Short answer: your nervous system protecting you from systemic oppression

Free write or draw (or even turn on voice memos): What, or who (not you) is an obstacle to having enough in savings?

Watch the video and/or read the Substack article on why having savings might feel unsafe:

Have you ever heard of the marshmallow test? It’s this experiment they’ve been doing since the 60’s to test kids’ willpower.

It goes something like this:

You put a 5 year old in a room with a marshmallow and tell them, “you can eat this marshmallow now, or, if you don’t eat the marshmallow and wait until I come back, you get to have two marshmallows!”

It was meant to test a child’s willpower, ability to practice delayed gratification, and ultimately predict their “success” in life. 

This theory was completely debunked when scientists attempted to replicate the study in the 2010’s.

Marshmallows not a predictor of personal responsibility but of socio-economic class

From a 2016 Atlantic article:

The failed replication of the marshmallow test does more than just debunk the earlier notion; it suggests other possible explanations for why poorer kids would be less motivated to wait for that second marshmallow.

For them, daily life holds fewer guarantees: There might be food in the pantry today, but there might not be tomorrow, so there is a risk that comes with waiting.

And even if their parents promise to buy more of a certain food, sometimes that promise gets broken out of financial necessity.

In other words, if you were promised things as a kid and repeatedly did not get them, you’re eating the damn marshmallow. That random adult might never come back.

Explicit vs implicit memory OR why it might not feel safe to keep money in the bank

💕 HUGE acknowledgment to our interpersonal neurobiology teachers, who have asked to remain anonymous, for this transformative information

Explicit memories are the conscious retrieval of past information or memories - they live in the mind. Things like appointments, birthdays, grocery lists, bank account balances live here.

Implicit memories are your unconscious, or automatic memories - they live in the body and may not be easily recalled by your mind. Things like brushing your teeth, driving a car, knowing all the words to a song, emotional connections to money live here.

Explicit memory fires off in your brain/body at 5-60 bits per second.

Implicit memory fires off in your brain/body at 11 MILLION bits per second.

Money can represent a lot of implicit memories you may not be able to readily access. If you start to feel uncomfortable, ask yourself where you feel it in your body and honor that.

Are you a one-marshmallow kid?

Having savings is basically the adult version of not eating the first marshmallow.

Our bodies protect us whether our conscious mind knows it or not.

For some people, spending money as soon as you get it can be your body’s way of saying: “someone is going to take this from me, so I’m going to spend it before they do.”

Having savings might not feel safe.

Sit with that for a moment. If you’ve struggled to keep money in the bank, it’s not because you’re “bad” at saving.

Your wonderful, intelligent, adaptive body is reminded of negative associations with money in the past and doesn’t have enough positive associations to feel safe in.

To start unraveling your feelings around saving, ask yourself - what positive association around saving (big or small) can you commit to creating in the next week or so? It can be as small as setting up a $10 auto transfer into your savings account every month.

If any of this resonated with you, thank you for going there with us. Understanding your relationship with money is a revolutionary act.