Xochitl Ashe (01:13)
Welcome, welcome, welcome everyone. It is my pleasure and excitement to introduce one of my teachers and also mentor and friend now. I'm so happy that we have her on today's podcast. I've actually been wanting to have her on ever since, I don't know if it's, it's been like a year and a half. or about two years that I did your mentorship. And I love that Future Proof Earth allows me to invite folks like Bari here because the topic that she is so masterful in sharing is money. And I feel like this is a huge topic that we need to talk about, especially during these world changing times. So I want to introduce you to Bari. Welcome Bari.

Bari Tessler (02:18)
Thank you so much for having me. I'm very happy to be here. It's been two years since you did the mentor program. And I don't know how many years since we first met in Los Angeles long, long time ago when I was. Yeah.

Xochitl Ashe (02:32)
Yeah, I can kind of put a date to it because it was the first time that I did one of your programs and this was where we would meet by phone. That's how long ago it was.

Bari Tessler (02:56)
So what, didn't even meet in LA, even though I was there a few times many, many, years ago. This is back in the day when I was doing teleclasses.

Xochitl Ashe (03:05)
Exactly. Yeah, and I remember it must have been about, let's see, like 17 years ago when I first took the teleclass. That's how long ago that one was.

Bari Tessler (03:23)
Yeah, and I was pregnant. That's when I was pregnant with my one and only son who's 16, right? So, yeah.

Xochitl Ashe (03:29)
Yeah, yeah. So I wanna formally introduce you because you bring a lot of wisdom and it's important to know like how you got here and what you've been up to. So Bari Tessler MA is a financial therapist and a pioneer in the financial therapy field. She has a master's degree in somatic psychology from Naropa University, 1998. She then ran a bookkeeping business for therapists and artists. And in 2001, she immersed all of her training and created a somatic-based financial therapy methodology that she has been teaching for over 24 years. She is also the founder of The Art of Money. a financial therapy program and a mentor program for therapists, coaches and financial professionals. Bari is the author of two books that you should definitely go get the art of money, a life changing guide to financial happiness and the art of money workbook. Her work has been featured on Oprah.com, Inc.com, us news and world report, Reuters money, the fiscal times us today, the cut girl boss nerd wallet, real simple. Mind Body Green, the Red Book. And she has also been featured on the cover of Experience Life and Mindful. Bari loves to read, dance, and enjoys dark chocolate. She lives in Boulder, Colorado with her husband, son, and many cats and a big puppy. And you can always find her at her website, beritessler.com And of course, as always, we're going to have all the links for you guys. the link to her website, her books, and anything she may offer. Welcome, Bari!

Bari Tessler (05:33)
Thank you for having me. It's so good to see you. So good to see you.

Xochitl Ashe (05:36)
Hmm. I yeah, I want to start I'm gonna I'm gonna open with a prayer because I think that when we talk about money these are sacred conversations and for me this podcast when we open This conversation we're also opening sacred space because we're talking about things today that are not just deep, that require deep, deep healing in this lifetime. But what I have worked with a lot is that money requires deep ancestral and generational healing. And so we're just gonna take this moment to either close your eyes if you're at home or if you're driving or walking, running around, just be. in a state of presence, just come back to yourself. Maybe just touch your heart with one hand. And take a deep breath. Come back to your body. Maybe there's a part of you that doesn't want to talk about money. And just notice. So as we open sacred space, we call in the energy of the earth. Pachamama, Tonantzin, Chundafe Because we know that with you, all is provided for us. And therefore, may you teach us how to be in good relationship with you so we can love and protect you as well. We also call in the energy of the sun to light these conversations so that everything that is talked about is medicine for those that listen. And of course, we bring in our ancestors, our well-ancestors, teachers, guides, protectors, and all of our own spiritual council. And of course we are so grateful for the land that we live in and all the ancestors of the land where we are. Just feeling that gratitude as we open up this beautiful conversation. Thank you Bari for being here. Thank you. So it is. So here we are. I know your story, and I think it's such a great story. And how did you start your devotion to teaching about money?

