MSG Presents-"Eric On Money": Breaking Generational Curses, Rewriting Your Money Origin Story w/ Latasha Mathews

In this powerful and introspective episode, Eric McLoyd sits down with licensed therapist Latasha Matthews, known as America’s Emotional Wellness Expert, to explore the profound connection between financial trauma and personal growth. Together, they dive into the concept of the Money Origin Story—how our financial past shapes our present mindset and future decisions.

Latasha shares her insights on how unresolved financial trauma can block progress, while Eric opens up about his own journey of overcoming money mistakes and reclaiming financial stability. They discuss practical steps for identifying money blocks, crafting a new narrative, and leveraging financial literacy as a tool for healing.

Whether you’re dealing with guilt from past financial choices or seeking a healthier relationship with money, this episode provides practical tips, candid stories, and expert advice to help you rewrite your financial script. Tune in for a transformative conversation that challenges the way you think about wealth, wellness, and self-worth.

Transcript

We are going to have a fantastic conversation today with Latasha Matthews. We are going to be talking about what's your money origin story. And Latasha, I cannot tell you how excited I am to have this conversation with you specifically because.

We're not just gonna focus on the money origin story, but we wanna talk about, once you know your story, how do you move past the trauma? How do you, uh, move past the money mistakes? How do you move past the generational financial curses? All right, so, um, you all want to introduce you to Latasha Matthews.

We met in a mastermind group. I think she may have. One of us reached out to each other. We kept in touch and we kept saying, we're gonna do some content. So here we are. So introducing Latasha. She, Latasha Matthews is known as America's emotional wellness expert. I like that. I love that. She is the CEO and clinical director of [00:01:00] Illumination counseling and coaching.

And why to live, well, 15 years of experience as a speaker, therapist, coach, consultant, and an author. And this part Latasha. I didn't know until you sent me the bio. You also provide continuing education training for clinicians and corporate training on wellness, DEI eq, trauma and Informed Resilience in the workplace.

Fantastic. I wanna know more about those. And she has trained thousands in the individuals globally on the importance of setting healthy boundaries to live Well. Latasha, welcome to this episode. How are you? I am doing wonderful. I am so glad we finally got to connect and this topic is pretty important to me, so I'm glad to dive in.

All right, so I read the, the corporate bio. What did we not hear about you in that intro? Tell us more. I. [00:02:00] Yeah, the, the reason I was so excited to join you is because this area is near and dear to my heart because I've had my own financial struggles and financial trauma, um, and some of that may come out in the show today, but I do think that if we're talking about business owners, if we're talking about being in relationships.

Finances cross so many areas and it's important to not avoid and think that you're going to be successful in other areas. So that is an area that I don't always share, but I feel pretty comfortable with you. I do know that, um, vulnerability heals and we are gonna probably talk about that today, and I, and so I'm excited to share my story as it comes out and unfolds in this topic today.

All right. I can't wait to hear your story. I'll tell you a little bit about my own financial trauma that I've, uh, learned to share over time. I wanna start us out, though, with a couple of quick statistics, and they were a little [00:03:00] surprising to me. Maybe not so much to you, but I'll, I'll get you take on 'em.

So, bank rate is gonna give us the two first two stats. The uh, one was in April of 2023, they did a survey of US adults. They found that 82% of adults feel like money negatively impacts their mental health. 82%. I feel like that's a really big number. They said it's caused by economic factors. That was the first one.

Second one was, and I, this one is the one that really shocked me. Uh, 60% of Americans said they do not expect their finances to get back. I, that one threw me off. I'm gonna get your take on this one in a second. And the last one, the Financial Health Network did a study that said 31% of Americans, um, were not financially healthy.

And they said only 23% of women and only 15% of black people were financially healthy. What are your thoughts on [00:04:00] those stats? Are they shocking to you at all? Um, they are not shocking to me, um, because I am seeing client after client, and I'm sure you see lots of clients as well. I just think that, um, if we're only focusing on, um, the, the numbers, we miss the part.

We missed the why, right? So it's not shocking to me because I know that, um, even changing behaviors doesn't change the, the feeling that you have on the inside about. The, the money, um, right. You can, you can change the debt, you can pay everything off, but if you have not dealt with the why you got there anyway, um, those numbers will continue to grow.

