TUYT Financial Trauma & the Holidays

Amy Hoyt24min

Amy Hoyt

00:02

And so what we what really helped for us is not just tracking our purchases, but also making a commitment to try and grocery shop one time a week. Hi, everyone, welcome back, we are excited to be here together again. And today, I feel like this topic is very relevant for the holidays. And it is financial trauma during the holidays. So we're gonna talk about how that shows up, what that looks like, and some takeaways to help you work through it.

Leina Hoyt, MFT, MA

00:38

Financial trauma is when you've had a dynamic or an event or a series of events, overwhelming or conflicted dynamics in your household growing up around finances, or when you've had any event or a series of events that have left financial discussions or finances very overwhelming to you. And what happens is that it becomes in your brain, your brain thinks that you're going to die. If these financial things aren't done the way your brain thinks they should be. And, and it can contribute to huge conflicts in families and couples as they prepare for the holidays. Thank you. Okay, that's

Amy Hoyt

01:23

really helpful. Okay, so here is my question. Let's give them some, let's give our listeners some solid examples of what that might look like in childhood or in a marriage. Because I know when I was first getting help, if someone hadn't had kind of deconstructed some of the dynamics, I would have just to my grave said that's No, that's, that's not a problem. So what does it look like? It can look several

Leina Hoyt, MFT, MA

01:52

different ways. So one way it can look is if you had difficult finances, and your holidays, were really stressful, because maybe a parent came to you and talk to you about the finances, or you had a parent so stressed that they were angry when you made requests for gifts, then what your brain does is it says that you have to compensate for your children, your children have to have something better, but the brain is very poor at balance. And so not only are you going to do something to your children, that's better, you're going to go way beyond. And you may engage in gifting or entertaining that somebody else might consider quite lavish. And when the brain is in that fight or flight because of financial trauma, then the argument is about your survival. It's not about whether you can afford to cater a dinner for 30.

Amy Hoyt

02:57

Right? So the stakes seems so much higher, because one of the other things the brain is not good at is accuracy when we're triggered. Right. So a great example. That's one way it can Yeah, I think that's a really good example. And an example of that is if you grew up in poverty, and didn't have a lot, or you didn't get the doll that you wanted, and that is a very seared memory for you, you got the generic doll, you grow up and you go over the top and get every single gift for your kids. Or you actually just go way overboard from what is considered the norm. Okay, that's a great example. What's another way it could show

Leina Hoyt, MFT, MA

03:39

up. Another way that it can show up is, a lot of times it shows up in expectations. And so internally, you might have some subconscious expectations about how you want to present to the world and to your family. But your financial situation may not be able to accommodate that. And one thing that the human brain does is it does a lot of justification and rationalization. And so in your subconscious brain, there may be something going on like well, I deserve it, or my kids deserve it, or my sister deserves this. And when we're talking about keeping the nervous system more calm and regulated, it's not about deserving. It truly isn't. It's about recognizing that you do your family and your children a disservice when you go out of what you can financially manage, and have your nervous system really activated during the holidays because of that. And then the holidays become about things or the way things look instead of about people and connection and service.

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