I have known therapist Doug Foresta for a long time and we have been talking about how many therapists have money issues. In this episode we talk about that and an event we're planning to help people in the helper professions.
Because we had such a rich conversation, I’m going to include most of the called transcript under the Highlights.
Highlights
- Doug shares his personal background with money and why he was attracted to my work before he became a therapist.
- Doug talks about his emotional habits of disappointment and deprivation and how it affected his relationship with money.
- He realized that his problems were not about money but about his emotions.
- He also learned how to replace the habitual emotions for those that were more functional. It led to some business that he hadn’t expected.
- If a therapist can understand how they deal with money, or a doctor or any other kind of coach or practitioner can understand the money piece, they will find more inner peace because they're not going to be thinking about money all the time.
- As my money changes, I noticed that so has my identity. I no longer identified as a person who is screwed up about money.
- When I think about being prosperous, a big part of that is around love that I have in my life now.
- Doug tells the story of how his relationship with his first wife has changed since he’s been making the changes in his life.
- He talks about other things in his life that have changed and the new habits he has developed.
- When you worry, when you're in a hurry, when you're not able to stay in the moment, that's when you miss opportunities.
Links
If you are interested in learning more about the program Doug and I are putting together, sign up for my list at https://ProsperityPlace.com/joinnow
Here’s the Transcript
Hi, everyone. Joan Saskin here. And welcome to the Prosperity show, where we explore a holistic and often alternative path to business and financial success, personal fulfillment, and peace of mind. And today, I have a special treat for you all. A good friend of mine with whom I'm putting a project together, we're going to talk a little bit about, so I want to get right to the interview. And so my guest is Doug Forrester, who is psychotherapist. How do you call yourself?
I call myself a therapist. I'm a licensed clinical social worker, but.
I'm a therapist. Okay. A therapist who is really smart and knows how to do therapy. And I met Doug years ago, and he's been listening to the podcast and following my system for more years than anyone else, and we've decided to do something. So, Doug, welcome to the prosperity show.
Oh, it's such an honor to be here with you, Joe. Thanks for having me on.
So what was it about what I do that attracted you?
Yeah, it's a great question. I think my whole life, so, yeah, I mean, I go back to, like, it was either 2008 or 2009 when I started, when I really started following you. And so my whole life, I kind of have always had struggles with money, but, yeah, I mean, emotional stuff around money, and it was something about the way that you broke things down differently than anyone had ever done. You know, it was. It was always like, practical advice, you know, do this, do that, but, you know, save, you know, save more than you spend, but, I mean, everybody knows that. But I knew there was something else. There was something else because it's like, well, why am I having so much trouble? Why am I having so much anxiety around money?
And so there was just something about the way that you spoke about things, the way that you used the combination of humor, and it just made sense to me, and it just resonated for me. All of a sudden, it was like, oh, yeah, that's me.
Were you a therapist at the time?
I wasn't practicing very much therapy at the time. I had a full time job working for the state, so I had, like, a state job with a pension and all that stuff. But I was always stressing about money. I always remember racing to the bank to try to desperately put $20 in so I don't overdraft.
I don't think anyone else can relate to that. All right. You said what you liked about what I was doing, but it must have been the emotional piece that also attracted you.
No, I mean, that's exactly it. It made me feel like, oh, okay, I see what's going on here. And it made me reflect on my own sort of family origin and stories that I had about money. So, yeah, absolutely. That's what really drew me in. It just made so much sense to me, and it spoke to.
And Doug had a podcast called stand out and be heard, which is a lot of people's issue. He's not doing that anymore, but he's done a lot of different things along the way, and we hadn't talked in about five years, at least. And then he ordered something from me, and I said, let's talk. And here we are. And we've been looking at the market, because you have to do that in order to know what to do next. So tell the story of what we've decided to do.
Absolutely. Well, in full disclosure, you've helped me tremendously. And what were talking about as a therapist, I see that a lot of therapists, when money is brought up in therapy session, a lot of therapists ignore it or they manage to conveniently not talk about it. Why? Because we're uncomfortable, as therapists with money. A lot of therapists have money issues. I would say most therapists have money issues. So if we can't deal with it ourselves, how are we going to help clients deal with it? And that was sort of where we started to think about how do we support other therapists, coaches, healers, in helping them work with people around money issues, which always come up right.
