Written by: Aimee Teesdale, Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
When I was 12 years old, I overheard my parents having a huge argument. I heard items being thrown — one of which may have been a fist — something my Dad denied when I asked at the time, but my Mum affirmed. To this day, I still have no idea who was telling the truth.
I described the event in my diary as "World War III, breaking out in my home." I was terrified. I also wrote, "I hate my Dad. But he can't leave; we could never survive on my Mom's wages."
This, plus the bullying I faced at school for not wearing the latest Adidas trainers like all the other kids, left me feeling desperate for money in the hope it’d bring me safety and security.
I spent the following 20 years of my life assuming that ‘when I have money, then I will feel safe and secure,’ and believe me, I did some things I am not proud of to try to get it, including actively seeking sugar daddies and investing what savings I did have into dodgy ‘get rich quick’ schemes (only to lose it all.)
I was approaching burnout, constantly on the treadmill feeling like I was on the verge of success and security, but never seeming to arrive.
For 5 years, I built my business in survival mode, and I constantly felt like I was struggling to keep my head above water. I borrowed money and invested in countless coaches and marketing courses, thinking that that’d be the thing that finally got me to where I wanted to be: metaphorically safe on dry land.
My experience highlights a huge error in human thinking that most of us fall victim to: believing that something external and outside of us will give us the feeling we most desire. Whether it be money, status, or romantic partners, we strive for those things without realizing that what we are really striving for is some form of love, safety, or belonging.
The other thing I couldn’t see at the time was that my financial situation was NOT the cause of me feeling financially insecure.
But rather, my financial insecurity was the cause of my financial situation.
Those highly emotional experiences that I encountered as a child led me to believe ‘I can’t survive without money’ and ‘I don’t have much of it,’ beliefs that colored my perception of reality the same way a pair of sunglasses colors it too. Those beliefs then drove corresponding behaviors that made my external reality match my internal one more and more.
Your beliefs always precede reality. So if you want a different reality, start by changing your beliefs.
That’s what I had to do: I had to confront the fear that I’d spent the previous 20 years trying to run away from. I cried like the fearful little girl who just wanted someone to look after her. And I gave myself the thing I had been searching for all that time: safety and security. I let go of the idea that it’d come from money and embraced the idea that it comes from within. More specifically, it comes from love: loving myself, knowing that others love me, and committing to helping others love themselves unconditionally. As if by magic, the more I love, the safer and more prosperous I become.
Because that’s all that financial insecurity really is. It’s not a lack of money. It’s a lack of self-love. And there is nothing external or outside of you that can ever give you that. No amount of money will make you feel safe if you don’t allow yourself to feel safe. No level of success will make you feel loved if you don’t give that love to yourself. Everything you truly desire comes from within, by removing the barriers that get in the way of you feeling loved, safe, and belonging in the first place.
Sure enough, I am now financially secure, free, and prosperous for life, simply because I choose to be simply because I choose love.
I invite you to choose love, too.
If you want to find out more about how you can create financial security, freedom, and prosperity from doing only what you love, enroll in my free 4-part training where I share the tools that have enabled me to do the same.
Aimee Teesdale, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine Aimee Teesdale is an international six-figure success coach, speaker, author, podcast host, and digital nomad, living her dream life whilst enabling others to live theirs. Using her signature 5D Method™, Fearless Framework™ and Love.To.G.I.V.E Approach™, she enables service-based business owners and entrepreneurs to accelerate towards six-figure success and create financial security, freedom, and prosperity from doing only what they love faster than ever. Her ability to create such rapid transformational results with her clients is due to her personal experience overcoming 20 years of struggle, fear, and severely limiting beliefs. Discovering the secret to success - both for individuals and humanity - really is: less fear, more love.