You'll end up right back in that place. And so, um, so I'm glad you shared those stats, but they're not alarming. Okay. I'm glad that, I'm glad to get your point of view on that. Now, before we get into the money origin story. [00:05:00] I wanna talk really quick. I'm really big on making sure we define, uh, the definitions of certain terms.

So I hear the term financial trauma thrown around quite a bit. Could you please let us know what the definition is of that term? What does financial trauma mean? Well, first I'll start with, um. Just trauma by itself because we can put trauma with any other term. Um, and I think that we all have our, we will have to be able to define what that is individually, but trauma, um, essentially, um, I'm not gonna go real clinical, but trauma.

Anything that has impacted you, um, in one area of your life and shows up in another area, it could be something as small as losing a dog, um, that could be traumatic for me, but not so much traumatic for you. Um, the way you know it's traumatic is because there's some secondary symptoms or consequences that come from that situation.

So if I [00:06:00] lose my dog, um, does it impact me at work? If I lost my dog, does it impact my ability to purchase another dog? So it's some type of blockage that keeps you from moving forward, which you talked about in the beginning. How do we move forward? Right. I love that. The simplicity and the power of your definition of blockage that stops us from moving forward.

Okay, so now we're gonna tie that to the money origin story. And remember you all, this whole conversation is about how to move forward. And so as a financial coach, and I've been an advisor and all this different stuff, but I've met with thousands of people talking about money. At some point, Latasha, I said, okay, I can do all this technical stuff, the planning, the investing and all this stuff.

But if we don't deal with the mindset, how am I really helping or I'm only helping to a degree, it's not, it's not, uh, it's not holistic if I can't get into the mindset. And [00:07:00] so I came across this concept of the money origin story, and I loved your response to what I said when we first met. Because usually when I start talking about money origin story, I just kind of get a blank look.

But you added some flavor onto it that I never even thought about. I want, I'm gonna tell the audience about that. But first, let's just talk about the money origin story. So the money origin story is, in my definition, I'm gonna get lat. It's your life story as it relates to money. It's your life story as it relates to money.

When I'm working with people, I have them write out their entire life story and we're pulling out events specific to money. Latasha, what is your definition of the money origin story? I love your definition. The only thing that I would add to your definition is. After I pull out those stories, how do I feel about those stories?

How do I, it's, it's, it's the feeling behind seeing your parents [00:08:00] struggle or seeing you not have money. That creates a whole nother feeling about. Pan off debt. Um, right. And so it's, it's everything that Mr. Eric said, and it's how you feel and how you respond to that feeling. We got a response to the feeling, am I gonna go drink it If I can't spend it, am I gonna go have sex?

What am I doing with the feeling right? I love that. How do I feel? So we've mapped out the journey, and I got this from like examining different films and all this different stuff. They had this thing called a hero's journey if you're a screenwriter and all this stuff. So we're tying it into us. You have this story, we're pulling out how we feel, but here's what I love you all that Latasha brought to mind when I spoke to her initially.

She said, yeah, I'm very familiar with the money origin story [00:09:00] and it's very important to pull out the characters in the story. Now, I've never had anybody say that to me. I mean, I felt like that was just very profound. Like obviously if I'm having somebody write out their more money origin story, I. The characters are emerging, but it was never on the surface of the conversation.

I love that you brought that up. Can you tell us more about the characters that could be in your story? Yes, yes. So, um, I've done lots of research on lots of di different money types. Um, and so characters emerge and you can create a, you can think about a character and use that in your story. So if I have a scarcity mindset, what.

Character could emerge from that scarcity mindset. I can think of an animal that's scared. I can think of a superhero that showed up scared. I can think of a scarecrow. Um, you want to be able [00:10:00] to identify a character as well. Um, I do think that characters emerge in if I'm talking about family trauma. As it pertains to finances, what was your role in your family when your parents talked about finances?

Were you the one that jumped in the middle of the argument when mom and dad was arguing about finances? Were you the scapegoat? Um, were you the blame for that financial trauma? So you can identify based on your own origin story, what was your role? In your family, if you didn't have a family, what was your role?

To figure out how to be financially wealthy? And so those are some of the things that, um, come to mind when I think about your character in your role. Wow. You all see this is why therapy is so important. Um, those takeaways are very vital. What was your role in the story? Okay, [00:11:00] so if you all, whoever's watching this.

