Financial therapist Aja Evans joins Lily this week to discuss money and your dating life. The conversation is meant to inspire you to take up space in your financial life, challenge limiting beliefs, and prioritize relationships that align with your values and aspirations.

Aja is a Licensed Mental Health Counselor who specializes in financial therapy. In this episode, she helps us understand the connection between emotions and money and explores the varying dynamics of partnerships and money.

Episode Topics and Hot-takes:

• You don’t need to make yourself smaller to accommodate a potential partner’s ego.

• Aja helps us understand how to move through financial shame. 

• How to talk about money and finances on a date 

Links:
Aja’s website
Aja on Instagram

Show transcript:

[00:00:00] Lily: Hey, I’m Lily Womble, former top matchmaker and founder of Date Brazen. After setting up hundreds, I realized that with coaching, women could match themselves better than anyone else ever could. With my unconventional feminist approach, I’ve helped women around the world build courageous and self trust filled love lives.

[00:00:20] And now I’m here to support you. Get ready. Cause I’m about to show you the exact steps you need to attract a soul quenching partnership and feel amazing about yourself along the way. This is the Date Brazen podcast. Hello, gorgeous friends. Welcome to another episode of the Date Brazen podcast. I’m so glad that you’re here because we’re about to get financially naked together.

[00:00:43] And it’s, we’re going to talk about getting financially naked in your dating life and all of the things that come with that. With. expert and therapist, Aja Evans. Aja is a licensed mental health counselor who specializes in financial therapy. She’s at Aja E [00:01:00] Therapy on Instagram, A J A E Therapy. And she works with clients to help them overcome beliefs and narratives about money that no longer serve them.

[00:01:09] And with her expertise, she helps people rewrite the story. Of their relationship to money. And so I was, I met her at an event, um, in New York, very felt very New York. Fancy. Would you agree? Aja? We have 100 percent free champagne. I mean, like open, but it was, it was a fancy event and I was so glad to randomly approach you and your friend.

[00:01:36] Yeah, and you’re just the best. I’m so excited to, to talk to you and to share your wisdom with my audience. So welcome. Hello.

[00:01:44] Aja: Hi, thank you for having me, Lily. I’m so excited to be here. And I have to say when I met Lily, she was looking fabulous as was the rest of the people at the event. Like it’s I think you coined it perfectly.

[00:01:58] It was feeling very New York, fancy [00:02:00] and amazing.

[00:02:00] Lily: So well, and I was, I have to brag on myself. Bragging is a huge part of my program and philosophy that and I want you to brag on yourself. So I’m going to share. This is so self serving Aja. Let me just say, I will say to everybody. I was practicing what I preach about qualifying disqualifying questions and approaching people in person because I went to this event.

[00:02:23] I didn’t know anybody. I was really nervous. I was scared and I was like, Who am I going to talk to? I don’t know anybody. It’s a mingley mingle of it. And so I just went up to Aja and her friend didn’t know them. I was like, Hey, how y’all doing?

[00:02:43] Aja: It was perfection because I think the beauty of it is that you just named it.

[00:02:49] You named it right away and you’re like, Hey, I don’t know anyone. We’re networking. Let’s talk about each other. And it was so refreshing. And I was like, this is fantastic. Yep. Great. [00:03:00]

[00:03:00] Lily: My God. Yeah. Very self serving brag on my part there. What do you want to brag on today? Anything you’ve got going on that you want to brag on?

[00:03:07] Oh, you have a major thing that you could brag on. Yeah.

[00:03:11] Aja: I am going to say that I am two weeks away from finishing my manuscript for my book, which is such, it’s such a huge accomplishment and a wild ride to think that I had so much to say and going through my edits and I still have more to say. So I’m, I’m really excited to pour into it and I’m really excited to be done.

[00:03:34] I’m really excited to be done. I’ve got other projects brewing in my mind already. So this is,

[00:03:40] Lily: it’s time. Yeah. How many months have you been writing

[00:03:43] Aja: away? I think I really started writing in

[00:03:46] Lily: April. Yeah. You’ve been writing for a long time. I join you. It is such a, such a weird journey and building. I don’t know if you’ll resonate.

