The Unworthiness wealth wound, often called the worthiness wound, is a quiet sense that you don’t deserve the money, success or support you’re building. It’s one of the 5 wealth wounds, usually rooted in childhood, and its antidote is Worthiness: the felt sense that you’re allowed to have more.
From the outside it rarely looks like a money problem. It looks like over-delivering, undercharging and saying “oh, it was nothing.” Do you resonate with any of these?
Do you resonate with any of the following?
- I don’t deserve wealth
- I’m not good enough or smart enough
- I don’t follow through
- Money only comes from doing things I hate
These are all beliefs that stem from an Unworthiness #WealthWound.
Take the #WealthWound quiz here to find out which of the five main beliefs are your current bottleneck.
What is an unworthiness wound in regards to wealth?
A worthiness wound is a deep-rooted block that prevents us from fully experiencing abundance, and is often a type of origin wound. (Meaning, a wound that is a result of painful childhood experiences.) Feeling unworthy can also be the result of a prioritization wound, which is when you experience pain at a young age because you weren’t a priority in your family. These origin wounds can prevent us from embracing feelings of security.
It stems from a feeling of not being deserving, capable, or worthy enough to have the wealth we desire. This can lead to a cycle of self-sabotage, where we find ourselves making decisions that limit our potential for financial success. Common symptoms of an unworthiness #WealthWound include:
- procrastination
- avoidance behaviors
- obsessing over past failures
- negative self-talk
- playing small and holding themselves back from taking risks or pursuing opportunities.
The Problems With Unworthiness Around Money
People who have this type of worthiness wound struggle with feeling inadequate or insecure of making more money or experiencing abundance. This emotional wound causes subconscious thoughts that impact their decisions, and those decisions prevent them from becoming more abundant. It’s a self fulfilling prophecy: they don’t feel worthy of money, so they push it away subconsciously.
Ultimately, this prevents them from investing in themselves and their goals – not just with money, but by not putting their time and energy into what would aid in creating more abundance. They may also be driven by fear and self-doubt instead of being motivated by potential success (since they don’t believe they can enjoy those the success).
This fear leads them to make decisions that are limiting, and it can be very difficult to break out of this cycle. To make matters worse, this sense of unworthiness can manifest itself in destructive patterns such as impulsive spending or gambling. And obviously, these patterns make it 1) easier to believe they aren’t worthy of more success and 2) make it harder from a practical perspective to actually create abundance.
The good news is that with awareness + self accountability = anyone can heal and release the unworthiness #WealthWound.
Personal Story of Unworthiness
While unworthiness isn’t my primary core wound, it definitely reared its head throughout my own healing journey. For me, it showed up in the form of spending any overflow I had.
I’m still proud of my rapid and epic success in entrepreneurship. I had my first 5-figure sales month ($14,000) when I still had a part time job and only 300 people in a Facebook group.
But as my income grew, and my self care declined, I never took the time to check in with myself outside some basic mindset work. And this mindset work was effective – but only to a point.
In 2019, I invested in a mastermind. It was $9800 and only 8 weeks long, but I was able to pay for that in cash and ROI in those eight weeks. After that program was over, I quit my part time job to go full time into coaching. I had my first $20k month, and $30k month and later that year a $60k month.
But, I was FULL of fear. I never knew how I would repeat the success of the previous month. And this feeling of fear + my desire to have a seat at the table with people I compared myself to led to me to invest in masterminds that weren’t the best fit. I stopped trusting myself, started trying to become people I wasn’t and one day I woke up and realized:
I was paying my coaches more than I was paying myself.
That was an eye opening realization. And while I fully believe in investing in mentors, I made a decision that day that I will always put my financial safety and abundance first. I committed to pay myself more than what I was paying mentors. And if my income doesn’t support an investment I want to make + paying myself generously? Then it might not be the right time for that particular investment.
That is how unworthiness, then worthiness, showed up for me.
