S3 E3: 💌 Write a Letter to Your Money And Let It Write Back
EPISODE SUMMARY
This week on the Money Healing Club podcast, Rachel shares her favorite money healing exercise. It's called Dear Money: you write a letter to your money, then you let your money write one back. She reads a year's worth of her own letters, where money shows up compassionate, a little sassy, and honest, including the ones she wrote through real burnout and the decision to pause her membership.
There is no five step plan here. Just a tender, eye opening way to notice your money and let it notice you back.
💬 "Money loves to be noticed, and I hope you do something to notice it lovingly today."
Key Takeaways:
What the Dear Money practice is and where it comes from
Why letting money "write back" can feel so grounding
The vibe money tends to show up with: compassionate, forgiving, and sometimes funny
How these letters helped Rachel move through burnout and toward clearer boundaries
A simple variation for asking money for a to-do list when everything feels like a priority
⏰ EPISODE BREAKDOWN
00:32 | The Dear Money Exercise Where the practice came from and how writing to and from your money actually works.
01:10 | What's Money's Vibe? The question Rachel asks her clients, and how money tends to show up when you really listen for it.
07:35 | The Burnout Behind the Letters Writing through the decision to pause the membership and step out of doing too much.
15:50 | When You Just Need a To-Do List A quick variation for the days when everything feels top priority.
💌 Connect with Rachel
Email your letters anytime: howdy@moneyhealingclub.com
💬 Join the Conversation
Rachel would love to read your letters. Try the Dear Money practice yourself, then share what came up.
Even better, record one in a voicemail so Rachel can feature it on a future episode. Wouldn't it be lovely to have a letterbox full of other money healers' letters?
Click the big orange button on our site right from your phone or browser and leave me a voicemail: https://www.moneyhealingclub.com/podcast
💝 Support the Podcast
Help keep the Money Healing Club podcast going! If this show has helped you feel less alone or more grounded with money, please consider contributing here: https://buy.stripe.com/4gMdRb3Nc9ZKfpM2MQd7q0b
🎧 Your next listen:
If money's note about your subscriptions creeping up hit home, here's the practical follow up. In S1 E8: Subscriptions: too easy to ignore, Rachel shares three ways to organize and let go of the ones you no longer need.
https://www.moneyhealingclub.com/podcast/s1e8
🎙️We're a proud member of the Feminist Podcasters Collective where creators like me are uplifting diverse voices and driving meaningful change.
-
💌 Write a Letter to your Money And Let It Write Back
===
[00:00:00]
Rachel Duncan: Welcome to the Money Healing Club podcast. I'm Rachel Duncan. I'm a certified financial therapist and art therapist, and I think you've come to the softest place to land in personal finance. Today, I'm gonna do something a little different. I'm gonna share with you my very favorite money healing exercise.
It's the one I often start my groups with when I run group intensives. It's the exercise I use myself, and I'm gonna share my own work with you today. This exercise is called Dear Money. It's a process of writing a letter to your money and receiving a letter back. Sometimes I shortcut it and just receive the letter from money.
This practice is something I was introduced to when I did the Trauma of Money program, and I've added this sort of dialogue feature, um, to the exercise. And whenever I feel a little bit like I don't know what to do with money, or feeling a little overwhelmed, or if I sense that from a client or a group, I have them [00:01:00] return to this exercise again and again.
This is really one of these writing prompts that is such a good go-to, almost always helps me feel more grounded. And in today's episode, I'm gonna share with you a handful of my letters that I've exchanged with my money over the past year or so. Sometimes I swap out, um, writing it with my business or my money, uh, because m- business and money are very much hand in hand, but they are different.
So I want you to listen for the vibe. Um, what's money's vibe is often a question I ask my clients, and I hope you get a sense of, at least for me, the character of money in my life, and I hope it excites you to do this process for you. And money might show up for you very differently than it has for me. I just wanna say that.
However, I have found that almost all the time, money shows up for people in these letters as compassionate, forgiving, supportive, energetic, and hopeful. Um, sometimes a [00:02:00] little sassy, sometimes funny, sometimes saying some hard truths, but, um, often shows up as a pretty clear and grounding force in their lives.
