Sacred Money: Understanding Wealth as Energy and Power - EP 039

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Money is more than just numbers in a bank account—it is energy, power, and a reflection of our beliefs.  In this episode, I dive into the deep connection entrepreneurs have with money and how cultural conditioning has shaped our financial mindset. Money isn’t just a tool—it’s energy, and when we shift our mindset to see it that way, we unlock its true power. I explore how cultural conditioning shapes our beliefs about wealth, why the “just enough” mindset holds us back, and how dismantling these limiting beliefs can open the door to financial abundance. I also share sacred money practices to help you align your financial decisions with your values, reclaim your financial power, and create a life and business filled with impact, innovation, and pleasure.

Tune in to this episode to start rethinking money as energy and power, and take the first step toward creating a more abundant, purposeful financial future. 🎧

Episode Takeaways:

• Financial sustainability is essential for creating real impact in your business.
• Our beliefs about money are often shaped by cultural conditioning, and it’s time to question them. Dismantling limiting beliefs is essential for stepping into financial success.
• When it comes to finances, the “just enough” mindset limits your potential—abundance is possible when you shift your perspective.
• Money is unlimited energy, and viewing it as sacred can transform how you relate to it.
• Sacred money practices can help you align your finances with your values and purpose.
• Reclaiming your financial power is a must for purpose-driven entrepreneurs.
• Financial abundance isn’t just about wealth—it’s about creating space for greater impact and innovation.
• Transforming your relationship with money is a journey, and it starts with awareness.

Key Insights:

“These sacred money practices aren't just about improving your financial situation, though that's often the natural result. They're about creating a conscious, intentional relationship with wealth that aligns with your values and amplifies your impact in the world.”

“When we approach money from a place of fear, contraction, or scarcity, we literally constrict its ability to flow to and through us. But when we shift into viewing money as an abundant flowing energy that's available to us in direct proportion to the value we create in the world, everything changes. We become channels for that energy rather than containers trying to hold onto it.”

“As you align your pricing with value, invest strategically, heal your money wounds, set aligned goals, and create sustainable systems, you naturally generate more financial resources, which you can then direct towards greater impact and more pleasure in your work.”

Resources I Mention:

• The Map to Abundance by Boni Lonnsburry
• The Art of Money by Bari Tessler
• Sacred Success by Barbara Stanny
• The Soul of Money by Lynne Twist
• The Law of Divine Compensation by Marianne Williamson
• You are a Badass at Making Money by Jen Sincero
• Infinite Receiving by Suzy Ashworth
• Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill

https://www.rachelanzalone.com/legacy

Question for Your Reflection:

How do you currently view money—as a source of stress, a tool, or something else? How can you shift your perspective to see it as sacred energy and power?

Did this episode resonate with you? Share it with another visionary leader who needs to hear this message, and don't forget to subscribe and leave a review. Your support helps other impact-driven entrepreneurs find their way to our community.

Remember: Your pleasure is your power. 💫

Connect With Me:

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• LinkedIn: RachelAnzalone

Ready to step into the pleasure revolution and transform how you do business? Let's explore how to maximize impact, profit, and pleasure in alignment with the new paradigm. Schedule a time to connect with me right here >>>

Episode Transcript

Hello and welcome to Pleasure and Profits. I'm your host, Rachel Anzalone, and today we're diving into a topic that touches every aspect of our business and our lives, our relationship with money. As purpose-driven entrepreneurs, we often have a complicated relationship with wealth. 

On one hand, we know that financial sustainability is essential for our business to thrive and for our impact to expand. On the other hand, many of us carry deep-seated beliefs and conditioning around money that keep us from fully stepping into our financial power. 

Today's episode is titled Sacred Money, Understanding Wealth as Energy and Power. And it builds on our exploration of the satisfaction strategy framework we've been discussing this season. We've talked about aligning impact, profit, and pleasure to create unstoppable momentum in your business.

Now we're taking a deeper look at the profit element and how transforming our relationship with money can amplify both our impact and pleasure. In this episode, we’ll explore how the old paradigm of hustle culture has distorted our relationship with wealth and why so many purpose-driven entrepreneurs find themselves either struggling financially or feeling guilty about their success. We'll examine what it means to view money as unlimited energy rather than a scarce resource and how this shift in perspective can transform not just your business, but how you show up in the world. This conversation is particularly relevant as we continue to witness the collapse of systems built on exploitation and the emergence of a new paradigm aligned with the divine feminine. In this emerging paradigm, wealth isn't about accumulation or status. It's about expansion, impact, and the responsible stewardship of our resources.

