Two Things We Don’t Talk About (But Should)
Main points, no filter:
We suck at talking about money & emotions – Avoiding them only makes life messier, from relationships to mental health.
Money is everywhere, deal with it – It impacts stress, relationships, and even therapy itself (who pays, how much, and why it matters).
Therapists aren’t just warm fuzzies, they run a business – Money convos in therapy aren’t just about clients; therapists set rates, decide on sliding scales, and navigate a broken insurance system.
Emotions aren’t weakness, they’re data – If you can’t name what you feel, good luck managing it. Emotional illiteracy keeps people stuck.
Let’s stop avoiding the hard stuff – Talking about money and emotions won’t kill you. Join the "Wine and Wisdom" event in April and start getting real.
Intrigued? Keep Reading.
As much as I love a good Disney sing a long , I am relieved “We Don’t talk about Bruno” is no longer on repeat Catchy song? Yes. Good message? Absolutely. But the earworm has run its course.
If you haven’t seen Encanto here’s the gist: Bruno can see the future, but instead of being celebrated, he’s exiled. His predictions—whether good or bad—make people uncomfortable. So, the family does what many of us do when faced with tough topics: they ignore him. They villainize him. They pretend he doesn’t exist.
In the movie, we see what happens when we ignore uncomfortable things. We feel pressure to perform, stress to be perfect, and isolation. The house itself, the symbol of the foundation of the family, starts to crumble.
Two of the biggest Brunos we avoid? Money and emotions. So, let’s start bringing these topics into the light.
Let’s Talk About Money
Money is a tough subject. The perception of money and what it means is dependent on your culture and your personal experiences. Money itself is neutral, it’s the way we interact with money that communicates messages.
Cash Rules Everything Around Me
Even though we shy away from the topic in conversation, money has influence in our day-to-day interactions. It’s stressful when you have it, and it’s stressful when you don’t. It can strengthen relationships—or tear them apart. It fuels wars, power struggles, and, yes, therapy sessions.
How money shows up in therapy
💰 The Transaction Itself
Who pays for therapy? Does the therapist bill the insurance company, is it self-pay only? If the patient is responsible for paying the session, who is paying it? The client, the parent, if it’s a couple, is the money coming from joint funds or one partner exclusively? How we handle that financial exchange says a lot about power, responsibility, and even self-worth.
💳 How Therapists Handle Payment - What Would Vivian Do?
Therapists can decide if they submit claims to the insurance company or bill the client directly. They may decide to offer pro bono or sliding scale. For me, I choose not to work for or with insurance companies. I am like Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman, I decide, who, when, and how much. I look at the market rate for therapy, my business expenses, level of expertise, then decide on my rate accordingly.
I also offer a set amount of sliding scale spots for people who are not able to pay the full rate. I have the discussion about how much potential clients can afford within the sliding scale range. We then agree to re-visit the amount on a regular basis to be sure that it is still working for all parties involved.
All this money talk happens before the therapy even begins. For many, this is the most honest conversation about money they’ve ever had.
Money in the sessions
Love and Marriage (and Money)
Money is one of those topics that is a repeat offender in couple counseling. Common topics include:
- drastically different salaries
- unpaid labor of childcare or house work
- burden of being the high earner
- sudden loss of income
- difference in spending habits
🚧 Money = Access - I ain't rich, but I damn sure wanna be
Money provides us access. With money we can nourish our bodies with quality food, we can have transportation to and from work, we can have the security of a place to live, and we can practice self-care.
Money can’t buy happiness, but it can buy a boat, and a truck to pull it. Having money does make things easier.
Emotions
It's just emotions taking me over
If your emotions are in the driver’s seat, you are perceived as “crazy”, “broken”, or otherwise not “right”. If those struggles meet the criteria for a mental health diagnosis or are managed by medication, the stigma is even stronger.
Because of this stigma, we hold our cards as close to our chest as we can. We don’t talk about how we feel because that shows weakness. If people see our weaknesses, we are then vulnerable for attack.
Why We Struggle with Emotions
Myth: Vulnerability = Weakness
Humans are hard wired for connection; we see vulnerability as a threat to connection. If we talk about how we feel people instinctively distance themselves from us. It’s best to just tuck those feelings inside and not let them show.