Bari Tessler (08:13)
Yeah. That's an interesting way of saying it. I don't know if anyone said it that way before. For me, I always like to share that when I was growing up, I had three things that I wanted to be when I grew up. know, one was a solid gold dancer. I'm a little, so yeah, yeah. So yeah, so I'm in my mid fifties, grew up in Chicago. It was.

Xochitl Ashe (08:47)
A solid gold dancer? Okay. I don't know that.

Bari Tessler (08:55)
It was a group of dancers that were on TV, wore these great solid gold costumes. They were called the solid gold dancers. Like I grew up as a dancer. That's what I want. That was number one. It's like I want to be a solid gold dancer. Number two at 12, I wanted to be a business woman. I didn't know what kind of business. My dad was in business. He was a business guy. I wanted to be a business woman. Okay. Number three, when I was at, when I was 16, I asked my parents if I could go to therapy.

Xochitl Ashe (09:06)
Yeah.

Bari Tessler (09:25)
And yeah, I wanted to understand myself on a deeper level. Now they sent me to a guy and they sent me to a talk therapist. Both did not work, but it was just, you know, it was a beginning steps. And then what happened, and then I got my undergrad in history, still like forgetting what I wanted to be when I was a kid. And after my undergrad, I still didn't know what I wanted to be when I grew up, you know, or what my work would be. and I went traveling for a while. And at some point in my trip, my travels, I realized, or I thought I was making up a whole new field. So I put together dance and therapy and thought, I'm gonna be a dance therapist. And pretty soon I realized I didn't make up anything. There was a whole field called dance movement therapy, somatic psychology, body-centered psychotherapy. And I wound up coming back to the States and applying for graduate school at Naropa in Boulder, Colorado and started their somatic psychology program. So that's really the beginning of my work. And then the somatic training, I say helped me through my 20s into my 30s into my 40s, 50s. It gave me the skills to be able to be a parent. to be in a long relationship, be, you know, just really step into myself as a woman, to be a business owner. You know, so the somatic training is my foundation. So remembering how to come back into my body and listen to my body. And that's the base for everything for me. So I wanna start there, right? It leads to, I don't know I would call it my devotion to money, but... What happened was in my 20s, my favorite topics were sexuality, spirituality, body, food, grief and death. And those were my topics. That's what I was devoted to.

Xochitl Ashe (11:36)
I actually said your devotion to teaching. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Because I would not say your devotion to money. I'm a better student than that.

Bari Tessler (11:50)
Yes, yes, yes. So interesting what I heard. Well, I want to make everything sacred, right? So relationship to money is sacred, right? And how we relate to it and we'll talk. So I love that. So yes, my devotion to teaching. You're right. That's true. Yes. And how that happened was my, you know, I finished the graduate degree, the masters. was ready to step into the next phase of life and then my student loan came due. And all of a sudden I realized that we never talked about money as we were training to be therapists. yeah, which was, it was shocking. was pretty mind blowing. Like, wait a second, we never talked about our money emotions or what our money story is or family history or ancestry around money, right?

Xochitl Ashe (12:29)
Wow.

