Trickle Treating: The Childhood Memory Behind Why Money Never Stuck

Kristen Melville: Invisible Upside. I'm your host Kristen Melville, a hypnotherapist, business coach and RTT practitioner from Sydney, Australia. This is a place for the midlife business owner who wants to harness the power of their subconscious mind to grow the business they've always dreamed of. Welcome. I'm so glad you're here. Welcome to this week's episode of Invisible Upside. In this episode, I'm telling you a money story that's actually a bit awkward for me to share. Because after decades of doing pretty well at earning money, I hit midlife and had to face a real lack of financial security. And it wasn't because I hadn't earned enough, it was because I hadn't kept enough. A few weeks back I told you the story of why I hid my coaching business for four years. That story was all about visibility. And this one is all about money. And it's about a pattern that I didn't even really consciously know I had until I found myself living with the consequences of it. Now before I get into my own story, I'd invite you to think about your own relationship with money for a second. Maybe like me, undercharging isn't that much of an issue for you. You ask for what you're worth and people pay it. But does the money actually stick around once it lands in your account? Or does it seem to disappear again almost as fast as it arrived? If that sounds familiar, stay with me because that's exactly what today's episode is about. And we'll be digging into some other money patterns as well. So for most of my career as a marketing consultant, I was actually pretty good at earning money. I knew my value and I didn't undercharge. But holding on to that money was a completely different story. Saving it, investing it, keeping it. The money just seemed to run through my fingers. I always found a way to spend almost all of what I earned. And for a long time I didn't even clock that there was a subconscious pattern going on underneath that behaviour. I just thought that was who I was. I just thought I wasn't that great with money, a bit loose with my spending and saving habits. I kind of just thought that was like one of my personal flaws. But then I hit midlife and I had a pretty scary realization. Those decisions I'd been making year after year and those behaviors I'd been perpetuating week after week meant that I had a real lack of financial security. And as I said earlier, not because I hadn't earned enough, but because I hadn't kept enough. So I tried to fix this problem in the way most of us try to fix things with willpower and conscious effort. So I'd find a new budget tracking app and I'd fall in love with it. And I'd swear this was the one that was finally going to make the difference to my spending behaviors. And then a few weeks or months later, the habit would slip and I'd be right back to spending without thinking it through. And I went through that cycle more times than I really like to think about. A new app, perhaps a new spreadsheet, a burst of motivation. And then a few weeks or a few months later, I was right back to where I started, just the same as before. So after a few too many rounds of that, I decided I needed to take a different approach. So I did some RTT sessions specifically around money. And one of the memories that came up in those sessions was so small, I was genuinely surprised that it had been. running the show behind the scenes for me for decades. And I share it because it's a good illustration of how small and seemingly insignificant some of the experiences that drive our subconscious behaviours can be. So picture this. I was four years old, a little Aussie kid in Colorado for a few months back in the late nineteen seventies. Now Halloween wasn't really a big thing in Australia back then. So when we got the chance to go trickle treating with our parents' friend group, we were beside ourselves with excitement. Now, I didn't understand the concept at all. I thought the other kids were saying trickle treat, like trickling water a trickle treat. So that's what I called it. And apparently the adults found that really cute. Cute enough that the older kids started sending me up to the front doors. And the story goes that we ended up with an extra big hole that night because of it. And at the time it felt exciting and fun running up to strangers' doors with my little bucket in hand, having no idea what I was doing, but loving every second of it, running up and saying trickle treat. So I had absolutely no idea though that anything about that night would still be shaping my finances more than 40 years later. So here's the part that actually came up in my RTT session. When we got back to the house All of us kids tipped our buckets out on the floor in front of us. So I was sitting there looking at this huge pile of sweets, or candy as it's called in the US. Now, I loved sugar as a kid, so part of me was absolutely over the moon. But another part of me felt completely overwhelmed by the sheer quantity of it. I'd always been the kind of kid who ate all my treats at once. So a pile that size actually felt scary rather than exciting. And on top of that, the other kids recognized what was in front of them. Being a little Aussie kid, I didn't know any of the American brands. I remember feeling