Like practising counselling and psychotherapy, self-employment is a personal development process. As we meet each new situation in our practice that asks something of us, whether it is learning to market ourselves, or finding appropriate rooms to work in, we are offered an opportunity to grow into the person we need to be at that level of practice.

To integrate the seemingly contradictory roles of therapist and business owner, we need to explore what it would mean for us to be serious about our practice as a business. It can be subtle. Our minds can be very tricky at keeping us unaware of what might be painful for us to see and feel.

When it comes to money, often we can avoid really engaging with it. And the use of debit and credit cards, online banking and contactless payments means we are more than ever disconnected from our feelings about money, because we can go for weeks without actually touching the stuff!

If we struggle with creating a viable practice, we need to look at our relationship with money. Cash, notes and coins. How do we see and feel about our income, our savings, or our tax bills? Do we allow ourselves to have money goals?

Let me give you a little exercise to help you engage with it more:

Imagine money is one of your family. Which family member would money be?

• A valued, loved, appreciated person at the centre of the family, providing support to everyone, can always be counted on in a crisis?
• A fearsome great aunt who rules the roost, and whom we are all afraid of crossing, because her revenge will be sharp and painful?
• The sulky teenager who won’t pull their weight, and is always missing when you need them to help you out?
• The petulant child who needs constant attention, and feels like a burden?

Can you identify how you relate to money? What do you know of this? Perhaps your attention has gone elsewhere, or you are dismissing the exercise as worthless and irrelevant? Perhaps you feel a bit uncomfortable? Whatever is happening for you is okay. There’s no right or wrong way to meet this. It’s information for you to explore or discard as you wish.

What does how we feel about money have to do with creating a practice? Well, as long as our values and beliefs remain buried in our unconscious, they are driving our behaviours in subtle ways. so we don’t take the action we need to take. We don’t stretch ourselves when we should.

If you’d like to explore your relationship with money in more detail, maybe I can help you? Contact me here for your free 20 minute consultation.