How to Feel More Supported in Your Personal Finances with Nafasi Ferrell

In today’s episode, Taylor is joined by Nafasi Ferrell, Founder and Principal Consultant of Narratives Unbound LLC. Taylor and Nafasi look back and look forward to explore the relationship between money and well-being. Nafasi draws on her knowledge as a historian to add context to the generational aspects of building wealth. Then she shares her seven stages for building wealth today. Listen in to feel supported in your personal finances.

Mentioned in Episode:

Meet the Guest:

As a Community Connector, Facilitator, and Event Specialist of over 10 years, Nafasi has focused her life’s work on building bridges, healing, and transforming racial and economic equity. Nafasi is the founder and principal consultant of Narratives Unbound LLC, a Consulting and Education Company dedicated to advancing racial and economic equity through financial coaching, community workshops, and wealth redistribution circles.

Through her one-on-one financial coaching and Stages of Wealth Building Program she equips clients and groups with the knowledge and confidence to understand the colonial history of money, develop a positive relationship with money, tackle debt and create a solid financial future. Her work focuses on working adults, youth and families to support them in decolonizing their wealth building through education, saving, investing, and redistribution.

Nafasi holds two bachelor’s degrees in History and International Relations, and a master’s degree in Cultural Studies from the University of Washington Bothell.

Connect with Nafasi Ferrell:

Episode Transcript

Taylor Elyse Morrison:

You're listening to Inner Warmup. I'm your host, Taylor Elyse Morrison, Founder and Author of Inner Workout, ICF certified coach, and fellow journeyer. In 2017, I set out to build a life that didn't burn me out, and I found my life's work in the process. On Inner Warmup, we talk about how self-care and inner work show up in your relationships, your career, your schedule, and then the conversations you have with yourself. We get practical, we get nuance, and we're not afraid to challenge wellness as usual. So take a deep breath and get curious. This is where your inner work begins. Today on the show, we have Nafasi Ferrell.

Taylor Elyse Morrison:

Nafasi is the Founder and Principal consultant at Narratives Unbound LLC. It's a consulting and education company dedicated to advancing racial and economic equity through financial coaching, community workshops, and wealth redistribution circles. What I loved about my conversation with Nafasi is that she brought her perspective as a historian. So we really brought a lot of context to this conversation about money. We talked a lot about the relationship between money and well-being. It is so interconnected, and she really came with some practical steps that we can take along our journey to building a healthier relationship with money and building wealth for ourselves. Nafasi, I am so excited to have you on the show today.

Nafasi Ferrell:

Definitely excited to be here, Taylor. Thank you for inviting me.

Taylor Elyse Morrison:

So this whole series and season of the podcast is all about thinking about the people we might want to be in our self-care support system, and I felt like we couldn't have this season without talking about money. It is something that is so connected to our well-being and also something that can feel kind of shameful or intimidating to talk about. So I'm really, really excited that we get to have you to bring such like a grounded perspective on the topic. And to kick things off, I wanna hear about your story because money is such a deeply personal topic and I'm curious how your personal journey with money brought you to the work that you do today.

Nafasi Ferrell:

Yes. Our journeys are so deeply personal, so different from one another. And, of course, mine is one that maybe many can relate to and many cannot. So I really started this journey in around 2016. I had a kind of a spiritual awakening. I was walking down the street, and I felt this urge to say go check your bank accounts, my partners and mine. And I said, why? You know, what's different than what we've been doing thus far in our lives? And when I finally came face to face with that, I realized that the way in which we were using money had gotten us to over $30,000 worth of consumer debt at the time. And it was an awakening.

