Feel Good Finance: Exploring Financial Therapy with Aja Evans

Aja Evans
Aja Evans Counseling
Author of Feel Good Finance

Aja has been featured in a variety of major news outlets, including The New York Times, Business Insider, NerdWallet, Time, and Teen Vogue. Aja is on a mission to get more people engaged in living their best lives while attuning to their thoughts, feelings, and behaviors around money. Outside of work, you can find Aja chasing after her two young children as they hunt down the next delicious place to eat. 

 Kirby Rosplock

Welcome to the Tamarind Learning podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Kirby Rosplock. Today, we're talking financial therapy. It's going to be a great one. We're talking with Aja Evans. She's a financial therapist, and she just released a new book. It's called Feel Good Finance. If you haven't heard about it, it's really cool. And she just put it out this year, and I've been turning many pages reading it. So really excited to have you on the show today. Welcome, Aja.

Aja Evans

Yeah. Thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited to chat because I just feel like in general, we all need to feel better about our finances. It doesn't matter how much money you have. I think there's always a lot of work that we can get to beneath the surface when it comes to our relationship with money. So Feel Good Finance is really just walking my readers through why your relationship with money looks the way it looks. How did you get here? Where did that come from? How do you connect the patterns of your life and life experiences to what you do with your money today? So the book really is almost like sitting in my room with me on the couch and having a financial therapy session, probably multiple because it takes a little time, and understanding and untangling your feelings around money, your emotions around money, and your behaviors around money. So the book is just a nice little private moment for you to have if you start asking yourself the hard questions about why do you feel the way you do about money.

Kirby Rosplock

And how did you come to do this work? I mean, what inspired you to get into therapy, but specifically financial therapy?

Aja Evans

Yeah. So I had always known that I wanted to be a therapist. From a very young age, I'll be honest, I think I was 12 when I decided, Hey, I I'm going to be a therapist. And my idea of what a therapist was at 12, obviously, it's very different once you go through all the schooling. But that set me on the path of knowing that I wanted to help people in this way. I've always been a natural born cheerleader for people and just wanting people to feel really good about themselves. So self-esteem work has just always been deep rooted in my foundation as a therapist. So I've been working in mental health at this point for 15 years, but it was 10 years ago where I have my own financial awakening of trying to figure out, Hey, why do I feel bad if I can't financially keep up with my friends? How come I feel like I need to be doing something different or I'm missing something or I'm behind the eight ball, if you will. And I was like, I could not be the only person going through this. So I started researching.

Aja Evans

That was when I really dove into personal finance, really dove into all the books, all the blogs. I could not get enough of it. I thought I wanted to leave health for a bit. I thought I wanted to become a CFP, but realized that we need to bridge the gap somehow. I wasn't searching for what I now know as financial therapy. So five years ago is when I really niched down into specifically talking to people about their relationship with money. I'm clinically trained as a therapist, have my master's degree in counseling psychology, again, have worked pretty much anywhere in mental health, all levels of care. But now I really focus specifically on our relationship with money in my practice. So I see individuals and couples, and we're really just diving into why do you do the things that you do with money? Do you like it? Do you not like it? How do you feel about it? And what comes up for you that you feel like you should ignore? But sometimes you realize you're repeating the same cycles and patterns over and over again.

Kirby Rosplock

Yeah. To go from doing the work, counseling and giving a lot of time and care and nurture to putting pen to paper. I mean, that's a labor in love. I know as an author myself. So what motivated you to take the leap to cross over and decide to write the book?

Aja Evans

Yeah. So I didn't know this at the time, but I had always been a writer. I always loved taking pen to paper about feelings or stories. And I knew I wanted to write a book someday, but I had no idea that it was going to be about feel good finance. And I had been working with a writing coach just trying to formulate my ideas for my website and my blog and my newsletter. And I had very casually mentioned to her, Hey, one day I'll write a book, and just left it there and was like, I'm not paying attention to this. And she brought it up again and was like, Well, when you're ready to write your book, we should really talk about this because I do think this is important information for people to have. And I just was like, You're right. Yes, let's do it. And that really ignited this part of myself that I didn't know existed, which was that I am a writer. I wanted to engage with people. I like being myself and funny in words on paper. When you're reading a book, especially when you're reading Feel Good, it's like, that is how I talk.

