Six Challenges of Living with Wealth
An uncommon emotional and relational landscape
Wealth obviously brings many benefits and opportunities. It can also create a challenging emotional and relational landscape.
I have found that these challenges are commonly experienced but rarely acknowledged. They undermine the wellbeing of individuals and families, while affecting important relationships, professional lives, and community work. The good news is, it is possible to respond with groundedness, compassion, and insight. Learning to do this is the practice of joyful stewardship.
Below is a frank look at some common challenges that cause stress and emotional hardship in the context of wealth.
- Being able to afford to stay stuck
Everyone gets stuck and makes mistakes. This is life. This is how we develop as human beings.
Abundant financial resources make it easier to avoid dealing with life’s challenges. Wealth can be used to gloss-over challenges or make them “go away.” This perpetuates problems and undermines the opportunity to learn and grow.
And of course, they don’t really go away until truly resolved. They remain in the quiet of the heart, where they do harm by feeding the inner critic and harsh negative self-perceptions that haunt our thoughts.
2. Experiencing paradoxical self-doubt
Many people who live in a context of wealth are well-educated high-achievers. Yet there’s often an insatiable drive to prove one’s value. Although so much has been accomplished, it’s never enough. This results in a maxed-out schedule, weighty feelings of obligation, and searing imposter syndrome.
Somewhere beneath this grasping is an identity not defined wealth. How do you get to know that person? How do you learn to trust and love who you are, beyond the identity that wealth provides?
Somewhere beneath this grasping is an identity not defined wealth. How do you get to know that person? How do you learn to trust and love who you are, beyond the identity that wealth provides?
3. Relationships are complicated by money
Intimacy develops through authentic, trusting relationships. But wealth affects how one is treated by others. You receive extra attention from people attracted by, or resistant to, your perceived power. You are often the target of fundraising, networking, activism, and gossip.
- Friends and strangers seek your time and attention with ulterior (though not necessarily malicious) motives. They may believe you can lend them money, advance their career, or introduce them to decision-makers. All the attention can be overwhelming and difficult to manage
- You may become a target of political or personal grievances, based in the false belief that you ahave more power and influence than is true.
- Some may project that you are a benevolent authority figure who can solve their financial, emotional, or relational problems.
How do you know who you can really count on? Who is it safe to be your true self with?
The good news, it is possible to respond with groundedness, compassion, and insight. Learning to do this is the practice of joyful stewardship.
4. Family ties have long, financially-tangled strings
Maintaining family wealth is often viewed as a priority across generations. Thi is a laudable goal that has served families and society well. But financial success alone does not create family wellbeing.
Rigidity and control in the name of family legacy can do great harm to loving family relationships. Tensions arise between generations, who often have different visions for how to sustain and leverage family wealth. Within the same generation, dynamics like sibling rivalries, competitions for affection, and codependency can be played out through the “proxy wars” of access to, and control of, family resources.
How can a family nurture authentic and loving relationships through financial choices? How do you balance independence and loyalty, or responsibility to self and to the whole family?
5. Being seen as a savior or guardian angel
People project all kinds of assumptions onto wealth. Psychologically-speaking, projection is a defense mechanism where someone attributes internal concepts onto another person or group.
In the case of wealth, many people assume that if they had plenty of money, all their problems would be solved. When they meet someone in wealth, they believe (consciously or unconsciously) that this person can be a solution to their problems.
Interestingly, this doesn’t apply just to financial problems like debt. People in situations of wealth are sought as confidants for career advice, relationship counseling, health concerns, and various forms of emotional distress. It’s as though others assume money has purchased the answers to their life’s questions.
For a person who regularly seeks validation or approval (see #2 “paradoxal self-doubt above), this attention from others can lead to enmeshed relationships and “savior complex.”
6. Experiencing the world as big and small at once
Wealth allows for compelling experiences in any domain across the globe. It can also lead to the feeling of being a perpetual outsider who operates within a very small circle of trust.
Gatekeepers (from personal assistants to wealth advisors) help maintain sanity in complex life circumstances. They can also become “yes men” whose perspective becomes skewed by a desire to maintain their unique role. This clouds their judgment and limits the diversity and forthrightness of perspectives a person in wealth is exposed to.
In addition, it can be hard to simply go out into the community without being accosted for your “wealth identity.” This can extremely tiring, especially for introverts. It’s understandable when a person of wealth chooses to keep their social circle small. It can paradoxically also shrink the experience of life, despite having the means to access so much of what life has to offer.
