How your body shapes the way you earn, spend, and receive.
Have you ever hesitated to send an invoice—then spent an hour rewriting it to sound “softer”? Or felt a wave of guilt the moment you made a purchase, even if it was something you truly needed?
It’s easy to believe our money patterns are about willpower or logic. But more often, they’re about safety—and about the deeply rooted beliefs we inherited about what safety even means. Many of those beliefs were passed down from earlier generations, shaped by emotional experiences tied to survival. At Amida, we believe financial health begins in the body—because before you make a single money decision, your nervous system is already involved. Whether you’re earning, spending, or receiving, your body is always scanning for safety.
So when you avoid your bank account, or feel unworthy of charging more, it’s not just about mindset—it’s about regulation. And when we begin to understand this connection, everything changes.
The Nervous System: A Brief Overview
Your autonomic nervous system is your body’s internal GPS. It constantly interprets your environment through the lens of safety or danger. It does this automatically—before your conscious mind can even weigh in.
There are three core states to understand:
- Fight or flight: A sense of urgency, pressure, or fear. The need to act fast—sometimes impulsively.
- Freeze: Shutdown. Numbness. A desire to avoid or disconnect.
- Ventral vagal: A grounded state of safety, openness, and clarity. This is where you make wise, aligned choices.
Polyvagal Theory teaches us that your body is always listening—always interpreting. This is called neuroception. You may think you’re just checking your credit card balance… but your body might experience that action as a threat. Especially if your early emotional experiences tied money to fear, guilt, or scarcity—stories inherited from parents or grandparents who lived through major financial instability, like the Great Depression.
This is why nervous system awareness is key to changing not just our money habits—but our money story.
The Super-Subconscious and the Origins of Your Money Story
Long before we could articulate our thoughts about money, our nervous system was already learning how to feel about it. According to developmental neuroscience, the nervous system begins forming in the womb and continues developing rapidly in the first seven years of life—precisely the time when our subconscious mind is most impressionable. But deeper than the subconscious lies what many call the super-subconscious—a realm of memory tied not just to experience, but to strong emotional imprinting. When we hear phrases as children like “We’re poor” or “We can’t afford that,” and those words are repeated with emotional charge, they don’t just land in the mind—they become embedded in the body.
The nervous system stores these moments as safety cues: Don’t ask. Don’t expect. Don’t dream too big. Over time, this creates a deep-seated association between money and lack, even shame. This becomes the lens through which we view future financial opportunities, often without realizing it. But imagine if the message had been: “Let’s save up together for that dress” instead. The emotional imprint would shift from scarcity to possibility—from restriction to empowerment. That’s the power of early narrative. It’s why we say the nervous system and super-subconscious aren’t just passengers in your money story—they’re the origin. Becoming aware of these early beliefs gives you the power to rewrite them, not just with logic, but with presence, regulation, and compassion.
How the Body Shapes Your Financial Life
To earn, you need agency. Clarity. Movement. But when your nervous system is stuck in fear or overwhelm, even basic tasks can feel like climbing a mountain. A woman launching her business kept stalling on pricing her offerings. Every time she sat down to write a proposal, her shoulders tensed and her breath shallowed. Over time, she realized it wasn’t just about pricing—it was about visibility. Her body equated asking for more with potential rejection. So she began a simple ritual: feet on the ground, one hand on her heart, one on her belly. She breathed. She softened. And slowly, she reclaimed her right to be seen and paid.
And for many, this hesitation isn’t just about fear. It can be rooted in a sense of service. We’ve been taught—especially from earlier generations—that helping others should be selfless, even if that means undercharging or not charging at all. But true service also includes the principle of energetic exchange. And in the modern world, money is often part of that exchange.
Spending decisions are often emotional. After long, stressful days, a man found himself scrolling through online stores—not because he needed anything, but because it gave him a moment of relief. He wasn’t alone. Many people use spending to soothe, to reclaim control, to create a brief sense of pleasure. When he learned to pause before purchasing, to check in with his body and ask, What do I actually need right now?, the urge began to soften. Sometimes the answer was connection. Sometimes rest. The money followed the awareness.
Receiving is perhaps the most vulnerable act of all. When a client received her largest payment to date, she expected joy. Instead, she felt her chest tighten. Her first instinct was to apologize—to justify the fee. But she practiced something new: she placed a hand on her heart and simply whispered, I receive this with gratitude. No overexplaining. No guilt. Just presence. And over time, the act of receiving became a practice of self-trust.
Creating Safety in Your Financial System
What if the first step toward financial growth wasn’t another app or planner—but a return to the body?
Here are a few ways to start:
- Pause before making a decision. Feel your feet. Notice your breath. Ask yourself: What state am I in right now?
- Regulate before reviewing finances. A few minutes of slow breathing—4 counts in, 6 counts out—can move your nervous system from panic to presence.
- Add grounding rituals around spending. Light a candle. Touch a textured object. Create a moment of pause that breaks unconscious patterns.
- Receive with intention. When money comes in, close your eyes. Say thank you. Let it land in your body before it moves out again.
These aren’t productivity hacks. These are nervous system rituals—gentle invitations into a deeper relationship with your financial self.
The Amida Approach
At Amida, we do more than manage assets—we hold space for the full human experience. Because your money story doesn’t start on a spreadsheet. It starts in your nervous system. In your memories. In your breath.
That’s why we integrate neuropsychology and somatic awareness into our financial planning process. We don’t just ask where you want to go—we explore what might be keeping you from moving forward.
We’ve seen how financial behavior often traces back to survival patterns. The need to hustle. The fear of asking. The urge to avoid. So instead of pushing through, we help our clients slow down. Connect. Build systems that support not just growth—but regulation.
We often say: Be brave, but strategic. And part of being strategic means creating conditions where your system feels safe enough to grow. This is how wealth-being is built—not just through numbers, but through nervous system resilience.
Amida Wealth Family Conversations
Next time you sit down with someone you trust—whether it’s over dinner, on a walk, or in a quiet car ride—ask the deeper questions:
- How does your body respond to money?
- Where do you feel safe, and where do you shut down?
- What money beliefs did your family pass down?
These conversations invite a different kind of wealth into our lives—the wealth of awareness, honesty, and shared healing. When we talk about money through the lens of our nervous system, we create space for collective transformation.
Final Thoughts
You were never meant to navigate money from a place of panic or shame.
You were meant to engage with it from a place of power, presence, and self-compassion.
Your nervous system is not the problem—it’s the starting point.
When you learn to listen to it, partner with it, and support it, everything shifts.
Because the way you relate to money is the way you relate to yourself.
And that relationship? It deserves care.
About our Founder + President
Ana Ramos is the Founder & President of Amida. An innovator in wealth management, Ana applies advanced forms of financial planning with physical and mental well-being into an entity called Amida World.
Her methods have pioneered a new way of working in an industry ready for change. Ana calls it a way to “Transform Your Vision of Wealth.”
Ana is an experienced and trusted financial advisor, working in wealth management since 2005.
Read more about Amida World, all that it encompasses and the visionary behind it all:
- Ana Ramos, Founder + President of Amida
- Amida Wealth Advisors
- Amida Business Management
- Amida Lifestyle
If this content resonates with you, we’d love for you to share it with your circle. Wealth-being is a gift everyone deserves to experience!