This, uh, episode I want you to be thinking about, first of all, understanding the definition of financial trauma. Thinking about, okay, now I'm gonna map out what my journey was, and I'm gonna think about the characters in the story, including myself. What was my character in this story? And then as Latasha told us, how did you feel?

Right? When you tell your money origin story, or you wrote it out, did you feel good? Do you feel bad? Do you want to cry? Like what is your, what is your emotions around your story? Now as we're viewing this, as sort of this movie that we're playing back, I want you to think about the money origin story, kind of the past in a sense, right?

So that's up until now. But now in the present moment, I want you to think about this and we're using the movie idea. What's your script? What's your money script? So we're thinking about present tense. So [00:12:00] if I came up to Latasha and I said, Latasha, you know what? I'm about to hit you with a million dollars.

I'm gonna give you a million dollars. When we're thinking about a money script, I would be wondering what thoughts are going on in Latasha's mind because I'm about to give her a million dollars, or she's about to give me a million dollars, or I just got my paycheck or the money from my business and I'm thinking about my bills.

What's the dialogue? What's the, what is the script? What's the dialogue that's happening in my mind around money? Latasha, I know you've worked with people on this. What can you add in with to with us about like, what is going through your mind as you're interacting or thinking about money? I. Yes, yes.

Thank you for, um, sharing that. So when I'm, so I, I would love to share, um, just personally, because I do think that that would really bring it home for the listeners. Um, when you said, I'm about to give Latasha a [00:13:00] million dollars, the first script that came to mind is, is that even possible?

No doubt, real talk. Is that even possible? But it's not the statement. Is that even possible? It's the thought behind. What will I do if I had a million dollars? Can I hold on to a million dollars? No one in my family had a million dollars. Um, the, the other script that came to mind is I saw my parents work hard.

So I need to work hard to get that. So if it came easy, does that mean I'm really working hard? So these are all the dialogues that play. People may not realize these dialogues are playing, but they're in the background. The the scenes are running in the back regarding all of those things, even from the past.

I know Eric said we moved to the present, but we don't rid ourself from those [00:14:00] past thoughts until we do some work around that trauma piece, which is why you brought me here today. True indeed. True indeed. And that reminds me of an exercise. I don't know if you remember this, but the, the mastermind group that we were in, there was an in-person session about a year ago, and the coach had us write out a million dollar invoice.

Mm-hmm. Do you remember, were you, did you participate in. And you could have seen like the emotional reactions in people just going through that exercise. And now I think we got into a group out in the hallway and every, but it was very emotional for people to just write out a million dollar invoice and just this, you know, this exercise, it wasn't real, but it was real in a sense of the emotions and the mindset that was at play to be even, like you said, thinking about something like that.

Yeah. Yeah, I remember that. I remember my group, [00:15:00] um, looking like a deer in headlights. And we were really, uh, a lot of us were really struggling with that concept, even though we didn't have it. We were just talking about this fictitious, um, play money, so, so to speak. But that really tells you how Im impacted.

People have been regarding their money story, their money scripts, and their money trauma. Um, which is why those stats really are not surprising. True indeed. Now, I wanna get into our specific stories a little bit. If you're feeling comfortable, I'm gonna share mines quickly. Uh, for those of you who follow me on LinkedIn, you've heard this story quite a bit.

Uh, it was such a big piece of my life. So, uh, Latasha at age 19, I got into a very bad car accident. At 19 years old, I almost died. I was in the hospital for quite a while. After the accident, I received a [00:16:00] six figure settlement as a result of the accident because it wasn't, it wasn't my fault, obviously. Um, so I got paid after I got that money.

Myself and I always include my little brother 'cause I, we spent it together, but we blew through that money. In one year. We blew through a six, six feet. It was about a hundred thousand. We blew through a hundred thousand dollars in one year buying clothes, gold grills, jewelry, all this crazy stuff. So it was gone and after the money was gone, I had a, I would say a mental illness.

At that point, I could not reconcile in my mind about. How did you do this? How did you spend a hundred thousand dollars in a year and you got the whole neighborhood? Was aware that I had the money and now it's gone. Mm-hmm. And so that became what I talk a lot about, which it became a money block. It started blocking my future progress because of this situation.