And again, just a reminder, this podcast is for educational and entertainment purposes only. It does not substitute mental health, financial, financial, or legal advice. So please be careful with who you get your advice from, and make sure it's someone with credentials. So enjoy this walk through my letters to and from my money
Rachel Duncan: Dear money, you've always been a topic that Mom and Dad fixated on, keeping costs low, letting me know time and time again that we're poor but proud. Fix it, reuse it. We're not like them. Challenge accepted. Thank you for the gift of craftiness that has stayed with me. Having wealth and looking rich are two different things.
Thank you, money, for leading me to this vocation. My voice is strong when I talk about you. Thank you for supporting me in finding my way with this business. [00:03:00] It would really help me if you'd build for us to take a trip and fix the house. Forever yours, Rachel. Dear Rachel, yeah, those were wild times when you were young.
I wanted to be friends with you always. You were always curious, and I loved that about you. I've seen you, witnessed you reaching out to me, seeing me, and I love being noticed. At the moment, yes, things feel tenuous. The business is no joke. Thank you for trying and working so hard. Remember, you know how to get the right help.
Be choosy about who you let in. We do need to work more on how your wealth affects you. Sometimes demotivates you. Let's be honest, it does need to build. If you're going to support your mother-in-law, the kids, and actually have some fun, keep building me. Keep adding. It's fertilizer on the garden bed. I want to grow and grow so you have options to help others.
You will still be loved and liked even with wealth. Keep adding. [00:04:00] Warmly, Money Here's a letter from the fall of 2025 when I sort of reignited a small group intensive program that I hadn't done in a while. Dear Money, I'm so grateful that you helped these wonderful people come to the new group. Thank you for helping me with value.
It would really help me if you could keep surprising me. The little affiliate payouts, the surprise sign-ups. You feel more real and close with my business lately. Thank you. P.S. What can I do for you? Dearest Rachel, I love working with you. I love being friends with you, and I always have. It's been fun to surprise you lately, letting you know that you are reaching people, that you will and have made a huge difference.
I've noticed your recent clarity lately too. You are not a charity. I get turned on when you're confident. Money. When you open new doors for me to flow through when it's right, I wanna help you figure out [00:05:00] this business stuff. We are doing it. You can let people know how to support you. Always, Money. A little later in 2025, I wrote to business.
Dear business, what would you have me know today? Keep on doing it. I'm maturing, you're maturing. You have good ideas for change. Pay attention to your team. Right-size the roles. Be the CEO. Give everyone the tools and clarity they need to make this business grow, and let them shine. Make it a good experience.
No need to feel bad. Fan their flames. Make it clear. Keep delegating and spreading the load. It's so worth it. It's a little bit of a different vibe from business than money, right? I've got some doodles. Oh, here's a little sidebar where I wrote to love. This is inspired more from, uh, Liz Gilbert's work, who writes letters to and from love all the time.
Dear love, what would you have me know today? Your brilliance is your love. You can rethink what it is to extend [00:06:00] love. Sometimes it's a live conversation, sometimes it's sending a little love note to many who feel like you're writing just to them. It still counts even when you don't get direct feedback. I speak through music, through glimmers of just the right words, sometimes through offers and feedback, but mostly in that quiet stillness you've always felt in your core.
I'm here and always will be. Love, love
Okay, this is again another letter from the fall, I think September of 2025. "Dear money, what would you have me know today? I am with you, and we are more still today. Back up a little, even back off. Some income is stepping stones, some is the big move or the long run. Back up to see the difference. Your monthly subscriptions have crept up.
Time to reorient to what your costs are. I don't want to leak through the holes. I want to buy your food, hold you in your retirement, purchase musical instruments, [00:07:00] and nights out with your husband. Love, money." Okay, October 2025. Dear business, how are you doing with this new idea for structure? Dear Rachel, it's new, but it's good because I trust you.
There's a lot of ways to be, to help, to work, and we have felt ineffective for a long time. You love starting things, and this won't be the last restart. Society changes, and so will you. So will this business. There's a lot of clutter right now. I think this next chapter is a decluttering, refining what's left.