[00:03:56] And I felt like before I started writing, I was like, I [00:04:00] built a business. Like. This is not going to be hard for, I know what I want to say, you know, and then I get into writing this manuscript for myself and I’m like, Oh no, this is a new skill set. Did you get

[00:04:13] Aja: that experience? Well, I think for me, what I really was battling was just like what it means to be a writer and what it means, what it meant to me to call myself a writer.

[00:04:24] I can call myself many things. I can call myself a therapist, a financial therapist. I am a friend, a wife, a mom, an entrepreneur, all these things. I feel very comfortable and confident with those titles and holding those identities, but something about calling myself a writer and then soon an author. I was like, who’s that girl?

[00:04:43] Lily: No, no. Do you feel like you, how did you integrate that new part into your identity? Do you think?

[00:04:50] Aja: It’s still happening. It is slow and steady. And when I hold the written pages, like the typed out pages, and I think to myself, girl, [00:05:00] you literally just put 50, 000 words on a page about your ideas and your research and connecting it to human behavior and relationship to money and ideas.

[00:05:11] Like, yeah, you’re a writer. Like,

[00:05:14] Lily: wow. I love that. And letting your work speak for itself as well is so powerful. I want to go back to how did you become a financial therapist? Because I have to admit, when I met you and you said I’m a financial therapist, I immediately was like, you need to be on the podcast.

[00:05:33] I’m so glad this is happening. And I also thought what a unique and powerful way to say exactly what you help folks with. Thank you. out the gate and to put financial therapist together. I just hadn’t heard that before. So tell me about your journey to being deciding to be a financial therapist.

[00:05:53] Aja: So I am clinically trained as a mental health therapist.

[00:05:56] So I’m licensed. My licensure is a licensed mental health [00:06:00] counselor. I went and got my master’s in counseling psychology. I had been in the field for a very long time, almost 15 years all over mental health. And what had happened was. I was living in New York when this was like almost 10 years ago, which is really wild to me.

[00:06:15] Every time I tell the story, but I was living in New York. I was making more money that then I had ever made before. And I was making the kind of money that, you know, the average American right now, the salary is around 60 or so thousand dollars. And these are full adults. These are. Parents, these are people who are navigating a ton of responsibility.

[00:06:39] So as somebody in their twenties, I was like, Oh, this is ton of money. This is great. And it is, but it just does not go that far when you live in a high cost of living city. And I did not rectify that in my brain at the time because I didn’t have the financial education to understand, but it wasn’t even about the numbers.

[00:06:57] It was about how I felt and [00:07:00] I could not financially keep up with some of the things that my. Friends were doing and it made me feel really bad and I didn’t like it and my self esteem suffered and as I dove into personal finance and learning about it and understanding what the things meant and the processes and, you know, money moves to make I thought to myself, I know I am not the only 1 feeling like this about money.

[00:07:25] I am not the only 1 who. Struggles with what it means when you can’t, you know, go on the vacation, or it’s really hard for you to swipe your card when you’re like going out to dinner with your friends or the cringe moment when you’re like, Oh God, we’re splitting the check and I only got water, which is the title of my book, but I only got water because it is such an experience to go through when people don’t talk about it and money is so taboo.

[00:07:57] So then I found other [00:08:00] communities where people were talking about it, who were therapists and they’re like, no, There is an industry behind this. There are organizations where we are really talking about how money and feelings connect to each other. And then I just did a ton of training and which is very enjoyable to me and fun and did a few certificates.

[00:08:19] And I have 1 more test to take before I, um, have, like, a 1. Particular credentialing that I’m looking for. And then I just was like, okay, I think it’s time for me to really put myself out there as a financial therapist. So

[00:08:33] Lily: intuitively, from my own experience with money and feelings, I can guess, but I’m curious from your professional perspective, like, what is the connection for us between feelings and money and how You know, specifically in America, because I think that the context of our economic system probably plays into this.