Bari Tessler (12:47)
There was just no conversations at all, let alone how do you start a private practice and do the bookkeeping or what about working with couples? I really wanted to work around intimacy. That was one of my topics too that I loved. And how was I going to work with couples when they're fighting about money? Or they have different styles and approaches around money or they and on and on and on. It was such a huge, missing, shocking piece for me that was just completely left out of my training. that I either thought, well, I could either go running away and travel the world and not deal with the student loan and not deal with this money stuff because I thought it was really the most boring topic ever. Or I'm gonna face it like I did every other big topic in my life. I'm gonna face it head on and I'm gonna learn everything I can from every single angle and do it on a practical, emotional, psychological and spiritual level. So it became like this jolt of a mission for me that surprised me and is not where I thought my work would go or my teaching or my, you know, or my body of work. But it all kind of started to come together, you know, in first stop with, for it was learning the bookkeeping and then having a bookkeeping business. Cause when I was 28 to 32, I wasn't ready to be a healer therapist, but people would throw their books at me, other therapists, and just say, I don't want to have anything to do with this. Well, you do my bookkeeping. And they didn't even know I had a master's in somatic psychology. So I always say, I got an insider's view of so much intimacy of money patterns, cashflow patterns, how people were spending in accordance with their values or not, or earning in accordance to their values or not. And then so many fine... a front row seat to family dynamics. I would go into someone's office and their young kids, know, teenagers would be in the room or young adult kids. And I got to see so many family money dynamics. So that was like a little interim. And then it was not, you know, 2001 when I had a mentor that said to me, young lady, it's time for you to give your talk on your body of work. And I said, what are you talking about? And she said, it's time. And that's when I went for a in the woods and just kept walking and walking and said, you know, how do I help my myself and my community have a more mindful relationship with money, creative relationship with money, savvy relationship with money, bring in, you know, more ritual, more deep meaning, all the things that my training in graduate school gave to me. And how do I bring that to my relationship with money? And so that's where we were in 2001 when I gave my first talk that led to teaching in tiny groups in my living room in an Apple orchard, which led to the tele-courses and online courses and right, almost 25 years later. And I keep doing this work.

Xochitl Ashe (16:06)
Yeah.

Bari Tessler (16:07)
I keep finding, money's connected with our lineage. Money's connected with our relationship with food. Money's connected with intimacy. There's a never ending exploration of what money is connected to. So to complete, I never thought this would be my doorway into a psycho spiritual journey or life. I never, but it's also our relationship to money has been a doorway into all those other topics that I was so deeply passionate and devoted to in understanding everything from intimacy to sensuality to body and food and grief and death.

Xochitl Ashe (16:55)
Well, I'm so glad that the journey took you to this place because that's how I found you. And my journey with money started also at a very, very early age. And I came to your work because I knew that that was one area that really needed my love and support. And... I'll do a whole episode on my journey with money. But what I want to lead us to is why I wanted you on this podcast. So this podcast was Sacred Psychedelics and now it's Future Proof Earth, where I shifted the energy of the podcast to not just feature teachers and experts on psychedelics, but I wanted to open it wider to feature the people that have guided me, to feature the people that I really admire that don't necessarily talk about psychedelics, even though it might be part of their work. And I really, really, really wanted to have conversations about money because I feel that at this time, as I mean, I think we are witnessing some of the most rapid changes that I have experienced in my 47 years of life. And I think money is one of those areas that if we understand it, it gives us a little bit more ease when things start getting very, very challenging. Right?