Nafasi Ferrell:

It was an awakening to the reality of spending, of understanding income, understanding expenses, what all those things meant. And it's really set me up on a journey to understanding how I could get me and my husband out of this debt that we had put ourselves in. And I started going down a rabbit hole. I decided to say, you know, what can I do with the tools that I already have at my disposal? And the first place I started was with technology. Right? I opened the phone And I said, what is investing? And I typed it in. And I just took in all the language that existed. I started going on YouTube. I started listening to podcasts about people's journeys and what they've done with money, how they built money, how they've lost all their wealth, how they rebuilt their wealth, just to get a sense of what are we as humans experiencing? And that really helped me set myself up to take in the pieces of knowledge that I needed for myself to help us Start that journey.

Nafasi Ferrell:

And for me, it was just step by step. Right? Creating, you know, what's the first thing that we need to do to get out of debt. Right? Choose an account. Right? For me, it was that simple. But the next step that really hit me really hard was when my father got sick and died unexpectedly. And that's when I really began this journey of creating Narratives Unbound, when I really awoke to money and grief And all the pieces that I didn't get to know or didn't get to understand about money, writing a will, getting a trust together if needed if you have enough assets. Right? Letting people know what you want to do with the things you have while you're alive. And as I went through that journey to help my dad pass on his things that were still left over after he was alive, I realized I was like, you know, who else doesn't know these things? Who doesn't know how to close bank accounts? Who doesn't know that they need to put beneficiaries on their bank accounts? My father would say, oh, you know, just you'll figure it out.

Nafasi Ferrell:

It's fine. Without thinking any more deeply about their steps to take to preserve your wealth while you're alive so that it can even be passed on. And that's really when I started to say, what can I do with the knowledge that I've gained to share with others? Right? Can I help people not suffer in the way that I did and grieve in the way that I did if some of these tools that I learned were so easy? Right? Writing a will doesn't take that long, putting a beneficiary on your bank account just takes 10 minutes, but no one told me any of these things. And so as I started to talk to my community where I live here in Seattle, some friends and family, I realized that not many others knew either. And so that's what started me on this path to say, I share the knowledge that I have with others, and can any of it be helpful? And that was the awakening in the beginning to Narratives Unbound and to the financial coaching part of my company. And that's then transformed into, you know, doing community workshops, gathering other leaders, financial leaders, talking about the relationship between trauma and grief. Right? We all experience different things that upset our nervous system.

Nafasi Ferrell:

Our nervous system then allows us to use our resources in different ways. And so going on that journey really helped me take those tools and share them back with others. And then now also helping others understand that they need to give and receive. Right? Giving and receiving is a cycle. And so I'm in this part of this journey of my wealth work where I'm able to not just share, but I'm able to build wealth and help others do the same. Mental wealth and wealth as we see it in the real world, which is our time, money, our energy, and what we call currency.

Taylor Elyse Morrison:

Thank you for being willing to share that. And I know debt, whether it is student debt or student loan debt or consumer debt is something that so many people experience especially here in the States and what's so beautiful about your story is your willingness to take this really hard won wisdom that you've gathered and be generous with it. And I find in talking to so many people, whether it's here on this podcast or at a networking event or when I'm talking to friends and their friends, some of the most impactful work that we can do comes from that place where it's like, Yes! I lived this. This was hard for me and here's what I learned so that you don't have to learn it the hard way. I see that so much in my work with self-care. I tell people all the time, I don't do this work because I have self-care perfectly figured out and I'm so good at taking care of myself naturally. I come to this work because I need it so much and I'm constantly returning to turning to the tools and the frameworks that we teach here at Inner Workout. And as I was preparing for this episode, I was thinking about how there are some parallels between the ways that we talk about self-care at Inner Workout and the ways that we might think about money.

Taylor Elyse Morrison:

At Inner Workout all the time, we talk about how there's no one size fits all approach to self-care and how many of the standards for what it means to be well, what well-being is supposed to look like were created in ways that don't necessarily keep me as a black woman in mind. And I'm wondering how you see that same kind of narrative of there not being a one size fits all approach and maybe some people being left out of the conversation show up in the money space.