[00:08:52] But, um, what is that connection?

[00:08:54] Aja: Yeah, so I think it’s connected to so much a lot of what we talk about when we are looking [00:09:00] at nature and nurture. I’m not even going to say versus because I don’t think it is 1 or the other. I do very much. So believe it is both when it comes to kind of money. Nature part of us, we want to be a part of a community and a lot of times the way our society is set up right now, money can dictate what communities you belong to, what communities you get to belong to.

[00:09:23] And I think that is where. The nurture part comes in, because so much of our relationship with money is built upon the narratives, the beliefs, the thoughts, the ideas, the verbal and nonverbal communication that we’ve received from the people around us while we were growing up. And if. We cannot separate that as adults.

[00:09:45] So if you learned whether or not you meant to, but the information was taking in when you were younger that, hey, rich people are really smart as an adult. You may not. Say that in that way, but you may have that money [00:10:00] narrative inside of you that believes rich people are smart. And there are a lot of people who are really, really smart, who don’t have a lot of money.

[00:10:08] And there are a lot of people who, you know, may fall on the opposite end of the spectrum, who have a ton of money. So I think sometimes we develop these beliefs and these narratives about money, what it means to have money, what it means about people who don’t have money that really aren’t true. And you have to sometimes combat them or go toe to toe.

[00:10:29] With your old beliefs as an adult and decide, like, does it still apply to me? And sometimes it does, then sometimes it

[00:10:35] Lily: doesn’t. And then you get to, as you, you know, share on your website, like rewrite the story for yourself. And I’m so curious, like, let’s get, let’s get specific. Like what kind of clients let’s talk about single women specifically.

[00:10:49] Cause I think there are a ton of single women or people socialized as women who are listening. And I’m curious what you’ve seen that demographic struggling with [00:11:00] in, in your work and, and what are some of those hottest stories that you’re rewriting with them?

[00:11:05] Aja: I definitely think that women specifically have been told so frequently that we don’t need to know about money.

[00:11:14] Don’t worry your little heart about it, honey. Somebody will take care of it or you aren’t girls. Aren’t good with math or like girl math. No, it’s not girl math. It’s math. That’s it. The same way that we look at like, Oh, I’m a girl boss. No, no, no. I’m just a boss. And I think that these qualifiers sometimes while sometimes are very empowering and I say about myself all the time, like, Nope, I’m a bomb ass bitch boss.

[00:11:40] Like I say that all the time or a lady boss, but I think there are certain avenues where. That verbiage can then be turned to, like, oh, well, I’m just the lady boss. I’m just a and turn the qualifier from a part that’s empowering to a part that’s like, [00:12:00] oh, it’s just a little of me doing this when. There’s so much power in identifying as a woman and being a woman.

[00:12:07] And we are good at math and we are notoriously good at investing. But a lot of our stories and narratives that we have been fed through our life that we start to believe, tell us that we don’t know enough to do it. We don’t know enough to start investing. We don’t know enough. What do I do with my money?

[00:12:23] I need somebody to teach me. No, no, no. You might need a little financial education, but you can do it like you are empowered enough to make this happen. So a lot of those narratives are what I combat with my clients. And just making sure that they’re not what I call money hoarding in their savings accounts and having tens of thousands of dollars in their savings account.

[00:12:45] And don’t get me wrong. You need the money, right? You need the money for your just in case something comes up effort fund. We’ll call it whatever you want to call it. Yes. You need the emergency, like stashed money, but after a certain amount of money, right? [00:13:00] That money could be working harder for you somewhere else.

[00:13:02] So, a lot of times I’m working with women who, um, feel like they don’t have enough information or feel like they don’t know or they’re too scared and they’re frightened. So I am there to help financially educate them. I’m there to work through those feelings, rewrite those narratives so they can go make all this money.