Bari Tessler (18:47)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, I just put out a little email yesterday and this happens and I've been saying this at different points for the last 25 years, but I started really saying it during the pandemic. Then I really started saying it again recently that this framework that I've been teaching. So the art of money method integrates money healing work with money practices and money maps. So it's three phases. It's a holistic approach. And for me, it's a framework and it's a, I call it a tried and true method through the ebbs and flows of life, through the ups and downs, through the good times, through the hard times. And that comes for us internally and externally. So sometimes it's internal challenges or curve balls or changes, or, you know, I know for me, when I had my son, we had, I had a big complication in my labor and we both made it through healthy, but I needed rest and recovery time and had to make some big shifts, right? In my life and my work and my business model. Many of us had to make big shifts during the pandemic, like completely pivot how we're doing work or, you know, so shifts can happen internally. whether it's new baby or it's a new marriage or it's a divorce or it's a death or it's a loss of a job or you know there's so many transitions that we go through some that we choose and some that are feel like a surprise or a curveball right and then there's the external factors of you know we now have lived through a pandemic we are going we've been through so many natural disasters we've been through 9-11, we've been through world, we're going through world wars where, you know, there's, there's all of these external different presidents with different things that they're doing or not. All right. So I, I continue to say that this framework that I'm teaching is going to hold you through and give you the tools and practices and strategies and frameworks to hold you through life's beautiful moments and very painful, challenging moments. that come internally and externally that happened to all of us, you know, in life. So that's one of my takes on this. You know, when I first started doing this work, there was some surprises for me. think I, know, number one, I think I thought like there'd be a different set of emotions that would come up around money somehow. No, it's the same set of emotions, but it comes up around money. Number one is usually shame for so many people. We could talk about more of any of these or anger, anxiety or jealousy. But I really thought there was like a different set of money emotions instead of, no, it's the same set of emotions, but they come up around money, right? Or I somehow knew like there's ups and downs in life. but money at some point early on, was like, of course there's going to be with money as well. Meaning this is somewhat simplistic, but not every year we earning more and giving more and saving more. You know, we hope to have those years, but there's going to be other years where we're in maintenance mode or other years where we're going through an enormous transition, again, chosen or not chosen. And, you know, how do we get through these times? So I'm just speaking to it a little bit. I'll say one more thing. When I started doing this work 25 years ago, it was still considered so fringe, know, even talking about money. And I think we've moved through as cultures, again, I didn't say this yet, but my community online has been, we've had 50 different countries represented around the world. And that's, I'm so proud of that. You know, we've had people from all over the world, but we've, how was I just gonna say? to come back. but culturally, at least in the US and other places. there's been huge topics that you couldn't talk about. It was sexuality, don't talk about it. And then people were like, let's talk about sex everywhere and anywhere, right? Or then we moved on to death, don't talk about it, it's a taboo. And then we started talking about death and it doesn't mean we're done with these topics and race and lineage and ethnicity. And again, it doesn't mean we're done, it's coming up saying this has to be. brought to the forefront, have to learn how to talk about this openly and have these brave conversations. You we really do. And money is one of the last frontiers. And I've been saying this for 25 years so that most people that I know, they do so much self-development work on themselves and their relationship to money seems to be like the last piece. Not for everyone, but you shared that that was a little bit about your story, that you had done so much work. and then bringing that same lens or attention to your money story. Right? And we all have strengths and we all have challenges around money. And most of us did not learn, you know, financial literacy growing up or emotional literacy growing up. And that's part of why I merged those into a somatic-based financial therapy method, right, in 2001. So I'll just pause there, but these are some of the things where it's just been, don't talk about this no matter what income class you come from. So many families are, be quiet, do not talk about this outside of the family or even in the family. And I've been trying to change this for years saying, let's learn how to have these brave money conversations, not with everyone and not, know, but just in what feels like a safe place or as Brene Brown says, in spaces or with people that have earned the right to hear your intimate, vulnerable details around any of your stories.

Xochitl Ashe (25:08)
Yeah, well, I have done this work for a very long time. And what I love about working with money is that it shows you so many other things. And yet, right, like it's like the last frontier for so many. But what's interesting, as you were talking about this, I remember the Shift Network. which is an online platform had hired me to do a like a eight week workshop and then they asked me like propose some some other workshop and I I wanted to do a ancestral healing workshop with money and they were like no and I was like what like how juicy would that be right And I was just like taken aback that they were like, no. They're like, well, the reason, was like, well, can you just like tell me why that doesn't sound amazing to you? And they were like, well, our audience is, you know, they're like over 60 and you know, mainly women and they're just not really interested in having those conversations anymore.

Bari Tessler (26:35)
Yeah, I don't agree with that at all. I don't agree with that at all. You know, my community, I said 50 different countries represented, it's ages 25 to 85 years old, and most are 50 to 70 range or 40 to 70. And they all want to have the money conversation. They're finally ready to, and yeah, they may have ignored it for many, many years, or they were afraid of it, or they abdicated to a partner, or whatever it is. But for me, that's who comes to me. That's women. I did a money thing with Shift years ago where I did an interview series. I don't remember, it was called The Art of Money, but I did an interview series with them years ago. Yeah.

