Do you ever feel like there’s an invisible, gravitational pull preventing you from feeling how you desire to feel?

I have a hunch you aspire to feel confident, abundant, powerful, and in control - whether in your health, finances, or relationship.

I know I do.

Despite a valiant effort, it’s as if this gravitational energy always pulls me back to a place I don’t want to be. Yet, strangely enough, the place I don’t want to be is…

Familiar…

Comfortable…

And, well, safe.

More than any other area of my life, I experience this in my finances.

Or, wait, maybe my romantic relationships?

Well, that's a topic for a different newsletter. I’ll focus on finances here to spare you from reading the novel about my romantic relationships.

Okay, back on track.

Like you, I have financial goals.

I want a life rich in abundance and financial freedom and aspire to be able to do what I want, when I want, and with whom I want.

Don’t we all?

The problem I’ve fought so hard to overcome since graduating college, however, has been a deeply ingrained scarcity mindset. Even during my most financially successful periods, I experienced a tinge of lack. This kept me playing small and hindered my consistency in taking the actions that led to my success in the first place.

The further I moved away from this deeply ingrained scarcity, the stronger the gravitational pull to return I experienced. As fate would have it, I'd return to a place of scarcity, but this time I'd be joined by feelings of defeat, overwhelm, and frustration.

You may notice this with your weight. Do you find that the closer you get to your fat-loss goal, the quicker you seem to return to square one?

Perhaps, you experience it in your relationships. The closer you get to opening up and letting someone in, the more compelled you begin to feel to push them away.

In last week’s Unstuck Yourself Newsletter, we discussed how safety is the primary objective of your subconscious. It’s working ‘round the clock to keep you safe. And it does so by fostering patterns of behavior that yield predictability and familiarity.

In this week’s newsletter, we'll discuss why you're conditioned to return to these sabotaging emotions. Then, I'll coach you through the process that's helped me - and hundreds of my clients - identify and deconstruct them.

But first, allow me to share more about my own gravitational pull toward scarcity…

Stuck in a Scarcity Mindset

Financial abundance or scarcity?

Which would you choose to be your default mode of thinking and behaving?

Abundance, right?

Me, too.

However, I cannot help but feel there’s a gravitational pull that’s keeping me stuck in this scarcity mindset.

That’s because there is.

I've bounced between periods of abundance and scarcity-laced debt. This remains true despite efforts to track my income and expenses in spreadsheets and budgeting apps.

Even when I experienced a period of significant financial success, I always felt it wouldn’t last.

Sounds silly, right?

I agree - but this was (and still is to an extent) my reality.

I’m the oldest of four children.

My parents worked tirelessly to provide my siblings and me with an incredible childhood rich in an abundance of sports, extracurriculars, and, of course, an annual beach vacation.

There was also no shortage of love. Thank you, Mom and Dad!

We had everything we ever needed and pretty much all we ever wanted. Santa Claus absolutely spoiled us on Christmas morning - and still does to this day - and we even were fortunate enough to be able to attend many local sports camps each summer.

But as I reflect on that last one, I can’t help but feel maybe my parents just wanted space from us!? Gulp…

I was blessed to have such a wonderful childhood.

But as I’m now old enough to witness my childhood through the eyes of my parents, I can see that providing this experience for my siblings and me didn’t come without a cost - and a big financial one at that.

My Dad worked tirelessly. Somehow - I still don’t quite understand how - he attended 99 percent of my sporting events and played a strong helping hand in transportation to and from practice and other extracurriculars.

Yet, I vividly remember hearing him talk about leaving the house at 4:00 - sometimes 3:00 - AM to get all of his work done so her could be home and present in the evening.

My mom, too, not only worked full time but took the lead and played a strong, active role in being the primary Uber driver for my siblings and me.

Additionally, they had to…

• feed three growing boys (and eventually a little girl),

• save to put us each through college,

• and have enough to support the involved lifestyle they thought would give us the best chance of being kind, respectful, good human beings.

You did good, Mom and Dad, you did good. You should be so proud.

But I share this to finally get to the point: life was great from my point of view, but to my parents, there were some financially difficult times. This was especially true when the housing market decided a collapse was in order and a strong recession immediately followed.

I was too young, unaware, or lost in video games to notice at the time, but as I reflect back on my childhood through the lens of curiosity from my parent’s point of view, I can recall several snippets of memories in which I could feel, sense, and see the stress they felt around finances.

Unpacking even further, I can recall certain words, stories, and ideals that were unintentionally instilled in me about money, that have gone on to shape and solidify my attitude toward money to this day.

My current emotions around money are not my fault. Truthfully, they’re the fault of my parents.

Hold on!

I love my parents dearly and am in no way blaming them.

But it’s the truth.

Before the age of seven, we’re incredibly aware (unconsciously) of all that’s going on in our surrounding environment.

We perceive the tiniest of details, including all signs of verbal and non-verbal communication during this time more than at any other time in our lives. We’re more aware of word choice, tonality, emotional expression, body language, facial expression, breathing rate, and more.