[00:13:16] Like, grow it, girl. I’m

[00:13:17] Lily: here for you. I’m hearing so many things, right? This idea of like being big. Letting yourself take up space in your own financial life and having and allowing yourself to have ambition financially, um, is something that I am hearing. I also have have spoken to a lot of single people, specifically people who are socialized as women who Are holding themselves back from financially growing in the ways that they dream of because they’re not yet partnered.

[00:13:50] For example, somebody who is in the position to, like, buy a house and how they have the desire to buy a house. But they think like, Oh, what does it mean that I’m not [00:14:00] And if I buy this house, what are people going to think of me or like, I’ve had clients who do buy a home and they, they hide that information on dates because they’re afraid of what a potential partner, like they’ve been judged before by specifically Cishet men, um, because that Cishet man feels, um, Intimidated and they feel responsible for that intimidation.

[00:14:21] Right. So I wonder what your thoughts are when I, when I say all that, and there

[00:14:26] Aja: are a few expletives that come to mind.

[00:14:28] Lily: You can use them Aja. You can let them fly.

[00:14:32] Aja: I just, it just really irritates me. It makes me really mad. And it’s because of that, that women see. Feel so bad, like, we are not here to protect anybody’s ego and because you are accomplishing as much as you are financially and otherwise, you do not need to feel smaller because of the fragile ego and I say that across the board for however, [00:15:00] anybody identifies, but.

[00:15:01] Because we’re talking about hetero cis males, you don’t want to be with somebody who needs you to be smaller to be with you. And if somebody is telling you, or if somebody cannot handle that, you own your own home, or that you are a VP, or that you’re making well over 6 figures that you, whatever it is that has to do with money, if they cannot handle it, Thank you so much for letting me know in the beginning and let’s keep it pushing.

[00:15:32] Yes. Right. And you, and I think we need to switch that, that narrative. Oh, he’s disqualifying me. No, no, no. I’m actually disqualifying you because my partner supports me. My partner wants to be there for me. My partner wants to watch both of us grow at the same time. And if you can’t be that person, then we don’t need to do this any more than we have already done it.

[00:15:55] We

[00:15:55] Lily: can stop here. Yeah, I love that. Amen. I have a hot take on this. [00:16:00] I’m curious about your hot take about. So a client comes to you and they say, Oh, a woman who is making a lot of great money. Gorgeous. Thank you. More, please. Yep. And she says, you know, I want to be with a person who is making equal to or more than me.

[00:16:17] And I’ve specifically heard this from women who date men. I have a hot take. I want to hear your hot take.

[00:16:22] Aja: It’s not quick and it’s not easy because I am a therapist in this

[00:16:25] Lily: town. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:16:28] Aja: So I think. First, it’s about what or why. Why is it important for you to date somebody who’s making equal or more than you and figuring that out?

[00:16:38] And there could be many reasons if it’s to the point that we talked about before. Most guys that I’ve dated have been intimidated by my success. I don’t want them to feel like Like I want to take charge of everything if I’m the one who is monetarily successful, which again, people, these are two separate things, two separate things.

[00:16:56] I want to know why. And if it is about past experiences [00:17:00] that they’ve had, then let’s dive into that. Right. Again, I’m here for therapy. I’m here for rewriting the story. Yeah, exactly. Let’s rewrite. Now, if you met whoever your You know, dashing prince, princess of like, who’s gonna, you know, captain save you, then do they have to make more money?

[00:17:23] Because that person may be somebody who’s not making as much money as you, but will be more More supportive of what your goals and your dreams may be, because they understand that that’s really important to you. And I’ll share a little bit about my personal history. My husband has no desire to, like, be trying to summit.

[00:17:46] He’s like, I’m actually pretty good at where I am. I’m happy. I am not one of those people who is living to work. He’s like, I am happy to get my job. I’m making good money. This feels comfortable to me. But Aja, I [00:18:00] know you. Love that that feeds you that excites you. I will be your VP, honey. You go kill it. I would love nothing more for you to reach the summit of whatever your professional dreams are.

