Hello everyone. I'm very happy and delighted to be able to introduce to you a fabulous woman she and I met through a community that we're in business-wise. Her name is Susan Schloss. She's a certified money coach, CMC, and she has more than 25 years in financial service and a lifetime of spiritual practice. I think she's gonna have some amazing wisdom to share with you today. Susan's passionate about facilitating breakthroughs in her clients' relationships with money. She combines practical financial expertise with intuitive inspiration, guiding her clients to integrate the spiritual and the material so they can open the door to greater prosperity on all levels. And who wouldn't want that? So, Susan, I'm so happy for you to be here. I wanna welcome you Susan Schloss, welcome to Say Yes to Your Soul.

Thank you so much, Tessa, for having me. What a joy.

You're welcome. Now, I also know that you have, I just have to mention this 'cause I don't know if we're gonna be talking about it later, so I wanna get it out now. You also have a musical background, music therapy, and that was exciting for me to learn about you because I'm also a musician and have a background in that. And I understand the power of sound, you know, sort of like one of the highest vibrations there can be, right?

That's right, yes. And part of my journey has been integrating that with the money coaching.

Oh, I really like that. So why don't you go ahead and take things away. Take us on the journey that you wanna share with us today, Susan.

Well, I did not think I would ever be in the money world. That was not in my consciousness at all growing up. And or, you know, as I got into college, I went to school at a music conservatory and got into music therapy because I was very interested in psychology. So as I got into that career, I was kind of disillusioned because I found that I was on my own recovery path from a, you know, traumatic childhood. I was really triggered in those mental health environments that seemed very dysfunctional to me. So I got into the business world, you know, started temping, found out I had some skills and step by step ended up at Schwab that had nothing to do with investing for me. I wasn't interested in investing particularly.

Well, that's an interesting thing. Yeah. You wound up there, isn't it? ?

It is. It's all, you know, taking the next right step, right?

Mm-hmm.

And in that work, I ended up getting my license as an investment specialist, which I did enjoy working with the clients, and I learned a lot. I learned a lot. But the thing that attracted me about Schwab is I heard it was a good company to work for, and just applying for that job inspired me to become a new frequency of somebody in the world, in the work world, you know, more professional. And so that's something that I've learned along the way is when there's a desire to move into a new level, to start being that level right then.

That's exciting. Yeah. Now, you probably weren't thinking that at the time, right?

I actually was.

Oh

I actually was, you know.

So how did that happen for you?

Well, I was at a job that I was doing word processing. I was head of the department or the lead word processor, and I just started having a better attitude, I guess would be one way to say it. Being more helpful, being more positive. And people commented on it. They noticed that there had been a shift. And then I did get a job at Schwab and you know, started out as an administrative assistant to a VP, and then you can really work your way up at that company. And I had all kinds of experiences there that were, that I had a lot of learning from.

So what you're saying is almost like you, you started to have greater self-awareness around how you were being perceived?

Yes, I would say so. And how I want it to feel.

Mm. Oh, that's a big key, isn't it?

Yeah, it really is. Because I had been kind of showing up with a bit of dread sitting at a desk all day, and...

Oh, yeah. So many people I'm sure can relate to that, right? And so there was like, there was this thing and you said to yourself somehow, you know, I wanna feel differently. And what was that process like for you, or that inner shifting?

I imagined what it would be like to work at Schwab. It was my imagination because I didn't really know, but I imagined a more professional environment, a place where, you know, what would it take to be respected to, you know, have different skills. And then it was really through an intention, I would say, more than anything else, that I just sort of inherently knew how I needed to shift. And I was meditating at the time, so I'm sure there was an inner examination going on, inquiry going on as well.

Yeah. So it sounds like it was really organic for you.

Yes.

And but the imagination, like starting to imagine a new possibility, right? And including how you wanted to be showing up and how you wanted to feel. And those are profound keys, right? To creating a different life and to fulfilling one's dreams.

Yes, absolutely.

All right, so what happened next?

So, I was at Schwab for seven years, and during that course being there, I was diagnosed with breast cancer.

Mm-hmm.

And I took a year off, or year and a half, and at that time did a multi-level marketing business, you know, where I was out in the backyard getting a suntan while I was on the phone. You know, it was like kind of a fantasy of getting rich, you know, like these MLMs can promise a lot of times you're gonna make so much money.