Xochitl Ashe (27:08)
Hahaha Yeah, I don't know. I don't know why they just, they weren't open to it. But the reason why I brought it up is because I felt like, wow, is that true that there's, get like, if, you connect with people at a certain age, they don't want to, they're not interested in this type of growth. You know, the, folks that are over 60, the majority, right? Because I think that ⁓ like my generation, right? People that are soon to be turning 50 are actually finally like I've, I've really noticed they're finally like open to having these conversations because when we were younger, ⁓ what I found with a lot of my peers and it was something that really caused me actually growing up in the Bay area really caused me to moved to LA where I could have these conversations because I felt like the people that I was hanging out with, which were mostly artists, people that were doing nonprofit work, you know, were working in some area for social justice, were very committed to uplifting BIPOC voices in some way with, you know, their gifts. Like these folks that I love did not want to have these conversations. For a long time, I hid the fact that I was an entrepreneur because it was like, you're working for the system, you're working for the men, right? And it took me moving to LA to meet other people that actually. were so open to having money conversations, so open to talking about entrepreneurship and conscious entrepreneurship became like a beautiful movement that I was a part of. And now again, I'm seeing that like the younger generation is now more open and they're like, wow, let's have these conversations. And yet, ⁓ what I'm also noticing is that because of the political climate that's happening right now in the U S you know, we are, I am hearing, ⁓ this attitude that's like against the rich, right? And, then I'm thinking like, wow, okay. I totally understand. And at the same time, it's like, can we be more clear about like, Who are we against? Because yes, there's definitely a billionaire class that is, I mean, in my mind, we don't necessarily need billionaires. We can have people that have massive amounts of wealth and riches, but do we need billionaires that are running the country? That's like a whole. a whole nother level, but I see this attitude of like, you know, eat the rich down with the billionaires. And that makes me think like, uh-oh, here we are again in this place where now we're making money the enemy. And like, we need to be having these conscious money conversations, right? Like this is the time once again that They are really needed in our culture. So I wanted to just bring that up and I want to hear your thoughts about that.

Bari Tessler (31:14)
Yeah, okay. Well, I probably 10 different threads that are like this Yes, yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. It's just so I'm someone who just there needs to be so much more nuance to everything You know, like we can't just go all the richer this way all that right? think there needs to be a lot more dissecting and nuance and breaking this apart so one level here and I'll share a few but one is just I started my work in the Bay Area, in a tiny little town called Sebastopol. That's where I was teaching my somatic-based financial therapy method in 2001, in Annapolis, right outside San Francisco. And then all my initial groups were One Night in San Francisco, One Night in Oakland, One Night in Berkeley, One Night in Santa Cruz. So there was definitely, though, this ethos. And it was a mix of different communities. It was the healer, the therapist, the social worker. the activist community, the artist community, the nonprofit world, there's a lot, you know, of, we're not supposed to want money, we're not supposed to talk about money, money's bad, there's also money's not spiritual, if we have, others don't, like there's, you know, a lot of black and white, we got into all of that, we got into all of that, just breaking, really breaking that apart. I mean, for me, one of the pieces that started me doing my work, was that I was with a master's degree working as a social worker in the mental health field making $11 an hour and full time. I could not bring good chocolate to a potluck and I just wanted to bring a basketful and I could not even get a massage. So I could not take care of myself and work with my own wellbeing, which includes financial wellbeing on any level. Like I was doing good work.

Xochitl Ashe (32:46)
Hahaha.