[00:18:13] I am here to support you and we can do that together. That to me is the partnership. And I think. It can be really easy to decide, Hey, I’m not, I’m taking people out of the running because of money. But think about what you want your partnership to be. And this is not meant to say, Oh, my goodness, I don’t want to be taking care of him.

[00:18:33] I don’t want to do that. Like, let’s not make assumptions about people who make different money than you.

[00:18:38] Lily: I agree. I think that there are, I know that there are people because I’m on tech talk and I’m aware of the people who are like, I want to meet. Somebody who makes a ton of money to save me from my current financial circumstances.

[00:18:50] And I know, I think that people listening to this podcast probably are not in that vein. I think the idea of like, what if I, the [00:19:00] fantasy of like, what if I were to meet somebody who had like so much disposable money and I wouldn’t have to worry anymore? Like that can be a fun fantasy. And. Nobody needs to be saved here.

[00:19:10] We’re a little like there’s, there’s so much agency in this room. And I also think like, I totally agree. And I think that the, when I hear a client say my preferences, like what they, what I make or above, it always is about the past experience. In my experience with those clients, it always is about the fear of someone not being able to co create.

[00:19:34] A relationship right that it that it’s all going to land on the shoulders of the person I’m working with and and that I think that that from my experience has to do with the socialization of like how much emotional weight women have to carry in a

[00:19:48] Aja: relationship. Yes, yes, yes, yes, I couldn’t agree more.

[00:19:52] And that’s a problem. And it’s a problem for right? Like, it’s a problem period for everybody. It’s not [00:20:00] just the people who may be identifying as women that it’s a problem for it. Yeah. It’s a problem for everyone. And I think we forget that when we start like naming the patriarchy. Yes. There are a lot of males who are like really benefiting from that, but there are a lot of people who are not like very much.

[00:20:17] So are not benefiting from that because that’s wait for them too. So I’m here for like the partnership. I’m here

[00:20:24] Lily: for true partnership. I love that. Yeah, and I’m, I’m curious about, you know, sort of talking about people who don’t have an abundance of money in their account yet or who, who are struggling, you know, I, I can share from my own experience.

[00:20:41] I, I was not taught. A lot about money. I think my parents were learning to and I didn’t know what a high yield savings account was until I was like 25. I didn’t know what like I didn’t I didn’t know these things. I was just like in my first corporate job that I was only at for a [00:21:00] year. I was handed a sheet of paper that said we’re going to match your 401k.

[00:21:03] I was like, what’s That cool. Why? Who’s handling this? I asked so many questions and still the information felt like it was like passing over my head. I felt so dumb and I moved to New York and I didn’t have money at all and had like five side hustles and living in New York and living off of side hustles.

[00:21:27] A credit card was necessary to like getting by. And so then I got into a lot of consumer credit card debt. Thinking, oh, I’m going to pay it off before this zero APR year is 18 months. I think it was. And then, you know, going through my 20s and getting into my later 20s and meeting Chris and knowing that I had, uh, you know, a considerable amount of consumer credit card debt and feeling so much shame about it.

[00:21:55] Like literally, I, you know, you have this amazing guide on your website, which I’m going [00:22:00] to shout out now. It’s her website is Ajaevanscounseling. com A J A E V A N S counseling. com. And you have this financially naked guide where people can like brain dump all of their financial truths from right now onto a piece of paper.

[00:22:17] And I had something similar to that when I first met Chris and I brain dumped. I, I like dumped all my debt onto this page and I remember feeling so much fucking shame and so fearful. I was like, afraid he was going to break up with me. Yeah. Cause I, I was afraid of, and he looked at, he was like, I’m not afraid of debt.

[00:22:35] You know, like he had this. You know, sort of evolved view of debt and had this like, you know, more nuanced understanding of how financial systems specifically around credit card debt are taking advantage of people and taking advantage of their shame. And he was sort of free of that. And I was not. So I just want to say.

[00:22:56] But I remember not having, you know, when I was building date braids and [00:23:00] not having 275, sometimes to get on the subway, you know, and like feeling like, okay, I gotta, gotta stay home this week because I don’t have subway fare. So I just say all of this to say, like, it’s also okay if you are not in a place to have to move your money into investments right now.

