The Power of Money Archetypes to Transform your Relationship with Money with Diana Yañez, CFP®

Join our special workshop with Diana Yañez on April 29th at 4 pm Mountain Time. (Free for members of the Sensitive Empowerment Community)

Money is a juicy topic and consistently ranks among the top sources of stress according to the American Psychological Association. For highly sensitive people, who can sense the complex layers between money, status, and fairness, the stress can feel even more acute. I know what it feels like to be turned off and confused by money. I especially know the pain of feeling like I have to choose between integrity with my beliefs and doing well financially.

My interest in personal finance led me to become a CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™. Even then giving people only technical information on what to do was not enough. This led to becoming a Registered Life Planner™ and enhancing my facilitation skills with Compassionate Inquiry© training.

Navigating Mixed Messages About Money

Most of us walk around navigating confusing mixed messages, such as "money is the root of all evil" and "diamonds are a girl's best friend".… When popular culture tells us that so many opposites are true, we're left wondering which way is up, which can feel even more acute for highly sensitive people since we clearly see these contradictions.

Worst of all, these confusing messages can chip away at our confidence and belief in ourselves, bringing us to a point where we avoid the topic of money or feel defensive as soon as it comes up.

Money is something we need to navigate our entire lives, from childhood to old age. As a highly sensitive person myself, I developed a gentle approach to understanding money patterns. I have found that bringing in metaphors and examples from nature helps us see the many interconnected threads clearly, so that we can decide our next best steps.

Recognizing Patterns Across Money Challenges

In my first year as a money coach, I sensed when clients had similar patterns and wondered how to bring these together. While others have developed money archetypes, their descriptions often felt like there was a hierarchy between them. Which is exactly what I was trying to avoid — my hope was to have clients see their money patterns with understanding and compassion, not judgement.

This took me to think about nature and all of the ways she shows herself to us. You can't really say one tree, plant, or animal is better than another; in reality they are each perfectly made to suit their environment.

Happily, one of my close friends is a nature translator, superb arborist, and also highly sensitive! Jennifer Walker and I spent hours thinking about trees, thinking about people, and bringing both together. She even helped me develop a separate version for Mexico with our local trees and money patterns.

These archetypes have become a shorthand with clients that help them recognize their money patterns and those of people they are close to. As clients understood themselves more clearly within the money archetypes, they intuitively knew what kind of changes were needed to make in their outer life.

5 Money Archetypes: Coppice, Magnolia, Saguaro, Tree of Heaven, Wisteria

To best prepare for this workshop, I invite you to take a quick quiz to identify your own money archetype

Once you've taken the quiz you'll be redirected to a general overview of the five archetypes. Below are  the trees and their tag lines. 

• Coppice – The Giving Tree

• Magnolia Grandiflora – Always beautiful, always blooming

• Saguaro – Make do with what you've got

• Tree of Heaven – Fight the power!

• Wisteria – Leap and the net will appear

Adding Skills to Our Money Toolbox

By seeing how what's right for one archetype doesn't fit for another, we get to expand our definition of money best practices while having compassion for the areas where we need to add skills to our money toolbox. I invite you to see where the challenges of your primary archetype could be balanced out with the gifts of a different archetype to create a more balanced money approach.

Often when people are learning about the archetypes they'll be reminded of someone they know – a coworker, their partner, a parent, a sibling. The archetypes can become a shared language and shorthand for how you each see money. This opens the way to see that neither of you is wrong, you're just coming from different tree habitats. By understanding others' money archetypes and patterns, you can have easier, gentler conversations.

Bottom Line

Integrity is becoming whole. It's accepting both the helpful and difficult parts of our lives.

When we become aware of the places where we struggle, and acknowledge any unhelpful habits, we will free up energy to either change those habits or add additional skills. Remember that nothing exists in a vacuum. Compassion is key as you uplevel your way of being with any part of your life, including your financial life.

Join our workshop on April 29th at 4pm Mountain Time to dive deeper into these archetypes and discover gentle approaches to money that honor your highly sensitive nature.

This is a free event for members of the Sensitive Empowerment Community. Not a member yet? Join Here

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Diana Yañez, CFP®, RLP® is a money coach at All the Colors and wealth manager at Strategy Squad. She also has a podcast, Highly Sensitive Money, where she interviews HSPs and money experts who center social justice. She provides clients with the education they need to make financial decisions, accountability to take action, and coaching to understand why they do what they do with money. As an individual and group coach, Diana helps women of color entrepreneurs create stable and sustainable money systems for themselves, their loved ones and their communities. Through Strategy Squad, Diana supports impact investors in aligning their values and investments.

You can set up a call with Diana for a free 30-minute Heart-Centered Money Call or to bring your organization money workshops that center nervous system regulation.

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Founder of this Blog

Julie Bjelland, LMFT, is a licensed psychotherapist, author, and founder of Sensitive Empowerment. She is known for developing innovative, easy-to-implement tools that help balance the sensitive nervous system, reduce challenges, and empower individuals to excel in their unique talents. Julie has created a global hub of support, including online courses, the Sensitive Empowerment Community—a nurturing sanctuary for sensitive and neurodivergent individuals—a globally top-ranked podcast, articles, free webinars, and more. Her passion is helping to create a world where differences are embraced as strengths and celebrated. Learn more at JulieBjelland.com.

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