What does the Unworthiness wealth wound feel like in your body?
Unworthiness feels like shrinking. Your body pulls inward the moment you’re asked to take up space, whether that means stating your price, accepting a compliment or receiving a payment. The discomfort isn’t about the money itself. It’s about letting yourself be someone who has it.
Common signs:
- Your face gets hot or your voice goes up when you say your rates.
- You deflect compliments or quickly give something back.
- You feel uneasy after a big payment lands, and the urge to over-deliver kicks in.
- You pay everyone else first. For a while I was paying my coaches more than I paid myself.
Worthiness is built by practicing receiving until your body stops flinching. When someone pays you or thanks you, pause for one breath. Say “thank you” and nothing else.
The Antidote: Worthiness
Worthiness helps you manifest by removing an unworthy mindset, which can often lead to a feeling of insignificance or lack of importance.
The truth is: you matter, and you are here on purpose.
A lot of unworthiness lives in our subconscious, which is why even though you may have tried “all the things” to heal your money mindset, you’re seeing these patterns persist. If you want to heal this wound, part of what will need to happen is to understand what’s happening in your nervous system and subconscious.
When we declare ourselves as worthy and capable, we open up our minds to receive all the abundance that life has to offer. This allows us to tap into a powerful energy source that can help us create the life we want and the future we desire.
By trusting that you are supported and safe and worthy of being supported, we are better able to focus on our goals, and we open ourselves to more creativity.
Terminal Uniqueness
Feeling like you’re not enough is one of the most common ways the Unworthiness wealth wound shows up in business. It sounds like “other people can do this, but not me”, which some therapists call terminal uniqueness: the belief that your situation is the one exception to what’s possible.
It’s really common for people to think, “Okay, I really appreciate these tools that you’re sharing with me, but they won’t work for me because of X, Y, or Z..”
For example, someone in my previous free Facebook group. When she first came into the Mindful Marketing Maven group, she was completely broke. She was on food stamps, her husband hadn’t had a job in a really long time, and I got on a sales call with her, even though I didn’t think she would buy anything from me. I felt that if I could just talk to this person for five minutes, I could open up their mind to what’s possible.
She went on to reach consistent $11,000 months. Her circumstances weren’t easy, but she refused to believe they made her the exception.
She COULD have come up with a lot of reasons that she couldn’t do it. Instead, she decided to take action, no matter what. And that worked for her. I really appreciate that she didn’t have terminal uniqueness.
The thoughts that tell you you’re not enough are often automatic negative thoughts: fast, habitual and based on old biases rather than evidence. Don’t argue with them; become a gentle observer of them. Notice the thought, name it, and ask whether it’s actually true today.
How to Feel More Worthy of Money and Abundance
So how do we come to feel more worthy?
The first step to dealing with a pervasive sense of unworthiness is building is self acceptance. We all make mistakes and that no one is perfect. Reminding ourselves of this can often help us to be more accepting of our flaws and imperfections, and less critical of ourselves.
This self-acceptance is the foundation for feeling worthy of love.
Tips for cultivating Worthiness
1. Positive self talk
Practice positive self-talk. Challenge any negative beliefs or thoughts we may have about ourselves. It’s important to remember that even if our thoughts are irrational, they still affect our feelings. Start by writing down good things you like about yourself every day, similar to a gratitude list, but about yourself. Additionally, when you feel unworthiness creeping in, identify the limiting beliefs behind your thoughts. Once you identify the limiting beliefs, write corresponding affirmations and read them daily (or a few times a week). The idea is to replace limiters with new core beliefs over time.
2. Mindfulness
Mindfulness can also be powerful in cultivating self-love and worthiness. Take time every day to focus on the present moment. Over time, mindfulness builds your ability to experience more peace in your inner world. Then that acceptance helps us to recognize our own value instead of looking for validation from others. Practicing mindfulness techniques such as yoga, meditation, breathwork or journaling connects us with ourselves in a deeper way. And this fosters feelings of self-love and worthiness from within.
