Lift OneSelf -Podcast
Step into the serene sanctuary of self-care, where our journey of truth and mindfulness begins by dismantling the stigma surrounding mental health. Immerse yourself in profound conversations as we unravel the mysteries of mental health, meditation, and personal growth, exploring the profound impact of trauma on the nervous system. Join our nurturing community, where we uplift each other by sharing invaluable tools and services, gracefully navigating life's challenges with resilience. Prepare to awaken your mind, nourish your soul, and embrace the transformative journey of self-discovery.
As I traverse the vast expanse of the digital world, connecting with diverse voices across the globe, I invite others to share their stories and provide insights and tools. If you listen deeply, in every story you can catch a glimpse of yourself in the details.
Welcome to the Lift OneSelf podcast, where every dialogue sparks curiosity and ignites your spirit.
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Lift OneSelf -Podcast
Slay your money monster: Transforming Trauma into Financial Triumph - episode 110
What if your darkest moments could lead to your most profound transformation? Join us on the Lift One Self podcast as we welcome our remarkable guest, Morgana, who shares her deeply personal journey of healing and resilience. From the heart-wrenching contrast in her family’s expressions of love and grief to her life-altering traumatic brain injury at 16, Morgana's story is a testament to the human spirit's indomitable strength. Her experiences highlight the power of neuroplasticity, the struggle with depression, and the unexpected development of a heightened intuition, urging us to ponder life’s existential questions.
Ever wondered how your childhood beliefs might be sabotaging your financial success? Morgana opens up about a pivotal period in her life, where she realized that her next area of spiritual growth was financial well-being. Despite having impressive credentials, she found herself financially stuck until a coaching session revealed an unconscious belief that "money gets in the way of love." Through visualizing and personifying money, she tackled her fears head-on, transforming her relationship with money and underscoring the importance of addressing deep-seated beliefs to achieve harmony between financial and spiritual realms.
Family trauma can leave lasting scars, impacting our self-worth and financial success. Morgana’s candid discussion about the emotional journey of recognizing and overcoming past pain, particularly tied to an absent mother, resonates deeply. She emphasizes the importance of chosen family relationships and the symbolic act of slaying inner monsters to reclaim personal power. This episode is a heartfelt reminder that our challenges can be alchemized into valuable experiences, fostering deeper empathy and connection with others. Tune in, share the journey, and remember to be kind and gentle with yourself.
Check our more about Morgana Rae here
morganarae.com
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The podcast intends to dissolve the stigmas around Mental Health and create healing spaces.
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Remember to be kind to yourself.
Always do your own research before taking action.
Remember, the strongest thing you can do for yourself is to ask for help.
Please help us grow by subscribing to and sharing the Lift OneSelf podcast with others.
The podcast intends to dissolve the stigmas around Mental Health and create healing spaces.
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email:
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Music by prazkhanal
I started grieving when I was, you know, 12 or 14 or 17. And then again when I was 32. And so her death was pretty much as I expected. She would die and nobody would tell me and I might find out through my aunt, which is how I found out, and I wasn't invited to the memorial. I inherited my aunt and my grandparents and my cousins and my mom kept her you know kind of cultish following, and my sister and my stepfather.
Speaker 1:What I think I resent, what hurts, is when my dad died there was so much love. I had so much love for him. I got to fly across country and hold his hand and tell him how much I loved him, and tell him it was okay to go and we were complete. And I watched him die for years from Alzheimer's. And when my grandmother died I was holding her hand when she passed, telling her how much I loved her. I was with my grandfather the last time he was awake. So I had all these beautiful loving passages in the last few years and there's something absolutely wonderful about grief in that grief is just love and I don't have that for my mom and I feel really cheated that there's just nothing to grieve. Yeah, so I find love elsewhere, and that's what I would talk about in the show.
Speaker 2:Okay, yeah, welcome to the Lift One Self podcast, where we break mental health stigmas through conversations. I'm your host, nat Nat, and we dive into topics about trauma and how it impacts the nervous system. Yet we don't just leave you there. We share insights and tools of self-care, meditation and growth that help you be curious about your own biology. Your presence matters. Please like and subscribe to our podcast. Help our community grow. Let's get into this. Oh, and please remember to be kind to yourself. Welcome to the Lift One Self podcast.
Speaker 2:Morgana, I'm so thankful you're here with me. I'm very happy to be here. Will you join me in meditation? Of course, I'll ask you, morgana, to close your eyes and you're going to begin breathing in and out through your nose and you're going to bring your awareness to watching your breath go in and out, and you're going to bring your awareness to watching your breath go in and out. Don't try to control your breath, just let it go at its own rhythm.
Speaker 2:While keeping your awareness on watching your breath go in and out through your nose, there may be some sensations or feelings that are coming up in the body. It's fine. You're safe to feel. You're safe to let go. Surrender the need to control, release the need to resist and just be. Be with your breath, be in the now, keep your awareness on your breath, dropping into your body, dropping into your breath, into the now, dropping further into your body, into the now, dropping further into your body. Staying with your breath, just keeping your awareness on your breath. I'm going to ask you to open your eyes, very gently, at your own time and at your own pace. How's your heart doing?
Speaker 1:Very nice.
Speaker 2:Can you let the listeners know who Morgana is?
Speaker 1:Okay, I'll do my best. Know who Morgana is. Okay, I'll do my best. I'm not an elevator pitch giver, so it's always what wants to come through.
Speaker 1:But I would say that I have been a healer my whole life. My whole life I was that kind of spooky child who helped the adults remember who they are from a very young age. I've also been very intuitive from a very young age, and especially after a catastrophic car accident and traumatic brain injury when I was 16 years old and I had been an easy A student. I was a very easy, unintentionally arrogant student because I didn't know that schoolwork might be harder for somebody else, right. And then I had this brain injury and I couldn't do what I'd always done my whole life. And it was such a gift of humility and really being able to experience a combination of an awareness that, no, there is no level playing field, at least in our flesh suits, and also the impermanence of everything, including who we think we are, and just rebuilding from that. Years of just concentration problems, sleep problems, deep depression and suicidal ideation after this traumatic brain injury, building my brain back as the miracle of neuroplasticity. But the gift that came during that experience was I started compensating with intuition. So, while there was a period of time where I couldn't read a page and remember what I read, and I get very sleepy and again I was the National Merit Scholar really easy A student. I started knowing things before they happened and at one point I was so depressed, when I was 17 years old, that I locked myself in a psychiatric hospital to keep myself from killing myself. And, by the way, do it if you need to. It was horrible. It's not like a nice hotel, it was just a monstrous experience. I would never do that again. But the reason I bring it up is there was this moment where one of the nurses for and I don't remember the context or why, but she just randomly, you know, to a bunch of us. I'd pick a number between one and a thousand and I said the number and it was like all the blood, you know, just came out bone white. She, she looked so scared because I just, you know, I thought that was. That was kind of weird.