Aja Evans

You see it in the book. It is there for you. So I wanted to give people more access to that. I can't see everybody. Sometimes there are boundaries to what people can afford when it comes to seeing a privately practicing therapist. So I wanted to be mindful of that and wanted to get this message out for people who may not be ready to talk about it and say those words out loud that they could in private, at home, wherever you are, commuting, whatnot, have the moment to be like, Oh, you know what? I do need to examine this. I haven't thought about that one memory in a long time. So a book was a really great way to give people privacy to start exploring some of these feelings that may come up.

Kirby Rosplock

So for those of us who are not ready to commit to therapy, maybe this is the way you put your toe or your finger in the water and say, Maybe I should just see how I feel about some of these things, because I think we all know that we have a relationship with money, whether we want to admit it or not. And so it is. It's such an important thing. And we have relationships with money, and then we have relationships with others. And that's impacted by how our relationship with money is and how it impacts Yeah, right? So let's go deeper here because we have these tangled relationships with money that now impact our mental state, our emotional state, our self-esteem. Talk to us about the traps that we fall into regarding money and how that impacts our everyday life.

Aja Evans

Yeah. So I mean, there's so many, right?

Kirby Rosplock

Yeah. I know. Pick a couple.

Aja Evans

The list could be endless.

Kirby Rosplock

Yeah, pick a couple.

Aja Evans

The list could be endless when we're talking about how we feel about our money, but mostly it really is about how we feel about ourselves, right? So really looking at how do you feel if you can afford something that everybody around you cannot afford? How do you feel when you can't afford something where everybody around you, you feel like they can afford it, you have no idea how they're doing it, but sometimes those feelings bubble up. And how do you then either compensate for those feelings using money? And I think we don't realize how quickly it is for us to go spend money to help us cope with a feeling. So sometimes that's, Hey, I don't feel great today, or, I didn't like how I presented today. I'm going to go treat myself to happy hour I'm going to go eat, or, Hey, you know what? I saw this other person in the office, and they looked so great. I need to go shopping, too. I need to go buy the latest whatever. You fill in the blank there. So a lot of that is our social interactions with other people. A lot of that is us craving to be seen in a certain way.

Aja Evans

And it's also comparison. So I think we fall into these traps sometimes so automatically that we don't even realize that we're doing it, and we're trying to get out of that feeling so quickly that we use money to get out of it, which is fine for the most part. But I also want to make sure that people have healthy coping strategies they can reach for when that stuff bubbles up and that they're able to realize, Oh, that made me feel small, and that's why I want to go shopping right now. Or, Oh, I felt really amazing about that moment. How do I continue getting that validation or that gratitude from other people? What do I need to do to keep that feeling going? So I think a lot of times it's so automatic that we don't pay attention to it, and I want people to start getting a little bit more intentional about it.

Kirby Rosplock

That's a great point. And that ties maybe to self-esteem, how money becomes a validator. So when we do something good, we reward ourselves to reward our self-esteem because we're like, Hey, you did something good. This is part of, you're so much better now. And so I think we wanted to do that monetarily, but do we need to? Does money really make us help our self-esteem or not? I think there's a chapter in your book, and I love the title. It was an expletive in it, and it had pumpkin, too, which I love Pumpkins. Tell us a little bit more about that chapter and how that ties to this whole conversation.

Aja Evans

Yeah. So the chapter is really about what it means when you're just going through a store, browsing around, and you are trying to create this person, whether that person is you or somebody else in your life or your home. I am trying to put the façade together with this pillow, with this shoe, with this accent piece. It literally could be anything. But the idea is that what you're trying to do is, hey, me losing weight is in the next beautiful workout set I get. I am going to be better because I have this car. I am going to feel better about myself. People are going to know who I am and that I am somebody of importance because I'm signaling to them through XYZ, you fill in the blank. So that chapter really is about take a pause and how do you feel about yourself? Are you trying to signal this to other people because you actually don't feel that way within. And how do we start addressing that versus utilizing the quick hit of dopamine that you will get? It does work, to be clear. Retail therapy does work. It just doesn't last.

Aja Evans

And I want people to start getting a little a bit more intentional of what brings me joy, what makes me feel valued, and how do I make sure that I am valuing myself and taking care of myself in a way that I can sustain. Because spending all of your money to shop and look good and feel good, it's okay for a hot second, but it doesn't last. And I want lasting changes for the people that I work with in my clients. And sometimes that means that we have to have a hard conversation about how you actually feel about yourself. And the strange thing that happens for people is that they tie their net worth to their self-worth, and they believe that who they are because of who their job is or what they do is going to be enough to make them feel really great. And sometimes it does, but a lot of times it doesn't. When you lay your head down at night, do you feel really great about who you are and how you showed up in the world? And those are the hard questions that I want people to ask. But sometimes it weaves through buying things you may or may not need because you're trying to feel better.