Yes. So you kind of immersed yourself into that fantasy of that while you were dealing with your health.

Yes. And it was really kind of an excuse to take time off because I could have easily gone back to work, but I did not wanna go back to work, you know?

How interesting.

But I took that time off and then I started to inch my way back into the work world through leads from friends. And that's when I started to get back into the financial world. And that ultimately led to starting my own bookkeeping business, which I did have health issues. I had chronic fatigue actually in my thirties and forties. And so that has been a huge teacher for me of self-care.

I would think. So, my goodness, you've gotta really watch how you're spending your energy and your time and the activities that you're engaging in.

Yes.

Hmm.

So that's an ongoing journey. I mean, we all deal with health, you know, and as we age, there may be other health issues, but fortunately I learned that balance, that dance with the body really kind of early on. And so I'm now in my sixties and it's just so part of my lifestyle now to pay attention to how my body's doing and to pause and take care of what the needs are at any given time. But as a bookkeeper, it was not my passion, you know, but it was very flexible, and I could work at home a lot of the time. I could work my own hours. So it really served me for a long time. And I was able to hire people to a point where I actually pretty much had passive income. And that was amazing.

That is amazing.

Yes. And then this tap on the shoulder about financial coaching, money coaching started to really call to me. And because that interest in working with people, not just working with numbers, sitting at a computer, but having the interaction and helping people with a transformational process that really grabs my heart. And because of all the financial experience, it just made sense to bring those two together. And I am a numbered nerd. You know, I love to go into rabbit holes with people around there, budget and things like that. At the same time, I love to go deeply into inquiry and meditation and draw on inspiration, draw on intuition to help shift things. So the money coaching has evolved to where all those pieces can come together.

Imagine that it continues to evolve as our world changes and more and more women are coming into their own journey of dominion and sovereignty.

Absolutely. And you know, the whole thing about the hero's journey is that I find it's cyclical. We get these callings, you know, we're going along in one direction, and then something else starts to grab at our heart, right? So after being in money coaching for like six years, I had an awakening around social justice when George Floyd was murdered, and that really grabbed me as a calling. So this phase of my business and my life has been about how to first of all, uncover my own biases and do the deep work around that myself. And then how to integrate that with money coaching, and what is the message that is important to me to give. It''s such an interesting inquiry because there's the relative world and there's the universal world. So in the relative world, we do need to deal with injustice and inequities. And then on the universal world, we're one, we're all one. So holding all of that.

That is fascinating. I can tell that this is really important to you, and you really listen to that piece around injustice, and now you're integrating it in some way into your life and your business. Can you tell us a little bit more about that? How it's unfolding?

I really had a deep wish to, and do have a deep desire to create an environment that is safe for people from all backgrounds, ethnicities, sexual identification, sexual orientation. And the only way to do that is to understand at a deep level the challenges that people have gone through. And I can't be in their shoes, but doing the work of reading and grieving and feeling that pain has been really important so that I can hold a compassionate space. And I'm constantly learning that I have had so much privilege and continue just because of the color of my skin. The fact that I have an inheritance that I got when my mother passed is part of that, I've realized, and so many of my white friends have that money that is just there for us. It's so not the experience of many people of color. And so how do I hold the space for people who don't have that privilege? You know, how do I hold my own privilege in a way that can, um, support and not divide? Right?

Yes. I mean, I think that's a beautiful intention to have. And, I love that you're not saying I figured this out and, you know, this is the answer. It's like, you're really in the journey, you're in the question is what I would call it the inquiry. How can I do better right at the bottom of everything. Yeah. And holding space for everyone really inviting everyone to participate and hold whatever their journey is and not making them wrong.

Now, I think that's where sometimes I've seen in the coaching world where people get on a bandstand and be like, if you don't do it this way, you're not gonna succeed, or you're not gonna whatever. Right. We know they're out there. And I don't believe that that's true, and that's not my approach. I also embrace the principle of compassion. And I can tell, like, there's something in you that like, to me, this sounds like this is soul journey for you. This inquiry is like, wow, I've come from such and such and I know that it's important to create safety and healing where I can because we are all one. Right. You touched on that. Would you be willing to share a little bit more on that perspective with my audience?

