In August 2024, I had VSG surgery. Vertical sleeve gastrectomy. A major procedure that permanently changed the size of my stomach, and with it, my entire relationship with food.

The recovery was hard. Not primarily because of the physical pain, although it was certainly uncomfortable. It was hard because for the first time in my life, I could not use food for comfort. Not even a little. While my stomach healed, food as a coping mechanism was completely off the table. And that meant I had to sit with every uncomfortable emotion I had been numbing for years.

That experience cracked something open in me. Because I had spent years sitting across from clients who were doing the exact same thing with their money.

Not facing their numbers. Not opening the statements. Spending in ways that felt good in the moment and terrible afterward. Using money the way I had been using food. As a way to avoid feeling something they did not want to feel.

When you cannot run from the hard thing anymore, ...

The first thing I learned about money had nothing to do with a bank account.

I was about ten years old. My mom was a single mom, and she had hurt her back badly enough that she could not go grocery shopping. So she sent my brother and me to the store with a list and a set amount of cash. I remember standing in the aisle doing math in my head, trying to figure out if we had enough for everything on the list. We did not. We had to make choices about what to put back.

That experience taught me something I carry to this day: money is about choices. It is about trade-offs. And your feelings about those trade-offs start forming long before you ever earn a paycheck.

I share this because when I sit down with a new client and we start talking about money, the conversation almost always goes deeper than numbers. It goes to a place that feels more like identity. She will say something like, "I have always been bad with money." Or, "I do not deserve to have more than I need." Or, "Money just st...