As we continue in this winter season of internal focus, of rest and planning, it's the perfect time to examine our foundational beliefs around money and begin to create new patterns that support the sustainable growth of our businesses and our impact in the world. 

What I hope you'll take away from today's episode is a deeper understanding of how your relationship with money directly affects your capacity to create meaningful change, and practical tools for transforming that relationship in ways that feel aligned with your values and your purpose. 

So let's begin by looking at how we got here, at the cultural conditioning around money that has shaped our beliefs, often without us even realizing it. When I think about our collective relationship with money, I'm reminded of that metaphor I shared in our season opener. We're like fish swimming in water, often unaware of the very environment that shapes our experience. 

The beliefs we hold about money aren't random. They're the result of generations of conditioning within patriarchal and capitalist systems, think about the messages you received about money growing up. Maybe you heard phrases like, you can't just have what you want, or you have to work hard for every dollar, or rich people are greedy, or there's never enough money. These weren't just casual comments, they were transmissions of belief systems that have been passed down through families, educational institutions, and our broader culture.

For women especially, the conditioning has been particularly limiting. We've been taught that talking about money isn't polite, that wanting more than enough, whatever that is, is greedy, that our financial security should come from somewhere else, a partner, a stable job, a family inheritance. We've been discouraged from taking financial risks, from negotiating, from charging what we're worth.

I know from my own experience entering the workforce as a teenager that as I understood it, you just took whatever you were offered. You took what you could get. You were grateful to have it and you, you certainly didn't ask for anything more or anything different. And you did whatever you had to hold onto it. And I carried that belief system with me for so, so long into my twenties, into my thirties that I had to just take whatever was offered to me. I didn't know how to negotiate. I didn't know how to ask for more. I would often find myself doing two or three times the amount of work the people around me for the same or less money and didn't know how to do anything different.

The belief was so embedded in me that I had to just take whatever I could get and work really, really hard for it and just be happy with whatever I was given. It took me years and years to unravel that. And every time I changed jobs, changed clients even, I always felt like I was a beginner and I had to prove myself again and again.

For those of us who identify as purpose-driven or impact-focused entrepreneurs, there's often an additional layer of conditioning, the false dichotomy that suggests that we must choose between doing meaningful work and being financially successful, as if having money somehow dilutes the purity of our intentions or compromises our integrity.

This creates what I call the “just enough” trap where we subconsciously limit our financial growth to what feels acceptable. I've seen this play out countless times with brilliant heart-centered entrepreneurs who are doing incredible work in the world, but constantly struggle financially.

They'll tell me they want just enough to be comfortable. But what they're really saying is, I don't believe that I deserve abundance, or I'm afraid of what having more might mean to me. And I lived in this trap myself for a long, long time. I've shared previously that growing up, we always had just enough. There was never anything extra. And so in my life, as I started to attract more and more abundance, I found that it made me uncomfortable and I would often do things to self-sabotage to bring myself back to where I would find myself again at the place of just getting by and then have to work really hard to get back to that place of abundance again. It was a story I kept telling myself and kept living over and over and over again.

The hustle culture that's now collapsing has only exacerbated these beliefs by suggesting that if you're not financially successful, you're simply not working hard enough. This creates a painful cycle where you push yourself to exhaustion trying to prove your worth. And when that doesn't translate into financial abundance, you internalize it as a personal failure.

What's particularly insidious about all of this conditioning is that it operates below the surface of our conscious awareness. We make decisions about our pricing, our offers, our investments based on these hidden beliefs often wondering, why we can't seem to break through certain financial ceilings or why money feels so fraught with anxiety and tension. But here's what I want you to understand. These beliefs aren't yours. They were handed to you by systems designed to keep power concentrated in the hands of a few. And often in the entrepreneurial space, they're manipulated to keep you buying solutions from people who are capitalizing on your distress. 

The good news is, once you can see these beliefs clearly, you can begin to dismantle them and create new, more expansive and empowering ways of relating to wealth. Because money itself is neutral. It's not inherently good or bad, moral or immoral. It's simply a form of energy that enables exchange. And when we start to view money through this as an unlimited form of energy rather than a scarce resource, then everything begins to shift.

When I talk about money as energy, I'm not speaking metaphorically. Money quite literally represents human energy, the time, the creativity, the skill, the passion we pour into our work. It's a way of storing energy and transferring it to others. Think about what happens when you make a payment for something that you value. You're transferring stored energy, your money, to someone else in exchange for the energy they've invested in creating something of value. That transaction isn't just financial, it's energetic.

