Money as a Mirror of the Soul or How to Attract Happiness and Money into Your Life

Introduction

“If someone gives you a million, you should become a millionaire as quickly as possible, or you’ll soon lose that money.” Many lottery millionaires are worse off just a few years later than before their win, while the life stories of successful individuals show that even if they lose everything, they can swiftly create the same fortune again.

These circumstances highlight how closely money is tied to our personalities, how inner processes are reflected outward and revealed precisely in the way we handle money. What did you learn about money in school? Hardly anyone explains the rules of the money game, yet we all play it—rich or poor, educated or uneducated. There is no school subject that teaches financial literacy or the psychological “rules of money.”

Nonetheless, everyone has an attitude toward money—one formed in early childhood, inherited largely from parents, and carried throughout life without ever being questioned.

We know that much in life depends on the structure of our thoughts. But these thoughts do not occupy our minds rent-free. We pay a price for how we think, and that price shows up in our bank statements.

Based on one of NLP’s core assumptions—“A person has all the resources needed already within”—we can assume that you already have everything within you to change how you relate to money.

The key is to let go of whatever distance between you and money is created by your limiting beliefs—to move beyond dogmas, judgments, comparisons, and evaluations that hold you back.

What did you learn about money in your childhood?
What attitudes about yourself did you grow up with? How did your parents deal with money?
What do you think of people with money—or about money itself?
What fears about money can you spot within yourself?
What does money offer you, or what do you try to compensate for with it?

If you condemn money, you create a division between yourself and money.

As long as your subconscious isn’t programmed for prosperity, no external strategy will have lasting success. You cannot simply use logical thinking to alter unconscious learning programs.

Your subconscious doesn’t think logically nor pause to ask what’s best for you. It simply does what it’s programmed to do, doing everything possible to prove that these unconscious programs (which govern your relationship to money) reflect your personal truth. The subconscious continually generates events reflecting the inner world, drawing similar people, experiences, and circumstances into your life again and again.

Like Attracts Like

“Mirror neurons” are responsible for our readiness to resonate wherever possible. When someone yawns, we yawn too. When someone laughs, it’s contagious—even if we don’t know why.

Many phrases hint at this. We say that misfortunes rarely come alone, or one might go from the frying pan into the fire. And everyone knows the saying “Money goes to money.”

Our thoughts govern our focus—what we pay attention to. Anything receiving attention grows. As if by magnetism, we keep attracting the same conditions and scenarios into our life that match our inner self. The focus shapes our perception, drawing us toward what we already recognize and dwell on internally.

Those who always dwell on scarcity or bemoan a lack of money direct attention exactly to what they don’t want—and thus subconsciously invite it in. This is one reason people who already have a “wealth mindset” can continually recreate wealth: they notice opportunities and see potential in crises.

A “move away from” metaprogram triggered by an internal mindset of lack will keep returning your trajectory of success to square one—or even worse.

Our emotions—produced by our thoughts—act as the catalyst for attracting events into our life. At a fundamental level, we experience just two types of feelings: pleasant and unpleasant. One type yields pleasure and joy; the other yields pain, fear, or anger.

Those who learn to change their perception, interpreting anger, fear, and pain as energy that can be transformed, can experience inner abundance. I encourage my clients in these situations to keep a “gratitude journal.” Writing down the positive things in life, everything one is grateful for, changes personal perception.

Guilt and Debt

The German words for “debt” and “guilt” are almost identical (Schuld/Schulden). If someone asks me why they’re so deep in debt, I ask in return what guilt they might be carrying, or what moral debt from the family they might be unconsciously “paying off” with money. Beyond that, we live in a society whose collective unconscious is steeped in guilt. Guilt can also arise if we violate our own values or do things at odds with those values or basic needs. This too can arouse strong emotions.

Psychology identifies seven core human needs:

The need to feel welcome in life
Security, warmth, affection
Belonging and community
Respect for personal boundaries
Space to develop and freely express your feelings
Support from others
Appreciation and recognition

If any of these basic needs are only partially or not at all satisfied, the subconscious tries compensating in other ways—sometimes via money. Which options do you see for truly addressing these needs in your life, acknowledging them, communicating them, and integrating them?

The Dark Side of Personality

Traits of our personality that our culture, family, or even we ourselves fail to accept and repress are referred to in psychology as “the shadow.” We tend to project onto others the characteristics we don’t want to see in ourselves. Paradoxically, these repressed aspects can become our harshest teachers—parts of our internal self that want attention, that we can’t simply ignore and banish. Regarding money, these shadows are fear and greed. And stockbrokers will confirm that money markets are primarily driven by these emotions.

One must stay alert to their own dark side, addressing personal shadows. Our enemies, too, can be essential, showing us what we haven’t yet integrated. The Christian teaching about learning to love your enemies alludes to this idea. The “law of polarity” addresses this as well: we always contain both. Lift one end of a stick, and you automatically lift the other. Feelings and traits exist in diametric opposition. Passionate love can devolve into profound hate. The yin-yang symbol also depicts these dualities.

In the Middle Ages, some currency systems considered this law. They used a “hard currency” (gold, silver) for long-distance trade with patriarchal hallmarks like hierarchy, concentration, control, and competition, while also using local “soft” currencies as pure mediums of exchange, kept in circulation and regularly reconverted.

Some periods imposed “demurrage,” or holding fees, on money that wasn’t kept circulating. These yin-yang aspects of money management allow us to both keep money flowing and build wealth, preserving our souls from excessive saving that generates an internal sense of lack—which in turn draws more scarcity.

Money and Women

Money is often a topic to which many women have limited access. Phrases like “I’m not in it for the money” or fears such as “If I ask for a raise, I might lose my job” are common among my female clients. History offers some insights, too. In Germany, as recently as 1977, a woman needed her husband’s permission to open a bank account. Until the mid-70s, husbands could fire their wives on grounds that her job “disturbed household peace.” If a woman came into marriage with her own assets, these were managed by her husband until 1953.

The repercussions remain visible. For many women, salary isn’t a big factor in hiring negotiations. Statistically, they only negotiate pay about every ten years. Female-dominated professions are often poorly paid. So women tend to question the value of their work, undercharge, or struggle to bill at all. Anyone wanting to develop a wealth consciousness must turn inward—question their beliefs, build a new field of resonance, and face those dark traits.

Money is more than just a medium of exchange.

Money is our mirror.

It’s a mirror of our soul.

Recommended Reading

Rüdiger Dahlke – Die Psychologie des Geldes
Bernard Lietaer – Mysterium Geld

About Alexandra Stöhr: She is a self-employed corporate consultant, leadership trainer, and coach living near Kaiserslautern. She studied business and has been interested in positive psychology from a young age.

She has been passionate about NLP, transactional analysis, and systemic constellations for more than ten years, is a certified NLP trainer (NLP-Lehrtrainerin), an NLP coach, and has many years of coaching experience. Formerly working in finance, she repeatedly noticed how much psychology underpins the topic of money—how customers’ personality traits determined their investment choices. For several years, she has combined her business and psychological knowledge and experience, coaching and advising people on starting businesses, building companies, improving leadership skills, and discovering how to transform inner abundance into outer wealth, to develop their personalities and find their place in life.