Kirby Rosplock

Yeah. And it goes for the opposite end, right? So maybe you're not trying to level up. Maybe you're trying to save as much as possible. Maybe you're on the discount side of things. I have someone in my family who's like, Mom, I'm good. I bought 27 of something because it was on deep discount. I'm like, but you only needed one. And this might be one of my daughters. I'm like, you only need one of those. But there was 27 that I could get on super deep discount. So I think it goes also in reverse sometimes, where we don't even realize that we think that because we could get something for so much less, that the same money thing can happen, and we don't even realize that we're being sold way too much, right?

Aja Evans

A hundred percent.

Kirby Rosplock

Talk to us about fitting in, because I think money relationships also have a lot to do with where we fit in, do we fit in? Am I trying to level up into a bigger shoes, or am I trying to hide from what I'm really about, what I was born into? Tell us all about money relationships and finding your people.

Aja Evans

Yeah. I think right now that it's just a hard time for a lot of people. I think a lot of people are lonely and really struggling about where's their community, where are the people that see them for who they are. And money is a really easy way for us to access pretty much anything that we want. With enough money, you can access the things that you want. And I think what ends up happening is that people misconstrued wanting to feel seen and wanting community with, Hey, This is what it's going to look like for other people. If I show up as this person, people will like me, see me, respect me, fill in the blanks. But I think a lot of times what happens is that they really want genuine, real, deep deep relationships and connection where you can be vulnerable with somebody else. But getting to those places is really hard. It is really hard to show up and trust somebody or bury your soul about some parts of your life that you may not have shared with other people in effort of creating a really healthy friendship or relationship that feels like you can be yourself.

Aja Evans

There's a lot of trust involved in that, and that can be really difficult. And sometimes it really is just easier to say, Hey, these are my We have good time friends that we go. We have a good time. We party. We have fun together. But that's amazing. I love that for people. You should have those friends, but you also need the friends that you can go to when you're like, Hey, I'm having a really bad day. Do you mind just coming over and sitting with me and let's watch a movie together? Or, I'm feeling really lonely. Do you have time to chat right now? Or I'm going through this really hard life transition. And we need that. Humans need that type of connection. But I think we have gotten away from it a little bit in that a lot of our lives are online, and we have community in the parasocial relationships, but nothing beats being able to sit across from somebody and then be like, I see you. I hear you. I care about you. You are valued. You are worthy. And I'm going to be here no matter how ugly this gets for you because I love you and I want to be here to support you.

Aja Evans

And I think we really need that in general. But it's hard, and sometimes it's just easier to be like, Hey, let's go out to eat. Let's all get together, and don't worry about this. Let's go on vacation. But I want to make sure people have true, real deep relationships as well, too, because that's equally as important. You can do all that fun stuff with them, too.

Kirby Rosplock

Aja, if there's a couple of things to leave our listeners and viewers with today from your book, from your practice, what would it be?

Aja Evans

I would say you're not alone. I think shame and guilt keeps people feeling like they're the only ones going through this and that they should do something different. You're not alone. I promise you somebody else is in a very similar position. Then I would say find your people. It's very important to feel comfortable where you can have these conversations about money because that breaks up shame and the guilt. That is the antidote, is having community is the antidote to shame and guilt. So money is hard, and that's okay, but it doesn't have to be.

Kirby Rosplock

And if they need to come find you and figure some of this stuff out, how can they reach you.

Aja Evans

So you can reach me at my website, ajaevanscounseling.com. I'm also on the socials as well, Aja E-Therapy. And you can join my newsletter. I love to write back to people. And if you feel like you want to get started in understanding financial therapy, just reach out and ask. I'm always happy to answer because I think sometimes people are like, Wait, you do what? Tell me more.

Kirby Rosplock

Yeah. So Aja, you are a luminary. It's such a bright light in this space. Thank you so much for all your time today sharing this on The Tamarind Learning Podcast. We're delighted to have you here. And again, find a lot more about Aja and her practice, and definitely pick up her book because there's so much wonderful insights there. And we loved having you today here on the Tamarind Learning podcast. Thanks so much.

Aja Evans

Thank you