What's fascinating is how our energetic relationship with money directly affects its flow in our lives and our business. When we approach money from a place of fear, contraction, or scarcity, we literally constrict its ability to flow to and through us. We make decisions that reinforce limitations rather than expansion. We under charge, we over deliver, we hesitate to invest in ourselves or in our businesses. 

But when we shift into viewing money as an abundant flowing energy that's available to us in direct proportion to the value we create in the world, everything changes. We become channels for that energy rather than containers trying to hold onto it. This shift is particularly important for purpose-driven entrepreneurs because the truth is your financial directly impacts your ability to create change in the world. The more financial resources you have access to, the broader your reach, the more people you can serve, the greater infrastructure you can build to support your mission.

I often see with clients that when they start to feel a little bit nervous, their immediate response is to restrict, to contract, to do things like cut spending on ads or cut spending on team, when often what's needed is the exact opposite. If you're concerned about revenue coming in and you cut spending on advertising, you might be saving money in the short term, but you're cutting off your revenue opportunities for the long term or trying to find lower cost team members, trying to save dollars on a team that's supporting you, when what you really need is your team to be at their absolute best, performing at their highest level, contributing to the overall growth of the organization. 

Often responding in fear by contracting ends up having the opposite effect that you want to have, which is, that things get more sparse instead of allowing for more abundance. And sometimes, when we're in the place where we're investing just enough, then the result we're getting is that result of just enough, instead of something that's expansive.

Moving from enough thinking to an abundance mindset isn't about becoming obsessed with accumulation. It's about removing the artificial caps that we place in our capacity to receive. It's about recognizing that by expanding our financial container, we expand our impact container as well.

This is why I believe that it's actually a spiritual practice to heal our relationship with money. When we release the shame, the fear, the contraction around wealth, we open ourselves to become more powerful vehicles for the change we're here to create in the world.

So the question becomes, how do we practically begin to shift this relationship? How do we move from viewing money as a scarce and limited resource to seeing it as sacred energy that flows in accordance with value creation? That's where sacred money practices come in.

Sacred money practices are intentional ways of relating to wealth that honor both its practical and energetic dimensions. These practices help us become more conscious of our relationship with money and begin to transform it from the inside out. 

The first practice, and I believe the most powerful, is simply developing awareness without judgment. Most of us have been taught to feel shame around money or secrecy, either for not having enough of it or for wanting more of it. This shame creates blocks in our energetic system that actually prevent financial flow. So the practice begins with getting radically honest about your current financial situation and your beliefs around money. Take some time to journal about what money means to you. The key is to observe these beliefs without judgment. Just notice them. Because once you can see them clearly, you can begin to question their validity and choose new beliefs that better serve your mission and your purpose. 

The second practice is creating money rituals that align with your values. This might look like setting aside dedicated time each week to review your finances, not from a place of anxiety, but from a place of gratitude and stewardship. This could be super straightforward with a checklist or a spreadsheet that you use to track your sales, cash flow, expenses, account balances, and just being really intentional about making the time to review all of this on a weekly or monthly basis. Or it might be something more ceremonial around sending invoices or receiving payments that acknowledges the energy exchange taking place. 

Maybe you're lighting a candle, putting on binaural beats or music that makes you feel powerful and abundant while you review your numbers for the week, making a point of celebrating your wins, acknowledging areas for focus and growth, and setting intentions for the coming week. Instead of looking at financial reviews as a task to be dreaded, it becomes a sacred practice that actually generates creative ideas and opportunities.

The third practice is integrating pleasure into your financial decisions. So many of us approach money from a place of restriction and deprivation. We focus on budgeting, cutting back, limiting ourselves. While being mindful of your spending is important, approaching financial decisions solely from restriction creates an energetic contraction around money. And when we feel restricted or deprived, what do we often do? Most of us at some point will find a way to rebel. And how many of us have rebelled against something for what resulted in a moment of instant gratification, but put us off track from our longer term goals.

Instead, try approaching financial decisions by asking, what would bring me the most joy and alignment both now and down the road? Sometimes that might mean investing in something that feels expansive and exciting, even if it stretches you financially. Or other times it might mean saving or paying down debt because the sense of freedom and spaciousness that creates feels deeply pleasurable.