Bari Tessler (33:06)
but I wasn't able to support myself barely making my basic needs. I wasn't even it, right? So that was something that propelled me to say, okay, how do I start creating a business? Which again, business was also like a terrible word. know, it's like, as you've already said, business is all businesses are capitalism. know, instead of there's a woman who I did an interview with, it's Annie Schussler. does a podcast. ⁓ Rebel Therapist And she's like, no, we need micro businesses. This is, this is our communities, our culture, how we help each other. This is the good part of capitalism. Again, for me, it's not all, it's all bad. It's all good. It's all, you know what I'm, I'm hearing a little bit of Marx, Marxism to the extreme and what you're saying. It's like rich people. Let's, you know, like which people, all rich people suck. I mean, yes, I want I want wealthier folks to pay taxes and their share of taxes like I do and other, you know, that's really important to me. I want us to all have really good healthcare there, you know. So I'm kind of like, give me a combination of capitalism and social, like the good parts of each, right? That's where I'm going. But to come back, there is things in different ethos, like, you know, of we're supposed to do our good work in the world and somehow. It's all just gonna work out, but we're not supposed to charge higher rates or charge for it or look at our numbers or want more, strive more, or actually create a successful business. I feel like my community has been wrestling with that for a long, long time. And some people still do, but I help them move through that and beyond that because I really wanna help everyone create. you know, bring their good work into the world and make a really nice livelihood doing that. It's different for everyone what the numbers need to be, where they live, who they're caring for, what phase of life are they in. But for me, yes, we need to unravel what are some of those like black and white money messages. know, money is the root of all evil. Okay. Or what about like, money's just energy. It's how you use it. It can be used for good. It could be used for evil. Right? I know very wonderful, generous, wealthy folks. I know very frugal, greedy, wealthy folks. I know really generous, middle-class folks. I know asshole middle-class. Right? So, I mean, it's just like, it's for me, there's a lot more nuance that needs to happen here. And again,

Xochitl Ashe (35:40)
Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes,

Bari Tessler (35:49)
I talked about 50 countries represented and the age range also. For me, there's a huge economic class spectrum of folks that I've been working with for years. So I've gotten to really see and hear stories and family stories from folks who grew up in a lower income household. Sometimes they'll say, I grew up in a poor household. Other people will say, I grew up more middle-class or I grew up in a very wealthy. family and money has been passed down for generations. I've been able to see and hear so much pain and beauty in all, you know, that entire spectrum. And it's so different for everyone. So I'm just touching on a few things here that you've said.

Xochitl Ashe (36:38)
Yeah. Well, I'm so grateful that we'll to have you here and have this conversation with you because it's exactly what I was saying, which is that this is a time where we need to have these conversations again because, know, it's it's divide and conquer, right? Like, no matter what, like, that's that's the the intention of everything that's happening. It's like, how do we divide people instead of unify them into love and to care, right? So one of the ways that I think that we can unite is and not get polarized is to have conscious conversations about money because otherwise that's one way that, you know, I felt I was polarized. right, when I was in my teens and in, you know, early twenties is that as somebody that, you know, double immigrant grew up with like very low income family, but entrepreneurs, right? So it was like, there was that ability to also like create money out of an idea, right? And so growing up in that, but yet like having a father who was completely against the system, a hippie, a medicine man, and did not like, you know, want to touch on anything to do with like the admin- straight if part of money. Right? And just like discovering through my work, like, wow, there's so many ways that historically we have been prevented from learning about money.

Bari Tessler (38:36)
Mmm. Mmm. Okay, so two things. One, I want to talk about micro, macro sides of money and then money stories and family money stories, which you're sharing. So the first thing is that my work primarily covers the micro, right? Our relationship to money, our relationship to money. If we're in a partner couplehood, that dynamic, family, the family we come from. the family that we're creating, whoever that is, whether that's human kids or animal kids or partner, right? Whoever that constellation is, and then it extends to our work. As far as taking on money systems, right? And what works and what absolutely does not, it's always been very important for me to interview on that. So that's where I go to other experts. Like that's not my training or background. I'm not an economist and I'm not a large thinker in that way. I'm like,