Nafasi Ferrell:

No. Definitely. In much of my work, I'm a historian as well. I spent most of my life studying the ancient world, but most recently studying the relationship of humans' relationship with money and money creation. And since we've lived in slavery for thousands of years, money was always meant for those that we decided could and could not have. And for those of us of color, if we think about our modern era, people of color were money. So you can't have money if you're the producer of money, if your body is money. So many of the things weren't created for us in mind at all because we were never meant to be the ones that hold wealth, that get to if we think about self-care, this idea that you get to rest.

Nafasi Ferrell:

Right? What I think many of us do is we think about it in the entrepreneur space, but us as each individual, rest, well-being, rejuvenation is what we all desire, but that was never meant for the slave classes of any society. What I find very disheartening about our modern era and the way in which we have to live is that in the past, our ancestors did not have access to tools to use, and so there was mental and physical slavery. And, yes, we have over 45,000,000 slaves in the world today and we have so much physical slavery. But mental slavery, for those of us who have access to any sort of resource, no matter what our skin color is in this day and age, the mental slavery still prohibits us from accessing tools in a way that could serve ourselves. And the fact that that's not really addressed is a main piece of why it's so hard for us to I think the word is what we use a lot is overcome, but it's to be well, right? I think wellness is like you said, it's not a one size fits all, but there's an energy. There's an energy that you and I and everyone knows that when we're in a space where we feel good, our body feels good. Our body's not trembling. Right? Our nervous system feels at ease.

Nafasi Ferrell:

And money, if we say money as currency is a part of that process and one that we don't connect always with our being. Right? Money money as currency is the thing we use to go buy things is just as important as our time is money. Right? And it's connecting those dots to all parts of us. Like, we're one being that really helps us use money in a way that can serve us to provide a better sense of well-being for ourselves. And that that is a - for those of us of color, that is a journey as we were specifically meant to never hold it. So when I hear people say, well, that young black girl should just figure it out. That's impossible. Number one, because humans we as humans we have to be taught to learn whether that's experiences or someone teaches us to do something.

Nafasi Ferrell:

And the amount of trauma that we face generationally and by through societal trauma is so deep that it's not just one size fits all. It's not the same timeline for everyone. And we don't live in a space in a system that says that you have time to heal. Right? It's something that we have to take back. And I think the many ways that I see not just women, but those in the community trying to take back wealth. Like, wealth meaning not just currency, but time, energy, skills, and using in a way that serves us is going to serve our future generations no matter what. Like, we the future generations will have a better world because we are asking new questions. We are pushing back against what was and what can't be and are imagining things that our ancestors could not imagine because of the space and place they had to live in.

Nafasi Ferrell:

And I think that's one of our joys of this era of humanity is that we have the ability to not just self-reflect, but to help ourselves and help others to move to a place that we really want to be, which I don't think we had in ancient times. And that is so important to have the diversity of the journey. Like, my journey is not your journey, but I can learn so much from it. You might have a tool and you've done something in your life to heal that I would have never thought of. And in sharing that, I get to open my mind and my spirit to something different. And so that's why I think when we talk about self-care and money, they're one and the same, and the diversity of the journey is so, so important and that we must find time and find space to even have the dialogue more that we weren't allowed to have in the past.

Taylor Elyse Morrison:

Yeah. The definition that we use for self-care is, like, listening within and responding in the most loving way possible, and we talk about how self-care is this conversation that you're having with yourself. And I love hearing you say how so much of our healing when it comes to money also comes from dialogue and conversation with ourself, with our communities, with our families potentially, and hearing you talk about too the importance of a well regulated nervous system. I think we forget sometimes how related our finances are with how we're feeling with our nervous system. And I can totally think of situations, especially as someone who is self-employed, where I can feel in my body, like, even as I'm saying this right now, I can feel, like, the tightness in my chest or the feeling in my stomach where I'm like, oh, shoot. Am I gonna be able to keep doing this for another month or another quarter or another year? And I continue to have to do work not just to make sure that I've built a sustainable business model for myself, but also that I'm regulating my nervous system so that I can continue to show up. And because right now, we live in a capitalist society where, like, we have to make money to survive. So thank you for drawing out some of those connections.