Speaker 1:So who am I? I am somebody who has thought about some big questions from a very young age and those questions are what are we? What is it to be human, what are we and what is this universe we live in and how do we have a better experience while we're here and how do we have a better experience while we're here? And so I became a national math science national merit scholar. Even though I hated math, did love it, do love the science and I'm sort of that kind of this. You know mystic over here too, and I'm just and I got a degree in religion from Smith College. So I'm really. I explore all the stories that we have to understand what are we as human beings, what is the nature of this universe we live in and how do we have a better experience? So that I have been a coach now for 30 years. Like I started coaching back in the day when nobody knew what a life coach was, because that is that gives me the space to live these questions daily who are you, what are you, what, what is your relationship with your life experience and how do you have a better experience?
Speaker 1:Somewhere along the way, something weird happened and I became known around the world. Like I can be eating in a cafe in Bali or I can be getting off the plane in England and strangers will come up to me and they will know who I am and they'll say excuse me, are you Morgana Ray, the money honey lady? I got this such a big reputation for money manifestation. But the why that's so weird and funny is that was never what I was focused on. I'm focused on, you know, the human experience. I'm focused on love and legacy and saving the world and all that kind of stuff which meant which would be no surprise to you, I'm sure that I was terrible at making money and that's really, really painful and scary and life-threatening. So I had to sort that shit out. Pardon me, for I hope I can use language. I love you. I had to sort it out.
Speaker 1:I and you know good students, right, even with the traumatic brain injury, still going off to Smith and graduating and all that kind of stuff. So I started taking all these classes to solve the problem. I got more than half a dozen coaching certifications. I'm a master practitioner of neuro-linguistic programming, I'm a trainer of neuro-linguistic programming, ericksonian hypnosis, co-active coaching and fill in the rest, just like all of them.
Speaker 1:And I took classes on marketing and I took the class on overcoming sales objections and I was so good at following the scripts for, oh, when they say this, say that and blah, blah, blah and none of it was working for me, like I had superhuman powers to repel money. And, in fact, seven people in a row, I overcame their objections. Objections is when somebody says, oh, I'd love to work with you, but I don't have the money or the time or whatever Really legitimate concerns, and I would do my magic words that I learned in class and they would say yes. And seven people in a row said yes, they would hire me. This was by it, specifically in March of 2003. And I'd already been coaching for nine years, coaching, you know, people who are now movie stars and directors and producers and all that kind of stuff. So I had a reputation and I was still I, at my lowest point. I was struggling to make a hundred dollars a month in Los Angeles, which you can't. So I had just taken the class on overcoming sales objections. Seven people in a row, I overcame their objections. Yay, good student. Seven people in a row never showed up for our first coaching call and never paid. And that was after taking all the marketing classes. And I'm doing the public speaking and doing the sample sessions and I really did websites, brochures. I was doing everything and I had mountains of glowing testimonials and I was making $100 a month.
Speaker 1:This is my hitting bottom story. And that seventh person stands me up and I just I ran out of hope, and being financially afraid is a really terrifying thing. It's a matter of life and death really terrifying thing. It's a matter of life and death. Shelter, food, medicine, everything we need. You have to face it. I like to say that the universe gets our attention primarily through three teachers money, love and health. And the thing about money is it will get your attention faster than any of the others because it's 24, seven and it touches everything.
Speaker 1:So I had I had to sort that out, and so I that seventh person stood me up and I lost hope, and I remember I was in my little tiny apartment in LA that I couldn't afford living on credit card debt and borrowing from family Amazing success stories for clients but I had that horrible secret right when people wanted to hire me and somehow I would magically talk them out of working with me, and I had no idea I was doing it at the time. And so I was in this really dark place and I remember just dragging closed the blackout shades in my bedroom and getting on my bed and just laying on the bed and wailing and crying and screaming and raging and and I just felt like the universe was cruel, that finally I knew what I was here to do, that I've been looking for all my life. I finally knew what I was good at. I made magic things happen for people and I healed them on the side, without them even, you know, without that, even being on the agenda at the time, and I hear I had this gift and I couldn't make a living at it and it just felt like the universe was sadistic and messing with me and I've hated the universe back and it was one of those moments where I just didn't even want to be here and you know what that means.
Speaker 1:Yeah, by the way, this is really the only reason that I focus on money as an entry point, as a pain point. It's not all I do, but it's what I talk about because I think that, especially for us heart centered spiritual people talk about, because I think that, especially for us heart-centered spiritual people, we would love to stay in like the higher chakras yeah, that's, that's where we play and the stuff like survival and and money transaction is just like. Oh yeah, I'm too spiritual for that shit. So, and we, we have, we have to, we are living, we are living in bodies, we, we are bigger than our bodies, but we also have to respect the rules of this, this life.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So here's what happened. I'm in this really dark place and I just like scream and cry and wail and rage and terrified and angry and heartbroken and it just kind of cry myself out. And I had these two thoughts in that moment, which were that money needed to be my next area of spiritual growth. By the way, that doesn't mean you have to take that on, that was just. I'm from LA. Spirituality is in the water. If I hide the money in the spirituality, maybe I can deal with it. The second thought that I had I think was really useful, which was I had this curiosity what the heck is going on inside of me? That can't be with money on paper. I have the ivy league education, I have all these certifications, I have all these happy celebrity clients, I have this reputation. I know how to public speak. What is going on?