Mm-hmm. , when we meditate, we get in touch with this place that is beyond our body, is beyond our thoughts, is beyond the fluctuations of our daily life and any, you know, challenging interactions with people or challenges with money. So that place, that is an energetic field that is connected to divine energy, that is divine energy, that's where we all connect. That's where we're all one. And what I love experiencing is that this is accessible to everybody. It's interpreted differently by each person and depending on their life experience and their religious upbringing, but it's a place where we can connect and it's really love. It's really about love.

Yes.

So that's where we all connect.

It is.

I have relatives who are very different from me politically, you know, very different from me religiously, you know, and because there's sincere in there religious practice, we connect very deeply in the heart. And there's, there's an understanding there at that point. And it transcends all the other differences.

Beautiful. So, are you saying that you feel accepted on that level with your family, even though the viewpoints are very different?

Yes. Absolutely. Absolutely. And there's enough commonality, because it really is each of us finding our own way to become better people as opposed to a dogma, you know.

Yes. Exactly. Right. Basically what you're saying is everybody being accountable for their own work in life, their own inner work and how they show up. It's amazing that you have a family that has at least some awareness of that, even though they're on a different track and you can share, you can together get to that shared heart space of love and acceptance of one another. I know many of my listeners, they are not experiencing that. And so when I'm working with clients and hearing some of their stories, I realize that it's really important for them to understand that they are enough, you know, in the eyes of the divine, and that their soul is enough. Because otherwise they tend to put the family above themselves and they can never get the acceptance, the acknowledgement that they're seeking if the family members aren't doing their inner work.

So, once they get to that understanding that the divine is for them, they're not alone, and they're not any less of a soul, right? Then they can start to do the acceptance of themselves and hold that space for their family who may never quite get it, right? But they can still have that big experience that you were talking about a few minutes ago of that connection in the oneness. Right? And that's where it's really beautiful to be able to feel that, to know it, to experience that connection, even if in the personality of their family members, let's say, it doesn't look like that connection's there, it does exist. It's just how do we continue to tap into that and allow that river of love, you know, to flow through us as we become more and more who we wanna be.

That's beautiful. I love that river of love. That's wonderful. And the person I was talking about was my brother and his family, and I have different experiences with each of my other three siblings and my parents. I'm Jewish and that brother became Christian, and we have a very deep connection. And another sibling is atheist. My parents were atheist. My sister, you know, really probably resonates the most spiritually. So all kinds of different experiences. But on that topic of the river of love, now, my mom and I had a fairly challenging relationship and she had Alzheimer's. And long, long ago I gave up wanting the approval of my parents. But it took separating from them for a while to really come to peace and to fill my own cup.

Yes. So there's like that individuation process and then the filling of the cup before you can like re-engage.

Yes.

Hmm.

And what I found with my mom, because oh, I'd get so triggered because she would just be so sensitive to my, taking care of myself, having my own needs, she would take it as a criticism.

Oh my gosh.

Yeah, it was really hard. So I finally got to the point of just loving her and understanding that she couldn't help it, you know, it was her own stuff. And just stepping away if I needed to. But just really trying to stay in that place of love.

I really love what you just said about sort of like stepping away, but loving at the same time. And you also did what I would call, you rewrote the story about your mom, right? Because it was really, it wasn't about you. Like however she was interfacing with you, interacting with you. It wasn't really about that. It was about her own perceptions, her own story, her own programming that caused her to behave however she behaved and not to be able to do certain things. She had limitations, and I can see it, you know, in your energy, like just that total acceptance of her in her own story and on her own soul journey, and that you weren't responsible for that. And you can still find those points of connection with one another through acceptance, understanding, opening, compassion, all those things. It's lovely.

Yes. And she passed away about a year and a half ago. And so now she's very freed up from all that karma.

. Yes. Yay, .

And yet I still deal with those patterns in myself. So that's really interesting because of course, when we're little, we just soak it up like a sponge. We can't help it.

We sure do. Yes. And then of course, now we also know that some of this gets passed along epigenetically, literally

That's right.

Through the genes, right? Yeah. So there's more healing to do. And I like to think of it when we do that kind of healing work and that clearing and that deep, deep work of love, that when we do it for ourselves, we can also extend it back in time to our ancestors. Right? It helps everybody.