Boundaries in Wealth Video Part 2
Situations of wealth often create porous boundaries. This contribute greatly to conflict, anxiety, and stress, which affects a person’s quality of life, despite living within material abundance.
It doesn’t have to be this way. Check out Part 2: When We Let Others Cross the Line below.
Boundaries in Wealth Video Part 1
Situations of wealth often create conditions for porous boundaries. This contribute greatly to conflict, anxiety, and stress, which affects a person’s quality of life despite living with material abundance.
It doesn’t have to be this way. Part 1 focuses on when we cross other people’s boundaries (it’s good to look in the mirror first!).
Next time, we’ll explore when we let others cross our boundaries.
Helping Family Through Difficulty
Family challenges in the context of wealth
Financial success has many wonderful benefits. It can also be hard on families. Wealth can exacerbate disagreements and amplify rivalries. “Walking on eggshells” is common at some point in a family’s journey with wealth.
The danger is that it becomes the norm.
There’s a hidden influence on families: how past generations behaved and treated one another. Poor communication, workaholism, substance abuse, and codependency are examples of hidden legacies that undermine family wellbeing across generations.
Helping families create their own solutions
During difficult times, families may think their only option is counseling. But therapy can be too clinically-focused on diagnosing and “fixing” families. It can lead to a sense of introspective wheel-spinning that actually hinders forward movement.
Counseling is certainly appropriate is some cases. But many families have an innate capacity to resolve problems and move forward without therapy. This capacity should be trusted, nourished, and given a chance to succeed.
Many famiiies can tap their own innate ability to resolve problems and move forward without therapy.
Shifting dysfunctional family dynamics
How can families reconnect with this self-healing ability? It starts by getting perspective on your situation: a frank, honest assessment of what’s working…and what isn’t. Then experimenting with new ways of relating that can lead to healthier family connections.
Ultimately, it’s about creating evidence. Family members need to feel convinced that good faith efforts are being made to break dysfunctional relationship patterns. They need to believe that what matters most to them is being seen and respected.
This takes practice. And it works. Families can recreate safe, trusting relationships of unconditional love, reconciliation, and mutual flourishing.
Families can recreate safe, trusting relationships of unconditional love, reconciliation, and mutual flourishing.
Porous family boundaries
One of the most common experiences among families in wealth is a breakdown of healthy boundaries.
The pressures that come with financial success create a strong impulse for protection and control. Parents want their children to enjoy and maintain the family legacy and reputation. The “rising generation” wants to discover their own identity, balancing the freedom and obligations that come with wealth. But the obligations can be life-consuming.
The result is often a cross-generational enmeshment. Family members break boundaries in hopes of helping “fix” one another’s problems. While based in good intentions, it usually leads to regrettable and hurtful family dynamics, such as:
- Using money as a bandaid to obscure relational conflicts.
- Using influence to provide unearned opportunities to family members, which undermines authentic self-confidence.
- Codependency where some family members’ self-worth is based on others’ approval.
- Family silos, cliques, and echo chambers that distort reality and fuel conflict.
- False intimacy and skewed power imbalances.
Becoming a boundary-honoring sage
How do you stop being a boundary-crossing fixer?
One way is by seeing yourself as more of a question-asker than a problem-solver. The goal is to help family members help themselves, without getting enmeshed in the drama of their situation. The following questions support their self-agency in this way. The questions can be used in almost any situation.
- So what’s going on? (Then just listen!)
It is an incredible gift to feel heard. It is rare. As a boundary-honoring sage, you can let your family externalize their thoughts about a difficult situation without editorializing, advice-giving, critique-making, or solution-offering. Just listen. - What’s seems to be the root of this problem?
Once a person says out loud all the things jammed in their mind, this questions helps them clarify what matters most.
3. When have you dealt with a situation like this before?
This question helps family members connect to their own earned experience. It helps them see they have inner resources to call upon in addressing their challenges.
4. What advice would you give to a friend?
Often, it’s easier to see a path forward when it’s not happening to us. We can help family get this external perspective by imagining their friend is going through what they are experiencing. Again, this helps them tap their own inner resourcefulness.
5. What are your options?
This is about brainstorming possibilities, not evaluation. I emphasize creativity with this question by picking two extremes, like. “you could do nothing, or you could change your identity and move to Tibet. What other options are on the spectrum between those?”
