Diane Bell [00:00:01]:
Hello, gorgeous soul. I'm Diane Bell, and this is the aim from the Heart podcast. Your weekly dose of tips, techniques, strategies and inspiration to help you live a life beyond your wildest dreams. If you're ready to use the art of intentional manifestation to create more freedom, more joy, more abundance, and more bliss in your life, you are in the right place.
Isha Vela [00:00:24]:
Place.
Diane Bell [00:00:25]:
Grab a cup of tea, pull up a chair, and let's have some fun. I am so glad you're here today. Let's do this.
Diane Bell [00:00:32]:
Hi there. I am so excited to welcome today Isha Vela to the aim from the Heart podcast. And Isha's work I discovered actually kind of in one of these funny little ways that someone I knew was advertising a bundle of money courses for a very small amount of money. And it was a massive bundle of all these different money and finance and abundance courses. And I purchased it. It was like $55. And I wanted to support my friend who was a part of it. And to be honest, I didn't open it.
Diane Bell [00:01:02]:
It's one of those things you purchase, thinking how amazing, how lovely, and then you don't even open it until a couple of months later. And the first thing that I opened, there were so many things, but the thing that drew my attention was a course called financial literacy, and it was by Isha. And I started watching it. I was just like, who is this woman? She's amazing. And started then digging into her work. So, isha, and I'm going to read from your instagram account because I love this. This is bodywise biz mentor, trauma certified, somatic biz coach and wealth activist for sensitive witches who want to f shit up and set money. And I just go, that picture somehow sums you up.
Diane Bell [00:01:42]:
Devotional anarchy. And that's what I just know that you're my kind of person because I'm like, I love. Like, it starts out so serious. It's like the trauma certified. So, man, we're like, in this serious world, and then it's like, boom. And there's an element to you, I find in your work, and I'm so excited to chat to you about all this, which is like, there's this element which feels so rooted in sort of just impractical in the real world and in seriousness and in study and in depth and with integrity, and it's robust. And then there's another element to you, which feels to me, which appeals to my anarchic soul immensely, which feels so fun and free and, like, anarchic in the best possible way. So I just want to say, first of all, thank you so much for being here today, and welcome.
Isha Vela [00:02:30]:
Yeah, this is such an honor to be here with you, Diane. Thank you.
Diane Bell [00:02:34]:
Thank you for coming. So I would love to know just a little bit, and I always ask people this. It's like, how did we get here? Just the brief highlight version. Because obviously we could spend 20 hours.
Isha Vela [00:02:47]:
Right, of how I got into wealth activism and financial literacy.
Diane Bell [00:02:52]:
Absolutely.
Isha Vela [00:02:53]:
Yeah. I feel like, obviously there's childhood stuff, but I'll start at the place where when I got married, there was a part of me that just wanted to be taken care of. I was sort of like this person, very independent. People would call me aloof, even, but that in my relationship, I would sort of want to sort of collapse into, like, I want to be taken care of, and I wanted to be taken care of financially, even though I had always made my own money. I had a doctorate at that point. I was in private practice. I was working for an agency, and then I shifted into private practice. And my money is what paid most of our bills because my ex husband's income fluctuated.
Isha Vela [00:03:37]:
There were some job losses and things like that. So my income was consistent. But even then, I was giving up my power, and I didn't really realize that's what was happening. And we were just going through, like, boom and bust cycles, and there was always enough money, but it was like, there was nothing left over for savings. Retirement wasn't even on the map.
Speaker D [00:04:00]:
Right?
Isha Vela [00:04:00]:
Like, who's even thinking about that when you're living month to month? And I wasn't really seeing that the money I was making was, like, producing anything. It wasn't like we were just living, like, just going month to month. And so I was like, something's going on here. What's wrong? I couldn't figure it out. And then I had other health issues going on that eventually got me into my four year certification in somatics. And the somatic program I was part of really looked at developmental wounding, really looked at the young parts of us that show up in relationship, and I realized, oh, my goodness, I am giving up my power. I am outsourcing, right? I am quite good with money, at least managing it day to day. But I'm just, like, looking at money like, it's like taking out the trash.
Isha Vela [00:04:50]:
Like, you manage it, you pay the bills. That's dirty work. And I was like, oh, my God, I'm neglecting money, and I'm neglecting myself. I'm not showing up for myself. This needs to change, right? At some point, I also realized we would have fights about money. And then at one point, when I looked deeper into the issue, I realized that he had mismanaged a lot of money. And that's when I was like, I got to take control of this. I was so done.
