in order to have housing.
Reframing Money as a Tool
00:36:34
Speaker
um But i think when we ah deconstruct money as being this all-powerful thing and we recognize that it it is a construct, it is a tool, um it is something that's made up,
00:36:49
Speaker
that you can um look at, like you said, the shame, the guilt, the ah worry that comes with money and start rewiring your brain to add to through affirmations to all align with a frequency that either calls money to you or allows for you to make more impactful decisions with the money that you have.
00:37:12
Speaker
And so that's the first reframe. Money is not real. Like, it's made up. The second reframe is, and i ask this question to my clients when I work with them, um probably one of the first questions that I ask, what does money represent to you?
00:37:25
Speaker
Right? um Usually I get ah some pretty consistent answers. One of those answers being um freedom. Uh-huh. Another one of those answers being security.
00:37:37
Speaker
um Another one of those answers being power. Right. And so when we start to um ask the question, what does money represent to you? And um we start viewing people's behaviors or their motivations ah because their behavior may not be consistent with their motivation.
00:37:54
Speaker
um But we start looking at people's motivations when it comes to the acquisition of money. We can understand um their subsequent behaviors in the pursuit of money. So if money represents a safety to you, then you might embrace more of a hustle and mentality because you don't feel safe, right, um unless you have If money represents power to you, you may not necessarily embrace a hustle mentality, although that's certainly a component there.
00:38:23
Speaker
But your motivations around getting money is um either to subjugate somebody else or so that you are not subjugated by somebody else. Right.
00:38:34
Speaker
um And so power, like, you know, you we know what the associations of of power looks like. um If I have money, then I can do dot, dot. And when I'm making these statements, I'm not making these statements through a lens of judgment.
00:38:47
Speaker
Right. So there is not necessarily a negative associated with somebody who's desiring of power. There is not something um necessarily negative that is associated with somebody who's desiring safety. Right.
00:39:00
Speaker
But when we look at these motivations, it is up to the individual who is navigating through this lens to decide what their moral and ethical compass looks like in the pursuit of these things.
00:39:14
Speaker
Does that make sense? Yeah. And it's great. I want to add two things. The first half is, you know, with my, you know, experience with high level clients that make a lot of money, it's like they're in a matrix of that money.
00:39:28
Speaker
And it's like they have to keep making it to keep living. And they have all the things. But then you get to a point where, when when does the will stop? wind did And it's not even about them making more. it's just like that's their life now.
00:39:42
Speaker
They have payroll. They have expenses. They have several homes, several cars. Maybe they own most of their cars or they just lost millions in the stock market. It's still trauma.
00:39:54
Speaker
And I want to reframe and tell people like it's not just people who don't have money. There's people with a lot to have more pain than people who don't have a lot. But you can't see it because it's hidden in the money, emotionally, mentally.
00:40:07
Speaker
I'm not aware of the author of the psychology of money. You look at lot of the billionaires of the world, not all of them, but a lot of them are not as happy as you would think or fulfill. It's because they have so much to be responsible for, so much to think about. And what dropped in when you were speaking was – My thing about money never been a thing, Rakim, until I had to start thinking about it because I made a lot of money and good money.
00:40:38
Speaker
going say a lot money. made decent money over the years doing what I love. So it was never this hard, how am going to scale the business? How am going to make money? Because I was in my creative flow. You know, affluence means to flow. I was in my flow state.
00:40:52
Speaker
Brand deals, TV, commercials, pot. Like I was just... I wasn't thinking about money as like business, but it was, I started putting that ideology on money. That perception is like something slowed down. It's like something changed.
00:41:08
Speaker
It's like, we wasn't playing one-on-one with no
Capitalism and Its Historical Context
00:41:11
Speaker
ref. Now there's a referee called, So my energy change, language matters, environment matters, how we think, what we feel, what we attract, who we're around does discern our money wounds.
00:41:24
Speaker
But like you said, it doesn't have to be that way. I think what will make us all fulfilled without... The construct of money if we're in a position or profession doing the things we truly love.
00:41:38
Speaker
Like, I truly love being on this podcast. I enjoy this conversation with you. Like, I'm not thinking about if this is going to generate me money. Now, God willing, if it does, of course, I want to make so much money.
00:41:49
Speaker
But that's not my intentions. My intentions is how can I tap into your higher self for your soul's essence and proof and expertism come through to help people in this space?
00:42:01
Speaker
And then you get more people in that communal type of vibe within themselves. Eventually the money will come. Right. Because I'm not putting attachment on an outcome. The income is the investment of our energies to say, hey, teach me about financial therapy.
00:42:17
Speaker
How do we reframe these things? And what is the end goal for all of us? And I think beyond money is to be fulfilled. Right. Within having money or not or having enough to know like I'm OK.