So that's a big part of my money [00:17:00] origin story. There are a lot of side characters involved. But that is mines. I want to hear a little bit about yours, but I wanna bring up this point of blocks. So, one of the great benefits about writing out their money origin story, pulling out the characters and all this stuff, you wanna see what's blocking you.

Because if you're, I have people sit in front of me and they're like, look man, I make $500,000 a year. I want to become a millionaire. But something is holding me back. I really don't know what it is. I'm making the money. I'm in the right environment, but I'm still in poverty basically in terms of my mindset.

And I don't have any assets. I don't have anything. And so we're able to look at the story and pull out, okay, what's blocking you? What is stopping you from moving forward? Any stories that come to mind about yourself that are just very significant in your money origin story? Yeah, definitely. Um, I. I would say my story is [00:18:00] probably, um, more traditional in a sense is that because I, um, saw my mom who I spent a lot of time with, um, I.

Purchase things based on emotions. Um, I felt like I was her little purchase toy, um, to make up for all of the things she did not get, um, in her childhood because she had a lot of trauma and so I became her. Um. Her toy, let me, let me buy her, let me do these things for her. And a lot of the, the purchases were made, um, out of emotion.

Um, and because my dad, who was very different, he was a saver. I didn't spend time with him. I got that feeling from my mom. It felt good to get things. Um, until you were your own adult and, and you saw that there was some significant problems regarding purchasing to feel good, and I think in college [00:19:00] I found myself, um, I.

At least $50,000 in debt because soon as you step on campus, they are giving you credit cards. I don't remember signing off on anything they just said here, here, here, here. And I found myself, um, very stressed, um, while I'm trying to study. And so I do think the, um. The mental health aspect really, um, stood out.

I didn't really know that I was traumatized by all of this debt. I was working at McDonald's on campus and McDonald's can't pay for nothing. It ain't paying those interest rates. Um, and so I found myself, um, in a pickle, um, with a four year degree, um, but still didn't really have, um, the. Skills or the, um, ability, even though the debt, my mom helped me pay off the debt, I still didn't have the mindset to do anything different.

Right. No doubt. Yeah, [00:20:00] I, I can relate to that story and I've sat down with quite a few people that has similar stories, very much emotional, very much emotional. And then I've sat down with people on the other end of the spectrum. They saw their parents do a lot of spending and it made them not want us to spend any money, like any purchase was highly scrutinized, whether it was 10 or $15 because they were afraid of going down the same path as their parents.

Yes, yes, yes. And, and so I do work with clinicians regarding their money story as it pertains to business, um, since I provide clinical support and consultation. And I will find that you will see both ends of the spectrum. Some people who won't spend, which also hurts your business, and then some people who overspend and.

Overcompensate because they haven't dealt with, you know, the skills necessary to run a business. So I definitely think you [00:21:00] can get it on both ends of the spectrum. Absolutely. And I really appreciate you sharing our, your story because sometimes when we're dealing with professionals, they don't necessarily want to share or maybe they're not comfortable sharing.

So I really do appreciate you sharing. Your story. Um, now as a result of your story, Latasha, I would like to ask if you're comfortable answering like, what is your current script, money script as it relates to money? So my money script, um. And I'll say this before I share my script. You don't change this mindset overnight.

Um mm-hmm. We talked a little earlier about you can pay off the debt, um, but the mindset and the fills it take a lot longer. Um, so you have to kind of lock in and do that work. I would say my current money script is that I am still [00:22:00] healing from that trauma. From my childhood self, and I'm okay with saying that, um, some days I am great with, um, organizing my finances.

Um, but I do have, you know, financial people who are always, um, I. A good accountability and checks and balances for me to make sure that I am reflecting on how I spend. But it is really hard work. It, it just, it is really hard work. And so, um, for those who are listening who feel the same way, it's, it's important to keep going and to not try to be perfect.

So true. So true. And I mean, what I found being in the financial industry, a lot of financial professionals. Struggle and many of them have something called financial imposter syndrome. Mm-hmm. And that's a whole nother episode that we can go into. But I just want to say to people, be sort of careful or have [00:23:00] the understanding that because someone is in front of you as a financial professional, they could be struggling with some things as well.