Nafasi Ferrell:

Oh, definitely.

Taylor Elyse Morrison:

Something that I was curious as I was reading a little bit more about you was that you talk about these 7 Stages for Building Wealth. And even when you were introducing us to your story, you mentioned a little bit about the stage of building wealth that you're in. So I was wondering if you could just, like, briefly touch on what each of those stages are.

Nafasi Ferrell:

Oh, definitely. I would love to. These stages really came from a culmination of a part of a journey where I was at at the time when I said I'm ready to then share a system that I think others can adapt themselves to. And where I always started was from the mind. And it's the mind is saying that it's about your mindset, but it's about your body. It's about understanding your physiology and connection with your mind. Right. If your body and your mind are not well, you cannot use any resources well.

Nafasi Ferrell:

Money is one of the resources you're using. And we focus a lot on it, but it's connected to everything else. So getting to know how you behave with money. Do you overspend? Do you underspend? or Do you undercharge? And understanding deeply how that affects your day to day, how that affects your desires, your wants, your dreams, your values is the beginning journey of understanding and building a relationship with money that will serve you. Once you do that and you understand where your mind is and where your body is when you do certain things, maybe if you try to budget, Your body starts to quiver. Well, what are the tools that we do within self-care? Right? Meditation, walking, journaling. What can you do to calm your nervous system to then get yourself in a place where you can attempt to take a step towards that task? Right. All those little steps add up over time.

Nafasi Ferrell:

So getting to know your money mindset is that first step to then giving you the key to then move forward to then assessing your money flow. That's second. Where am I right now in the world? Right? What is my income? What is my expenses currently? What are my dreams? What do those look like in numbers? Right? And getting to a place where your mind can play with numbers. Right? Where you can create, where we can be in this imaginative space. To say this is where I am right now. Maybe in this moment, I have more income than I have expenses. Maybe in this moment, I have more expenses than I have income. You cannot transform what you cannot see.

Nafasi Ferrell:

So that's really that first first step is saying, where is my money? Where is it going? Once you do that, then you can start to set up your goals. Right? Usually those of us who are just starting out, many of us don't have enough. Right. We're just beginning. But when we're just beginning, it takes a penny to make a million. So that penny actually matters. That penny is actually power. And so that begins the journey of building your front line of reserves.

Nafasi Ferrell:

When times get hard, you must have something to build upon. And third step in the stages of world building is making sure you have some reserves. It doesn't matter if it's $10 for $100,000. What we focus on in that space is having at least 3 to 6 months' worth of savings within your savings - within an account. Right? Usually, I just say, Let's start with a half of a month. Right? Wherever you can begin, that is where your momentum will move towards. So beginning to build those emergency reserves, whether that's for your personal self and for your business if you own a business. And then we live in America.

Nafasi Ferrell:

So many of us do have credit card debt or we use credit cards. And so rebuilding our relationship with money is building or rebuilding our relationship with tools. Many people see credit as evil. Credit is a tool that was created for us to use in a specific way by the Ancient Chinese, right, for us to use something now and pay it back later. There is nothing wrong with that if we are in a well relationship with our mind, body, and with the resources that we have coming in and coming out. So it's understanding credit. How do you need to use credit? If you have tons of credit card debt, starting to make a process and a way to pay that off, to start paying back debt if you have different types of debt and ordering them in a way that makes your nervous system feel good. You know, we have the avalanche processes, the snowball processes.

Nafasi Ferrell:

It's about choosing the best process that works best for you. Today, you might this month, you might say I'm gonna tackle the one debt that's the smallest, that's fine. Next month, I wanna switch it up and I wanna tackle another piece of debt that's actually weighing more on my heart. What matters is that you're taking that step towards something different than what you are already experiencing, and that that will over time get you to that goal. Let's say you do manage off paying most of your debt off or you're on that process, just start your savings. Your savings for your other goals that are not your emergency reserves. Your vacation. You'll start to save for your family's plans.