6. What’s your next, best step?
This question prompts action, and reminds them they have the power to do something, even if it’s just a small step.
Finding help that helps.
As a coach, I can help families reconnect with their ability for self-healing. I help break patterns of behavior like the “boundary-crossing-fixer” pattern.
You are fundamentally creative, resourceful and whole, not broken. My job is to help you reconnect with the wellbeing at your essence so you can take wise action.
I’d love to offer you a complimentary coaching session so we can experience this together. No strings attached…just click below to schedule!
Suffering in Wealth: The Video!
Most of us think that, if we had enough money, our problems would be solved. The reality is, wealth often leaves people feeling isolated and stressed. The consequences are dire for individuals, their families, their communities, and beyond.
Some say it’s taboo to admit you’re hurting when you live with abundance. But this creates more isolation and compounds he negative effects. Suffering with wealth is an understandable outcome of uncommon life circumstances.
I invite you to watch this illustrated short (my first!). I hope it shines a light on the paradox of suffering with wealth, how to stop it, and why it’s so important to do so.
Feed What Nourishes You
The universe wants to express itself through you. Where do you look for clues?
Listen for it in whatever calls to your heart.
Suffering in Wealth
Where there’s wealth, suffering is often just below the surface...
Imagine you’ve moved to a mountain town for the season.
You’re delighted by the adventurous community. Everyone’s immersed in Nature, going to concerts, and creating unique family memories. These people “get” how to live healthy, vibrant lives.
Before long, you see more. Impatience and frustration simmer at the restaurant. Families look bored and stressed while waiting for…something. Anger flares and is quickly covered up.
Once you make a few close friends, you realize there’s suffering all around. The middle aged woman who looks perpetually 29 secretly loathes herself. The cheery couple doting on their children are on the verge of divorce. The confident matriarch feels alone and unloved. The ambitious patriarch is self-absorbed and drinks too much.
...but it's hard to talk about.
Suffering is not a popular topic.
When someone is hurting, they don’t want others to know. It’s embarrassing, and even creates feelings of shame. “I have so many good things in my life, why can’t I be happy? What’s wrong with me?”
A tragedy of wealth is that it masks a paradox beneath the surface: within financial abundance is often a scarcity of connection, understanding, and love.
Ignoring this is a disservice to the individuals who are hurting.
A tragedy of wealth is that it masks a paradox beneath the surface: within financial abundance is often a scarcity of connection, understanding, and love.
A slow burn toward change
When a person with wealth is struggling, they tend to go through a phases before creating change:
- Ignore it. This is usually the first step. It’s understandable. We tell ourselves it’s just a passing storm and it will get better soon. This works for a while.
Things quietly become worse as we start to….
- Numb it: This is probably the most common approach. We numb difficult feelings with tech, gossip, vacationing, shopping, alcohol, etc. Wealth provides an endless array of ways to numb discomfort. That’s why so many people spend so long numbing out.
Eventually, the weight of reality forces us to…
- Name it: We secretly search the internet, hoping to find out “what’s wrong.” We disclose our feelings to someone who feels safe…a friend or a stranger or a housekeeper. We go to therapy, dig into the past, and hope to discover What Happened To Us.
Finalluy, we’ve had enough and are ready to…
- Change it. This tends to be the option of last resort. It’s least popular for many reasons. Changing the experience of suffering means changing ourselves. This is demanding work. We grasp onto our sorrow because it’s so familiar. Breaking free is like ending an addiction, it requires a change in identity.
Pile on the fact that not many people are skilled at helping. Even many licensed therapists end up prolonging the situation because they focus on diagnosis and treatment of disorders. This is vital for people with chemical dependency, trauma, or mental health conditions that leave them unable to function in daily life. But for people who are essentially well-but-suffering, what’s needed is to rediscover self-agency and self-trust.
Finding help that helps.
A good coach excels at the rediscovery of self-agency and self-trust. Coaches believe their clients are fundamentally “creative, resourceful and whole,” not broken. Our job is to help people reconnect with the wellbeing that is at their essence. We help people reclaim their own insight so they can take effective action.
When you work with a coach, you start to change things for the better. You rediscover that you are a creator.
I experience coaching itself as a creative act. It’s unpredictable, loving, humorous, profound, and improvisational. I’d love to offer you a complimentary coaching session so we can experience this together. No strings attached…just click here to schedule!
Meanwhile, may you be grounded, at ease, and connected to the life force that flows through you.