When we’re consistently exposed to a collection of the above around a particular topic, such as money, health, or relationships, it forms the basis of a core emotion deep within our psyche.

This core emotion now serves as a major player in your life; it’s part of your emotional home.

I share this because, by the time you’re seven years old, you’ve built the first layer of your emotional home, which is a foundation of familiar emotions that you were consistently exposed to at a young age.

You absorbed and lived these emotions so often - at a time when you were more malleable than ever before - that your brain hardwired a connection and belief that these emotions and beliefs were safe.

In my case, I grew up with scarcity and lack being absorbed from multiple angles.

For example, little me would unconsciously observe (and store) how my parent’s body language, facial expressions, word choice, tonality, and energy changed when I asked for something.

This would occur when asking to buy lunch at school (yum, shrimp popper day!), asking to go to the movies with a friend, or purchasing the most expensive pair of shoes the store had to offer because I had to have them.

Little me soaked all of that up as an impressionable child. And I experienced it so consistently that it became familiar, comfortable, predictable, and, well, safe…

Ed Mylett refers to this collection of familiar emotions as your Emotional Home.

Your emotional home is a collection of emotions that are familiar and comforting - even if they’re negative and not serving you.

This programmed return to familiar emotions exists as a result of your environment and upbringing. Your emotional home is constructed before the age of seven as the emotions your caregivers wear on their sleeves are imprinted on your mind; they become familiar.

For example, if money was always tight growing up, little you felt it. You may not have been able to consciously comprehend it at that time, but your subconscious was soaking up the emotion, tonality, and word choice used when discussing money, while simultaneously taking a mental snap short of the body language and facial expressions worn by those talking about money.

This collection of data, evidence, and stories helped to lay the foundation behind the belief that money is either scarce, bad, or whatever (insert negative word). This goes for your attitude toward love, health and self-care, other people, work, and every other central area of your life.

As you continue reading, you’ll begin to understand how your emotional home was formed as you identify the feelings that are rooted deep within.

With this awareness, we’ll begin to unpack how your emotional home came to be, as well as identify the multitude of instances you’ve left and returned to this home throughout your life.

Finally, we’ll begin the process of deconstructing your emotional home so that next week you have a clean foundation to rebuild your emotional home upon.

Buckle up and put your construction hat on.

It’s time to get to work!

Your Emotional Home

Your emotional home is the collection of emotions you’re unconsciously conditioned to come home to.

Like your current home (I hope), they’re safe and familiar. And, this safety and familiarity evoke a sense of comfort.

The challenge, however, is that you had no role in choosing which emotions to come home to. And for the vast majority of us - myself included - find ourselves stuck in a pattern of two steps forward and three steps back that inevitably keeps us returning to a foundation of negative emotions.

Why does this occur?

First, your nervous system and subconscious work in tandem to help you maintain a state of homeostasis. Homeostasis is simply a state of balance; a semblance of safety and predictability. If these learned emotions are your default, several actions (self-sabotaging behaviors) will be executed to keep you there.

For instance, if your emotional home is rooted in lack and scarcity around money, don’t expect to stay debt-free for long if you’ve not yet done the work to upgrade the foundation of your emotional home.

Have you ever experienced the unfortunate coincidence of suddenly incurring a massive barrage of expenses immediately upon paying off your credit card?

[raises hand…]

Me, too.

Secondly, before the age of seven, you’re a walking sponge that’s unconsciously soaking up and noting the word choice, tone, emotionality, facial expression, body language, and all other forms of verbal and non-verbal communication.

These collectively form the blueprint for your beliefs. Researchers estimate that up to 95 percent of your belief system is formed before the age of seven. Our sponge-like propensity for verbal and non-verbal communication is why.

Your current emotional home is familiar and safe - and that’s what will keep you alive. Remember that your subconscious’s primary goal is survival and safety equals survival.

As you learned in last week’s Unstuck Yourself Newsletter, your subconscious prioritizes survival above all. Creating predictable patterns that keep you returning home to familiarity and comfort is a recipe for safety, which satisfies the subconscious’s goal of survival.

No matter how much action you take to distance yourself from these emotions, you’ll inevitably find yourself caught in a familiar pattern that sends you right back home. Unless, of course, you make it a priority to take action on what I share below and do the deep work necessary to rebuild your emotional home at the source. 

As I’ve done the work to identify and deconstruct my emotional home as it relates to my relationship with money, it all makes sense. It was unintentionally impressed upon me that money was scarce and that those who had a lot of money were assholes.

As I examine my own pattern of making and keeping money over the past 10 years, I can see that I’ve ebbed and flowed from periods of scarcity (phew, working three jobs in college was rough!), to making an amount of money I had no idea to do with (so, I actually began gifting it to my parents).

In fact, my annual income over the past six years has not only been within the same plus or minus $10,000 range, but each year has included a period or two of scarcity that was followed by a new product, offer, or launch of some sort (a quick way to make money).