Right. Just because you have a license or MBA in finance and all this stuff, it does not erase. And it's Latasha saying your trauma, you still got things that you need to deal with. And even myself, yeah, I'm good at the budgeting and investing and all that, but I still got this little voice in the back of my head that I have to manage from that incident when I was 19 years old.

Right? And so I probably will be dealing with that the rest of my life, but I'm aware of it and I continue to work on growing from it. So, yeah. Mm-hmm. Those are our money origin stories. So we talked about all this, this stuff we talked about, trauma, the story, the script, who the characters are. We talked about our stories.

Now let's get to the real meat and potatoes here. Natasha. How do you move forward? Now you know your story, how do you move on? [00:24:00] Yeah, definitely. Um, just some practical tips, making sure that you're not on an island by yourself, um, professionals. Um, don't feel like you have to figure out everything by yourself.

Um, connect with the financial coach. Connect with a therapist that specializes in some type of trauma modality. Um, I am, um, trained in EMDR, brain spotting and some other modalities that help, um, deal with the feeling that goes into, um, trauma. Um, so feeling. Trauma sits in our body. Um, sometimes if you have a headache or a back ache or a neck ache, you may think it's because of you doing something to cause it, but sometimes trauma.

Be it, finances will sit in your body. And so sometimes when I'm working with clients, I am asking them when they tell me when they get [00:25:00] emotional in session, and we could be talking about finances. And I notice, I notice that you are twitching your foot or I notice that your heart rate has increased. Can you talk to me about where you feel that financial trauma at or where or where you feel that you're not deserving of a million dollars?

And the client will reflect oftentimes and say, well, I feel it in my head, or I feel it in my lower back when you ask me that statement. And then I would do some work to help them resolve that that pain that they have, so that block will not cause them to, um, get so triggered when we talk about finances the next time.

Wow. That made me really pay attention when you said you can tell their heartbeat increases. Like that's, uh, that's heavy, that's heavy stuff. But I like the fact that you're getting them to [00:26:00] sort of reflect and be very mindful in the moment. About how they feel, how is their body responding to these things?

Hmm. Yeah. So I, as a financial coach, I try to do my best not to play therapists because I understand I am not a trained therapist, but some of the things that I do with people that have been helpful are, one, I encourage them to journal. Sounds very simple, but it's very powerful every day. How am I feeling about my money?

What? What did I do today? What do I still want to do? Writing it out every day, taking five minutes to do so. It doesn't have to be a long situation. The other thing I have people do is take notes on their phone every time they make a purchase, and some people are like, well, what's the point? It makes them be very cognizant of the spending, because sometimes people start doing it before they even make the purchase.

But definitely I want them to do it [00:27:00] afterwards because it's kind of holding them accountable for what they just spent. And I've seen that help people quite a bit. I also mentioned something that people use just in the world that's helpful, which is a vision board. So being very clear about, okay, this is my present situation, but here's where I want to be.

Here's the vision for the future. Have you used any of these things with your clients or have a, any of these things that you've personally used that you feel are very powerful to move forward? Yes, definitely. I, you know, we're speaking to different learning styles and you've tapped into a few, some people don't like writing, um, for whatever reason.

And so if you don't like writing. I wanna add to what Erica stated. Um, I also use art. So sometimes people want to draw their story, so draw how they feel about their purchases. Um, and so that deals with some of that emotional side. The other thing [00:28:00] that is helpful is, um. Recorded affirmations. So if I am struggling with my money script, I would record myself saying I am deserving of being debt-free.

I would play that I am deserving of. Um. Having a different money script. I am not my parents. I am not my past. And so you can play those, um, affirmations just to remind you of the present moment and help you for future moments as well. Wow. I'm so glad you brought up the affirmations because those are probably, would've helped me the most.

I used to look in the mirror every day. I. And, and it was hard at first, but it was, I was just looking in the mirror and say, you will become a millionaire. I said it over and over and, and believe it or not, I want you all in the audience to try this. Whatever your one of your goals is, I want you to look in the [00:29:00] mirror and just say it, and it might be hard the first couple of times that you do it because the first couple of times that I did that, I felt so afraid to just look at myself and say that this is so deep to look no one else is around.

