07.What I carry with me II
Money, Shame and Opportunity
When I began to explore the topic of family inheritance, the first word that came to mind was: money .
Not because I'm interested in them in a materialist way, but because money has always been a concern for me, a priority, a constant thought .
I didn’t grow up in poverty. Even after my parents separated, my mother always made sure we never lacked anything.
Not only that — she did everything she could so we could have something beautiful, something new, something more.
I used to watch her: she made sacrifices, she saved money.
When she gave me a little, I would put it aside too — to help buy our first car.
I enjoyed it. Watching the money grow, little by little, felt good. Reassuring.
As a teenager, I had already absorbed many rules:
the fridge had to be tidy, without waste;
first you paid bills and condominium fees;
only then did one think about clothes, entertainment or travel.
As I grew up, I realized that I had received a good education , but also crowned by a little fear . The fear that one day the money might not be there. And with that, also a subtle sense of shame , which was not mine, but that I felt in others.
I remember the classmates who couldn't afford certain things. I never judged them, but I felt their shame. And I made it my own. Maybe out of empathy. Maybe because I was afraid of becoming like them.
The same feeling came over me when, from the car, I watched the crowd pushing to get on a tram. Today it is called an eco-sustainable choice. Then as often today, it was a sign that you had no alternatives.
Over time I came into contact with a different culture: that of debt, installments, mortgages . I had never experienced anything like it. And I was scared.
I have a mortgage. A daughter. Lots of expenses. And until recently, it was all a source of anxiety.
A loved one once told me that “I suffer from poverty syndrome.”
That sentence made me cry so much.
For me, it was just responsibility, my healthy education.
But then I realized, even if it wasn't true, I certainly don't suffer from any poverty syndrome, I needed to work emotionally on my way of living money , perhaps too rigid.
What if we asked others?
Driven by this reflection, I asked a simple — but very powerful — question to my most trusted and dearest people:
“What relationship did you have, and do you have today, with money?”
The answers I received were sincere, sometimes hilarious, sometimes touching. What emerged was a small mosaic of thoughts, emotions, strategies and contradictions.
From childhood:
“When I was 7, I stole 10 lei from the purse of a friend of my mother.”
“I sold advertising brochures to my classmates.”
"With 10 lei I would get 10 1 leu ice creams and say they were delicious."
“My mom gave me money to go to the cafeteria, but I kept it to buy oranges for my sister.”
As adults:
“I have always had the light-heartedness to spend, but also the care to put aside.”
“Now that I have invested everything in houses and I am without a job, I feel weak.”
“Having savings makes you feel strong. Without them, you feel fragile: all it takes is a gust of wind… and you fall.”
Family inheritances :
“My grandmother managed a family of 5 children with little. My grandfather earned more… but he spent it all.”
“We may have lived very different experiences, but in the end we are all in the same boat: without money.”
New meanings:
“It’s not how much you have, but how you manage it. He who knows how to live with little has already won.”
A job to do (within us)
Talking about money—especially with affection, humor, and truth—is one of the most powerful ways to reconnect with your own history .
The goal is not to break with the past, but to integrate it (I've already said it and I wanted to repeat it)
Honoring what shaped us.
And choose with more freedom who we want to become.
Questions for your exploration:
How do I feel “equal” to my parents or grandparents when I think about money?
What emotions come up when I talk about money?
What did I inherit as an economic belief?
What fears or shames do I carry, even if they are not mine?
If I could really choose: what relationship would I like to have with money?
To conclude...or almost (because I will write about money as resources again)
As Brad and Ted Klontz, psychologists and authors of Mind Over Money , write,
“Often it’s not the money itself that creates problems, but the stories we tell ourselves about it, passed down through generations, like unwritten laws.”
This made me think deeply. Maybe it's not just "us" who worry about money, but the entire chain of experiences that we carry within us: those who feared hunger, those who experienced the humiliation of poverty, those who learned to keep quiet about their needs.
Perhaps growing up, even in this, means learning to rewrite our internal economic history.
Do it with love. And with respect for those who have been there before and I will write about this in more depth again.
Sources of inspiration:
Anne Ancelin Schützenberger - The Ancestors Syndrome
Brad Klontz & Ted Klontz -Mind Over Money
Lynne Twist -The Soul of Money
Vicki Robin & Joe Dominguez - Your Money or Your Life