00:42:29
Speaker
Yeah, for sure. And um I'll just add on to that. Lately, I've been beating up on capitalism a lot. And it's funny because have a friend who's hardcore socialist. And then i I have a bunch of people that I'm connected with who are like hardcore capitalists.
00:42:45
Speaker
And I don't sit in any one camp, right? Like, I believe in the free market. I believe in ah private ownership. I believe in, you know, going out and I believe in commerce, um even though entrepreneurship and capitalism is not one in the same.
00:42:58
Speaker
ah But I'm going to be on my capitalism briefly because we ah are in an ah economic system that prioritizes people over profits. hmm.
00:43:09
Speaker
And that um exploits the labor like wage labor of individuals. And then again, this is going back to the context of um race and or race theory.
00:43:22
Speaker
um This country, the United States founding has leveraged slavery as its wealth builder. Right. um Do you look at ah the timeline of slavery, the transatlantic slave trade? It goes back before the United States was officially the United States. Right.
00:43:40
Speaker
So 70, 1776, when, you know, July 4th, we just celebrated Independence Day. Um, when the United States became the United States, slavery was in full swing, right? And so you have the exploitation of bodies, black bodies specifically, giving free labor for,
00:44:01
Speaker
um like almost 200 years. And so there's this massive culture of exploitation um and the exploitation of people ah that is embedded in the institutions and the systems and the laws of this country.
00:44:19
Speaker
And so we talk about trauma. And again, looking at what the individual is carrying in their body from a nervous system perspective, um What that individual may have inherited genetically over time, right, by way of epigenetics, going back, more you know, ah some people say as far back as seven generations.
00:44:40
Speaker
But, you know, the trauma is not just just like one kind of trauma. is yeah You know, look at like the snowball effect, right? As a snowball comes down the hill, it gets bigger because it's picking up other trauma. Right.
00:44:51
Speaker
um when we look at how trauma compounds and um and how it dysregulates and we look at um the individual, it's easier to say, oh, well, you know, woe is me, I'm a victim,
Individual Responsibility in Healing
00:45:09
Speaker
blah, blah, right? And I'm not advocating for victimhood here. But what I'm saying is that the individual has responsibility to heal,
00:45:18
Speaker
Right. Not because of any moral reason or because of any political reason, but because like that is not how we were all created. We were not created for this to carry trauma and to be impacted by trauma. So you have obligation to heal just by by by virtue of the being that you are.
00:45:38
Speaker
But at the same time, we have to look at this broader systemic trauma that, like I said, is embedded in the like the fiber of ah the institutions and all the laws and medicine and even race theory, right?
00:45:58
Speaker
um in In my book, so I pulled from both Joy DeGroix's book, which I mentioned, Post-Traumatic Slave Syndrome, and Claude Anderson's book, Ironomics, To um echo the sentiment that they share around the fact that race is not real. It's also a social construct, right? And race race theory was developed with one intention only.
00:46:23
Speaker
And that intention is to justify slavery, right? Yeah. So race theory was developed to justify slavery, which is, you know, the subjugation of other human beings, particularly black African human beings, as being subhuman or less than ah ah deserving of, you know, regular human exchange.
00:46:44
Speaker
And the fabric of the ah the culture of the country that we navigate today, 200 years later, is still the same. We're trying to, like, change parts and and change policies without getting to the root of the issue.
00:47:00
Speaker
And so um I'm not making this a white and black thing. I'm just um sharing history because I want to illustrate a a larger point. And that larger point is that capitalism has been exploitative system since the birth, since the inception of this country.
00:47:15
Speaker
And so as we navigate capitalism and we try to figure out how do I make the bags? How do I spend the bag? How do I show other people that I have the bag? Right. um We are chasing these ideals and values through lens of capitalism that was the offender. Right.
00:47:34
Speaker
Right. um And so when we talk about healing trauma, certainly we can't as an individual, you or me can't do anything about or overturning the system. um But to your point, we can talk to enough people to get them to recognize the harm the system has perpetuated.
00:47:52
Speaker
and to recognize that they are worthy of healing and so that they could go on their own healing journey, and to also recognize that there are mechanisms in place by way of advertising, by way of culture, by way of propaganda, by way of um just the culture of consumerism that is so normal for us, so normalized for us, rather, that is also inflicting trauma present day, um specifically financial trauma.
00:48:20
Speaker
So when you talk about you can't hold money in your nervous system and you feel this inclination to give it away, um there is a money script that financial therapy recognizes known as money avoidance.
00:48:33
Speaker
that That is exactly that, right? Money avoidance is... um You either believe that money is a rootable evil, um that in order to acquire money that ah somebody had to do something negative or bad, or um you sabotage ways for you to keep and grow money by either giving it away or just getting in the way yeah of way yeah what that looks like, right?