And finally, one of the most transformative practices is tracking your money with intention. Many purpose-driven entrepreneurs I work with avoid looking at their numbers altogether because it brings up too much fear or shame or stress or anxiety, but you can't transform what you don't acknowledge. Tracking isn't just about knowing your bank balance. It's about understanding the energy flows of your business, where is money coming from? Where is it going? What patterns do you notice? When you track with curiosity rather than judgment, you gain valuable insights that can guide your business decisions from a place of clarity rather than fear.

These sacred money practices aren't just about improving your financial situation, though that's often the natural result. They're about creating a conscious, intentional relationship with wealth that aligns with your values and amplifies your impact in the world.

When we talk about feminine leadership, we often focus on qualities like collaboration, intuition, and nurturing. These are, without a doubt, essential aspects of the emerging paradigm. But there's another dimension of female leadership that's equally important, though often less discussed. That is the reclamation of financial power. For generations, women have been systematically excluded from financial decision-making, from wealth building, from the channels of economic power. 

Even as we've gained more access to earning our own money, we've still been conditioned to believe that true power, including financial power, belongs to someone else. Reclaiming your financial power as a feminine leader isn't about adopting masculine approaches to wealth. It's not about aggressive accumulation or domination. It's about recognizing that financial resources are a form of energy that can be directed toward creating the world that you want to see. This is why I believe that for purpose-driven entrepreneurs, wealth building isn't optional. It's essential. Not just for your own sustainability, but for the impact that you're here to make.

When your business is profitable and you're not just stable financially, you're not just getting by, you're not just having just enough. When you're expansive financially, you have more resources to invest in your mission, to support your team, to reach more people, to innovate solutions to the problems that you're here to solve.

One thing I often hear from purpose-driven entrepreneurs is the desire to support and serve people who maybe don't have the financial means to invest in their particular product or service. Well, if you only invest your time and energy in supporting people who can’t afford to pay you, then you won’t be able to afford to keep going.

And so, if you can create abundance for yourself through your business, through serving people who do have the means to invest in you, then that allows you to make contributions to the people that you want to serve who maybe don't. That could be through scholarships, that could be mentoring, that could be through providing free services, that could be through providing discounted services, that could be through charity work, but there has to be some source of financial revenue in order to make that sustainable.

With financial abundance comes responsibility, of course. As feminine leaders, we're called to create wealth structures that reflect our values, equitable compensation practices, thoughtful pricing models, conscious investing, generous philanthropy. It's our responsibility to demonstrate what it looks like to hold economic power with grace, integrity, and a commitment to collective wellbeing. 

This is about more than just your individual businesses. This is about being part of a larger movement to redirect economic resources towards healing, sustainability, and prosperity for all. Because the reality is when more financial powers in the hands of conscious, purpose-driven leaders, the entire economic system begins to shift. 

So I invite you to consider how might your relationship with financial power be limiting your leadership capacity? What would become possible if you fully stepped into your role as a steward of abundant resources? How might your expanded financial container create space for greater impact in the world?

Now, let's bring these concepts down to earth with some practical applications for your business. How do you actually implement this understanding of money as energy and power in your day-to-day operations? 

First, let's talk about it from an energetic perspective. When you set your prices, are you considering not just the market rate for your costs, but the energetic exchange that's taking place? Are your prices aligned with the transformation you're creating? Do they allow for an equitable flow of energy between you and your clients or customers? I found that when entrepreneurs shift from pricing based on time or deliverables to pricing based on the value and transformation that they create, not only do their revenues increase, but the quality of their client relationships improves as well. There is a cleaner energetic exchange that allows both parties to show up fully.

Second, consider how you're investing your profits. Are you making investment decisions from scarcity or from possibility? Are you investing in ways that create more energy and capacity in your business or are you holding tight to every dollar out of fear? Do you allow yourself to be profitable and to make conscious decisions about what you're investing? Or do you treat every dollar as if a dollar that needs to be spent? Strategic investments in your business, whether that's hiring support, upgrading your systems, enhancing your skills, or creating new offers, can create exponential returns, not just financially, but energetically. They free you up to focus your energy on your zone of genius and amplify your impact.

Third, take time to identify and heal your money wounds. We all have them, these painful experiences or limiting beliefs that have shaped our relationship with wealth. Maybe it was watching your parents struggle financially. Maybe it was a business failure that left you in debt. Maybe it's simply the subtle messaging that you've absorbed from the culture around you. Healing these wounds isn't about positive thinking or affirmations. It's about acknowledging the pain, understanding how it's affecting your current decisions, and consciously choosing new patterns. 