a bit silly and a bit out of my depth, sitting in front of this enormous, unfamiliar pile, like everybody else was in on something that I wasn't. Now keep in mind I was only four, so in the span of a whole life, this was such a small and seemingly insignificant experience. But that moment, along with a few others like it, wired in a lifelong pattern in my subconscious mind that having a lot felt overwhelming, not exciting. And when something feels overwhelming, fastest way to make that feeling go away is to get rid of it. So that's what I did for years, for decades, without ever consciously choosing to. I found ways to spend almost everything I earned instead of sitting with having it. This one early experience where having plenty felt overwhelming instead of exciting. Turned into decades of giving money away or spending it rather than sitting in an overflow. So before we go further, I'd like you to think about your own money story. In what ways have you been working against yourself when it comes to money? Perhaps, like me, it's about not saving enough of what you earn. Or perhaps it's undercharging and not asking for what your work is really worth. Or maybe it's a belief that making money has to mean really hard, grindy work. If any of those scenarios sound familiar for you, you're in good company because so many of us have all sorts of stories tied up around money, and they sit in our subconscious and drive our behaviors. So, whatever your pattern with money looks like, whether it's undercharging, overgiving, Or watching it disappear as soon as as it arrives, there's usually a specific moment or set of experiences sitting underneath that in the subconscious mind. And it's rarely as dramatic as you'd expect. Often it's something as simple as the experience that I shared around my Halloween, childhood Halloween experience. So trying to fix it. With a better budgeting app or more willpower like I did for years, it just doesn't get you there because you're trying to outlogic a decision that wasn't made logically in the first place. You're trying to move against your subconscious mind. And the subconscious mind always wins. It's what drives the great majority of our day to day behaviors, and it's a really powerful force. And this is actually quite similar to what I talked about with undercharging and overdelivering in last week's episode. Even though the surface behavior looks completely different, it has the same underlying mechanism, a belief that is formed early, running in the background for decades, showing up as a money habit that doesn't really make sense on paper now as an adult. Mine just happened to show up as overspending rather than undercharging. But the underlying mechanism, this subconscious driver of behavior is the same. Since doing this work, my financial behavior has done a complete 180. Now I'm a bit late to the party, but I'm now maxing out my monthly payments into my retirement account. I've got an emergency savings account with several months of living expenses in it. I have an investment account. And because I still want to enjoy my life, I have a fun and travel account too. So I'm not white knuckling my way through some austere savings plan. But I'm finally in control. And I have to say that it feels amazing. I no longer feel afraid of money or overwhelmed by it. I now feel genuinely fascinated by money and investing in a way that still actually surprises me sometimes. I'll actually sit and read about and learn about different investment options for fun now, which is not a sentence I ever imagined saying about myself. And it wasn't about becoming a different person and it definitely wasn't about trying harder. It was just about finding those memories that had been driving this outdated program and updating them and everything else followed from there in a way that just felt easy and natural. So that's my money story. And this episode wraps up the first month of my new podcast. Over the past four weeks, I've shared with you why I hid my coaching business for four years. I've shared why undercharging isn't always the real issue behind a pricing pattern. And now this the real reason money used to run straight through my fingers, no matter how much of it came in. They're very different stories, but underneath them is the same truth. None of these patterns get resolved using willpower or discipline or just trying harder. Those approaches failed me year after year, and believe me, I tried. So these types of patterns start from a handful of these small specific moments that shape a set of beliefs long before any of us were old enough to even question or really even be aware that those underlying beliefs existed about ourselves and about the world. So if you've got a stubborn pattern around money or visibility or anything else that you haven't been able to shift in your business, no matter what you've tried, however it shows up for you, I'd love to help you find that specific root cause experience and to change it. And that's exactly the work that I do with my clients. So I've included a link for you to learn more about that in the show notes. That wraps up this episode. Thank you for being here. It means a lot to me to have you here and I hope it's been valuable for you. Thank you for listening and I look forward to seeing you next time.