Why we struggle with money: A journey back to childhood

Many of us have a conflicted relationship with money. We want more, but at the same time, we think that having a lot of money makes people greedy, snobby, or power-hungry. We might feel that money should only be used for the “right” things. Or that it’s easier to pay than to charge for what we offer. This can be challenging as an entrepreneur, and it can also make it difficult to attract more money into your life.

A healthy relationship with money is about seeing both sides of the coin. Money can be used for good things, it can bring freedom and joy, and you can enjoy it without guilt – without becoming a worse person.

I’ve had the privilege of helping two different business owners who felt strong resistance when it came to charging for their services. They would give discounts out of guilt or charge less than the market rate.

Through hypnotherapy (regression), they were able to explore what was behind their beliefs about money. I also did a session on myself, which I will share as a third example. 

Adults and children experience differently

The same event can be experienced in completely different ways – depending on whether we see it through our adult self or our child self.

As children, we interpret the world with the tools we had at the time. What seems small today could have felt huge back then. This means that an experience might have had a very different meaning when it happened than it does today.

Regression allows us to go back and see the situation through the child’s eyes. For real change, it’s not enough to just understand the event. We need to experience it again, as the child did. This lets you understand it with your whole body, beyond words and reasoning. And it becomes easier to release old misunderstandings.

Client 1

The client revisited a childhood memory from school, where the teacher told the child to calm down and not make themselves stand out.

Adult self: The teacher wasn’t particularly nice, but it wasn’t a big deal to be told off during a lesson.

Child self: It was the first time the child had been sharply reprimanded by an adult in that way. Intense anxiety and shame arose – not because the child had done anything wrong, but because the feeling of “I’m not special, I shouldn’t think I am someone” was so strong. A sense of being diminished and pushed down came for no reason. 

Client 2

The client revisited a childhood memory of a bicycle accident.

Adult self: A traumatic memory, with a lot of blood and pain.

Child self: The same experience, but with a strong sense of unworthiness. The child felt abandoned as nobody was there and scared about dying. A very intense feeling of loneliness and of not being valued.

My own regression

I revisited a childhood memory from Canada. At the time, I didn’t understand English or French and thought I had been given a wallet full of money by a charity that knocked on a relative’s door. I took the wallet, closed the door, and planned to buy candy with the money.

Adult self: A funny memory. Something I can tell as a silly childhood story.

Child self: The first time I was accused by an adult acquaintance of being greedy, stupid, slow, and of taking money from the vulnerable. I felt a very strong sense of being dumb and foolish – that I had deliberately taken money from others for my own pleasure.

Conclusion

After the sessions, both clients reached out and shared that they now have a completely new perspective on pricing their services and products. What once felt expensive now feels reasonable – even very good value. Previously, they often gave discounts out of guilt or insecurity, even though their clients hadn’t complained about the prices.

It was never really about the money. It was about their perception of their own worth.

Not feeling worthy can strongly shape how we view money. In today’s society, we are also taught that anything of value must cost a lot.

Perhaps things didn’t really happen exactly as the child experienced them. Yet it is the “truth” that the child stored in their memory that later governs behavior in life.

What needs to be clarified, then, is how the child actually experienced the situation. The key is to understand the child’s needs and give the care that was missing at the time.

This is how old, limiting patterns are released, and real change can begin.