And so we've decided to put together a certification course that's going to start with just a webinar in March. And that's all we're going to say about that at this moment. If you're on my mailing list, you're certainly going to find out about it. So if you want to know about it, just go to prosperityplace.com joinnow and you'll get on my list. But what I find interesting is that not only do therapists avoid talking about money, most of them have serious money problems. That a lot of practitioners have money problems. And it's like they get very caught up in being a good person and helping their clients, and somewhere along the line they forget to help themselves.
I think many therapists become like, why do we become therapists? And I think part of the reason is our role in our family of origin might have been one where were helpful, and that got us attention. And so now we go out in the world, and I love what you said about we want to be good people. Of course, that alone is like, of course you can't be a good person and have money. I mean, good people are broke and destitute.
Well, it's the Jesus model, right?
Yeah.
In order to be spiritual and in order to be a good person, you can't have a lot of money because money is the root of all evils. I mean, our gestalt beliefs are really screwed up around money, and everybody wants it.
Yeah, absolutely.
So will you share some of the things about yourself that you learned?
Sure.
That have helped you develop a different attitude and practice with money?
Yeah, I was addicted to, I had developed a habit of disappointment and desperation with money. Money is something that was constantly disappointing to the point where, yeah, it's like, if I got $100, you'd be like, oh, only $100, why not 1000? And if it was 1000, it'd be like, oh, only $1,000. It's a cycle of desperation around. Money is something there's not enough of. It's hard to get, and it's very stressful. So of course, I just wanted to avoid it. I would avoid logging into my bank account because I didn't want to see how much money was in there. And again, just this constant feeling of never enough. And what you helped me realize is that I had a disappointment habit and a deprivation habit. That was a habit I grew up feeling that way. And then the habit filled my emotional life.
And then I can see so many places in my life where if I had to go back there was no reason for me to go through the emotional trauma that I put myself through with money.
Okay, so once you realized that it was not about money, it was about your emotions. And in recent years or a year, I think we looked at that feeling of being trapped. And you related to that?
Yes, very much so. Yeah. Money was exactly just a general overall feeling of constriction.
Yes. And that being contracted and being contracted. And it didn't take you long to not only understand what was going on, even though you had done a lot of work until then, but what was amazing to me was that new opportunity started showing up without you realizing it.
That's right. Including what we're doing together. But, yeah, I give you an example. So as I started to develop a different habit, which was of appreciation and gratitude, and I can actually log into my bank account today, look at my money and go, I am grateful for every dollar that I have, and I never was able to do that before. And then all of a sudden, I had somebody call me and say, hey, could you work with me? Could you take me on and supervise me as a therapist? And so now I'm building a mentoring of other therapists, which is I'm going to do a fee split with them. And so it gives me an opportunity to supervise and help other therapists grow, but also to grow my practice way beyond what I could earn working just one one with clients.
And that's the key, is finding out what to do other than one to one with clients.
Yeah.
And I had decided a long time ago that I didn't want to work alone anymore, that I didn't see that was healthy, that people did better when they were in joint ventures, when they had partners in their business, and that I had a habit of protecting myself by being alone. For me, having you show up and all you did was buy something from me. And I said, let's talk. This is where that instinct comes in. When you get a message, follow the message. It's not that hard to do. And we both feel, know that if a therapist can understand how they deal with money, or a doctor or any other kind of coach or practitioner can understand the money piece, that they will find more inner peace because they're not going to be thinking about money all the time.
That's exactly right. I mean, it's actually the opposite. That you'll be able to help people more if you can work on your own money issues.
Yes. I mean, all the stuff that I do is based on my experience. No one taught me what I know. And each of you out there has something you know or have experienced that no one else knows or has experienced. And when we can share that information, that's when we all prosper, when we stop trying to put gates around what we know, as if we're protecting diamonds, when in fact, the diamonds gain energy by being passed around.
Yeah, I totally agree. And when you talk about energy, that's the other piece you got me to realize, is that money is just another form of energy.
Yes. What does that mean?
Well, it's like a dollar is just a piece of paper, right. But it's a form of currency and energy that we use in the world to get things to interact with people. And we put a lot of emotional energy into money.
