The Intersection of Money Mindset & Fatphobia

The other day I posted an affirmation that said Saving Money Is Safe and I had someone reach out and ask why I talk about money when the group is supposed to be focused on body image and mindset….well, money is a mindset - but more importantly than that, the way we think about ourselves and our bodies can impact the way that we receive and ask for, money.

Before we go further I want you to do a little assessment:

Part 1:

1) Can you say “Money is good” out loud without feeling squidgy?
2) Do you feel uncomfortable receiving anything? (money, gifts, compliments, etc.)
3) Do you spend money as soon as you have it?
4) Do you spend money on yourself the way you spend money on your kids, spouse, friends, etc.?
5) Do you avoid looking at your bank account/statements?

Part 2:

1) Can you say “This body is good” out loud without feeling squidgy?
2) Do you feel uncomfortable receiving compliments about your body? (ie. do you not believe them?)
3) If you start to gain weight do you get anxious and try to lose it right away?
4) Do you treat/say things about your body the way you would treat/say things about other people’s bodies?
5) Do you avoid looking at your body - in the mirror, in photographs, etc.?

Were there any similarities between Part 1 and Part 2? Keep in mind, everyone’s journey is going to be different. For example, I am much more confident in the part 2 stuff, while the part 1 stuff is less confident - BUT I was at one point equal on all fronts until I started to work through things.

I have broken down 3 ways that money mindset intersects with fatphobia and our beliefs about bodies - but there are probably many more!

VALUE

The reason why the answers to Part 1 and Part 2 are/were probably similar is because we have been taught that money = value and certain bodies = value. From the time that we are little, we grow up understanding which bodies get the romance, get the social status, get the job opportunities, get the success. As we get older, our representation changes only slightly and while we are now seeing more women making bank, they tend to be thin women. When was the last time you saw a fat woman making money? What about a fat, Black, trans woman with a disability? Yah - exactly.

I’ve talked about the importance of representation - our brain sorts things into “comfortable” and “not comfortable”. Comfortable things are the things we see over and over and over again - this creates YOUR TRUTH. When we see thin women making money time and time again - your brain says “THIN WOMEN ARE SUCCESSFUL”, so when we look in the mirror and see our squishy bodies and say “THIS IS WHAT A SUCCESSFUL WOMAN LOOKS LIKE” it makes us laugh and uncomfortable - this is contradictory to the evidence our brain holds.

And that’s just on the personal level. When we take it socially and culturally, we see that fat folks are paid less, they get less job opportunities, and they are perceived as “lazy, less productive, etc.” because that is the representation of fat bodies we’ve seen in the media up until very, very recently. The way the world treats us seeks to confirm our brain’s belief and we find ourselves caught in a cycle of bullshit.

Antidote: Look for fat women who are living the life you desire to have. Maybe they are folks who travel a lot for their job - check out: @fatgirlstraveling . Maybe they are fat women who have made millions by growing their business - check out Kara Loewentheil . Whatever your definition of success is - start looking for folks who look like you, doing the same thing. And if there isn’t - BECOME IT.

ABANDONMENT

If you’ve heard me talk about my journey with money mindset, you will know I talk about my parents’ relationships with money and how my Dad’s approach specifically is what burrowed into my brain. Growing up my Dad always talked about folks with money as “rich assholes” and as a child, my brain will have interpreted this as: “If I am rich, my Dad will think I’m an asshole and he won’t like me.” which triggers the fear of abandonment. But it wasn’t until he actually got money, that he became the rich asshole - he cheated on my mom and essentially “left” the family. This further confirmed that seed of an idea: More money = abandonment. So, naturally, I would try to get rid of the money as fast as it came in because of this reason.

So, what does this have to do with fatphobia?

Well, from the time that we are little - those of us socialized as women constantly hear threats like “You better keep your figure or he’s going to leave you for someone else!” “Don’t let yourself go or you’ll find yourself alone and on your own.”, etc. We learn early on that in order to avoid being abandoned we must keep our bodies slim and trim and don’t upset the status quo.

