This is Part 1 in a series on Aligning Your Emotions with Wealth.

Both of my parents both grew up during the Great Depression.  My mother’s family was so poor they could barely buy enough food to eat.  My mother had to work and give her paycheck to my grandmother so they would have enough money to buy food for her siblings.

Like all of us, my parents raised me with their own beliefs about money that came from their experiences growing up. Even though my father’s business did quite well and we were solidly upper middle class, there was always fear of not having enough money. My parents scream fests always revolved around money:  not making enough, who’s spending it, how it should be budgeted, etc. It seemed to me that me money was something that created hatred and was to be avoided at all costs.

It was no wonder as I got older that I totally avoided dealing with my finances. I was always stressed about it even when I had a lot of it.

After struggling for years to have more financial stability and peace of mind around my finances, it finally hit me–I had a subconscious aversion to money. My fear and negative emotions around money were driving it away from me. I then went on a journey to heal my emotions and fears around money.  Getting over my big money blocks took a few years and a good deal of inner work.  I now live the kind of abundant prosperous life many people only dream of.

Do you feel like it’s a struggle to have more money and prosperity in your life?  If you do, chances are you have some money blocks you inherited from your upbringing that are blocking your ability to manifest it.  Here are some questions that can help you identify your own inherited subconscious blocks to money:

1)  What were your parents attitudes towards money?  Were they comfortable with their financial situation or was there a lot of financial stress?

2)  Did they agree on how to manage the family money or was there conflict over it? Was there agreement and a balanced budget? Did one parent spend and one parent save? What did they teach you about how money is dealt with in relationship?

3) How did they spend the money they had? Did they give you an allowance? Did they donate to charity? Did they invest or were they spendthrifts? What did they teach you about how money should be spent?

4) What were attitudes towards wealth and affluence? Was wealth perceived as a status symbol or something else? How were wealthy people perceived? What did they teach you about what it means to be wealthy?

5) Did your parents work hard or were they able to have a more leisure lifestyle?  Was there enough money and time to take vacations? What did they teach you about work and leisure?

Knowledge is power.  The first step in releasing blocks to money is identifying them.  Your family’s attitudes towards money directly shapes your own emotions, beliefs and behaviors around money and wealth. Take a moment to reflect on your answers to the above  questions.  How do you think your family upbringing may have shaped your attitudes and behaviors towards money? Do these attitudes and behaviors serve you?  If not, what steps can you begin to take to change them?  Take a few minutes to write down the answers to these questions.  Journaling the answers will help you take back your power and begin to heal your relationship to money.

In my next blog post I will go more deeply into specific exercises that you can do to heal unhealthy money patterns and help you attract more money into your life.

I hope you find this blog post helpful.  Have you dealt with family money attitudes in your own life? I would love to hear about it.  Please share in the comments below.