Yes. And the way I say it is, it's energy passing between two people or entities. So it's actually the energy of relationship. That dollar bill is a symbol of relationship. And in build your money muscles, I say that when you feel loved, accepted, acknowledged, and appreciated, that's when you're going to get paid.
That's wonderful. And one of the things you helped me realize, too, was that one of the things you always say is that money comes from people. And so a fear of money is a fear of running out of people. And it's really funny, because you talked about how I bought something from you, and I think in my subconscious, that was my way of reaching out to you. Except it was like I was hesitant to just reach out and say, hey.
Joan, that's very interesting. Yes, because it surprised me, because I was surprised when you did that. And this goes beyond what we're just talking about. It goes to that energy piece where you notice what's coming into your life and you don't put any value judgment around it. You just let things show up. Doug is a lot younger than I am. He's only 50. And I've said that I want to work with younger people because when I turn that exit, the knob on the exit door, I want someone else who can pass my knowledge around. And he just showed up. And it's amazing how many significant people can just show up.
That's been my experience in my whole life. I mean, pretty much everything I've ever done or had in my life has been that. And what I realized, too, is that's the energy piece also was when I was in a place of deprivation and feeling deprived, I also pushed people away, and then that pushed opportunity away, and.
That allowed you to continue to feel deprived.
Right.
We perpetrate those feelings when you say, I feel deprived. And you don't even have to say it, just have to have that feeling. You're telling your subconscious that's who you are. And your subconscious, which is running the show, says, oh, he must like that, let's keep him deprived. And it works that way. And once you understand that your emotions are the creative force behind your life stories, that you don't have to figure out why you're not making money. You have to figure out what you're feeling. You.
It's really simple, but it's not easy.
Well, no one said it would be easy. Yes, I'm amazed at how simple, the simple ideas that are behind money problems. But the act of getting people to take action to change is really difficult because people are wired to be afraid of change. So the first thing in build your money muscles, the first chapter is about adapting to change by doing things like changing where you put your toothbrush or the route you take to work or to go to the grocery store. Whatever you're doing, to do it differently and not do the same thing all the time because it gets disorienting. But you get to learn that after a couple of months, it's just as normal as the last thing you were doing.
Yeah. I'll tell you one of the things that's also. We haven't really talked about this, but one of the things that's really changed for me, and it's not obviously every day or perfect, but I noticed a difference in my identity. I had developed an identity as a person who is screwed up with money.
The phrase is, I'm not very good with money.
That's what people say. I'm not very good with numbers. I'm not very good with numbers. That's what I usually hear. And it's nothing about the numbers. It's about your relationship with money.
Right. And now I feel like I'm moving into a different identity of somebody who a. One of the things I learned from you is that my emotional life has nothing to do with my bank account. I don't want my emotional life to be determined by, if I have $1,000, then I'm happy. If I have $800, then I'm sad.
Right. Money doesn't determine how you feel.
But at the same time, I feel a much more expansiveness and possibility. And I notice more things are coming into my life, I think just because I'm noticing them and I'm more open to them. And like I said, my identity is changing from someone who's bad at numbers, I enjoy. I know. I track every dollar that comes in and out.
Yeah. And it's really interesting to me, the way you're saying it, because it's like you're changing, but you're also changing how you think of yourself. And to me, that is the key, is to learn to be okay with what you're doing. And I'm wondering, I know you got into your current marriage later in your life, and I wonder. And you have two young daughters who love their father. I'm sure they've all popped into our Zoom calls, and I sent them all heart. Rose quartz hearts. And one of them holds the heart next to her.
Last night.
Yeah. And I'm wondering if that experience of having the children, the oldest is six, I think.
Six. That's right. Six and five.
Right. Whether that has allowed you to feel more loving towards yourself.
Yeah, I would say that it does. Because when I think about feeling prosperous, a big part of that is around love. Right. It's about connection and feeling connected and feeling loved and feeling loving. And that, for sure, because I forget who it was. There was a woman who was a billionaire. She died from a malnutrition because all she would eat was like boiled chicken. She died alone and sad and lonely. Right. She had so much money, but it didn't add up to any kind of. She just felt this deep feeling of isolation and poverty. And I agree with you. I think definitely that is definitely connected.