Speaker 1:what's the blog and it was right after, by the way. This is a really, really big point. If you are doing everything you're supposed to be doing, whatever you are aspiring to, whether it's love, money, health, career, whatever it is if you're doing all the things and you are not seeing progress, and you're doing what you're supposed to be doing and you're doing it over and over again and you're taking the classes, reading the books, working with the coaches, whatever it is, and you aren't seeing it budge and you aren't getting the results that you really deserve and desire. It is my experience that this is not a mistake. What I've observed, because I've coached many thousands of clients over the last three decades a lot of them have gone on to be big, high profile thought leaders, industry leaders, multi-multi-millionaires what I've observed is that change happens at the speed of safety and if you're doing doing all the right stuff and you aren't getting the results and it doesn't make sense, the odds are very, very high that you are unconsciously and for very good reason, very good reason protecting yourself from what you want and even need. So you are not a loser, you are not a failure, and I don't even believe in self-sabotage, because that does not logically make sense. The prime directive is to protect the host. So if you are protecting yourself from what you want, I suggest we get really curious and find out what it is, so we can make what you want safe. Again, change happens at the speed of safety, and if change isn't happening, something isn't safe yet. So back to my tale of woe.
Speaker 1:Right after I kind of like fell off the cliff into the abyss of despair, I had a call with my coach which is crazy, that I had a coach, but I'm making only $100 a month and that doesn't pay for anything in LA, and it saved my life. I graduated from my first coaching school on the same day he did. He was a peer, but he had a house and I was making $100 a month. So we had been working together for months and I was doing everything he suggested and nothing was getting better. Not his fault, but on this call I showed up and I was not my usual. Okay, coach, throw me in. What are we going to? You know, I just. Instead, I was just this puddle of despair which, interestingly, gives your coach stuff to work with and where I was inspired something from him that neither of us had ever seen before.
Speaker 1:And he asked me a really weird question that changed my life. So here I am sharing all of my failure. And first he asked me about what was my history with money growing up. That's not the life changing question, but it's a good. It's a good coaching question.
Speaker 1:And when he asked me that, it occurred to me that family members hadn't spoken together to each other for decades and fights. That happened when I was a child and I had made a decision when I was about 12 years old that money got in the way of love and I choose love happened when I was a child and I had made a decision when I was about 12 years old that money got in the way of love and I choose love. And I didn't even notice I was making that decision at the time. But that's the funny thing about decisions that we make when we're kids. So I was like, oh well, I guess that's why I've got a bad relationship with money. That's not what changed my relationship with money.
Speaker 1:The next question was he said to me, if your money was a person, who would your money be? And because I was in so much pain and despair and felt like such a loser and so frustrated and frightened when he asked me that question. I saw a person, not anybody I knew, but I saw a person as if he was, you know, alive in the room right now and he was this big, tall, scary biker dude, bald, with long sideburns and the white beater shirt and the tattoos. And there was just something and nothing wrong with bikers, but this guy was just really bad and he hated me and he was dangerous and I never, ever knew that I felt that way about money. Why would I feel that way about money? But I was as if we were in a live event and I would have my eye on him 24 seven to keep distance, to protect my life.
Speaker 1:And that was my big aha, light bulb moment where suddenly my financial situation made perfect sense, because it didn't matter what I did. It did not matter what I did or how well I did it or how often I did it, because every cell in my being needed to keep a distance from this guy, and this guy was my relationship with money and it was as if money was going to kill me and I never knew that and I never would have thought of that if we hadn't made it a person. It's a way of speaking to your unconscious, because the relationship is real, but we need to speak in the language of symbols. So it became really clear that there was no way I could have money in my life if it was this guy. So I had to get rid of him and I can talk about that later. And that created a new problem, which is hey, look at me, I live in LA and I just got rid of my relationship with money. So I knew that I needed a new money person before, or the monster would just come back the biker. I call it the money monster now, but at the time the biker.
Speaker 1:So I felt such an emptiness when I got rid of him, like as if I were a fish in water and the water was suddenly gone and it felt really empty and I felt like, ooh, I better fill this up really quickly with something totally different. So in that moment I thought to myself well, who could I want in my life so much that I'd be willing to overlook that it's money. This person would have to be so wonderful. If you've ever been in a really ugly, dirty breakup, you know how gun-shy you are. You just don't want to do that again. And I was like, oh, I don't want anything like that again. So I honestly I don't think I even that again. So I honestly, you know, I don't think I even want a relationship with money. But I live in Los Angeles and I eat and I breathe. So, again, who could I want so much?
Speaker 1:And when I asked myself that question, a new person showed up in my mind's eye, just as real as the one before, but couldn't be more different. And this one was safe, safe and loving. He also happened to be super handsome and dressed up in a tuxedo and holding a bouquet of red flowers, and in love with me. They're totally different from, like Mr, mr Money Monster rejection. This one loved me and wanted to be with me and was trustworthy and safe and shared my values and wanted to save the world to together. And he wanted to be with me like in a really big way.
Speaker 1:And I could immediately feel myself going oh, I don't know how to let money be with me. That's not part of my programming, that's not part of my sense, I don't know how. So the cool thing is, when you make money a person after you've gotten rid of the monster, it doesn't work until you get rid of the monster. First Cause, if you have like this is alchemy. Alchemy I call this whole process financial alchemy. Alchemy is the transmutation of lead into gold, which is the transmutation of lead in human experience into spiritual and material gold. But when you've got some lead and you've got some gold and you're kind of in the middle, I call that money mud and you're just stuck and change doesn't happen there.
Speaker 1:So we want to go into the extremities, deep into the land and then high into the gold, because that lights up your neurology and rewires your brain. That's the thing about having the traumatic brain injury is that I'm fascinated with brain science. So anyway, back to the cute guy. So he wants to be with me, money and to be fully transparent. And I told you, nat, nat, I told you this ahead of time that what I'm really talking about is relationship with life, self. But I find it useful to call this relationship money, because money is that area of life that needs my love and healing. Yeah, so I called this person air quotes, money, because it's good for my spiritual growth. So he wants to be with me, kind of as in like money wanting to be with me, which freaks me the heck out. So I asked him he wants to be with me. I don't know how to let him be with me, so I asked him that's what's so great about making it a person worthy of your deepest trust and admiration. I said what do you need from me to allow you to be with me? Because this is the other piece which is really important is you have the body, so you have all the power in this relationship. You are the gatekeeper.
