Preface

The Body of Money captures our attention to bring us face to face with Somatic Finance®, which we have been avoiding for centuries. Ostensibly two separate human experiences now stand side by side, walk hand in hand, leading you forward through the work of Somatic Finance®.

Somatic Finance. These two words together turn heads and squish foreheads. In over a decade of using these words together in conversation, writing, coaching, and teaching, the response is similar, "What does that mean? I've never heard of that before."

Somatic is straightforward. From the Greek, it means "relating to the body."

Finance is many things, but generally it means "relating to money."

But together?

Somatically oriented folks ask, What does finance have to do with the body?

Financially oriented folks don't ask. They state, "The rational intellectual brain is the only place for money."

When you read the words Somatic Finance, what do you notice in your body?

Do you feel tension in your upper back?

Is there a sudden fluttering in your belly?

Is your head shaking, lips pursing, nah!

Is a knot arising on the side of your neck or a throb in your right temple?

Do you find yourself dismissing sensations almost as soon as they arise? Only to be replaced by the thought that money must be figured out, it is not easy; or: I must listen to someone more knowledgeable-my parent, a grandparent, an advisor, or someone; who knows?

Even as your body offers a few clues and sensations, do you cling to a belief that a subject so complicated as money really needs more than the body; it needs knowledge?

You're so right.

My friends, our body and brain have never been separate. Even on the subject of money.

Finance needs our body along with our brain.

Finance in our modern world is limited. We've managed to get by, and some might say create a few messes, with knowledge, concepts, and ideas-driven from fear, uncertainty, and doubt. While some have thrived, many steep in a field of panicked adrenaline. Including the body when working with money offers us opportunities and a new way of being, a new way forward.

Somatic Finance gives access to the best decision-making tools to meet new realities from wholeness-with integrity and keener insights-including love, compassion, generosity, and creativity for the good of all humanity.

Simply stated, Somatic Finance connects the brilliance of our brain, the integrity of our belly, with the generosity of the heart.

Our body is, and always has been, present and alive, but we have severed it from our awareness in deference to limiting stories, ideas, and beliefs about money.

The Seed of Somatic Finance

Throughout the early 2000s, I asked my financial planning colleagues when we were going to bring the wisdom of the body into matters of money. Money and the body had been my focus for over three decades, like two streams running side by side. I'd wondered for years when these water flows would merge. Wouldn't it be great to access our body intelligence to improve our money relationship? I'd spoken about it. I'd written about it. I'd trained in it. But nothing moved.

Then the words Somatic Finance flashed into my awareness. Seriously, it was like something pried my skull open and permanently planted a seed.

Once planted in my mind, the Somatic Finance seed nourished herself with tears before sprouting in the heart. Not long after the words arrived, I was flying home to Boston sitting next to my dear friend Anna. She asked me a simple question.

"Gayle, what's your work in the world?"

After my three sentence well-articulated (sort of) elongated elevator speech, she said, with her hands and words, "That's floating everywhere and says nothing."

I remember her facial expression. It said, bullshit and WTF? I tried again.

"I don't know what this is exactly," I replied, "but the phrase Somatic Finance swarms my mind. It excites me and terrifies me." I spoke with my eyes lowered.

I looked up and she blurted, "That's landing! Right here!" pointing to my heart.

I burst into tears. Somatic Finance began to sprout with my tears of recognition that something so vital and important to life was being activated in my being. I did not ask to have this move me. But it did. So much so that I never let go.

The sprouted Somatic Finance seed didn't let go of me either.

Over more than a decade, Somatic Finance and I rooted together, penetrating deep into rich soil, forming invisible connections like trees and fungi beneath the earth. We grew up together reaching toward the sky as a solid trunk, building a vertical foundation for branches and shoots to follow.

As I built my own muscles through training in integral coaching, breath and bodywork, apprenticing for years in conscious living and leadership, somatic meditation, and serving in leadership roles in my profession, I brought those two streams of money and body together, being my first student. On my journey, my confidence and skills evolved, and I started offering Somatic Finance practices for my Integral Wealth Coaching clients and weaving somatic awareness with my financial planning clients. I created MoneyMoves®, a deck of cards and a friendly curriculum to help people engage money with less fear and more trust. Years of workshops, field play, writing, blogging, deep and wide conversations, exploration, and training filled my life and work. This work stirred my passion to write seriously. The book you're holding now is the result.

While the seed of Somatic Finance planted in me as a working adult in my mind, a different seed planted in my heart as a child began to crack as a junior in college reviewing insurance policies in Dr. O'Toole's risk management class at Auburn University.

As my mind drew in the concepts and information about homeowners, liability, automobile, health, and life insurance, I was keenly aware of the practical need for knowledge in regular financial decisions-for everyone! This question churned: what are my friends going to do with their liberal arts degrees? They know nothing about these financial matters.

I was concerned about people who did not receive this basic training until I spoke with my aunt visiting us from the West Coast during a spring break. When I answered her question about my career pursuits and told her that I wanted to help people make wise financial decisions, citing my recent class experience, she said, "Gayle, you want to be a financial planner." Great! I was delighted to know the name for my career interests.

My quest to land my first job after college was launched. It took me from the west coast of Florida up to Boston. Not knowing a soul, but certain that my destiny lay in a strong financial center, I packed my car and drove north, to my father's chagrin and parting words, "You're going to freeze your fanny off." I did drive north. And I can assure you my father's fears were unfounded.

I found my first real job with a small boutique financial planning firm. Two years with this firm in the early 80s, when limited partnerships and tax write-offs were the rage, was sufficient time to learn the foundation of financial planning, earn my CFP® designation, and the limitations of "eating what you kill."

We can do better.

Leaving this firm, I worked for another two years in corporate management in downtown Boston in the tax and financial planning division. Soon I realized our work was educating brokers with sufficient facts for them to appear competent to their clients when their primary motivation was selling the investment flavor of the day. After these forays into financial planning, developing relationship skills serving both the client and the broker with competing goals, and running a department, I said, we can do better. My partner and I started our own firm; that was 35 years ago.

Now, the seeds of Somatic Finance have matured within me, growing roots formed and deepened from a clear motivation to do better. And you bring your seeds with you. How do we want to grow together?

Let me declare my motivation now.

My motivation is a heart offering that fosters more roots and shoots cascading and circling and nurturing mycelium connections between and among forest dwellers. You, as a seedling, sprouting your own roots and shoots are reading and practicing and embodying with a collective force to survive, thrive, and prosper with a thing called money, which ostensibly makes the world go round.

I welcome you with open arms, Heart, Head, and Belly.

Two sections comprise the book, along with a special companion site with practice resources and guides for your experience. Access these extra treasures as fuel for your progress. In this book, the "Landscape" section defines the territory of Somatic Finance and will feed your brain with information and tease your body with Tiny Practices.

The "Fruition" section weaves the landscape section and your engaged practices together as nutrients-sun and rain-for your integration and deeper motivation.

Between Landscape and Fruition is a gentle pause, a few transition pages that offer calm abiding, a place for you to rest, digest, and be with your experience.

The book includes my...