No kids, no sp, I'm just me in the mirror. You will become, and I was afraid to even say the words, but I did the work over time. I did it. I did it, I did it. And after a while, it felt not only comfortable, but it became part of me. And so I would act, I would really encourage the affirmations. I like the ones Latasha gave.

I will probably go back through this live and write some of those down. For myself and others. But yes, affirmations are a big deal. They're, they're, yeah. And I think, I like the way you, um, talked about people, you know, staring in the mirror. Um, because I work with all different types of learning styles.

Some people don't like to see their face. Like you [00:30:00] said, there's a lot of shame there. So if you don't want to look in the mirror, um, if you like your voice, um. I like that you can record it and play it back. If you don't like your voice, then there's somebody. Out there that you may like, you have them recording for you.

But we have to get, um, comfortable with, um, dealing with the shame of seeing ourselves and saying those things, but also hearing ourselves say things and deal with how do I feel when I hear myself say that I'm going to be a millionaire? So there's always the mindset and then the feeling, and then we're attaching that because that changes behaviors.

True indeed. And that brings me to another one that I love, which I called borrowing other people's confidence. Mm. Borrow someone else's confidence. So you might be feeling like, I don't know if I can do this. That's when it might be time to hire that coach, [00:31:00] to hire that advisor to connect with a therapist and get some therapy.

Because their energy can transfer on to you. And over time you'll start to believe and feel better. Like, okay, yeah, I can do it. So, um, borrowing someone else's confidence, but also another one that I think is extremely helpful is putting yourself in new environments. So we talked about the mastermind group.

That was new for me. And you get around a bunch of other people who you don't really know that well, I. And it kind of shows you like, I'm not the only one struggling with some of these issues. Mm-hmm. Right. It's not all negative. There's some good things you like, okay, that person's like me. I'm a go-getter.

We're gonna make it happen. But then on some of the mindset stuff, you're like, oh, okay, I'm, it's other people dealing with the same thing. We're gonna be okay. You know what I mean? We're gonna, and the person coaches us is telling us the same thing I used to be here, we're gonna be all right. So those are just a couple of other [00:32:00] simple things that you can do.

To move forward. But Latasha, I definitely wanna get your expertise on this. When we talk about generational curses around money, um, what can you share with us about, first of all, what you've learned by working with people around these, but then also how do you move past those? Yeah, definitely. Um. I do a lot of narrative work, um, stories as well.

Um, we all have the ability to rewrite the story even if we don't know how we are going to get there. So we call this, um, visioning or moving forward. So the journal talks about the day-to-day things that happen, but I have clients. Tell me where they see themselves in five to 10 years as it pertains to their finances.

Um, obviously we look at the generational things and we plug in, you know, grandpa and great grandpa, and [00:33:00] we also not just look at the negative things, we also have to look at the strengths. So looking at some of the strengths that you have to move forward. Um, you can't change your past, but you can look at.

Some of the attributes to help you move forward. So if we vision four, five years and we kinda reimagine and reverse engineer, um, you have where you want to go, but then you would say, okay, well I know I can't get here without a financial coach. I know I can't get here without a therapist. I know for some they've had.

File bankruptcy. And so dealing with the shame regarding, okay, this is an avenue for me, and not looking at it as a negative. Um, so some people have different choices that they have to make to get them moving forward, but without kind of having some goals, you are just kind of going in circles. So I like when you said have something visual that you can see, [00:34:00] um, that helps you move forward or you have something that you can hear that can help motivate you when you're down.

Yes, and I'm probably gonna use your strategy of recording your own voice for things and playing it back. Um, I didn't use to like my voice. I like it now, but, so I'll probably do that. I like that. But yeah, I think that's a good, yes, all these things are extremely powerful and it brings me to this point, which is.

Well, first, let me say this. I'm glad that I know you better now because when I start getting into therapist territory, I know someone that I might be able to refer people to that deal specifically with money, right? Because I, I know a lot, quite a few therapists, but many of them have been clear. I don't really deal with money issues.

So I'm glad I know you as far as that. And then my next point is this. Here's one of the biggest things that helped me in my story, which is [00:35:00] financial literacy. This is kind of a shameless plug, and you'll see why later on in episode. But financial literacy is going to make you feel more confident regardless of what your story is because you start to begin to feel this sense of being in control.