Speaker 1:All those years I thought money was the gatekeeper. No, we are the gatekeeper and I was turning money away. I was pushing money away without any conscious awareness of it because money was so dangerous and heartbreaking and family breaking and causes wars and pollution and genocide. You know, money carries a lot of really dark baggage. It does. That can't be in my relationship with money, so I had to get rid of that with the monster.
Speaker 1:Now I've got this guy who is love, but I call him money and I and so I said what do you need for me to be with me? Also, this question is not what do you need for me to love me? Love is unconditional. Presence, presence is conditional. So what does he need? Because I have the power, what does he need to? I have the power, what does he need to allow him in? So I asked him that question and this first time we had the conversation 20 something years ago, march 20, 21, 21 years ago, march of uh, 2003, my, my time flies. He.
Speaker 1:That first conversation, he said he wanted me to love him and to stop treating him like a monster, which he was so sweet and so vulnerable. It seemed like a very reasonable request. But what would that look like? So we started kind of taking a look at. Well, what does it look like when he wants to be with me?
Speaker 1:Oh well, he brings me a client who wants to hire me and I freak out when they say what do you charge? I go, you know, because I want to be spiritual. I don't want them. I was so afraid people would think that I only cared about the money. No, to the point that I was rejecting money. And how did that make him feel he didn't want to be treated like a monster? So I made a deal with him on the spot and I said next time he brought me a gift, I would say thank you. So the punchline is over the next couple of days. Four people showed up and hired me for double what I'd ever charged before and they actually paid and became my clients. And then they kept coming and they kept coming and my rates just got higher and higher.
Speaker 1:And I created a group programs and I wrote my book and I leave my money goddess, retreat in Bali, for you know, groups of really small groups of maybe four to six women once a year and I've made millions of dollars and I own my house in Southern California, but it all started by making money safe and having a relationship with money that is loving, brings out my best shares, my values, so that we are not at war. If you put the things you care about on one team and money on the other, everybody loses. And one thing that I've noticed, even before I was coaching money, is that money is the number one excuse we human beings give for everything we can't have, do or be. And how does that make money feel when we're always blaming money? It's not a loving, expansive place to be. So what we need to do is start with the lead and get really honest about what's not working and then make it bigger than anything you imagined. Now I'm just like kind of giving you the cliff notes of what I've discovered after 21 years of doing this with thousands of people and having clients making thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, millions of dollars. It's what money represents. That's where the pain is. I've never found the monster in the money story itself, and I know that a lot of coaches say change your money story, change your life. Great marketing. By the way, it's never worked in my experience.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I believe that our stories and our mindset. Millionaire mindset another really popular, great alliteration. Our minds make sense of our hearts. So I want us to go into our heart. I think a millionaire, you create a millionaire heart set and your mind will follow. Your actions will follow. Your actions will follow our beliefs and our attitudes and our behavior come from our unconscious. That's like we are the captain of the ship our conscious mind. We were saying let's go to hawaii, but at the crew of the ship, which is our attitudes, beliefs and behavior, want to go to morocco. We're're going to Morocco that's very true To clear the ship right. So personifying money is a way to communicate between the conscious mind and the unconscious and get yourself aligned, because all of it is on your team, Even if sometimes the team is clumsy, and it's love for you and desire to keep you safe. So change happens at the speed of safety.
Speaker 1:I tend to focus on money, obviously, but I've used this on everything else. I was 45 years old in 2012, never married, still single, still heartbroken, and I had been looking for my guy since. I chased Brian Patterson under the piano at his fifth birthday party and he was the older man Patterson under the piano at his fifth birthday party and he was the older man and I was hearing in the back of my head when I'd hear myself speak about my journey with money and having a great relationship with money. I was starting to hear that, wow, your before story sounds like your now story with love and I kept wanting to kind of push that away. And because I wanted to find my person, that was my bucket list I've done everything else I wanted to do. I just want my partner, my partner, and so I finally broke down and decided to slay a love monster and all money monsters are love monsters.
Speaker 1:There is just a very deep connection. You know, the number one root cause of all money monsters it's always going to be in the area of love, worth and safety. But I would say the deepest of it is all those words are kind of just different flavors of the underlying root cause of love. Am I wanted? Am I deserving? Am I loved, am I worthy? It's such a big. Am I enough? Am I loved? Am I loved by life? And when I went for the love monster directly, it opened up just a bigger can of pain than even I expected, because I forgot a lot of horrible, painful, abusive stuff. To you know, live a good life and move on and all that kind of stuff. I forget regularly what mat. You know what happened in my childhood? Part of that is having a head injury, but you know, some of it is just. You know, we humans minimize to to cope. So I used all the rejection by my mother. I used all the rejection by my mother, the betrayal by my stepfather, all the kids who decided they didn't want to play with me anymore, all the boys who broke my heart, and just everything, every instance that I could think of in the moment where my experience of love was having the rug pulled out from under me, like love was just a trick to break my heart and make me not want to live. And that was the essence of my love. Monster was to kill me, to make me not want to live, and it was so big it was almost as big as the whole planet and I just set an intention to destroy and annihilate that monster. If I needed space laser beams or Death Star, whatever it took. I was rejecting that love that was so painful and abusive in my life and I just annihilated it to the best of my ability. Met my husband now husband two months later and we are 26 weddings in 21 countries, deep into getting married 100 times in 100 countries. 100% his idea. He was worth the wait. So I have this theory that I developed over the last year that all those years that you spend on whatever that thing is that you're pursuing whether it's money or career or love or whatever is that thing for you is not wasted. It's just like building up energy and energy and energy behind this wall that just wants to get through, and when it's safe, it's like, it all comes bigger and faster than you expected.
Speaker 1:So when my client Catherine went to Bali with me and I think it's 2014. No, 2016. I've done a bunch of them she met her first time husband at 55 years old. Two weeks after getting home, she met the guy that she is still happily married to, and she was a funny one because she's this very left brain, genius entrepreneur really into tech stuff and she's at this woo goddess retreat with me going through my seven goddess archetypes in Bali. I think there were eight women at her retreat and the first thing she told me on day one is I don't think I belong here was what she said on the first day. And by day six, she was leading us in a money goddess yoga class of her own design and negotiating this huge seven-figure you know tech communication, tech deal on her phone while we're waiting for the Balinese healer to come out. And and then, two weeks after she gets home, she meets her guy. So that's what I mean. And Perry, who made $13 million in the three years after she did my retreat. And Gabby, who was six figures in debt, who's now the CEO of Latina Wall Street and married and has a baby, and it just you know.