00:48:56
Speaker
um that's money avoidance. And there are thousands of money scripts. But ah when you said that, when you said that loud, I was just like, man, like that's like, that's like, if you look up money avoidance, like that is a textbook definition, what what you just described.
00:49:11
Speaker
yes And so many people navigate that. Like, I don't feel comfortable having money for whatever reason. So I'm going to give it away or I'm going to find a way to get rid of it because I feel more comfortable not having it than I do having it.
00:49:26
Speaker
On the other side, though, there's people who are like, nah, need more. Right? Like, I have money, but like, I need more. I want more. um What can I do to get more? What can I do to spend less?
00:49:39
Speaker
And in the process, they may take advantage of people. They may step on people. They may view people as stepping stones to get to the next destination. i So you talked about Dame Dash and and I loved his messaging.
00:49:52
Speaker
I still love his messaging. I think that there's still merit and there's value in what it is that he said um and that his recent business failure is not a personal failure.
00:50:03
Speaker
Right. um But when we look at the other side of that, like that household mentality says, I got to do it. I got to do it. I got to do it. Like, I can't have help. I got I got to use my own money. I can't bring anybody else's money.
00:50:14
Speaker
There are people who are embracing the opposite of like, oh, no, like I'm not touching my money. Like who else with money can I spend to make this happen? um And that is something that is applauded and something that is encouraged. We look at Robert Kiyosaki and Rich Dad Poor Dad, right? He talks about OPM using other people's money.
00:50:31
Speaker
Grant Cardone, he does the same thing, talking about OPM using other people's money. Robert Kiyosaki goes on to podcasts and speaking engagements and he brags about how much he's in depth.
00:50:43
Speaker
And that, I forget, i think it was last year, maybe the year before, i saw a clip of him talking he goes... I am in so much debt that if I were to default on my debt, that the banks would fail.
00:50:59
Speaker
Wow. Wow. Right. He talks about like being a like and multi like billion dollars worth of debt. Whether or not that's true, I don't know. yeah But he's like almost daring the financial institutions like if you want, but you could default on me if you want to. But like if I don't pay back this debt, like you lose. So um and but, you know, you you you bring up a really good point. And this is a point that's that goes back to what I had shared earlier.
00:51:25
Speaker
America's in debt and we keep going deeper into debt off of like money that we keep making up. Right. That's the point. Right. It's made up. We keep opting into like this ah system of belief that says like there's a limited amount, like scarcity. Right.
00:51:41
Speaker
When like it just keeps getting printed. Right. is it's It's literally just made up. Like we're just assigning value to it.
Money as Energy and Life Expansion
00:51:48
Speaker
And so I think like, you know, without getting too far off topic.
00:51:52
Speaker
That um those are important reframes to understand and to um recognize in ourselves and and other people that we're engaging with.
00:52:05
Speaker
Because defines, not that it defines, but it directs, like I said, our motivations and then subsequent behaviors Where um we are either inflicting trauma ourselves based off of the environment that we're put in, or we are the direct victim of trauma from these institutions that go back multiple, multiple, most, multiple generations.
00:52:34
Speaker
Yeah, and it's deep because, I mean, you think about credit, the credit system. You think about ah not paying back your boy that you owe $500 and like the psychological part of like money, how that goes through our nervous system.
00:52:51
Speaker
We don't even care. Like you said, the grad condones and Robert Kiyosaki, they could care less. They just keep using credit cards or debt. to do And I think they say Apple probably has over, you know, $900 million in cash reserves, something crazy, and they just keep getting loans.
00:53:08
Speaker
Like, oh, I'm a $1.2 billion loan because I know I can pay it off, right? Right. And that's a whole other game. I also heard a guy say, you know, when you're a millionaire and you got to pay 53% in tax, right?
00:53:22
Speaker
I'm just going to get a credit card where I'm putting everything on a credit card so I can keep my money because I know at the end of the year, they're going to take half of what I profit. People don't even have that knowledge because they're not at that level. And it's just my whole thing here with you, with us, with people listening, is that I want people to work on their nervous system and get into their body. And that's what spiritual fitness is about.
00:53:43
Speaker
That's what, you know, financial trauma, ah getting in your body to understand, why do I feel different if someone tickles me on the neck? Why can't I receive, you know, why do I feel different when somebody wants to give to me?
00:53:55
Speaker
but I can't receive what I want to give to them. Like where they coming from? Or why do I feel inferior when someone's trying to give me advice and I got my ego up? Where's these blocks coming from to stop me of getting in the way of the money, the opportunity and the energy? Because I believe money is energy to expand my life.
00:54:15
Speaker
Because most of my life I've worked on my energy and through working on my energy, life has helped me. through people and opportunity. So I just want to say thank you for your time, R-Kim. Thank you for your energy.