[00:23:18] And I want to speak directly to that. That moment in a financial journey where you might be feeling shame about debt and specifically as a woman, like, let’s start with debt because I think that’s a thing that we all can benefit from talking

[00:23:33] Aja: about. I couldn’t agree more with you and I appreciate you sharing your story because it’s a story that so many people are going through, have lived through and are just trying to navigate in general because there’s a ton of shame.

[00:23:45] In money in general, but then specifically in debt. And I think it is because of how we, we look at it and how we have named it almost like you are a bad person because you have debt, you have done [00:24:00] something wrong, you are bad.

[00:24:02] Lily: Yeah. Meanwhile, the system, like if you look up one credit card online, you’re going to get 50 pieces of mail offering you new credit cards.

[00:24:11] A client said to me the other day, she was like, I was taught that it was. Pathetic to want a relationship and simultaneously pathetic to not have one.

[00:24:24] And I think that this is very similar to the debt conversation. It’s pathetic to have debt and it’s pathetic to not have the money to pay for things, which then leads to you getting into so continue with this.

[00:24:38] Aja: Yeah. And that’s, that’s what happens. And that’s what people just sit in and try to navigate and.

[00:24:47] And try to hopefully try to make themselves feel better, but then are just sitting in their shame by themselves isolating because you feel so bad and you feel like you can’t talk about it because money is taboo. So then you’re just stuck or you completely [00:25:00] avoid it altogether and swipe, swipe, swipe. And, and then the weekend is over and you feel terrible that you did that because you were just trying to relieve some of the financial stress and shame that you have in hanging out with your friends in having a good time, which feels really good.

[00:25:17] Yeah, in

[00:25:18] Lily: connection, then costs money to connect with people if you’re going to go like, Oh, it can be so tricky.

[00:25:25] Aja: Right. And so what I say for people is to get financially naked. And that is the like free downloadable worksheet that you can do the brain dump with. It’s so hard to first look at your money, but you can’t do anything about it until you know what’s going on.

[00:25:44] You don’t know what you don’t know. So this is your moment to just be like, okay, I’m going to take myself on a money date and me and my dollars are going to get really intimate because we’re getting naked and I’m going to look at where I’m at financially. And then I’m going to [00:26:00] start thinking about what I want to accomplish and how I can

[00:26:03] Lily: accomplish it.

[00:26:04] Yeah, and I think it’s important also, I would love to hear your thoughts on like the Dave Ramsey of it all, like, I, I went to my first Dave Ramsey, oh my god, um, and I’m not a fan, by the way, if anybody can’t tell by the tone of my voice, I’m really not a fan. My parents took me to a church sponsored Dave Ramsey DVD watch.

[00:26:27] They thought it would be valuable for me. And I sat there as a 13 year old and listen to this white man yell at me about how terrible credit cards are, how you need to cut them all up, how if you’re in debt, that’s all you need to focus on. And the, I think that these messages of like, Debt is bad. Shame.

[00:26:48] Shame. Shame. Live. If you have debt, why are you going out to dinner? Like, all of these things are so traumatizing.

[00:26:58] Aja: Yes. Yes. And it [00:27:00] is, it is a thing. Like, financial trauma is an actual thing that people experience. And it can come from many, many different avenues. Um, losing a job or you’re how you’re being evicted in some way or

[00:27:13] Lily: 2008,

[00:27:14] Aja: right?

[00:27:16] All of these things can be really, really financially traumatic and traumatic for people. And then you internalize that. So my thoughts on Dave Ramsey, um, complex, I would say, um, and not the best. So I too had taken part in Dave Ramsey’s brainwashing for a bit. And what I, I will, the one thing I will say, and I cannot believe I’m going to say this, but I am, I do appreciate the fact that for so many people there, that is the first avenue of trying to learn about money.

