What is Financial Therapy and How Can it Help Us? with Lindsay Bryan-Podvin

For the first episode of Healthy Love and Money, host Ed Coambs introduces the show, which will explore financial intimacy through interviews with financial therapists, couples’ therapists, and financial planners. Today, he is joined by Lindsay Bryan-Podvin of Mind Money Balance.    They begin with a discussion around Lindsay’s identity as a biracial woman, and how it has informed her perspective in her work, which is rooted in shame-free financial therapy. This opens a conversation around privilege, and the nuances around money, emphasizing the importance of therapist’s ability to be “comfortable sitting with the discomfort.”   Ed and Lindsay explore ways that they help couples get comfortable talking about money with one another. They then discuss divesting from personal finance experts to deepen money intimacy, which Lindsay explains is beneficial for over-consumers of information who develop anxiety as a result.   They investigate the things that are beneath financial anxiety, like the lack of certainty in the narrative that working hard directly correlates to increased earnings. This builds to a discussion of the value of work, beyond its monetary function. They talk about the necessity of systemic and structural changes to counter price sensitivity. In closing, they emphasize that everyone’s financial reality is different, and a lack of acknowledgement of that is shame inducing.    Key Topics:  Exploring identity (2:12)  Grappling with marginalization and privilege and sitting with discomfort (07:06)  Working with couples around money (14:20)  Bilateral stimulation (20:36)  Divesting from personal finance experts to deepen money, intimacy (22:25)  What is beneath financial anxiety and systematic change (30:28)  Fear of wealth and privilege (41:01)  Multiple financial realities (43:00)   Episode Resources:  Mind Money Balance Website Mind Money Balance Podcast Mind Money Balance Episode 29: From Firefighter to Financial Therapist with Ed Coambs Financial Anxiety Solution (book)     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.