How Financial Therapy Heals Your Relationship With Money with Sarah Swantner

Today, Ed is joined by financial therapist Sarah Swantner, founder of Black Hills Integrative Counseling & Coaching, LLC in South Dakota.   Sarah is trained in both personal finance and mental health counseling. For the first decade of her professional life, she worked as a mechanical engineer. After that, she spent another decade doing financial planning and began to deal with the emotional side of money. She now specializes in working at the intersection of personal finance and mental health.   Listen in as Sarah reflects on her journey into the field of financial therapy. The former mechanical engineer calls it a transition “from working with things to working with people.” She goes on to share a myriad of lessons that can easily be applied by anyone looking to improve their relationship with money.   To Sarah, financial therapy is about helping people become aware of their emotional and cognitive patterns which are hijacking their relationship with money. Through this process, they can then be given the tools they need to break these destructive patterns and replace them with a healthier and more productive mindset and set of habits.     Key Topics: From working with things to working with people (02:30) Unpacking “financial therapy” (05:30) Common themes and issues faced by Sarah’s clients (10:15) Baking aspirations into a cashflow plan (15:03) Discussing “trauma reenactment” (18:00) How fear of judgment impacts people’s ability to face their own financial life (22:30) Working with couples, individually (27:50) Becoming financially responsible (31:41) Finding balance in your financial life and giving yourself permission to overcorrect (35:08) Helping people find their voice when they feel voiceless around money (37:48)     Resources: Black Hills Integrative Counseling and Coaching     Connect With Healthy Love and Money:  Schedule your free 30-Minute Discovery Call About Therapy-Informed Financial Planning™.  Learn about your money and attachment style with this short Attachment Style Quiz.  Buy the Double Award Winning Book: The Healthy Love and Money Way.   Hit Follow on Your Favorite Podcast Player To Get the Latest Episodes.