Nafasi Ferrell:

You'll start to begin this process of getting into step six, which is investing for your future. So if you have an employer, you should start thinking about your 401K, your Roth IRA, all the things that the government provides depending on what country you live in. We live in United States. The government provides you with very few ways that you can save on your taxes. There's only two things that are promised in this world, death and taxes. We - You must master and understand taxes. That is where all of your money goes. And we have vehicles to prevent all of your wealth being taken for the government and some left for yourself, which is how many, many millionaires have been made in the past.

Nafasi Ferrell:

So you'll begin that process of investing for your future, whether that's just starting with your employer. If you are in a self-employed, then there's other vehicles that are provided for you to invest in. You'll start that learning journey. Take that step. I started with $25 in my Roth IRA. I said, this is the first step I'm taking. I know that this $25 will one day transform into something else. Alright.

Nafasi Ferrell:

Now that of course is 1,000 of dollars, but I took that first step. Once you have that part of the system set up, you understand your mindset, you know where your money goes, you check-in with it, you have your emergency reserves built, you've built a better relationship with credit, either paying down your debt or paying it to a manageable area within your life. You have your buckets of savings. You're investing for your retirement. Then you continue to build those processes. At each level of wealth, there's new tools that you're going to need to preserve your wealth. And a part of your wealth building is also sharing your wealth, being generous with your wealth, giving back. Right? We are to steward wealth, and we are to share it with others.

Nafasi Ferrell:

That process of giving and receiving is a full cycle. Those of us of color know very well how to give. It is very, very hard to receive because of slavery, which is still within our bodies. Right? We know that we carry about 14 generations of memories within our actual physical bodies. It's changing that narrative by action. Right? I'm gonna help those around me when I can and knowing that that is enough. If someone needs something and I only have $5, then I give them the $5. If someone needs something and I don't have money, well, then I'll give them my time and my skill that can help them.

Nafasi Ferrell:

And you continue this process over and over again as you build. You check back in at each level, at each stage to say, where am I? And knowing that no matter where you are on the journey, you can always start again. There's so many of us that life happens. People pass away. You have to upend your life to go help family members. Things happen. But if you want to build your system and you know how to build a system, you can transform it when you need it. These stages of wealth building has helped me through every part of my life journey I've had, I just had to help my aunt pass on unexpectedly.

Nafasi Ferrell:

And if I didn't have this, if I didn't have the experiences and this set of tools that I've built, I wouldn't have been able to go through the grief I went through with this much ease in my heart. And so this is what I share with each of my clients and each of the youth that I work with, how they can just begin their wealth building journey.

Taylor Elyse Morrison:

Thank you for laying that out in such a clear way. And like so many things in our life, it is simple, but that does not mean that it's easy. And I can imagine that there are people listening who or like, you know what? If I'm gonna go through those 7 steps, I will need support to do that. And like so many things in our life, we can't necessarily trust all of the people who say that they can help us in any area, especially around money. So I'd love to hear from you, what are some red flags that we should be aware of when we're looking for a financial professional to support us? And what are some green flags?

Nafasi Ferrell:

No. Definitely. We all go to school to get an education. And I think in this day and age, our vision of education is being questioned in many ways, but that is very, very important when we're starting to choose our village. I think part of building your financial life and your life in general, your life for thriving and for wellness is about having financial professionals that support you. That should be an accountant. That should be a financial advisor. That should be a tax professional.

Nafasi Ferrell:

That should be those that are at every part of your life. You should have someone that can support you. And there are so many, many, many red flags. I'd love to just share a couple. Number one is that they're not licensed or certified. Anyone who's gonna be managing your actual money needs to be licensed and certified. If you ask them questions, they can't answer your questions clearly or you ask them a question, it takes them two weeks or a month to get back to you, that's a huge red flag. If they're trying to manage their investments - your investments on their own without investment systems and if they're aggressive and/or product-focused.