Oh, the theme is excellence. Essential excellence. Business. Whoa, business. Hardcore. I wanna sidebar here just to share that I was writing this in a time where I was, um, really feeling burned out on the ecosystem I had built. I was teaching a group intensive, running a membership that probably had way too much programming, and, uh, doing one-on-ones and this podcast.
I loved all of it, but it was too much for one person, and especially with the membership, I just [00:08:00] felt like it was... I was doing so much, it was actually ineffective. I was just adding more, hoping that that would be helpful, and it actually wasn't, which is so counterintuitive. So I was really sitting with that, um, and did a lot of journaling about it.
So this is, again, in that same timeframe. Dear money, what would you have me know today? Darling, you're making CEO decisions, and be careful for the rest of the year. Watch the spending. You can do a lot of the work. Don't outsource your spark Sometimes it's short and sweet, y'all. Sometimes it's short and sweet.
Mm-hmm Dear business, I'm feeling scared that I can't crack the code to make this profitable. There's so much goodness, but mixed with exhaustion and ineffectiveness. There are so many things I've let go or quit in the past. I feel like I'm on the brink of this being that too. Am I quitting or am I letting something change?
I need to talk to the part of me that's treating this business like a hobby. She wants to be the assistant. She wants to be looked after. She doesn't want all the responsibility, just a little. She doesn't want to be the [00:09:00] boss. She's a great little helper. But there's another part. Where is it? The businessperson, savvy, strategic, excited, the leader
Dear business, what would you have me know today? I've been eagerly waiting for you to let me support you. I see a shift in you to have a more mature look at this business that is doing good work, but is also deeply, at its core, supporting you. You are taking risks, and I think it will pay off. Of course, nothing's for sure, except for the fact that you are good.
I think we are entering the age of work smarter, not harder. Love, business. Dear love, what would you have me know right now? You have the answers, the feelings. It's all right, and it's all there. You are good even when you mess up. Just be. If you can be centered, great. If not, you're still you. The version of you that is so protective in that situation, you must love that part.
That very young part that was in a [00:10:00] deeply confusing relationship with someone important. Look at her brilliance.
Dear business, what would you have me know today? You are changing and so am I. Careful about that future bias. January you will still be you. That spark might be maturing into a steady burn. You are letting go of some tasks and responsibility, but who will catch it? Let's find a way for you to brain dump.
Get all that inside stuff outside of you. People want to buy from you. Your integrity shines through. You've worked so hard to build trust. It's there. It's very little effort to let them know how to get your help. It's okay you haven't had a lot of new ideas lately. Your work, our work, requires a constant return to basics.
So today, prep those emails and celebrate with chocolate and coffee. Love, your business. Sidebar, I did decide to pause on the membership for much of the winter and early spring of 2026. So this really shows [00:11:00] sort of my processing that decision, and it was a really good one in the end. Um, and I was able to get a break, a much needed break from the membership that was kind of running me ragged and I felt wasn't that effective, get some new team members, shout out to Noelle, and relaunch the membership in a way that, oh, it just works so much better.
It's a win, win, win. It works better for the members. It works better for me. It works better for the business
Here's a real short one. This is from February twenty twenty-six. "Dear money, what would you have me know today? I want you to know that I want to be closer to you. Love, money."
Dear money, the pressure is on, the realness. I'm worried I'll feel stifled with focusing on revenue. But just now realizing that's a limiting belief. It's actually an exciting chapter having the creativity and energy be met with revenue. There's part of me that maybe has too much faith that it will all work out, but the fact is that it has.
I can feel that now [00:12:00] because of the sense of safety you've helped me build. I have more trust in that support. I've been building a base, and it's our job to steward toward growth and add to it. Hugs, Rachel. We're going into March of 2026 now. Dear money, what would you have me know today? You're my girl.
We're figuring this out together. I'm sorry if I led you to burnout with the membership. I love your work, and I wanted the club to be the thing as much as you did. This new chapter is exciting for me, too. Hoo-wee, big time. I love pouring through this business to you, and sometimes you get a little sloppy with me.
