Yesterday, I spoke to a friend who is going to be filing bankruptcy this year due to the ramifications of Covid on his brick and mortar business in the Bay area. I wish we would have talked 2 years ago, as I probably could have consulted him in ways that could have kept this from happening, but here we are. 

And, I do trust that he had to get to this place to find the gift of these problems. 

After talking with my friend for about 30 minutes, and hearing the full story of what has occurred, I was able to see that there is actually a massive gift and opportunity for him here. I’ll share more about that in a moment because first I need to invite you to get support from me so I can stop feeling the pain and frustration of friends reaching out for support only once they get to a crisis point.

If you are not getting support with financial decisions for your life and business, please consider joining my membership — it’s the most affordable and effective way I can support you before you find yourself in crisis.

Yes, crisis can be helpful in that it forces us to get the support that we wouldn’t otherwise, or make the change that we wouldn’t otherwise, but you can also make a change before crisis.

And, why not do it the easier way? The people in my membership get support from me consistently, and it makes a huge difference in their lives.

More and more, especially with the crypto market crash, I am talking with friends who are experiencing significant money problems at the moment — loss of almost all of their savings, facing bankruptcy, no cash flow, and I remember being here myself ten years ago … it’s scary AF.

In contrast, the people in my membership … thriving businesses, plenty of cash flow, high credit scores, healing with their parents, access to credit, using it wisely, etc.

So, that’s my pitch for you getting my support before you are facing crazy ass money problems that we can avoid if you get support before it’s too late. You can join the membership here.

Okay, so what’s the gift for this friend who is now facing bankruptcy? 

He has the opportunity to heal a major generational trauma around money. The bankruptcy is just the current reality of his life, and he’s going to get through and to the other side of it just fine (though it may not feel that way to him at the moment), but the real opportunity here is to see what it’s triggering in his family dynamics and discover the gift in this crisis.

After a few minutes of curiosity with my friend, here’s what I discovered.

As you can imagine, his parents are freaked out by the fact that their only son is such a screw up that he’s ended up in bankruptcy.

But, what his parents are really freaked out about is that they know they didn’t do a great job of parenting him, and secretly (though they do not know how to own or admit it) believe that his screw ups that have resulted in his bankruptcy must be their fault.

His parents are professionals who worked incredibly hard throughout their own lives, saved millions of dollars, and now at the end of their lives are still worried about running out of money, and not having enough.

And, here is their only son, the one they thought they would be able to count on to take care of them, who is failing.

Here’s the thing though: he isn’t failing. He’s just at a moment in time of crisis. He’s only mid-way through his life and has many more years of learning and growth, and is going to come out the other side of this financial crisis better than ever, IF he can find the gift in the crisis.

That’s how it was for me.

As you likely know, I filed bankruptcy ten years ago.

I thought for sure I had ruined my life, would never recover from it, and might as well resign myself to living on the farm and never creating anything more impactful than a garden to feed my family. I did love growing that garden. But it turns out the bankruptcy would lead me to far more impact, in far more alignment, and far more healing with my family — my ex-husband, my mom, and my own conflicted inner family parts — than I understood at the time.

My financial crisis turned out to be the biggest gift of my life.

I healed generational trauma that has moved my family from an inheritance of scarcity and fear around money to a reality of abundance and flow and mostly good financial decisions.

I say mostly good financial decisions because we sometimes still make mistakes — ie, we should have left my mom’s retirement account in the market for a greater run up in 2020/2021, but we decided to take it out to preserve what was there, and lost some ground. It was a calculated decision though, made in conjunction between me, my sister and my mom — and that right there is revolutionary. 

And, on the flip side, we did get my mom into a condo just before rates rose with a 30-year locked in mortgage at 3.75%, so we’re feeling pretty great about our financial choices overall.

The revolutionary part here is that today, my mom, my sister and I make all financial decisions together seeing our collective resources as “family wealth” rather than leaving my mom to make financial decisions on her own, not trusting us to know what she has or to support her through the rest of her years.

Our parents need us now more than ever. And, we need them.

This idea of inheritance and legacy as something that happens after they die, or after we die, is BS. 

Inheritance and legacy happens now, by the choices we make today.

And the gift of your money problems right now (or your parent’s money problems) might just be the opportunity to heal generations of money trauma and scarcity that is ready to be healed through you and your parents right now.

Generational healing was the gift of my money problems. And, it can be a gift of yours too, if you let it, don’t resist what Life is trying to do through you, and see the bigger picture of what Life wants from and with you.

In the case of my friend, it’s more communication and connection with his parents … the last thing in the world he thought he wanted.

For my friend, it’s the opportunity to stand-up in himself and meet and heal all the parts that have been controlled by his parents, judged by his parents, and that can either lead him into collapse or a new standard of dignity for himself by coming to fully accept his parents as they are, find the place where they are scared, and meet them in it with loving compassion for their fear of his failure.

Ultimately, his parents will die. And he will inherit their money. But, in this moment, he has the opportunity to inherit so much more, and if he handles this moment well, what he will inherit and pass on is a legacy of true love and healing around money.

Just last night, I learned of the term “transitional character” coined by Carlfred Broderick: the one who in the course of a single generation changes the entire course of a lineage. We each have the opportunity to be transitional characters in our families right now, and the gift of our money problems is that they are the fertile soil for us to end the cycle and break the mold of how our ancestors handled their survival-based fear around scarcity.

We are the ones to make this change. Thank you for learning to live with your eyes (and heart) wide open.

With so much love,

Ali Katz

Hit reply and let me know how this touched you, if you would love to hear more about generational healing around money, and I’ll make this a consistent theme of my newsletters. And maybe even do some interviews that can help you see more of what I mean here, and where you might find the healing through your own crisis.