To what let you expand. Unfortunately, a lot of people think that if they have a partner or that there is love in their life, that they have a love object, that they'll be able to be happy. But it doesn't always work that way. You were just lucky you had to go through one marriage that didn't work.
That right? That's right. But you want to know something? I don't think I've even shared this with you, Joan. But since I've been working with you, like many people, my ex, my first, just. We weren't compatible. That's okay. But for many years, I also had this thing about, oh, my ex is so mean to me. Why me? And actually, in the last two months or so, I've had this complete change. And we've been communicating better than we ever did when were married and certainly better than we ever did since we got divorced. And that really blew my mind, because that felt like something that was just a fact in my life. It was like the air or the sky or the water. And for that to change.
That really made me feel like, wow, if this immovable object could change in my life, then anything could change in my life.
That's such a good story. That is perfect. I remember when I had separated from my second husband, and there was a lot of contention there, and I just decided to talk to his soul. I call it soul to soul encounters. And I would send him love and light. And all of a sudden, he called me up one day and said, I have some money for you. And money was a problem with us. And it's true that life isn't hurting you. Life isn't happening to you. It's happening through you. And if you can understand that, then instead of saying, I wish that person would change, you can say to yourself, how do I have to change?
It's so obvious to me now. I could look back to some of the. I'll share with you a story of one of the times I felt the most constricted in my life. It was summer of 2014, I'll never forget, and I was dating someone long distance. And so at that time, she was in New York. And so I stopped really working because I was working in Massachusetts, and so I was running out of money. And I remember being so desperate. I was like, I have no money. I have no money left. So I had my wedding ring for my first marriage, and I thought, well, I paid a good amount of money for this. I'll hawk this, and that'll give me at least, like, $1,000, and then whatever. So I went into the place, and the guy was like, this thing is just garbage.
I bought it in New York, like, in the diamond district, and somebody just ripped me off and ripped me off, right? So they're taking it from me, and he goes, I can give you, like, $80. So he gives me $80. And I remember sitting in my car crying, just an emotional wreck. All I have is $80, even my ring, and I've got nothing left. It was like, maybe a kidney. Does anyone pay for a kidney? I can look back, and I could think of 100 ways in which I didn't have to do that to myself.
Right. So what has changed that has allowed you to treat yourself so differently?
Well, certainly working with you, for sure, but, I mean, the thing I got out of it is recognizing that the things I thought I didn't realize, how much I walked around in the world with a habit of deprivation, a habit of feeling trapped. And when you said to me, this is a habit, well, that made me realize, like, well, there's other habits that I've changed in my life. So if this is a habit, and it's not like this muddy curse, I mean, I really felt that way. I felt like I just had this cloud around my head of poor me, literally poor me. And so I think it was the piece about, well, if it's a habit, then I can do something different. And as I started to do that, all of a sudden, like I said, I started to be able to.
We've joked before. I've heard you say this. Nobody logs into their bank account. Very few people log into their bank account and go, that's wonderful. What good news. And it doesn't matter if it's $1,000, $100, or a million dollars. Why couldn't it be 2 million, right? If only I had. And I just started to notice. I would do this. I would log into my bank account, and then my first thought would be, why so little? And then I realized, well, wait a minute. That's a habit. That's a feeling of. I am training myself to feel constricted. I look at my money, I feel constricted. I feel sad for myself. I feel deprived. And I think it was that. It was just every day, just being mindful that I want, like, what do I. You always said to me, what do you feel?
What do you want to feel instead? Do you know how to feel that? Right. And when you ask me, what do you want to feel? Well, I want to feel loved. I want to feel content. And you're like, well, do you know how to feel that? Well, yes. And maybe that goes back to my family thing, too, right? I know what love is. I feel loved in my life and love other people. So I can apply this.
Yes, but you didn't always have that feeling of love to relate to.
No, I did not.
And that's the problem for a lot of people. I'm amazed at how many people I'll say, do you know how to feel satisfied? And they say, no, I've never felt satisfied. Well, that's not true. When they had an ice cream cone when they were a kid, they probably felt satisfied. They didn't know they were hurting themselves. But that's another story. My system is recognize, release, replace, and repeat. And what you just said is you came to recognize when you were feeling something. You may not have had a specific word for it at the time, but you noticed that you were constricted when you were dealing with your money. And that's the whole deal. When do you feel contracted and you can take a breath and allow yourself to feel expanded.