So if you're thinking about, how do I reduce my taxable income, or I need the budget better, and you get the actual knowledge on how to do these things. It's just no different than the knowledge you obtained to have your career. It's going to strengthen you. It will fortify you and more. Most importantly, when you do hire a coach or you do hire a financial advisor, you are in the power seat because, because you're literate, you can better direct them on which your wishes are versus them dictating to you how the arrangement is going to work.

Financial literacy. Yes. Yes. Edu. Edu. Educate us, Eric. Yes. [00:36:00] Yes. I'm on my soapbox. I'm on my soapbox. All of us went to school. We got all these degrees and stuff, and so now we're gonna start getting some money. Degrees. Degrees and finances. Personal finance. Okay. So we're working our way through this conversation.

So Latasha, I'll definitely wanna give you an opportunity to cover. Or give us some final thoughts or anything that you wanna bring up that we may have missed? Yes. I, you know, um, you know, for any of the listeners that are out there, I, I, I wanna applaud you because this is a tough topic. I think we, um, oftentimes wanna focus on, well, let me just get this certain amount or this number, um.

But don't be ashamed of where you're at. Um, I think that Eric talked about, um, one of the important pieces is having, um, some awareness, uh, self-awareness, um, self-awareness of, you know, where you're at financially, but also I. Tapping into your [00:37:00] feelings about where you're at. I think, um, for those who are not in the therapy world, um, the word that I would use is disconnection.

Disassociation. A lot of people will not feel anything. Um. Because feelings cause something else. So, uh, reconnect with your feelings. Get close with them again, become friends with them so they can tell you feelings, tell you a story. Um, and we wanna hear that story. So not that you can push the feelings down so you can know the consequence.

And there's always a secondary thing that comes from pushing feelings down. And we. That there's not any other trauma that's emerging from you denying your feelings and, and enjoy the journey. Life is a journey. Um, enjoy the process. If you mess up, keep going, start over. Um, and, and that's all I'll say today.

I love it. And I love the fact [00:38:00] that from the very beginning of this conversation, you've been talking about feelings and emotion. And I think a lot of times that gets overlooked with the money in a sense. It's like, yeah, it's talked about when we're doing well with money. Oh, I'm, I'm six figures. I'm, I'm making a million dollars and all that.

But being aware, like you said about your emotions, about the, the, um, the parts that still need to be healed, the trauma you were talking about. Um, and I love this, and I'll never forget this, that you said this, like how are you feeling in the moment when this stuff comes up? Is it in your back, your shoulders start hurting, your eyes start twitching a little bit.

You know, like, how are these things showing up in you right now in the present moment? So that's very powerful. Now, Latasha, I wanna give you an opportunity, I don't know if you're taking any new clients, but could you just end with like, how do you, if somebody wants to work with you, who is your, like, who do you work with and what's [00:39:00] their path to, to possibly have you as a therapist?

Yeah, definitely, definitely. I, um, I'm taking a few little therapy clients. I would, um, want to give myself a same shameless plug. Um, why to live Well is a, um, a bigger movement because what I'm seeing is clients come in and they're traumatized and they go back into their work environments and perhaps they're not happy with their salary.

So I'm sending them back out into environments that they're not happy with. And so, um, I, um, work with women. Who are, um. Fast paced probably you work with them as well. They want all of the things and they sacrifice their bodies and their mind to get it. And so I work with, um, corporate leaders, women in leadership who want to, um, set boundaries, not just with money, but I.

With limits on work and, and, and just wanting to be well, um, I am taking therapy clients as well, but I do wanna work with leaders and [00:40:00] if you have small teams of women who want to understand the impact that boundary setting has on finances, I will be the person that you would reach out to at y to live well.

Um, info at y to live well.com. Um, I can. Be seen on all social media platforms. Um, you may see me as a therapist, but I do have this second, um, passion, which is why two live. Well, I love that and I wanna be circling back with you because, um, one thing I want to talk to you more about, I have a client that's launching a burnout, recovery and prevention platform called Refresh.

And I think there's some synergy there. So I'm definitely gonna circle back with you on that. So, um, thank you for telling everybody how, who you serve and how you're doing it now, where can they find you in the meantime? Are you on social media? I know you're on social, but where are you? Yes, yes. So I am at, um, Latasha Matthews, speak on [00:41:00] Instagram.

