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Exploring archetypes may empower women to improve relationship with money 

by Charlie Smith on March 1st, 2020 at 8:36 AM 

Famous financial advisers like Suze Orman and Mellody Hobson devote a great deal of attention to enhancing women's financial literacy.

But there's far less said on TV about women's relationship to money—and how things can go off the rails when emotional considerations are complicating factors.

North Vancouver holistic money coach Suzanne Richardson focuses on helping women understand how to become more in tune with their "sacred money archetypes". We caught up with her in advance of International Women's Day next Sunday (March 8) to learn more about this.

Georgia Straight: Can you explain what your business entails?

Suzanne Richardson: It’s holistic money coaching and it’s all about your relationship with money. Nothing to do with investments or how much money you make or how much you have in your savings. It’s all to do with your relationship with money. Everybody has money archetypes. So, we start by identifying those archetypes and once those are identified, we do coaching sessions, some exercises, some visualizations, and those sessions help the client become more aware of their archetypes. It brings them into alignment with their own values. Once you’re in alignment with your own values, you become empowered.

Georgia Straight: Can you go over some of the archetypes that might apply to different people?

Suzanne Richardson: Sure, there are eight different ones. I can tell you about a couple of them. One is a maverick. A maverick is somebody who believes that you have to take some risks with your finances to make more money. They don’t typically care too much about what other people think or do. They’re driven people. Another one is what’s called a nurturer. Those people are always taking care of everybody else around them and they sort of forget about themselves. They can tend to attract people that want to borrow money from them. The nurturer will always give the money and then find themselves in financial trouble because they’re always helping somebody else.

Georgia Straight: How much of this is nature and how much of this is nurture?

Suzanne Richardson: Good question. I think we’re all imprinted with our archetypes. They don’t change over time. They fundamentally stay the same. It’s what you do with the archetype.

Georgia Straight: What’s the origins of this approach to coaching people to understand their connection to money?

Suzanne Richardson: The type of coaching I do is geared primarily towards women—although it can be done with men as well—because women have a practical side and the emotional side. Pretty much in any decision that we make, we’ve got both of those going on. The program is designed to have a spiritual element. So yes, it’s about money, but it is also about all the other areas in your life. So it helps women become empowered and use their emotions for good.

Georgia Straight: Where did your interest come from in all of this?

Suzanne Richardson: About a year ago, I did a relationship with money workshop. It didn’t have the spiritual side, but it changed my life, literally. It really did. I’ve always liked teaching and coaching and mentoring—and I do it every day at work in my full-time job. But something was missing and I did some research. I looked at some coaching institutes and I found this one in Arizona that offered a very similar program with the spiritual aspect. And I knew right away it was something I had to do because I had gone through such a profound change when I did that money workshop a year ago. And I really want to help women empower themselves.

Georgia Straight: Can you elaborate on the spiritual component?

Suzanne Richardson: It’s all about digging deep with your own values. We look at subconscious limiting beliefs that perhaps you got from your parents or your teachers or people around you when you were younger. We work on changing those beliefs to align with your own values instead of what you grew up with. And the spiritual aspect is—the program is—you really look into your soul to make positive changes for yourself.

Georgia Straight: Is there anything I neglected to ask or any other points you would like to make? 

Suzanne Richardson: Can I give my email in case anyone is interested?

Georgia Straight: Sure, why not?

Suzanne Richardson: It's holisticmoneycoach@gmail.com