I’d ebb and flow between periods of scarcity (familiar) and abundance, but since I was conditioned to believe abundance meant I’m an asshole, well, I quickly spent the money so I didn’t wear that asshole hat!

I wonder where a similar pattern is playing out in your life…

If you want to change your life, you need to clean (your emotional) house.

Tear it down.

Rebuild it.

When you understand the root of all your stuckness, you can then begin to work on doing what’s necessary to unstuck yourself.

Before we can begin to rebuild your emotional home upon a foundation of emotions that serve you, we need to first identify the current state of your emotional home so we know what tactics to bring to deconstruct it.

Do we need a team of handymen to carefully make some updates or full-out dynamite to blow it up?

If you’re anything like me, take a big step back - it’s time to make way for the dynamite treatment.

Identify Your Emotional Home

Before I walk you through the action steps that have helped me and hundreds of my coaching clients ultimately deconstruct and rebuild their emotional homes, I want to reiterate how important awareness is.

If you don’t recognize which emotions you routinely return to, or, more importantly, how this plays out in your life, you’ll never be able to make lasting change.

Take a moment to bring to mind a recurring pattern of self-sabotage present in your life.

• Do you struggle with losing and regaining the same 20 pounds?

• Do you struggle to remain debt-free?

• Do you struggle to maintain a romantic relationship?

Get incredibly clear on how you typically feel during the low end of this cycle:

If I had to guess, you feel one or more of the following:

• Undeserving

• Unworthy

• Angry

• Resentful

• Frustrated

• Defeated

• Like you have no control

Write down the following:

• The area of my life a pattern of self-sabotage exists:

• Describe that example:

• The emotions I return to include:

Need help with clarifying the emotions you’re consistently returning, too? Take a look at the image below, which was borrowed from the Hoffman Institute. This should get your emotional vocabulary flowing.

For me, I’d answer the questions as follows:

• Financial self-sabotage

• I continue to pay off debt and incur more debt.

• I return to a lack mindset, specifically rooted in scarcity, worry, and anxiety.

Action Step: Once you’ve completed the above, I invite you to now set a timer on your phone for two minutes. During this time, I’d like you to scan the list of emotions (you can download it here) and circle all negative emotions that resonate with you. I encourage you to not think twice - if one jumps out at you even a little, circle it!

You may circle as many as you feel resonate with you upon first pass.

Do this now.

Then, stand up and sit back down - seriously

Next, write down the emotions you circled in your journal, notebook, or a separate piece of paper.

Set your timer again for two minutes and then review the emotions you wrote down with the goal of distilling your list to no more than five emotions. I recommend you circle the ones that truly resonate with you on a deep level.

The result?

Your final five emotions (having less is okay) are what constitute your emotional home.

After you’re clear on your foundational emotions, take a moment to breathe.

• In (through the nose)...2…3…4…

• Hold…2…3…4…

• Exhale (through the nose)...2…3…4…

• Hold…2…3…4…

Good work!

You’ve taken a big step towards deconstructing your emotional home and creating an opportunity to rebuild it.

The last step in this exercise is to write out a specific example situation in which you witnessed yourself sabotage your growth efforts to return to one of those core emotions.

For instance, maybe your emotional home is rooted in anger. So, you work really hard to make progress fast in your career, only to run into politics and red-tape nonsense. This leads to you giving up and putting in the minimum effort as you stew in anger and place blame on others.

My Previous Emotional Home

Curious as to what this may look like when you’re finished?

Here are my notes the first time I put myself through this exercise…

Memory Used: I paid off the remaining balance on my credit card (which I’d been diligently and strategically working on for six months) only to find myself with the same amount of original debt after three months.

Emotions Listed: bitter, exacerbated, angry, hopeless, scared, lack, apprehensive, unworthy

Emotional Home: scarcity, fear of success, anxiety, and unworthiness.

And, as a bonus, some of the underlying fears and beliefs fueling this pattern included…

• I returned to scarcity by overspending and mismanaging my budget.

• I was stuck in a fear of success because if I made more money than my parents, I could potentially be viewed differently and ostracized from my family.

• I felt anxious about money - ebbing between unconscious overspending due to irrational justification and not spending a penny even when a true need arose.

All of these emotions led to irrational justifications (I need this!) and rash, short-sighted decisions.

Your Next Step

Breathe.

Seriously.

Recognizing you’re unconsciously returning to a collection of emotions that make you feel like crap isn’t the easiest to digest.

Give yourself grace and time to recognize what’s been going on while also knowing to be true that there’s a path forward and that you can move houses.

Thank you for reading this week’s newsletter.

In next Friday’s Unstuck Yourself Newsletter, we’ll begin the process of rebuilding your emotional home so that you can find the patterns of safety you’re stuck in are working for you by bringing you closer to achieving your full potential.

You may catch up on previous newsletters here.

If you have a question about anything I discussed in this week’s Unstuck Newsletter, feel free to drop me a message on Twitter (@pauljsalter7) or Instagram (@paulsaltercoaching).

My email inbox is always open, too: [email protected]

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