By Lily Boyar
My name is Lily and for the last twelve months, I’ve been one of the voices behind the content you’ve been reading at Graddha
When I first learned about the company, I was initially both intrigued and slightly skeptical. On one hand, I was drawn to the idea of discussing relationship dynamics, communication, and human behavior. My parents are both therapists and I was about to start a graduate program for Counseling Psychology in the fall. You could say that an interest in people and relationships is somewhat embedded in my DNA.
But I will admit, I was a bit confused about Graddha’s focus on the topic of wealth. It seemed very niche. I couldn’t help but wonder, is money really an emotional subject for the wealthy? And more importantly, do rich people have real problems?
Shortly after joining Graddha, we began wading into these complex conversations. We discussed how money has power, and without the right support or communication, it could fracture relationships, or cause shame and pain. I assumed wealth facilitated ease and removed barries, so I couldn’t quite understand what made it so challenging or complicated. I knew Graddha could have value for some people, but I assumed that these conversations were only useful for a small subset of ultra-wealthy individuals, to which I didn’t belong. I certainly had no idea how this work would affect me personally.
Now, I am preparing to leave Graddha to begin my field hours as a therapist at a local high school and I am reflecting on this experience. I am reminded of all that I’ve learned in the past year and how working with Graddha has shaped my wealth identity.
I am Not Wealthy, Trust me.
My parents both worked when I was growing up, and gave my sister and me everything we needed, and then some. We had a nice home, went on family vacations, and got “back to school” clothes each year. They helped pay for our college tuition, and fronted the bill for dance lessons and summer camp. By most people’s standards, we were rich. But not by mine.
I grew up in a heavily affluent community. As a result, I associated being “wealthy” with designer handbags, lavish parties, a BMW convertible, and the ability to fly first class. Being “rich” meant having a membership to a private yacht club or owning a timeshare in Mexico. I laugh now because even creating these arbitrary “benchmarks’’ reveals the opportunity and immense wealth I was exposed to growing up. But to me, it was very black and white. I didn’t have a trust fund or a house featured in Architectural Digest, so I must not have been rich.
The topic of money wasn’t explicitly discussed in my family. Interestingly, we were comfortable navigating sticky emotional topics and controversial subjects like religion and politics, but money wasn’t a primary topic of conversation. We occasionally talked about budgeting and financial management, but we didn’t discuss the emotions money elicited.
But we did talk about values. My family discussed the importance of education and travel. And although I was never left wanting for much, my parents were very clear about what they deemed worthy of spending, and what they considered to be frivolous. They often warned me about becoming spoiled and ungrateful and would roll their eyes when I would ask for something obnoxious that I justified with, “but my friend’s parents let them have it!”
Yet, my family’s beliefs about money and how it should be used often clashed with the messages I received from my surrounding environment, leaving me unresolved about my own values in this area. I watched wealthy families around me struggle with pressures to “Keep up with the Jones” (or the Kardashians) and I associated these challenges with what it meant to be well resourced. Clearly my one-dimensional idea of wealth kept me from seeing that I too had money. And more importantly, I was able to avoid confronting my own feelings about what this meant.
Waking Up to Wealth
By the time I went to college, the jig was up and I quickly realized that I grew up in a very privileged bubble. And this made me cringe. How did I not know that I too was part of the 1%? I often downplayed the opportunities I had growing up when talking to new friends in a painful effort to seem “relatable” and down-to-earth. I struggled to negotiate my own beliefs about money with the wealthy trope I had created from my childhood. I only had one exaggerated template of what it meant to be well resourced and I didn’t feel I matched the stereotype. I had a real fear about how money might warp my values and priorities. Who was I with wealth?
Talking About Money
My experience at Graddha was the first time I really began to talk openly about money. I remember it felt uncomfortable and even scandalous initially. But as I practiced having these conversations, I was able to slowly deconstruct the many beliefs, fears, attitudes and judgements I had developed around the topic.
For the first time, I learned that I had a relationship with money — and a complicated one at that! This wasn’t a concept I had considered before. I saved, spent, and managed my finances, but I wasn’t aware that I had emotions, expectations, and fears tied up in money. In fact, I feared being wealthy. And the irony was, I was wealthy all along. But I had created such a narrow idea of what financial wealth was supposed to look like and therefore never considered how it impacted me.
And here I was hauling around “money baggage” and dragging it in adulthood. And it was unconsciously making its way into my everyday life, decisions and relationships. When I started living on my own, paying my own bills, and taking out loans to pay for graduate school, I was confronted with the fact that the wealth I grew up with wasn’t really mine. Now it was my turn to build my own financial future and choose the role money was going to play in my life. Through my experience with Graddha, I’ve begun to unwind my relationship with money and develop a deeper awareness of where my ideas and beliefs about money stem from. I’ve learned that there are many ways to live well with resources and I can choose and live into an authentic and empowering money narrative.
What I Know Now
I never expected that Graddha’s mission and message would impact me in such a profoundly personal way. I am taking with me a set of new practices and ways of thinking about my continuously evolving financial identity. My biggest discovery was understanding what money means to me. I’ve learned that it is not only a survival resource, but a vehicle for expressing my personal values, lifting others, and facilitating connection with friends and family.
Here are a few lessons I learned that might be helpful for you too:
- It is important to talk openly about each of your money stories in a committed partnership. What does money mean to both of you? What are each of your goals and aspirations around money? Through decisions made together and conversations about wealth, a couple eventually forms a collective financial identity, regardless of whether they share finances.
- There are many ways to live with wealth. And sometimes, our rigid ideas can limit our ability to see ourselves clearly. What might be standing in your way?
- Wealth is about much more than money. You can be wealthy in friendship and connection, family, spirituality, and more.
- Wealth can be a powerful tool for living a meaningful life. Money has the ability to lift people up and contribute to important causes. But if we don’t get out of our own way and understand our money story for ourselves, we can become stuck operating from a place of fear or insecurity. When people take the time to understand their own relationship to their wealth, they can use their resources more intentionally and maximize their impact.
As I am preparing for this bittersweet ending with Graddha, I feel lucky to have had the opportunity to reflect on my own wealth identity. I know my exploration will only continue and now I feel better equipped to meet whatever challenges lie ahead.