[00:27:52] Right. I can appreciate that. Yeah. After that moment that his whole system is built on [00:28:00] shame. It is built on you making you feel like you were a horrible person. Like you said, it’s

[00:28:04] Lily: diet culture, isn’t it? Yes.

[00:28:06] Aja: It’s awful. And people don’t know how to spend their money when they get out of these programs.

[00:28:11] And that is really awful to me. Right,

[00:28:13] Lily: right, right, right, right. But it is, it is like the, you know, he’s. Become sort of ubiquitous in the and people do have this, like, and financial education is also shrouded in shame because this idea of, like, I should have known this already. How do you, how do you help clients move through financial shame?

[00:28:34] What’s like the 1st step to doing

[00:28:36] Aja: that? Like, literally, we’re going to sit here in our session and we’re going to, you’re going to repeat after me. I am not a bad person. Because I have made money mistakes. I am not a bad person because I didn’t know. I am not a bad person because I have debt. Wow.

[00:28:57] Lily: What happens when people repeat that?

[00:28:59] [00:29:00] Usually?

[00:29:00] Aja: I mean, they struggle to repeat it. They really struggle. A lot comes up. It’s very emotional because I am literally naming for them that they probably are feeling. In this way, and it might be the first time that they’ve said

[00:29:13] Lily: that to anybody. Yeah. Yeah. Shame breeds in silence. I think that that, like bringing it to the surface can be really painful in and of itself.

[00:29:21] Self compassion probably helps as well. What, what does self compassion sound like in, in that work from, from your

[00:29:29] Aja: perspective? Yeah, I’m learning. We can do this differently. I can get myself out of some of the places I put myself in when I didn’t know I am going to move forward with positivity and knowing that I can change what I, what I want to change.

[00:29:44] My life can look the way I want it to look. It may take me time, which, um, as we all know, humans are not the most patient, but, um. You can do it. And now it’s like, okay, let’s talk about financial education. Let’s talk about your feelings that come up. Let’s talk about the inside. Let’s [00:30:00] talk about the shame because although it’s really hard to be vulnerable to bring up that shame, once you start talking about it, it breaks it up.

[00:30:08] You feel less alone. You realize other people are going through that and you don’t need to just be sitting there in anxiety and stress by yourself.

[00:30:19] Lily: Yeah, I think that you deserve belonging. Like everybody listening, especially in your financial life, especially in your dating life. I think that that’s our work and our sex.

[00:30:28] So, so hardcore in that way. Last question I want to ask, I kind of want to open the door to like, what do you recommend people should be asking? Or what do people get to ask about money on dates or in a new relationship? Like, what do you rec, how do you recommend people? Think about this, even preparing to be in the right relationship.

[00:30:48] Aja: Yeah. So, I mean, I’m going to say people get to ask whatever they want, but you need to be prepared that somebody may not be want, may not be ready to answer that type of [00:31:00] question. So depending upon where you are in your relationship and where you may see this going or not going, um, you can ask whatever you want.

[00:31:08] You just may not get the answer that you want and prepare yourself for that. But the second part that I would say is, Ask if you are also ready to be transparent as well. So I, I think there are ways that you can go about asking people about where they are financially and just say like, Hey, what are your, some of your financial goals?

[00:31:28] Like, what do you want your life to look like? And it doesn’t have to just be money. It can be like, Do you want to own a home? Are you okay living in the city, in a city apartment? Like, what do you want it to look like? Do you want green space? Do you not like, almost like, what do you want your whole life to look like?

[00:31:44] I would also say, like, what does your relationship with money look like? Um, how do you feel about it? And because money is so taboo, these are going to be hard questions. There will be a time when you are unsure, like, oh, gosh, where are we? Where is [00:32:00] this going? Is it time to talk money? Is it time not to talk money?

[00:32:03] If you are ready to just be fully transparent, be transparent and say, hey, listen, this is where I’m at financially. And it’s really important to me that I. Have a partner who is okay talking about money. And I know this is new and we’re both really excited and I am too, but it’s also a part of our lives that we’ll have to navigate together.

