Hi Brooke,

Thank you for your answer yesterday to my question on asking for help with money. It made me tear up (in a good way) and I so appreciate your support. I ended up asking my family member for help and she gave me some money. I have to admit though, it was very uncomfortable and I ended up picking a fight with her because I was ashamed to let her see that I was anything but the “perfect niece” I always assumed she thought I was. In the end, we dealt with it and had a very good and vulnerable conversation and she is going to loan the money and I am going to double down and get to work on making sure I am never in this position again.

All that to say, I wanted to thank you for answering my question and helping me take this big step towards seeing money differently.

Last night I started going through the Money lectures. I wrote down my Past/Present/Future thoughts about money and boy do I have a lot and 99% are very negative! I tried doing models on a number of the thoughts and I just can’t figure out how my thoughts are causing me to be $50,000 in debt. The thoughts are negative but I’m struggling to connect why/how the feeling causes me to spend money. I feel like there’s a step missing. Can you take a look at my partial models and see where I might be going wrong? Thanks!

C: Money
T: I don’t have enough money
F: Frustrated
A: Spend money?
R: -$50,000

C: Money
T: It’s not possible to make as much money as I want
F: Frustrated
A: Spend money?
R: -$50,000

C: Money
T: Life is difficult/boring/not enjoyable when there is not enough money
F:
A: Spend money?
R: -$50,000

C: Money
T: If you want something you have to pay for it yourself
F:
A: Spend money?
R: -$50,000

C: Money
T: I have too much debt
F: Ashamed
A: Spend money?
R: -$50,000

Samantha