This might involve working with a coach or a therapist or an energy healer who specializes in money blocks. It might mean deep journaling or somatic practices to release stored patterns in your body. It might mean starting to acknowledge some of the subconscious behaviors that have been getting in your way of you getting what you want.

Fourth, set energetically aligned financial goals. Instead of picking arbitrary revenue targets based on what you think you should be earning, try setting goals based on how you want to feel in your business and what impact you want to create. Ask yourself what level of financial resources would allow me to serve at my highest capacity? What would give me the freedom, the spaciousness, the security to do my best work in the world? What would enable me to create the greatest positive impact through my business?

I have a tool you can use for this. You can access it at rachelanzalone.com/legacy. It'll help you get clear on what you really want to create as a legacy, not just to get by in this life. 

And finally, focus on cultivating a sustainable cash flow system. This isn't just about managing your finances. It's about creating structures that support the consistent flow of energy through your business. This includes regular financial reviews, clear invoicing and payment processes, strategic tax planning, and intentional profit allocation. When these systems are in place, they create a container for financial energy to flow smoothly without the leaks and blockages that drain your attention and resources.

The beautiful thing about these practical applications is that they create a virtuous cycle. As you align your pricing with value, invest strategically, heal your money wounds, set aligned goals, and create sustainable systems, you naturally generate more financial resources, which you can then direct towards greater impact and more pleasure in your work.

As we've been exploring so far this season, the satisfaction strategy is based on the integration of three essential elements, impact, profit, and pleasure. And what becomes really magical is how these sacred money practices enhance the synergy between all three. When you shift your relationship with money from scarcity to sacred energy, you remove one of the biggest blocks to creating meaningful impact in the world. No longer are you constrained by limited resources or the belief that you have to choose between purpose and prosperity. Instead, you can direct financial energy and emotional energy towards amplifying your mission.

At the same time, healing your relationship with money dramatically increases your capacity for pleasure in business. The stress and anxiety that comes from financial scarcity are replaced by a sense of ease, flow, and genuine satisfaction. You can make decisions based on what truly lights you up rather than what simply pays the bills.

I've witnessed this transformation countless times with clients who've embraced these principles. Shifting from living in constant fear of the finances, when in reality the finances were fine, they were just afraid to look at them. And as soon as they started to look at them on a regular basis, and see that they were actually doing quite well, their energy around it shifted and everything started to flow better. 

Or starting to make decisions based on what feels aligned in terms of pricing, in terms of offers, in terms of compensating team members, instead of all up in their head around, what's the market rate? What am I supposed to charge? What kind of raise am I supposed to give? What kind of benefits would be appropriate? But really just tapping into what would feel really good to deliver, what would feel really expansive and energetic and fulfilling to give.

And when we do that, the entire energy of the team shifts, the entire energy of the client relationship shifts. This is what becomes possible when we break free from the old paradigm that pits profit against impact and pleasure. In the emerging paradigm, these elements aren't competing forces, they're collaborators in creating a business that's both world-changing and soul-satisfying.

The essence of the satisfaction strategy is that sustainable success comes from alignment, from building a business that honors all aspects of who you are and what you're here to create. And your relationship with money is a crucial part of that alignment. 

As we wrap up today's exploration of sacred money, I want to leave you with an invitation to examine your own relationship with wealth. This isn't just about improving your business finances, though that will likely occur as a result. It’s about freeing yourself from limiting beliefs that prevent you from accessing your full power as a leader and as a change maker. 

Here are a few considerations to deepen your exploration. If money were pure energy with no baggage, how would you relate to it differently? What would become possible in your business if financial resources were abundantly available to you? Where in your body do you feel contraction or tension when you think about money, and what might that be trying to tell you? What's one belief about money that you're ready to release, and what new belief would you like to embrace instead? Take some time this week to sit with these questions and notice what emerges.

Remember that transforming your relationship with money is a process and there are many layers of that onion to peel away. Be gentle with yourself as you uncover layers of conditioning and begin to create new patterns.

And if you're interested, be sure to check out the show notes for a list of books and resources that have been helpful to me in this process over the years.

In next week's episode, we'll be exploring the exponential power of ease and what happens when we shift our perspective from incremental growth to 10x expansion. 

Until then, I invite you to begin viewing money as the sacred tool for transformation that it truly is. Not something to be feared or worshiped or hoarded, but rather a form of energy that can be directed towards creating a world that works for everyone.

Until next time, remember, your pleasure is your power. Take care.