[00:32:23] So I think it’s important that we can talk about it.

[00:32:26] Lily: Yeah. I love that so much. I also love witnessing in those first few dates in the first few months, like how do they treat money? How do they, you know, how do they treat money? And then, and, and, and using that question that you, that you threw out there, which is like, what, how, what’s your relationship to money?

[00:32:44] Like, I think you can tell. After a few dates or after a few months, like, is this person hoarding money? Is this person like saving to save or are they saving to spend or are they saving to and then what’s your preference around that or like, you know, I think that that’s really [00:33:00] important and, and to your point, you can ask anything.

[00:33:03] I had a client who in the phone date before the first date ever would ask, what’s your relationship to debt? Are you in debt? And she wasn’t looking for the answer of no, I’m not in debt. She was looking for, are they honest? How are they treating that conversation? And she told us this in a group coaching call.

[00:33:22] I was like, damn, that’s like, that’s bold. She wasn’t messing around and it’s, that’s not going to work for everybody. And I do think that it’s a good, like. Call to action, like you said, like, you can ask anything you want. And I think knowing why you want to ask certain things is also good for you to

[00:33:41] Aja: know.

[00:33:42] Right. And being intentional, right? So for somebody that question may be like, way too early and too soon. And like, Oh, my gosh, what are you doing? This is a turnoff up, up, up, up, up. But my, my inkling is that The person you’re talking about is okay with that being a turnoff and [00:34:00] that their person wouldn’t be turned off by

[00:34:02] Lily: that.

[00:34:02] Yeah. Yeah, for sure. You can’t say the wrong thing to the right person.

[00:34:06] Aja: Exactly. Exactly. I couldn’t agree more. So the true foundation of me as a therapist in the work that I do is really because I just want people to be their most authentic self. I want you to be able to show up. As you as humanly possible as much as you can be, and that will attract whoever you’re supposed to be with.

[00:34:30] That is what will keep people saying, like, oh, you know, that was the harsh question. I might not have been ready to answer it, but I like that. You answered it. And I still wanted to talk to you because I’ve never been asked that or whatever. I find that when. Um, people are their most authentic selves as with all of the qualities, good and bad and ugly that it comes with.

[00:34:52] That’s when they really do find the people who see them and not kind of this. Vision masked [00:35:00] version

[00:35:00] Lily: of them, right, right, right. It’s like fantasy non human version. Yeah, for sure. I love all of this so much and I really recommend people check out your website and that financially naked guide. We’re going to put it in the description of this episode and in the show notes at date brazen dot com.

[00:35:20] I’m curious. How can people work with you? When does the book come out? Tell tell us more.

[00:35:25] Aja: I am not 100 percent sure when the book is going to come out because I haven’t gotten the complete clear from the publisher, but definitely I’m thinking maybe towards the end of next year. So end of 2024 and people can you can find me on I.

[00:35:40] G. Of course, Aja eat therapy and you can work with me individually. If some of the stuff that we’re talking about resonates for you and you want to have A conversation. You’re like, who do I talk to about this? Come talk to me because it just, it’s just awful for people to just be suffering in silence.

[00:35:56] And it just really, I just hate it. It just makes me really uncomfortable and [00:36:00] I can help and I would love to be able to support. So let’s chat about money. And do

[00:36:04] Lily: you work with clients all over the country and in your state specifically, tell us

[00:36:09] Aja: more. So I do all over the country. So I, majority of my clients are in New York, but I do have clients who live honestly, um, internationally and who have moved.

[00:36:19] So I do work with people. It looks a little bit different, but I can tell you about those nuances

[00:36:22] Lily: too. Amazing. Amazing. Well, Aja, so glad to have you on this. I know this episode will help so many. And we’re going to link all of that juicy goodness in the show notes and in the description of this episode.

[00:36:34] And thank you so much for coming

[00:36:35] Aja: on. Thanks for having me. This is so much fun. Yeah.

[00:36:38] Lily: Talk to you next week. Bye.[00:37:00]