Isha Vela [00:05:16]:
My savings had dwindled. In order for him to be able to open his business, I used all of my savings. It was really bad. And so we eventually got a divorce, and I began to just kind of make my own money. And it was happening, and I was doing really well. And then as part of the divorce process, there was some, I don't want to say financial abuse, because that seems extreme, but there was, like, I was paying for all of the camps, and I was like, he wouldn't pay for anything. And what ended up happening is that my credit ended up on the floor. Just things were not in a good place.
Isha Vela [00:05:53]:
I wasn't making as much money in my business as I'd made the year prior. And I reached out to a friend of mine who I knew was in finance, and I had been doing my own inner work during that time, like, feeling abundant, really detaching my worth from the amount in my bank account. And by the time I reached out to this financial advisor, I was like, I am so ready to actually look at the numbers. That was, like, the final frontier for me, the financial literacy piece, which had always felt so intimidating. And I went to see her, and I was like, she presented me with a plan, and I just felt so juicy in that moment, so excited. And I had this feeling of I'm supporting myself. This is an act of self love, of investing in my future and putting money away and planning. It just felt incredible.
Isha Vela [00:06:46]:
And I decided right there, this is it for me. I really love this money thing. And a little while later, I got licensed, and I've been seeing clients and teaching them about financial literacy because I feel like there's a lot of us that have trauma around money, not just the developmental pieces around it, but also the actual numbers. Like, I talk to more and more people who have terror, just, like, looking at their numbers because of all the feelings it brings up. I really feel like part of my mission is, like you said, like, witches who want to topple structures and who want to change the energetics of the world by stewarding money in a way it's never been stewarded before.
Speaker D [00:07:32]:
Yeah.
Diane Bell [00:07:32]:
So good.
Isha Vela [00:07:33]:
That was kind of the long version.
Diane Bell [00:07:35]:
Yeah, no, it's fantastic. I have so many questions out of that because, first of all, so your background was as a psychologist, is that correct?
Isha Vela [00:07:44]:
That's right. I was a trauma psychologist. I was working in private practice. Before that, I was working in community mental health, working mostly with Hispanics and latino populations. And I started my own private practice, and I was working with activists and social justice folks. I was doing a lot of relationship counseling as well. And I was, like, noticing. Right, the same pieces would come up around the young, wounding.
Isha Vela [00:08:11]:
And then I said I had my own physical breakdown. It got me into the somatic program, and then I started to integrate that work into the work that I was already doing.
Diane Bell [00:08:20]:
And can you tell me about the somatic program that you did then?
Isha Vela [00:08:23]:
Yes.
Diane Bell [00:08:24]:
What is that? And for our listeners who might not be familiar with that term, that would be.
Isha Vela [00:08:30]:
Yeah, it was a four year certification. It's called core energetics, and it integrates both bioenergetic work, which is just moving energy through the body with sort of spiritual pieces similar to. It's not the law of attraction, but it's what Marianne Williamson course in miracles. Course in miracles, right. So it's similar to sort of integrates something similar to the course in miracles called the pathwork lectures and the body work. Right. So really moving spirit through the body. And I didn't grow up spiritual.
Isha Vela [00:09:04]:
In fact, I grew up in a home where nobody cracked open a bible. We never went to church. But it was through that process where I really began to understand my body as a vessel for spirit, and I began to also begin downloading and really using my spiritual and intuitive gifts. So there was a lot that happened those four years.
Diane Bell [00:09:26]:
I'm using that professionally as well with clients. Psychology.
Isha Vela [00:09:34]:
Yeah, absolutely. When I meet with clients, I noticed that I could feel where the energy was blocked in their bodies. Like, for better or for worse, I can feel people in my body, and so I can feel where they're blocked, and so I can move energy in those areas or help them, rather, learn to move energy through their body.
Speaker D [00:09:55]:
Right.
Isha Vela [00:09:55]:
Because I don't like to sort of do things to people. I feel like people can do it themselves with their own bodies.
Speaker D [00:10:01]:
But, yeah.
Isha Vela [00:10:02]:
So I sort of use sort of intuitive gifts to sort of figure out what the issue is and where the energy got stuck.
Speaker D [00:10:12]:
Right.
Isha Vela [00:10:13]:
Like at what age, what might have been the circumstances, what might have been the decisions that were made, and especially when it comes to shadow work, really exploring where people are holding on to an identity that's not serving them or a pattern that's not serving them.
Speaker D [00:10:31]:
Right.