People don't realize how much control they have over how they're feeling without burying the feeling it's recognizing. And when you recognize, to be able to actually feel it and to not push it away and to be able to say, oh, there's something I'd rather be feeling in the moment. And the question, do I know how to feel? That is really important.
Yeah. The other piece then that I started to realize, to bring it back around is as I'm doing this work, I started to become much more aware of how money shows up in therapy. Obviously with couples, money is one of.
The money and sex.
Money and sex, right. But also even just individually, like so many people, where it really did come down to, they'd say something like, I wish I could move here, or I wish I could do this, or I wish I could leave this job. And then when you say, well, why can't you? They'd say, well, I don't have enough money. If only I had more money, then I could make all these changes in my life. And I've started to notice that my work has changed as I've done this work with you. And that's where I think is really exciting because I never got any training in graduate school about how to deal with clients and money.
And I'm going to go out on a limb and say, most therapists, coaches, healers, don't really, as you said, we barely know how to, we're a mess with our own money, so you can't take people on a journey that you haven't been on. So it's really exciting.
Yes. And I love that you're this excited. And for me, it's interesting to be able to work with someone with your, you have a lot of experience and you've done really well in parts of your life, and so many people do well in parts of their life, but the money piece is always the thing that's niggling at them, and they can't seem to get beyond it. And our goal, not only with therapists, but with healers and doctors, I see that just about everybody has money issues. When I talk to people in the financial industry, they all have money issues. That's why they're so anxious for new clients, so they can make more money. And when you read the publications that are put out by financial things for financial advisors, it's all about how you can make more money.
When they don't talk about how you can be happier or how you can be more satisfied or how you can feel more love, all of that. How can you make more money? As if money is what gives you the wherewithal to do what you want. And somewhere along the line, I said, just do what you want. And if you want to go into a business, you don't have to start with a big business. Start with something small. It's like, I want to play with the crystals and minerals again. So I bought $100 worth of stuff, and I'm going to turn it into more money. But I'm not in a hurry to make it happen. When you worry, when you're in a hurry, when you're not able to stay in the moment, that's when you miss the opportunity.
That's what happened to me. It's funny you said that because that's one of the things I really look at now. I would have a pattern of exhausting myself, but it never really added up to anything. And in the last year and a half, I've had some major, really good successes, working less and less frantically. The frantic thing was like, there's not enough money and I got to go get the money, and the oxygen is running out. I can't breathe in here.
That's funny. I mean, you're saying everything so well, which is one of the reasons we want to put this program together, because being a therapist who's willing to look at himself and the way that you are has let me see what really goes on with therapists. I've always known for a long time that they are just as screwed up as everybody else and that they don't know how to talk about money. To me, it's like you're being able to look at your money and recognize the feelings. To me, money is just a pathway into our inner world, that it has no value other than that. And the deeper you go into your inner world, the more apt you are to be able to find a means of expression that is satisfying for you and not what everybody wants you to do.
I had a need to tamper down my voice, my energy, my creativity, and so I used money as the vehicle to keep myself constricted.
Said beautifully, you've been learning well.
I have a good teacher.
By listening to my podcast and talking to me, and I couldn't ask for anything more. You're like the perfect person in my life. I love it.
Thank you.
So we're coming to the end of this interaction, and if any of this has done something to tweak something in your heart, then be sure to sign up for my list at join now. I'll have a link to that in the show notes. I really feel that Doug and I are doing something very valuable because if the helpers in the world do not know how to help people with money, how can people who are not in the helping professions help themselves? There is a process to being able to.
There is a process to being able to see your place in whatever you're doing with other people and to be able to get your place yourself into a place of peace so that you're not worried about your clients outcomes, that you're not worried about what you're doing for other people, that you realize that you're the most important thing in the world. And by letting go of all this stuff, you can get to take care of yourself in the way that you have to. So, Doug, thank you so much for this conversation today.
Thank you, Joan. Thanks for being you.