Speaker 1:This is why I'm grateful for that horrible place that I was, because it gave me the gift of being able to help people and to experience every day what is possible when everything, on a really rational, verifiable way, looks impossible.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that is, that is the. I think that's why we go through what I, what it's why I say our victim experiences are sacred. They are the lead, they are the fuel of magic. I don't seek them out. I don't want you to live there. I want you to feel powerful and loved and excited to be alive. And we have these horrible experiences as part of being human being and and it softens us to allow us to respect the experience of other human beings. Remember I talked about how unintentionally arrogant I was before my head injury. I thought people who didn't do their homework were just lazy, and then I couldn't do my homework. That's how we become healers is just going through it ourselves, and there's no better feeling on the planet than witnessing somebody else have their own breakthrough and their own redemption and their own magic and get what they wanted, but better than they ever imagined, because it creates the world I want to live in.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Thank you for walking us through that. I know some listeners are like very curious now of being able to see what's within them and what narratives and what stories they've created, and finding out how the brain and the nervous system works, and it's always like recognizing. You know, I know trauma is a big buzzword right now, so I replace it with energy and it's like certain experiences of how you interpret it and how you saw it. It gets stuck in the body and then, until you're willing to see it and feel it, to release it, you don't know that you're looping in these narratives and stories that aren't allowing you to receive. You can be a great giver, but to receive feels very repulsive.
Speaker 1:I was actually having that conversation with a friend yesterday about that, because that's kind of a place where she is right now, where she always wants to be of service, and sometimes being of service is saying thank you and letting somebody else be the hero. We need to take turns. But what she was describing is a trauma response that I really understood and that was part of how I was pushing money away and that was part of how I was pushing money away. There's, I do like what you say about it being energy and being in our body.
Speaker 1:I think it's really important because there are six steps to my process that I kind of walked you through in the story, but I'll give them to you specifically because I learned linear, I teach non-linear, but I the point that I want to make is that you get to be safe when you go through the process.
Speaker 1:Like I want you to go deep enough that there can be a change. I want you to feel things and not make it an intellectual exercise and and you don't have to get everything. You can do this again later and go deeper and that's great because it just evolves. But I'm going to walk you through the six steps and the first step is uncover the root cause. Uncovering the root cause and I've touched on it before the root cause is anything that has ever made you feel unloved, unsafe or unworthy, especially if it doesn't look like it has anything to do with money. You can start with your parents if there was trouble there, because they are our first experience of money, because they tell us that we're loved or not, that we're safe or not, that we're worthy or not.
Speaker 1:And then it just continues in all of our other relationships. The point that I want to make is that you don't need to go so deep as to traumatize yourself. You don't have to re-traumatize yourself If you find yourself dissociating or when I, years ago, I was coaching a client who I could hear her dissociate. And whenever I hear that happening where we lose the juice, we lose the energy, we lose the emotional connection I dial it back and make it safer. Take a smaller step forward. Have a safe witness is very, very helpful. If you're not going to work with me directly, for example, find somebody who will not interfere, will not speak, will not minimize, will not guide. You will just be there, will not judge. You will just be there so that you can guide yourself through the process.
Speaker 1:So step one is uncover the root cause, which is anything that has ever made you feel unlovable, unworthy or unsafe, and when you build up enough, start with things very personal to you and then you can add on things going on in the world that make this feel like an unwelcoming, unsafe world. Whatever is going to activate you. Again, we're lighting up your neurology so that we can rewire you. Life is a trigger we want to change your response to the trigger. So when you have enough, what I call a critical, massive ick like oh my God, this is awful, world is terrible, get me off. But not to the point that you're unsafe. It's just like you've built, you've gone to God and you've laid down your course of every way God has messed up.
Speaker 1:Then you make the root cause, which, by the way, could be God, doesn't have to be, it's whatever works for you. Since I brought in God, you know You're going to get personhood, like my monster was the biker, whatever it is. I find it helpful to start with the feeling. How big, how big is this massive pain? Does it feel hot or cold? Start with the sensory, because that's very instinctive, it's very emotional. It's what is your monster smell like? That is our most emotional, intuitive sense, and we're not. I'm not starting with what does it look like. We save that for the very end.
Speaker 2:But what does it feel like? What does it smell like? What does?
Speaker 1:it sound like. What is the meanest thing you've ever said to yourself? Put that in the mouth of your monster. It's not you, it's the monster trying to make you think that. And then what do its fingernails look like, its teeth, its eyes, what does its breath smell like? What does the hair look like? What does it want to do to you? And you make it all bad. And it is not you, and it is not your parents, because in step number three you're going to annihilate it. Only one of you gets to survive this monster.
Speaker 1:The purpose of this monster is to make you not want to live. And if you put in everything in it that you do not want in your life experience, and then you rise up like a sacred holy warrior and you obliterate it, that's how you rise out of the victim experiences, that kind of heat of righteous wrath like Kali. You just you slay the monster and you leave no bloody bits. And you leave no bloody bits. There will be no monster zombie reconstitution later. So burn it, melt it, whatever you need to do until it is gone. By the way, I am such a peace loving. I don't like violent movies and I'm like kill, kill, kill at this point Because it's taking your power back. You are choosing you and you are defining what no longer is allowed to be in your life experience, setting really good boundaries. And when the monster is gone and you feel it gone and it will feel different than anything you've experienced in your whole life, that is when you can invite in your money honey, because when the monster is gone, all that exists is love and you can call it money or you can call it vitality. I have a client who we slayed her. She had a terrible illness and we slayed that illness illness and she recovered weeks later. But we slayed, we slayed that specific monster and in its place was her abundance and vitality honey. It's a mouthful but it works for her. So you bring in your honey and you name it what you want to name it. I usually it's money honey because it rhymes and that's what I'm known for.