But I know it's because you trust. I don't know what's ahead, but I know we can figure anything out. Next, let's make another product. Love always, money. Wow, let's see, this is later on in March 2026. Dear money, I love it when you show up. You arrive and surprise me. I love it when you're flexible. I would really like it if I had a few more trusted people to help us make a plan.
I'm sorry I sometimes spend [00:13:00] you, take you away from your friends without thinking. Yours truly, Rachel. Dear Rachel, I think you and your husband need to come together more on what I am to both of you. I can mean different things to different people. I can't tell you whether I am enough, but your idea of a third party could be great.
It's boring, but a plan with benchmarks makes sense with investing and with the business. You got this, money. That tone was, like, a little bit more, I don't know, parental or professional, wasn't it
Dear money, what would you have me know today? I love flowing to you. Flow, watery, soaking, surprising, supportive. It's a new stretch. We've been waiting for new gates to open and branches to land on. Hugs, money Dear money, what would you have me know today? This is March twenty twenty-six. Notice me. Be with me.
That's underline, underline. Notice me. Be with me. I love this new attention you're bringing to me. I love that I can support the low balance in household checking right now. [00:14:00] I love that the debt is not weighing on you anymore. I love that income is really the focus. Yes, yours, always, money. Dear money, what would you have me know today?
Dearest Rachel, you are so good at this. When you really help a client, it's so exciting for me. Thank you for connecting more people with their money. I love it. And you are making more branches, a trunk with limbs, even a lovely twig or two. We're moving along to April. Dear money, what would you have me know today?
Keep me. Underline, underline. Truly money. Later that week. Dear money, what would you have me know? Sell stuff. I'm going to be a little more forward with you. You know how to take action. I love that you're writing. It's going to be so good. And take your own advice. Get some more cash coming in. Open doors to support the podcast.
Dear money, what would you have me know today? This is later in March. You're segmenting and compartmentalizing again. There are parts of you that feel above or [00:15:00] excepted from the advice you give. Yes, wealth impacts you. I don't think you understand how you're seeing it, but not processing it. It's about scrambling when you're desperate.
You've been lucky in that your needs have been more or less met. That's not always the case for your clients, of course. Luck, circumstance, energy, whatever you want to frame it as. Your style might not work for every person every time, but this is still new for me too, coming more fully through your business instead of your husband.
I like it when you set boundaries. Shift, pull in, step out. Keep on. Money. Dear money, what would you have me know today? I want to pay you. You will draw personal pay first week of April. Pay off credit card balance and keep a small reserve. This will happen. Real business, real money Here's the last entry of the book.
Dear money, what would you have me know today? New frontiers. Look at you stretch. Remember, it's still just money, and you are a grounding force, [00:16:00] and these challenges and boundaries are hard because they are. Trust your judgment. Take pauses. Do what you're good at, not what you aren't. This is stabilizing money for you.
Let me pour in. Always, money. And I want to share a little variation on this exercise I just did today, especially when I'm feeling like there's so much to do, like everything is top priority. Sometimes I just ask money for a good to-do list. Dear money, what should I focus on today? Number one, book your eye exam.
See? Even money cares about your whole physical health. Number two, check that the scheduled transfers between accounts are correct. Three, finish that dang planning spreadsheet. You're great at looking behind you. It is time to look ahead. Seriously, how does next quarter look? I want to know. And number four, go stretch and come back Pretty good advice.
I can, I can take care of those things. So that's a little walkthrough my year of writing letters to and from money and my [00:17:00] business, and a little side step into writing to love. What do you notice about money's vibe? What do you notice about business's vibe? How does it shift? What things stay the same? I really love reading aloud to you, and I hope that seeing some of my process will open up the process for you.
Money loves to be noticed, and I hope you do something to notice it lovingly today. I would love to hear your letters. You are welcome to email them to me anytime, howdy@moneyhealingclub.com. Even better yet, though, could you read them in a voicemail to me that I can feature on a future episode? Wouldn't it be fun to have a letterbox filled with other money healers' letters and processes?
It's so easy to do. Just go to moneyhealingclub.com/podcast. Scroll down to Ask Me Anything. There's a big orange button. You can record from your computer or your phone. I'll talk to you next time