Identifying and Disrupting Financial Shame

Whether you experience financial shame yourself or work with clients who do, join us for this transformative event.

*Event Speakers will be announced soon! Register now to save your spot!

What is Financial Shame:

Financial shame is a familiar feeling of being embarrassed about our finances or believing we’re somehow flawed when it comes to money. A majority of us share these painful beliefs, especially in our challenging dominant economic culture. Yet we’re socialized not to talk about it. This silence deepens our financial shame and can isolate us in ways that lead to behaviours such as money avoidance, financial hoarding, or compulsive spending. 

Trauma survivors in particular have been known to feel shame when good things happen to them. This subconscious belief system can sabotage our financial dreams and impact our overall well-being. At a deeper level, it may feel safe to play small and ask for nothing more than to have our basic needs met, leaving us starved for connection to ourselves and others.

We believe no one should shoulder financial shame alone.

Our event partner, Coast Capital, has released a new study — Breaking the Cycle of Financial Shame — that explores financial shame and its impact on people’s ability to address the factors keeping them from being able to improve their financial reality. The credit union is shining a light on financial shame — not just its existence, but how it works, how it feels, and why it’s happening to all of us — in an effort to help break down the stigma and the silence on this topic to help people in Canada build a better financial future for themselves.

By way of Coast Capital’s sponsorship, we can offer this workshop to you for free!

Event Description:

Feel a sense of shame around your finances? Research says you’re far from alone. In this event, we’ll unpack findings from a recent financial shame study that say a majority of us experience money distress – even if we don’t talk about it.

Join us in an emotionally spacious and supportive environment as we compassionately explore how to define and dissuade financial shame. We’ll collectively identify its Societal, Systemic, Generational, and Relational roots, learning to recognize some of the ways it shows up in our lives. Together, we can more intentionally reverse the financial shame cycle with research-supported interventions and values-oriented pathways to action. Suitable for professionals who work with clients or for individuals looking to improve their financial well-being.

Because the burden of financial shame is too heavy to carry alone.

In this education session, we will cover the following:

• Identifying the indicators and implications of Financial Shame
• What we saw in the’ Breaking the Cycle of Financial Shame study, commissioned by the Coast Capital and hosted on the Angus Reid Forum
• Interventions for Financial shame that can be used on yourself or when working with clients
• Panel Discussion on finding aligned financial institutions as a shame intervention
• Moving Shame Activity - Money Letter

About TOM

Trauma of Money™ (TOM) is a unique financial literacy and psychoeducation program that brings together the psychology of scarcity and the fundamentals of trauma to help us understand and evolve how we relate to money. The focus with this approach is to reveal how trauma impacts the mind, and, in turn, our relationships with money and financial wealth. The reality is, if we aren’t able to identify past traumas, and subsequently, how they influence us, we will not be able to either consciously or subconsciously resolve our money issues. Unlike traditional approaches to financial education that put the focus solely on the individual — what can we fix within you? — The Trauma of Money Method™ compassionately orients us within a broader collective landscape that includes the exploration of societal and systemic trauma.

This soft, spacious approach explores frameworks for healing collective and individual traumas, which then becomes the foundation for creating financial safety and well-being. TOM offers individual professional training in the Trauma of Money™ Certification, curriculum design, corporate workshops, and a Trauma of Money™ Organization Certification pathway.

About Coast Capital

At Coast Capital, we’re not dreaming about a better future, we’re building one. We’re a member-owned financial cooperative with an 80-year legacy of unlocking financial opportunities that positively impact people and communities. We believe that every Canadian deserves a financial partner who actually cares how things turn out. Driven by our social purpose, we look at everything we do through the lens of how we can help our 600,000 members, our employees, and communities. Ranked in the platinum category of the 2022 Corporate Knight’s Social Purpose Ranking and a proud Certified B Corporation®, we’re part of a global movement building a more inclusive, equitable and regenerative economic system. Each year, we invest 10% of our budgeted bottom line into our communities, which since 2000 totals over $100M. We’re deeply committed to making our financial cooperative a great place to work as demonstrated by some of our accolades. Coast Capital is a platinum member of Canada’s Best Managed Companies and one of Canada’s Most Admired Corporate Cultures. To learn more, visit us online at coastcapitalsavings.com.

Community Agreements + Disclaimers

• This workshop is not a substitute for mental health or medical care
• This workshop is not investment or tax advice
• All attending must read and comply with our community agreements for the space