Speaker 1:And that's step four is you meet your money honey. Step number five is you have a conversation. What does your money honey want you to know? I would back up for a second back to step four, when you meet your money honey. Again, I would focus on the feeling I have a whole way of like setting the environment to kind of really prepare you for that. But it really comes down to just step into step into this person's arms and feel the love and feel safe and see is this somebody you want? And when you feel loved and safe and this person wants to be with you, go on to step number five, which is have the conversation. What does your money honey want you to know? What does your money honey want you to know about all those challenges that you had in the past? What does your money honey see? Because your money honey loves you, loves you more than anybody in the past. What does your money honey see? Because your money honey loves you, loves you more than anybody in the world and doesn't have any of your insecurities. So you get a purer picture of what really is going on and what really went down, a bigger picture. And then of course you can ask your money honey. My original question is what do you need from me to be with me? Be with me the way you want to be with me. And that's step five, that's the conversation.
Speaker 1:Then step six every magical spell has ritual. There's some action that takes it out of the ethereal realm and brings it into the physical world. Action is magical, especially if you want real world results. So what action are you going to take to demonstrate to your money, honey and yourself because it really is only you that you're committed to this new relationship? So there's some action, because when you ask your money, honey, what do you need from me so that you can be with me?
Speaker 1:You're going to get answers like I need you to love me, or I need you to relax which is always problematic for women or I need you to trust me, or I need you to trust yourself, or I need you to be happy. There's all sorts of great answers. Great answers that nobody alive can live successfully 24-7. Nobody. Nobody is happy 24-7. Nobody is relaxed 24-7. Nobody even loves themselves 24-7 to the degree that we would like to imagine we could.
Speaker 1:So let's make it easy and really chunk it down to just do one darn thing, and what I would say is whatever that thing is that you heard so quickly in the back of your head that you pretend not to hear it, toss that out as an idea. Toss out ideas and just see what lights your money honey up like a rocket. And it doesn't have to be related to money at all. In my experience again done this thousands of times, and every single time I do it it's different and I learned something new. It is my experience that the things that turn your money honey on the most, like makes your money honey happy, are the things that exalt you, that are good for you, that grow you, that respect you. Sometimes it will stretch you and sometimes it doesn't have to stretch you. Sometimes it can.
Speaker 1:Just, I had a client whose money honey told her to stay home and do laundry instead of, like, go on a weekend trip. So she did and she got a phone call and a $20,000 you know I have. It's funny because clients always want to, you know, be like the good kid, the good student. They want to, you know, they want to do a good job. And so I remember years back coaching somebody where she is coming up with what her money honey wants her to do and what she said is 32 sales calls and in that moment I just felt the heaviness of that and I can usually feel what their money honey feels and her money honey was. It just felt so heavy and kind of fear-based in that moment. I'm not saying it's the wrong thing to do, but it felt like it was coming from a place of fear and it just felt very heavy. So I said are you sure Check with your money honey? And she says, oh no, yeah, no, he doesn't want to do that. And I think they came up with something a lot lighter that really reflected self-love I actually have. It was so many years back, I don't remember what the other thing was, I just remember my reaction to that action.
Speaker 1:But I do currently have a client whose money honey wanted her to dress up in fancy lingerie and she didn't. This is so much fun because this is like two weeks ago, so she didn't do it and the month is coming to a close and she isn't reaching or she's struggling to reach, like her sales quotas for her job and she's getting really angry at her money honey. And she's writing to me like how to what to do because she's really mad at her money honey and I'm like guiding her into how to have a constructive fight with her money honey. And so she is telling her money honey how mad she is at him and he points out that she said she was going to put on the sexy lingerie and she never did out that she said she was going to put on the sexy lingerie and she never did. And I think the way he put it is you want me to be all in this relationship, but you are not all in this relationship.
Speaker 1:So she put on the lingerie and then he told her her imaginary friend there's like no, there's no guy there, it's all imaginary, it's like and put on some makeup too. And so she did, and doing that, she relaxed and that was when the cash and all the sales poured in. I can't explain it. I just see this. I have so many stories of people doing things that aren't at all related to money, but there's just that shift in self-worth and also just keeping your word that changes the world. And then outside changes happen. I never predict when or what or how big, but I am kind of a queen of coincidence, especially when it comes to money manifestation.
Speaker 2:When I'm hearing you say is they could annihilate the monster and have created their money, honey. Yet there still can be blockages. That they still always have to work at. That it's not always going to be always flowing and going their way. That there's still this work. That at times that previous past behavior can show up because they're not following through with what is required or and the integrity, like you said, keep your word.
Speaker 1:I'm not. It's not my paradigm or perspective that, like, money is going to punish you for not keeping your word, I, that doesn't. That doesn't work for me. Um, what I do believe is that we are evolving human beings and we have certain, maybe, wounds or triggers or issues that we're here to learn, yeah, and and, and. That medicine is actually what gives us the magic power to help others, but gives us the magic power to help others.
Speaker 1:So I have a coach friend named Michael Stratford who goes way back to like even earlier than me, and I love his kind of visual metaphor of imagine those sugar cones that you have your ice cream on and they have that little pointy bottom and then they just get bigger and wider as you go up. So, let's say, at the bottom, this is where you are in your trauma, your issue, your life lesson, whatever you want to call it, and you're there all the time and as you develop skills and pick up lessons and just evolve, you will keep looping around to your problem, but you'll spend less time there and the loop will get bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger. So it's just like, oh, it's time to you know this thing about worthiness and not being wanted. Okay, I'm good, and you can just go on a bigger journey and you spend less and less time in the problem it's just. It's like the gym for working the muscle that you want to develop. So I don't believe that anything anybody teaches anywhere is a silver bullet, and you stop evolving as soon as you do that thing, unless you die.
Speaker 1:So yeah, so my first money honey lasted me years it was like 2003 to 2008 and then all heck broke loose in 2008. And people were losing their houses and it was. I had never in my adult life seen that kind of drama and people were calling me with bigger problems than I'd ever heard and they didn't even have a credit card. And I grew up at a time where if you had a pulse credit card, companies wanted to sign you up and I stopped trusting money and I had to slay a new money monster. And my new money monster was I went from sort of boyish charm to like Clive Owen. Sexy was my next money honey and he had more gravitas. And every time I slay a monster and get a new money honey, I get a new lesson, and the message I got that time was he didn't know how to be. I was focusing on such small denominations he didn't and low hanging fruit. He didn't know how to be with numbers so small. I had to raise my rates, which is a weird, scary thing to do when you're in the money manifestation thing, because what do I attract? I attract people who think they have no money and I don't want to take advantage of anybody, which is why I do a podcast like this for free and I have articles and videos, because I want to be of service and I also want to get paid really well when I work really hard with somebody and I produce really big results. So I got that new money, honey, and that lasted a big long time. And then the next thing came up that oh, the world is feeling unsafe. I think I need to slay a new monster, and so for me it is a spiritual practice.
