When Garrett Gunderson was five years old, his kindergarten teacher threw his project in the trash in front of the entire class because he couldn’t remember his address. That single moment of public humiliation didn’t just embarrass him—it embedded a destructive belief deep in his psyche: “I am stupid.”
This childhood wound hijacked his relationship with money for the next two decades. He found himself chasing wealth not from a place of vision or purpose, but from a desperate need for validation. He hoarded money instead of investing it. He worked himself to exhaustion trying to prove my worth rather than creating from a place of confidence.
His story isn’t unique. Most people carry similar financial wounds that limit their potential without them even realizing it. The formula is devastatingly simple: Story + Emotion = Financial Limitation.
How Money Wounds Shape Our Financial Decisions
For Garrett, the story was “I’m not smart enough.” For you, it might be “I’m not worthy” or “Money is hard to come by.” These narratives aren’t random—they’re programmed responses rooted in emotional experiences, usually from childhood.
These money wounds manifest in predictable patterns:
- Chronic underearning despite having valuable skills
- Compulsive saving that prevents healthy investment
- Overspending to fill emotional voids
- Avoiding financial conversations or decisions
- Setting income ceilings based on what feels “safe”
The most dangerous aspect of these patterns is how invisible they become. We don’t question them because they feel like “just how things are” rather than choices we’re making based on outdated emotional programming.
Breaking Free From Financial Limitation
The good news? You can rewrite your financial script. The process isn’t complicated, but it requires honest self-reflection:
- Find your first money wound – When did you first feel financial shame, fear, or scarcity? What age were you? Who was involved?
- Name the story it created – What conclusion did your younger self draw about money or your worth?
- Flip it from a statement to a question – Transform limiting beliefs into empowering questions
This last step is where transformation happens. If you catch yourself thinking “I can’t afford it,” flip that to “How could I create the value to make this happen?” Instead of “I don’t deserve wealth,” ask “What would change if I allowed myself to prosper?
That shift has saved me years of struggle. I went from stuffing money in envelopes to building multiple seven-figure businesses because I finally rewired that one false belief.
My Personal Transformation
Once I recognized how that kindergarten humiliation was still controlling my financial decisions decades later, everything changed. I stopped trying to prove my intelligence through money and started making decisions based on value and vision instead.
The results were dramatic. My relationship with risk transformed from fear to calculated opportunity. I moved from hoarding cash to strategic investment. Most importantly, I stopped tying my self-worth to my net worth.
This isn’t about positive thinking or affirmations. It’s about identifying the specific emotional programming that’s limiting your financial potential and systematically replacing it with more empowering questions and choices.
We all have money wounds. The difference between financial limitation and abundance isn’t about who has fewer wounds—it’s about who has learned to recognize and heal them. Your financial future isn’t determined by what happened to you in the past, but by whether you allow those experiences to keep writing your story.
What’s your money wound? And more importantly, are you ready to heal it?