Nafasi Ferrell:

That's been the biggest one that I - with my clients, they've been verbally abused by advisors. And once that's done, it is so hard to repair. People do not want to trust anyone, but there are so many that can be trusted. I've had my financial advisor for over 5 years. I'm so grateful for him, but I do those basics. And so some of those basics surround, like, the green flags we can look at. Right? They need to be a certified and a fiduciary advisor.

Nafasi Ferrell:

Right? Fiduciaries are held to the highest standard of care, and they must always act in client's best interest. There's tons of financial advisers, and they offer tons of services and have access to many things that you can put your money into, but they might not always act in your best interest. If they're not certified on a national association of certified financial fiduciaries, that's a red flag. They need to be certified and have others that hold them to the accountability of their work. They also need to have a comprehensive financial plan that aligns with your values and goals and that they help you navigate really big life events and give you ease and confidence to do so. And you need to make sure that they understand that they make you understand your investments. Should never have an advisor that has a sit down and say, hey, we're gonna look at this together and I'm gonna show you where your money is, what it's doing, where it's going so that they can help you understand how all of these how it's gonna impact your future.

Nafasi Ferrell:

And they also need to be focused on wealth preservation and growth. A lot of us are I think Crypto did a lot to the brain. It's that drug, get rich quick, desires that we have in our society. But you should have an advisor and a professional that's focused on your wealth preservation as well as growth. But you work hard for your money, so you must - the person that is in your life and is helping you with your finances should definitely be supporting you on how do you keep what you've already made and then grow it in a way over time. And I wanna specifically talk like, say this in regards to our retirement funds. Retirement is not in 10 years. It is in 30, 40 years for many of us.

Nafasi Ferrell:

So it's over the long haul, which is how much wealth is built.

Taylor Elyse Morrison:

I love that reminder. I've been reading the psychology of money. I had heard it recommended, and it happened to be in the little free Library in my neighborhood. And just the reminder that most wealth is built over time and it's so hard for our brains. It's so hard just with the society that we live in when we want this, like you said, get rich quick or we want that instant dopamine hit. But really, like, when you think about how things compound and the growth that's able to happen over time, It's so cool. It's kind of mind boggling if you sit and look at it, but it does mean that you gotta be patient. So it's definitely a mindset shift.

Nafasi Ferrell:

It is. And it is so hard. Social media is a hindrance to our wealth building because it allows you to compare yourself to others that have nothing to do with you. They have nothing to do with your journey, and they are wealthy. Right? And they might have made their wealth overnight, but that is not the norm. Right. It's being presented as the norm, but it is not the norm. And that is one of the biggest things I see prohibiting many of my youth from wealth building is that they want money now, and they're not - they don't want to wait.

Nafasi Ferrell:

They don't wanna wade through the journey, but there's so much to learn through the journey that you will never learn if someone gave it to you. It's like teach a man to fish, but the other piece is you must teach a man to fish and then teach that person how to help others to fish. And there's experience and growth in there that can only be achieved if you experience it and go through the process. You won't see it if it's just handed to you. So there's beauty and there's, like, life is beauty and struggle, and the same thing is for each I think each piece of that journey of our lives, whether that's our health, whether that's our finances, whether that's our family situations. There's so much to learn in navigation and The Compound Effect. I think that's a great book if anyone has not read that. It's a great just lesson on allowing yourself to experience time and what that can do for yourself.

Taylor Elyse Morrison:

In so many areas of our life, like, it applies with money. But I feel that as a business owner, I feel that as a partner, I feel that as someone who like, whenever I'm trying something new, that reminder that just good things take time. And to your point with social media, we are so often comparing ourselves to people who have put in those years, who have put in those hours of effort, who have failed a lot. I see this sometimes even when people are, like, talking to me, and I'm like, do you know how many times I had to mess up before I figured out something that worked? And I still feel like I'm figuring out what works. So, yeah, that reminder is just so good for our money, but also good for our overall well-being.