Speaker 1:One of my favorite clients of all time, a musical artist named Athena Burke Anybody listening, google her, find her music. It's divine, literally, and I coached her back in 2007. And she was one of those clients where she's telling me her circumstances and I'm on the phone, because back in those days we just did phones, so it's just hearing only and I'm like freaking out because her situation sounds so dire and hopeless and scary. And my money honey in the back of my head says, shut up and let, because she's telling me that she slayed her monster. She's got this great money honey and her money honey told me, told her to hire me. And I'm going oh my God, right Her situation. And my money honey said be quiet, she's an adult, let her make her own decision. So I let her hire me Within four months.
Speaker 1:She was making tens of thousands of dollars a month working part time and her mortgage was paid off and she was going down to Miami having what she called money moons, which were these kind of spiritual honeymoons with her money honey. What the reason I brought her up is because I asked her why her results were so dramatic so quickly and we had slayed I think two or three monsters together, but she said that she had slayed I think 13 monsters in those four months. Anytime something came up, it was like a spiritual practice for her. She would just slay a new monster and she started getting really, really good at it, which is my intention for everybody listening it's I want everybody to be a monster slayer as needed, so that your relationship with life is safe and loving and you're wanted, because that's really all there is. So that was it was her experience, because I hadn't needed to do. That. That showed me, oh, you don't have to do it only once, and every time you do it, you can go deeper and deeper and deeper, and your money honey can evolve too, and that's one of the ways it does.
Speaker 1:I believe, ultimately, that the only purpose of money and why we have money is to serve love and lifestyle and legacy, and when money is not serving and enhancing quality love and lifestyle and legacy, there's a monster in the room. Even if you're a billionaire because I've coached billionaires and if money is getting in the way of the life they want to live and the relationships they want to have and the impact having a positive impact in the world, that's a monster too. Okay, and don't be afraid of having a monster. It's a portal. It's a portal to everything you ever wanted, and that is the magic of alchemy. It's transmutation. Use the lead.
Speaker 2:I talk about alchemy a lot, of telling people with their impurities that they've transformed it into gold and that they're sharing that with other people.
Speaker 2:Alchemy is. I talk about it almost every day with people so that they can have that integration and acceptance of their experience, not cast it away, that, oh, I don't want to think or feel these things because it was like well, it's part of you, it's what created you into this being right now and allows you to be a person that can, as you said, relate to people and have humility and have such empathy and deep listening. And be able to relate to people Because once you've experienced things and once you've walked a walk, you're able to hold space and witness people in such a profound way that they can be open to themselves. Because that's all our portals are. It's not in anybody else, it's within ourselves. So when people are talking about this portal, it's going within you, and so that's why you know some guys will tell you like I can only show you the way, but I can't lead you into that way. I can only like point where the door is, but I cannot go into that door with you.
Speaker 1:That is definitely true with books and speaking like this. When I coach someone, it is literally my job to find the way that will let them in. If they could do it on their own they would do it, and people do do it on their own. And then they send me letters and I celebrate. I love it. My client, pam, had her first quarter of a million dollar sales month just by working with my book that you can get on Amazon Financial Alchemy 12 Months of Magic and Manifestation. It's a book workbook. You just do it every year. On her second year doing the book, she did that on her own before I ever knew she existed, before she ever hired me, and she just wanted to take it bigger because it's my bigger, because I, it's my job, because I've been in those dark places and I know how to keep you safe and protected. Is that I can take you farther than you can take yourself, because that's just the nature of going into those. Yeah.
Speaker 2:The shadows.
Speaker 1:My job is to make it safe to go there. However, when it comes to the monster slaying, that will always be you, that will be the force of your decision and I. That said, no monster has ever survived my presence, and I did have one client who was. It took us eight hours, which is the world record and hopefully will remain the world record to do what needed to be done to get to the monster, get it slayed and get the money honey, and then she made $1.2 million over the next six weeks. Out of the blue there is, you know. I like to ask a client when we start the process is it okay if this is fast and easy? Because it can be fast and easy and I will be there for whatever you need and whatever it takes, because that's my job. And if somebody needs it slow because of wounds and trauma, that's legitimate too. That's just their process.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, you mentioned in there and before our podcast started to record, you mentioned that your mother passed away in November and you also mentioned that some of that work that you had to look at was that relationship with your mother. Are you willing to talk about what that experience has been since your mother passed and what you had to work through?
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, I think it'll probably be years of it just coming up in bubbles. So much is that, even though I haven't spoken to my mother in 25 years, I loved her from a distance, from a safe distance. I had pretty much just positive love and affection, and I would hear things that I didn't give a lot of attention to, like my grandmother, who, when my mom and I split up, I inherited my grandmother and my aunt and the cousins and all that. I've always been very close with my grandmother, but I thought it was really odd several years ago when my grandmother said you know, your mother really hates you and I was like, well, that's weird, is grandma just being dramatic? Like why would she tell me that? So I just kind of set that aside. It turns out that's true and I didn't really grasp it until I didn't find this out, until after mom died, where I found out. Holy, holy cow, every trace of like any evidence that we've ever had a relationship has been scrubbed from the internet.
Speaker 1:I cannot find any evidence anywhere that I ever had a mother or that I was ever her daughter and I didn't expect that and I didn't expect that. I think the greatest gift that I got immediately after her death was I attended some adult children about alcoholic meetings because she was an alcoholic, so I guess I qualify. And somebody at my first meeting said that that she was not the daughter that her mother wanted. And I thought about that and I realized, well, I am not the daughter my mother wanted. Thank goodness, because that would be a really high price to pay. I've learned since then that I was not the daughter my mother wanted, even when I was a baby, which is also kind of sad. So you'll never guess what I did last weekend. I slayed a monster. I slayed a monster that had all that hurt and all that like mean, predatory mother, dangerous rejection, unwanted pain in it, just really dramatic monster slaying On the other side. And this is, you know, my I guess my money, honey of du jour is.