Yes.

Yeah.

And this is something that so excites me about the money journey. There's so much pain and trauma around money generationally for a lot of people. And I love knowing that as I work mostly with women as well. As women shift their patterns and understand the history and make different choices for themselves. And I use money archetypes that help to capture all the different patterns that can show up with money, that they are changing those generations back through their own transformation.

That is such a gift to all of us. The work that you do. Doing that generational healing work is profound to the collective, right? And we're all impacted by the energy of everything. Even when we're not thinking we are, we are all either resonating or reacting against, pushing against or trying to understand something on energetic levels. I think the work that you do is just so important. And I mean, we just have to look around the world for two seconds. So we know that it's important because there's so much suffering and it's not needed, right? It's unnecessary suffering.

People who are saying, oh, that's, you know, some people have to, you know, be in struggle to learn and all of that. I think that that time has changed for us. I don't think we need to struggle anymore, but we do need to hand up. We need to know how to get out of the hole that we're in, right? And, be reeducated and learn how to access better decisions, higher energy, the support of the divine to help us with our own money stories. So I would love for you to be able to share just a little bit how people can get in touch with you and start their money healing and, you know, just create some beauty in their lives around money and letting go of that pain. How can they get started with that?

Thank you so much for asking. My website is moneywisdomcoach.com, and you're invited to take the money type quiz and see where that falls with the innocent, the fool, the warrior, the magician. And I have a Money Wisdom Circle membership for women that is accessible financially for most women, and a place where you have a ton of tools. And we get together a couple times a month to do ritual and work through some of the processes.

Wonderful. So the first step is to go to moneywisdomcoach.com and Susan's got a quiz for you. And you'll learn about your archetypes, which are gonna help create some clarity, I'm certain. I know some clients of mine who've been doing that and, you know, have some fun with it, right? Like, I think it's not, doesn't have to all be heavy. We got kind of deep here today. And of course there is a lot of intensity in the world, but life doesn't always have to feel that way. And I think people could go ahead and take their first step towards healing their own money story with Susan's quiz.

Yes. That sounds great. And on that topic, I'll just, I wanna share a recent experience that I had on the topic of finding some lightness. I was recently in kind of a heavy place, disillusioned with how to move forward with my business, how to keep people engaged, and really in a place of negativity, which doesn't happen that often, but I just could not move out of it. And then I started getting these signs from the universe, all kinds of help coming in from different places. And I realized that what I need to do is go where the energy is, move toward what feels good, and let go of any concepts of what I think I should be doing, and just focus on feeling good. And that I can choose to be happy. And it doesn't mean bypassing the difficult feelings at all. You know, I've since then still had a couple little meltdowns and I've cried here and there, which is important too. 'cause that clears the heart, you know?

But just being disciplined about, okay, moving toward what feels good and really paying attention. What am I doing next? How's my energy? But allowing myself that gift of feeling good, you know, that imprint that I got from my mom was depression, was worry, was insecurity. And I do not have to choose that any longer.

Hmm. I think that's wonderful advice, really. Like, and I, and you, you touched on it, you said, you know, letting go of the shoulds, that's a big one, right? There's so many shoulds for so many women and, men too, but I think women can get really on that list making, you know, I should do this, this, this, this, this, this. And sort of somehow ties into perfectionism. But when we can start to let go of the shoulds, then we can ask, well, what is, where is the energy? What is it I do wanna feel? And to start paying attention? And I love that you also mentioned not bypassing the uncomfortable feelings, right? The heavy ones, but to actually, I think of it like embracing them, allowing them just not letting them take over, right? Allowing them to flow, recognizing them, honoring and them getting right back into the, well, what's the energy I wanna create and how is it I can start to feel good?

What do I need? Yeah.

Absolutely.

Beautiful. Susan, it's been just wonderful to have you here today. And I think this is just an exciting conversation, and so many people can benefit from understanding, first of all, that they're not alone in their money journey or their struggles with it, and something can shift. So if you'd like to get started today, go ahead to moneywisdomcoach.com and get started taking Susan's quiz on archetypes and have some fun with it. Susan, thank you so much for being here.

Thank you, Tessa. It's been such a pleasure.

Yay. All right. That's it for now. I'll see you the next time. Bye. Bye.