Nafasi Ferrell:

And I think that's the other piece too as humans. We are human, and so we fight against change. Part of life is being different than you were yesterday. Like, you will not be the same. I won't look the same. My skin will change. My voice might change. Like, things are going to change and transform.

Nafasi Ferrell:

It's understanding that it's a journey that allows you to release some of the control of this is how I want my life to be. But your life will be as it will be. You can impact it and do little things here and there. And sometimes many big things here and there to make that trajectory a little bit closer to what you want, but you still have to go on the journey.

Taylor Elyse Morrison:

Absolutely. What a good reminder. And in the Inner Workout App, actually, we call Our mini courses journeys partly to remind people that we need to be on this journey. It is a journey. And a question that I have for you, Nafasi, is for the people who are listening, they heard your 7 steps for building wealth, and they're wondering like, okay, that feels like a lot. What is one thing that I could do to get started as soon as I'm done with this podcast episode. Where would you recommend that they start?

Nafasi Ferrell:

I think there's two things. So one is, what you value and what you believe is where you give your energy. Your energy is money. So you must spend some time evaluating. So sitting with yourself, sitting down, and writing how you feel about money. When you think about money, what's the first couple of things that come to your mind when you even think of the word? What does that even mean? Often, our values are tied to our childhood, to our past, to our caregivers, how they felt about it, how people around us have managed it. And so you must understand what you value fully. Become very clear about what that means for how you wish to be in the world so that you can start to develop new habits.

Nafasi Ferrell:

Right? Specifically, yes, we're talking about financial habits, but it's your habits. Your habits are your money. It's where do you go out and you buy things. So what you value is where you put your energy. So start to explore your values and your values in general, and then focus them in on your financial values. I think, really, the second piece is you like I said earlier, you cannot change what you cannot see. And I have many clients because of trauma that could not budget. I cannot look at my bank accounts because I have too much shame.

Nafasi Ferrell:

So I cannot change my situation because I cannot look at what is. You must regulate your nervous system in a way and find support to review your current financial situation and how you are using your resources. You must write down all your income. You must write down all your expenses and your debts and your savings goals. Once you see it, you will be amazed at how clear things become. Once it's out of you and it's in front of you, you will feel different in your body, and avoiding that will not make it go away. Right? It typically makes things worse. And there's many tools out there that you can use, many budgeting tools.

Nafasi Ferrell:

Finding an accountability partner has helped many of my clients sitting down saying, sit with me and go through each line item with me so I can see it. Once you have that full view, you can then begin your plan. And typically, the plans always - they emerge. They emerge from what you can see because you finally got to see all of your life together, all of your financial life together as one. So it's those two things, exploring your values and getting clear on where you are at with your finances and with your habits around your spending.

Taylor Elyse Morrison:

Thank you so much for sharing that, Nafasi. And I'm wondering for people who are listening, who want to stay connected with you or maybe interested in having you as part of their self-care support system. How can they stay in touch?

Nafasi Ferrell:

No. Definitely. You can go to the website at narrativesunbound.net, or you can send me an email at info@narrativesunbound.net, and I will be happy to connect with you. You can book me for a discovery session, and we can assess where you're at, what your needs are. And if I don't have the tools and the resources, I have a village behind me that can help you and support you.

Taylor Elyse Morrison:

Thank you for being on the show. And people listening, we will have that linked in the show notes. Thank you, Nafasi.

Nafasi Ferrell:

Thank you, Taylor.

Taylor Elyse Morrison:

Inner Warmup is a collaborative effort. It's hosted by me, Taylor Elyse Morrison. Danielle Spaulding provides production support, and it's edited by Carolina Duque. If you enjoyed this episode, share it with a friend. And if you're looking to continue your inner work, our free Take Care assessment is a great place to start. On that note, take care.