Regardless of the catalyst, our brain stores ABANDONMENT in the same place - so whether it is from body image or it is from money, it feels the same and soon these things become intertwined because “neurons that fire together, wire together.” The end result is Fear of Being Alone / Safety. This can lead us to devaluing ourselves, settling for less, or never feeling like we are enough (because when we get the thing we are told to want, we get rid of it right away. You say you want money but money is unsafe. You say you want to have a better relationship with your squishy body, but squishy bodies are unsafe. etc.)

[I want to steer this away from fatphobia for a second and say this can also make it so people keep their weight on. Because abandonment is something I fear because of my Dad’s actions/beliefs, being in a smaller body for me triggers that fear (something I’ve just started to realize over the last year). I am afraid people won’t listen to/read/book me for photoshoots/etc. if I am in a smaller body. I am afraid my friends will leave me (when I lost all that weight in Korea, I came back and realized my “friends” really only kept me around before to be the fat friend and suddenly, in a smaller body, I was ‘competition’ in their eyes and they stopped hanging out with me.) When I lost in South Korea, I was getting male attention - but they just used me and abandoned me. etc. My Dad lost weight when he started making more money and that’s when he cheated on my mom. I notice now, that when my body starts shifting towards becoming leaner or smaller, I will stop doing the physical activity or start binge eating. For me, being in a smaller body doesn’t feel safe yet. That being said - FATPHOBIA plays a role in this as well. We are taught that being fat = not attractive/loveable and this narrative feeds into my safety/defense mechanism - believing that since I have more weight on my body I already know the people that will stay around or not. This is why body image is so fucking complex.]

Antidote: Look into your past and recognize your caretaker’s relationships with money to see how their stories/actions around money and bodies show up in your own stories/actions. Were you afraid of people leaving you? Did people leave you? When you get money does it make you feel squidgy? When your loved one tells you your body is glorious does it make you feel squidgy? Why?

INCONVENIENCE

This was a hard one for me to recognize, but an important one for me to discover. My whole life I have felt like I was inconvenient and would do whatever I could to avoid being that for people. Because if I was an inconvenience then people wouldn’t like me and then they would leave me : hello, abandonment! At first, I blamed this on being a middle child and I am certain there is some truth to that as well. However, I started to realize that my body size further compounded this belief. When you have to ask the store owner to see if they have the same outfits in different sizes, or go out of your way to ask for a seatbelt extender on the plane, or apologize to the person on the bus because your thigh spills over onto theirs - your body starts to feel like an inconvenience to the rest of the world.

This feeling then filters down into:
-asking for money that you deserve
-asking people to pay their invoices on time
-setting boundaries around schedules
-giving things away to make up for your inconvenience

Running my own business has become the best exposure therapy I could have ever imagined. I had to recognize not just that I was giving things away so much, but WHY was I giving things away so much. I realized that before I would offer a discount or gift people some photos it’s because I felt squidgy in the silence of them making a decision. I assumed they were inconvenienced by this decision making process and because I was uncomfortable, they must also be uncomfortable - so I had to make it “right”. In one year, I gave away over $60,000 worth of images and photoshoots!!!!

I would also override my own schedule to suit the needs of others instead of asking them to respect the schedule I had laid out. It was easy to get pissed off at people for “taking advantage of me” but really, I was the one creating systems and opportunities for them to do that because I felt like an inconvenience. I had to apologize for taking their time, taking their money, and for them having to put up with my body. This goes back to abandonment and settling.

Old Teri: ”I’m just glad people want to spend time/money on me at all.”

WOMP. YIKES.

New Teri: ”People are privileged to have the opportunity to work with me and have access to my time.”

Aaaaaah, yes.

I still have a hard time believing it, but it IS getting easier - the truth is, only I have to believe this for things to truly change.

Antidote: Recognize where you have been giving away your power, your time, your money, your life and simply ask yourself : What, in me, is this behavior serving?

Money Mindset is complicated. Body image is complicated. So, naturally the intersection of these 2 is going to also be complicated. In fact, I rewrote this because the first draft was all over the place. One of the best ways for us to dismantle fatphobia and the patriarchy is to start believing in our worth as HUMANS - not as bodies. In the North American culture, it’s hard to believe that this could even be true - but listen, you could become the very representation that our world needs so that the next generation of humans can grow up believing that they are valued, worthy, and capable of success regardless of their physical state. Now, go to your bank and get yourself set up with a savings account and start making bank. You deserve it. Follow @herfirst100k for some incredible tips and podcast!