In sessions, I use the analogy of the Death Star in Star Wars. The rebels stole the plans for the Death Star to find the vulnerability to attack and destroy it. It only took one well aimed shot by Luke for the Death Star to explode from inside out.
🧠 We Lack the Language : If you don’t use it, you lose it.
In a study, Brene Brown and colleagues found there are 87 distinct emotions. If you ask the average person to name different emotions, they can come up with about five. Why is there such a large gap in between what we can name and what emotions we experience? The average person does not have the language available to describe their experience because we don’t practice talking about emotions.
Imagine being in a country where you don’t speak the language. You may fumble around a bit and survive. You may recall a couple words that you somehow retained from high school, but you are otherwise lost in a sea of people that don’t understand you and you don’t understand them. Talk about vulnerability…
It is the same thing with emotions, we fumble around with words like happy, sad, and mad. But what about words like anguish? Despair? Curiosity? Awe? Wonder? Freudenfreud?
When we have the right words to describe our experience our connections become stronger. The ironic thing is that this goes against what our instincts tell us.
💬 “Name It to Tame It” How does that make you feel?
In therapy, we expand emotional vocabulary. The more precise we are—frustrated vs. resentful, overwhelmed vs. burnt out—the better we understand ourselves. And when we can name emotions, they lose some of their control over us. As we gain awareness and clarity on our experiences we can go about life with a different approach and perspective.
⚡ Mind-Body Connection Where do you feel that in your body?
It’s a weird question, I know. Emotions don’t just exist in our heads; they show up in our bodies. Stress? Tight shoulders. Anxiety? Nausea. Me? I’m an armpit sweater—confrontation or parallel parking, and I’m soaked.
A lot of times clients haven’t made the connection that their body is reacting to their experience before you are aware of what is happening. The more we recognize these physical signs, the better we can regulate our emotions before they take over.
The more language we give to our experiences the more we can process it. Science shows that if we can keep talking, our pre-frontal cortex stays online, and our fight or flight instinct doesn’t take over. When we talk, we can navigate our situations with clarity and composure instead of a deer in the headlights or an angry rage monster.
Why We Avoid Talking About Money & Feelings
Whether people struggle to understand money or mental health, the instinct is to distance yourself from the person or the problem. If something seems weak, uncertain, or threatening, we distance ourselves—whether it’s a topic like money or a person going through some tough emotions.
If you smell a foul odor, dog poop, for example, you crinkle your nose and pull back instinctively. Sometimes, just thinking about the odor causes this involuntary reaction.
That’s adaptive—our brains evolved to keep us safe. But in modern life, this backfires. We react to uncomfortable conversations as if they’re dangerous, even when they’re not. We can’t tell the difference between a literal shit sandwich and something that is unpleasant but necessary.
Why is this? The human operating system has not been updated for thousands of years. It’s like trying to navigate the internet using dial up and Windows 95. IYKYK.
So where do we go from here?
Let’s start having uncomfortable conversations. Let’s educate ourselves about topics that we are unsure of. Let’s look at struggles with a growth mindset instead of fear mindset.
Let’s be curious.
My optimistic view of humans is that we distance ourselves from topics of emotions and money because we don’t have the language to talk about it. It makes us feel uncomfortable and it is human nature to avoid discomfort. We want to be better, we just don’t know how.
Every step we take toward understanding mental health and money is a step toward feeling more comfortable with talking about it. If mental health and money are monsters under the bed, we only need to turn on the light to take away their power.
Ready to get the conversation started?
Covington Alsina has a monthly event called Women, Wine, and Wisdom. I went to the first event of the year in February. We had snacks and chatted about money. One of the barriers to discussions about money, is that we hesitate to have conversations about what we don’t know.
If you have a conversation with a financial expert that makes you feel like an idiot, you don’t really look forward to having more of those. The financial experts at Covington Alsina are unicorns. We talked about money in a way that was relatable and approachable.
I walked away with actions items that will help me feel more confident and secure in my financial journey. Check out the event page here and follow Covington Alsina on the socials to get more language and knowledge about money and wealth.
Want to dig deeper into the intersection of money and mental health? Join me in April’s Wine and Wisdom event, where I’ll break down: ✅ Your personal money story ✅ How mental health (especially if you have ADHD) impacts financial decisions ✅ Practical strategies to navigate money when emotions take over
Want to explore your money mindset in therapy? Schedule a consultation, and let’s see if we’re a good fit.