3. Self care
It’s also important to take care of your physical health. Not only does this directly impact our mental health and emotionality, but it creates more confidence. Eat nutritious food that makes you feel good. Move your body in ways that feel fun. Figure out the amount of sleep you need to function best. Drink water every day, and don’t forget to take breaks throughout the day. These small habits built over time ensure our bodies are well taken care of, so we can foster both the physical and emotional strength needed to recognize our worthiness.
4. Receive love
Lastly, it’s important not just to accept, but also receive love from others. Learning to RECEIVE is a powerful tool. Whether it’s receiving love from family members to help heal family systems, or receiving love from friends or romantic partners – receiving love reinforces our own self-worth. It doesn’t matter how “small” these gestures may seem – paying attention to them strengthens our belief in ourselves and shows us that we are indeed worthy of unconditional love!
Attracting Abundance Through Worthiness
After working on your worthiness, you can then start attracting abundance by changing your focus.
There’s lots of ways to do this, and I talk more about it in this post about manifesting, and in this post that includes the “abundance antidote”.
In the context of worthiness, use the power of focus to focus on YOU. What are your skills and strengths? It’s so easy for us to focus on what we are not, or what we don’t have. But it’s just as easy to focus on the good things you’re a natural at – it just takes intention.
You might even create empowering personal development goals. For example:
- set some goals around increasing your financial literacy
- actively seek out opportunities to develop a skill or interest
- brainstorm ways to diversify your income streams
- create a health or movement goal for yourself
It’s selfless and important for you to become abundant.
Remind yourself regularly why it is important for you to receive money and abundance. And of course – you will personally benefit by having more abundance. But don’t forget that YOUR abundance positively impacts the world and the people around you as well!
Having the resources necessary to achieve financial freedom supports your long-term plans and dreams. These could be anything from having the ability to pay off debt faster or buying a house sooner rather than later. For many of my clients, it gives them the ability to give more generously (both time and money).
Finally, look after yourself physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually – holistically – like you would take care of any other valuable resource in your life. How would you treat expensive cars, cherished pets, etc.?
All of these activities combined over time will increases our comfort with more wealth.
FAQs
Q: What is a worthiness wound? A: A worthiness wound is a deep, often unconscious belief that you don’t deserve good things, including money, love, rest or success. When it shows up around money, I call it the Unworthiness wealth wound. It’s one of the 5 wealth wounds, and its antidote is Worthiness.
Q: What are the signs of unworthiness with money? A: Common signs include undercharging, over-delivering, discomfort receiving payments or compliments, and paying everyone before yourself. Another is pushing away opportunities right as they arrive. You might earn well and still feel like a fraud, as if the money will be taken back once people find out.
Q: Why do I undercharge for my services? A: Undercharging is often the Unworthiness wealth wound at work. Your price feels like a statement about your value as a person, so raising it feels unsafe. Market research alone rarely fixes this. Raising your prices sticks once your body can hold the higher number without panic.
Q: How do I heal a worthiness wound? A: Healing a worthiness wound means building evidence in your body that you’re safe to receive. Practice small acts of receiving, like accepting help, keeping a compliment, or resting without earning it first. Pair those with kind self-talk and support from someone who can see your patterns.
Next Steps: Healing Wealth Wounds
Not sure which wealth wound is yours? Take the free quiz in the Wealth Wound Antidote Kit. Six questions tell you your wound, your antidote, and what to do next. For the big picture, start with what a wealth wound is and where it comes from.
Read the other wealth wounds:
- Money Fears: when the other shoe always feels about to drop (antidote: Courage)
- Money Avoidance: when not looking feels safer (antidote: Receptiveness)
- Scarcity: when enough is never enough (antidote: Abundance)
- Unworthiness: when you don’t feel you deserve it (antidote: Worthiness)
- Martyr: when less money feels more noble (antidote: Empowerment)
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