#9–Shrinking down and puffing up, two sides of the same coin

You already know this: your ego's only job is to keep you from dying.

Sometimes, it goes the "who do you think you're talking to?" route. Other times, it thinks it's safer to just make you invisible to the potential danger, and so it fills your brain with chatter of "you're not enough."

Both are a natural response to a threat. Or to the fear triggered by what we perceive is a threat.

Changes in status and our financial circumstance may also be perceived by the ego as threats, triggering similar fear responses.

When we have a lot of money, our ego believes that we "deserve" more status and so it might nudge us to puff up––buy the red Porsche, the Manolos, the expensive vacation. "Show them who you are!"

The danger, the ego makes us believe, is in missing out. If we don't occupy the rank we should occupy, someone else will and we'll lose our chance. It's the fear of missing out.

And when we lose money, or aren't making as much as we once did, our ego makes us shrink down. It triggers shame in us because we've lost our status. We can't be seen, and we can't keep on losing. So it goes into "keep, keep, keep" mode.

Either behavior is proof that our relationship with money isn't healthy.

Instead of a partnership where bother parties have equal power, we are in a codependent relationship with it.

• Our mood and feelings are shaped by money
• We don't take ownership of our life (because we think our life depends on money)
• We have mixed feelings about money (love/hate, want/reject)

That's because we've tied our worth as a person to the numbers in our bank account, effectively assigning to money the power that we feel we don't have.

Where in your life do you feel you could use more power?

Love,

Carolina