I am at Y two live well on LinkedIn, and I am at Y two Live Well slash Latasha Matthews on Facebook. Okay. Now before I go into my shameless plug, I want to ask you one final question because I feel like there's so many words that get thrown around a society that we really don't know the definition of.

Could you please tell the audience what is the definition of the word? Well, what does that really mean? How do we know if we're well? Um hmm. That is such a deep question. Let me, let me reflect on that. Please do. Please. Um, so I definitely think that you have to have a level of self-awareness. To know if you are well or not Well, um, I think that there is going to be some evidence that shows up in your life.

Um, [00:42:00] one, one indicator for me is your ability to, um, be authentic and set healthy boundaries. Um, that's going to give you a level of wellness because if you're not able to set a boundary, um, you're going to be yessing everyone else and knowing yourself. Um, that's another area. If you have a lot of anxiety about, uh, finances, um, relationships, a lot of unresolved fear, um, that sits in your body, um, you are not gonna be able to run a business.

Um, and if you are running it, there's another area of your life that's suffering. Um. So I'm giving you instances of when you're not well to help you see, um, when you are, well, okay. If you have to, um, run away and take a vacation to rid yourself of your life, you probably are not, [00:43:00] well, I know we use vacation for everything, but if it's to get away from something.

That means you've avoided some things, so you wanna think of the quality of your life. Um, we all define some level of wellness, and so each person has to have some introspection to know what's Well, for me, um, there's not a cookie cutter, uh, approach to wellness, but I think if you, your health is bad, um, your finances.

Are, are not, well, you're not doing anything to change the situation. If you are avoiding all things for the sake of not dealing with it. Then there's some, some areas of wellness that is being overlooked. Thank you so much for that. Nothing but gratitude, because I've heard that word my entire life and today I was like, do you even know what well is wellness is?

But now I feel like I have a better understanding, so thank you. Now I'm gonna get to my plug. So [00:44:00] yes, I am big on financial literacy. Latasha, as you may know, I am launching my own, I'm launching a financial accelerator, so it'll be a mastermind style group. I'm also launching in a few days. I'm launching a course called Control Your Finances.

Super excited about it. If you join the course, you'll also thank you very much. You'll be able to get access to live coaching sessions and all this stuff. But here's the thing with control your finances. It's not a bunch of information. We already got that it's information in there, but it's not, we could go on YouTube and figure out how we can invest in a stock and all that.

This is more about taking action, and so I built, there's no fluff. The mod, the each lesson is five minutes or less. It's covering all the fundamentals and it's designed for you to walk away and say, you know what? I'm financially literate. It's got quizzes in [00:45:00] there so we can reinforce the learning. I added the community aspect, um, so that you can talk and, and network with others.

But yes, control your finances and launching soon. And then we're gonna do a mastermind version of that where you can do all of this in an ongoing community. So the mastermind style situation we were in, but about money. All about money. So I'll be bringing in experts like Natasha and other experts.

Hopefully I can get Latasha, but I'm just saying, um, experts will be coming in speaking and you'll be able to learn and get their perspectives. So I want you all to be on the lookout for that. Control your finances. That is the platform that I've been building out. Very happy about it. And so this is my first time kind of talking in detail, so yeah.

I am so happy for you. I wish you were here like 25 years ago, but it's not too late. Y'all, no doubt what I, what, what I, what I, what I, um, enjoy about you. And I haven't, you know, followed you a long [00:46:00] time. So I'm not gonna even be up here telling a. Just your, um, your, your gentle approach and your kindness.

Um, you are, no, you don't have any judgment. Um, and so I appreciate, um, just getting to know you and I am definitely, um, interested in coming on and, and just finding out more about your, what you're doing. Absolutely. Thank you very much. And I feel the same about you. It's like sometimes I feel like we have reservations at times about mental health professionals, but your demeanor and the way you approach mental health, it makes me definitely also want to know more.

'cause it's very thoughtful. It's not just, oh, you need to do this and why are you not doing, you know, I've had some situations like that and it could have been me, but your approach seems to be more like, you know, let's kind of look at everything. Figure out some solutions from there, even down to, as I keep mentioning, what's going on with your body when we start talking about certain things.

So [00:47:00] thank you so much for coming on. Latasha, I just want to say peace.

Please. Thank you so much, Eric.