Speaker 1:There is the statue in Ubud and Bali of the Hindu Lord Shiva, who happened to be like the God that I loved studying in college at Smith, because I was trying to break up with a boyfriend. So I was like really into the God of death and destruction, hoping that would help me break up with the guy. So there's this statue of Shiva, and this statue is smoking, hot and sexy and cute and looks a lot like my husband. So that's who showed up as my new money, honey, which is kind of ironic and maybe a little on the nose since mom died, but what I love about Shiva in mythology is so I've got this little statue of Shiva and he's standing on one foot and he's dancing. He's got, you know, all his arms in a circle around him, lots and lots of arms, and if you look closely at the painting or the statue, you'll see that he is dancing on the back of a person. He's dancing on our back.
Speaker 1:We are the person, and he's dancing on our back out of love and compassion, so that we will let go of our own suffering and let go of our ignorance, so that we can be saved and released. So this money, honey, and I made a deal that my job is to make things easier, and also in my own life to make things easier, and also in my own life To make things easier. I am in the middle of a move that I never expected or intended, and moving is my among my least favorite things in the world, but it was so crystal clear that this was a gift from my money, honey, and I don't want to say no and break his heart, so I'm saying yes, and I'm saying yes to doing this with ease and to the ease that this will lead to, that I don't even know about on the other end, so that love and money and legacy can come in and be with me even bigger than before.
Speaker 2:Beautiful. Thank you for sharing that vulnerability and the empowerment of the work that has to continuously go in there, and you know the honesty to that. It, as you said, it may bubble up through the years that different things might resurface or make itself apparent that you weren't aware of before. Um, and anybody. I want to be mindful of any listeners. You know Morgana talking about her mother hating her and hating her since a child. If that, you know, brought up anything for you, because that's your story, you know if you need to like pause and just take a moment to allow yourself to feel what you're feeling, yet to know that you are loved and you're wanted.
Speaker 1:One thing I did figure out around the time I broke up with my mom and I was in my 30s when I first had the thought oh my gosh, what she's saying is inappropriate, because you don't think that when you're a child. But what I came to realize in the years after that is that my mother really never knew me. I never did anything that warranted her hate. I was a good kid, got good grades, didn't get into trouble, didn't matter. There was nothing I could have done. I was not the daughter my mother wanted, because my mother is sick. So she doesn't even know me enough to hate me. She hates some imagination of me, and I would say that that is very likely true of the person listening who is going through something similar to that is separate yourself from the hate fantasies projected on you.
Speaker 1:We have the families we're born to and then we have the families we choose. I have found an overabundance. Well, there's no such thing as overabundance. I have found just a real, dear abundance that I treasure of mother love from other sources. My husband's mother adores me. She's never liked anybody he's ever been with in his whole life. What are the odds? So I embrace that in his whole life.
Speaker 2:What are the odds? So I embrace that. I'm sure there's a lot of listeners that have been listening to this and they want to know where can I find Morgana. So can you let the listeners know where they can find you.
Speaker 1:It's super duper easy. My website is morganaraycom, so Morgana M, as in Mary O-R-G-A, n as in Nancy A-R-A-Ecom, and that's the mothership. You will find my four-part money magnetic video series. At the top You'll see my bestselling book. You'll see my money love quiz and all that's on the homepage. If you go to the blog, there are hundreds of articles and videos of me just answering questions that people like you have sent me over the years. Just type in what you're looking for and see what comes up.
Speaker 1:I think a good next step is my financial alchemy 12 months of magic and manifestation book, because it really guides you through step-by-step how to slay your monster, how to create your money, honey, and then how to stay in that relationship, because having a relationship with a human being is challenging. Having a relationship with a disembodied imaginary friend is even more challenging and doable, and that's why half of the book is my magic and manifestation self-coaching system to keep you on track, to make it very, very easy. I'm a huge advocate of taking the smallest steps possible for a big impact. You'll go faster with smaller steps, not when you're walking, you know, around the track, but in life. My goal is take steps small enough that you have no fear and anxiety and resistance, and then you'll actually get things done and you'll get where you wanted to get and pass that far more quickly than you expect.
Speaker 2:Is there something that you want to leave with the listeners?
Speaker 1:What I really want for you is kindness for yourself, love for yourself.
Speaker 1:It's so important to me that you understand that whatever you're struggling with, it's not that you're bad or that you're wrong or that you're a failure or that you're broken or any of these labels that we so meanly put on ourselves or on other people. Like, even if you go to the Bible and the book of Job, all of Job's supporters and what are they called His comforters, big air quotes for that are saying Job, you must have done something really bad when we know that Job did nothing wrong. So that's you. You just have a lot of coping mechanisms that probably saved your life many times over, that you've outgrown, that become detriments and even may be dangerous. So it's not that there's anything wrong with you, it's just that you've outgrown certain strategies that served you very well in the past. So just, marie Kondo, all that stuff that doesn't serve you anymore. A coach friend of mine likes to say it's not your fault, but it's your responsibility, because you have the power to respond and use all these experiences for your personal empowerment and exaltation.
Speaker 2:Beautifully said. I want to thank you, morgana, for doing the alchemy in your own life and sharing so much gold with so many people around this world and this planet. I'm very thankful that we were able to have this conversation and that I could have you on the podcast. I know the listeners have a wealth of knowledge and I know that many of them are going to reach out to find out more of how they can do that change and that shift in their life. So, thank you, my pleasure. You're welcome. Remember to be kind to yourself. Hey, you made it all the way here. I appreciate you and your time.
Speaker 2:If you found value in this conversation, please share it out. If there was somebody that popped into your mind, take action and share it out. If there was somebody that popped into your mind, take action and share it out with them. It possibly may not be them that will benefit. It's that they know somebody that will benefit from listening to this conversation. So please take action and share out the podcast. You can find us on social media on facebook, instagram and and TikTok under Lift One Self, and if you want to inquire about the work that I do and the services that I provide to people come over on my website, come into a discovery, call liftoneselfcom. Until next time, please remember to be kind and gentle with yourself. You matter.