00:54:28
Speaker
And how do we work with you? How do we get into your vortex? How do we get into the frequency of what you offer? Like, how do we connect? What is that way? Yeah, no, I appreciate you asking this question.
00:54:39
Speaker
So most of my, so i'm I'm a speaker, I'm a writer and, um, and you know, a financial
Rakeem Sabree's Work and Future Projects
00:54:45
Speaker
therapist. Yeah. Speaking is, it's like my favorite medium, right? i get up and I could touch however many lives. So like what I'm, what we're doing right now is, is, is my favorite, but, um, my easiest medium is writing.
00:55:00
Speaker
Um, that's like, that's my thing. So I have a sub stack. ah My sub stack is called overcoming financial trauma. um And so I talk about just different thoughts that I have related to money, related to mental health, um tying in you know these different themes.
00:55:15
Speaker
It could be tied into pop culture. It could be tied into academics. It could be tied into practice. um So overcome the financial trauma or Substack or RakimSabri.substack.com.
00:55:28
Speaker
I also write Forbes. um I haven't written for them in a little while because I've been focused on writing um my book. But i have a column on Forbes and I plan on starting to ramp up some of the writing there.
00:55:40
Speaker
um Of course, I have to plug ah the book that's coming out, Overcoming Financial Trauma, where I talk about a lot of things that I talked about today, right? talk about polyvagal theory. I talk about somatic healing. I talk about nervous system regulation. i talk about the money scripts that I shared with you. I talk about the sources of financial trauma. I talk about race and race theory.
00:55:58
Speaker
um So all of really what I hit on today, um you'll see show up in the book. and it And I believe that it's a very revolutionary book um because it is not traditional. Right. It doesn't sit in the box of, you know, your traditional financial education book. It doesn't sit in the box of.
00:56:17
Speaker
your psychology book or your ah social theory book, it like kind of blends across yeah disciplines. um But I think that that's necessary as a part of the healing, right? If we keep looking at these different um occurrences as siloed interactions and we don't ever establish like this holistic um body, mind, spirit connection, then we'll continue to run on these treadmills of frustration and anxiety.
00:56:44
Speaker
shame and all of the things, right? So um that book is called Overcoming Financial Trauma. ah It'll be out November 12th of this year. um But pre-sales are available now.
00:56:56
Speaker
And I'm on all socials at Rakim Sabri. I haven't been consistent and with posting lately. But, um you know, i have a ton of content going back. Just kind of showing, ah you know, days in life stuff, ah talks that I've done, educational, informal, informational content ah related to money and mental health.
00:57:17
Speaker
And just before you, before we get off, do you, one, do you have anything you want to leave with the audience? And two, so do you have any container where you're working with people one-on-one or as a group, or you're more just expressive in like writing, speaking, and talking about what you do?
00:57:37
Speaker
Yeah, so I work with organizations more so than I work with individuals. um So I do more train-to-trainer events. I work with HR teams around, like, leadership and, you know, how how do we impact retention by way of uncovering financial trauma.
00:57:54
Speaker
um I work with mental health professionals. I work with financial professionals. So a lot of times giving continuing education credits for um them to maintain whatever their credential or designation is.
00:58:05
Speaker
I have worked with people one-on-one in the past. I do selectively work with people one-on-one. And, you know, just being very frank about it, the the bang from my buck is more one-to-one than it is one-to-one. Yeah.
00:58:17
Speaker
um But that is that is an option um on kind of a case-by-case basis. So, you know, individuals can definitely feel free to reach out um via at the socials or any of the um the platforms and not that I've shared.
00:58:31
Speaker
And um if I'm available, then I'll share you my my calendar link. If I'm not available, then I'll just ah let you know I'm not available. Got it. Well, thank you for your time. Thank you for your energy, your wisdom, your insight.
00:58:42
Speaker
And people follow him all socials. Get his book. I got to get, I think it's Financial Irresponsibility. Financially Irresponsible. Yeah, that's yeah else but that's book one. Yeah, I definitely need to get that. And um people follow him, connect with him on social.
00:58:55
Speaker
And ah this was another spiritual fitness podcast. podcast episode, share, subscribe, like, download, tell friend to tell a friend. This episode is definitely needed and Rakim Sabri is the financial trauma therapist that will help you. So with that being said, we're out.
00:59:11
Speaker
Thank you, Rakim. Peace.
00:59:15
Speaker
Thank you for joining us on the Spiritual Fitness Podcast. We hope today's episode has inspired you and provided valuable insights for your holistic health journey. By blood and spirituality and physical wellness, you can strengthen your body, mind, and soul.
00:59:31
Speaker
If you enjoyed today's episode, please subscribe, rate, and leave a review. Until next time, stay strong, stay inspired, and remember, it's miracle season.