Diane Bell [00:10:31]:
And so now you're taking all of this and really applying it in particular, to the field of money.
Isha Vela [00:10:38]:
Yes. I still do relationship work because I really love that. So I do couples work, but the central focus of my work is wealth activism is really prosperity embodiment.
Diane Bell [00:10:56]:
Yeah. And obviously, where are you from originally?
Isha Vela [00:11:01]:
Yeah, I'm originally from Puerto Rico. So I grew up on the island, and I came to United States, to the mainland when I was 18 years old to go to college at the University of Connecticut. So Connecticut is where I started out. And I traveled all over the world. I lived in Europe for a couple of years and ended up back here because this is sort of like the closest thing that I can call home other than Puerto Rico.
Diane Bell [00:11:24]:
Yeah. And how do you think growing up in Puerto Rico has sort of informed what you do?
Speaker D [00:11:30]:
Yeah.
Isha Vela [00:11:31]:
So much. I feel like growing up in a colonial political system is a very profound experience that is hard to explain to people because it's something that you just feel. It's almost something, like, sticky that hangs out on your skin and the feeling that you have when you're there. Obviously, there's a lot of pride in being puerto rican. We love our island, and yet the political structures that are in place because they are so tied in with money, corruption, and things of that nature, we feel like the government is really not there to help us. And then with the United States as sort of this big parental shadow in the background, that even though we're of the, we're not a state, so there's almost a feeling of being sort of the stepchild or the illegitimate child. And that's really sort of, we internalize that. And through the way that capitalism from the United States works in relationship to Puerto Rico, we often get, like, secondhand goods that maybe don't make it on the market in Puerto Rico.
Isha Vela [00:12:49]:
So we really do get, like, the hand me downs, the leftovers. And so there is that pervasive feeling. And in relationship to money, people very much live for today. They're not planners. And I say that very generally. That's not the orientation we grow up with. And there's something beautiful about living in the moment, but it needs to be balanced with also future thinking and planning. And so nobody that I knew was doing any of that was even talking about money in a way that felt healthy.
Isha Vela [00:13:25]:
My father hoarded it and didn't want to spend it. And my Mother was a little bit more balanced. She's like, she was a really good saver, and she's like, I want to spend it on this pleasurable trip to whatever.
Speaker D [00:13:35]:
Right.
Isha Vela [00:13:35]:
Going somewhere or buying a very special couch and really holding out for the things that she really wanted. But there were a lot of clashes at the dinner table around money, and so I just developed a distaste for money.
Speaker D [00:13:49]:
Right.
Isha Vela [00:13:49]:
There was also a lot of social class stuff that pervades sort of the island and a lot of latin american countries, like class is more powerful than race.
Speaker D [00:14:00]:
Right.
Isha Vela [00:14:01]:
So discrimination between classes of people is much more profound than racial lines, let's say.
Speaker D [00:14:09]:
Right.
Isha Vela [00:14:10]:
So it was just like, look, who wants to deal with money? I just wanted to separate myself from that and not identify. So that was part of my money identity is of being separate.
Diane Bell [00:14:22]:
Yeah, I totally relate to that. And I think for so many women and also, I suspect, many people of color, people who have traditionally been excluded from the table of money and money decisions.
Isha Vela [00:14:36]:
Yes.
Diane Bell [00:14:37]:
This will resonate. And I think this is the work for so many of us.
Speaker D [00:14:42]:
Right.
Diane Bell [00:14:42]:
It's like, do we deserve to be at that table? Are we willing to do the work to be at the table? Because for many of us, because it wasn't a table that we were invited to for centuries, it's like, I don't want to be there then.
Speaker D [00:14:57]:
Right.
Diane Bell [00:14:58]:
I'm just going to have my own thing. I don't even care about it. Right. Like financial planning or that whole sort of thing. Right. Which is the unsexy part, because I feel like now, in a lot of the coaching world and a lot of the sort of spiritual world, there's a lot of talk about abundance and creating abundance and it's all nice and flowy and good and sort of like the fun side and it is important, but it's super important. But then there's this other side, which is still that, like making good decisions and dealing with the structures and dealing with your taxes and your planning and your savings and your investments and whatever might come up for you.
Speaker D [00:15:39]:
Yeah.
Diane Bell [00:15:40]:
That I feel still is often not really brought to the table in, for instance.
Isha Vela [00:15:45]:
Yeah. People tend not. Most of the money coaches that are out there are not financial professionals. And even though they may be very good at managing their own finances, there are details about financial literacy that maybe don't get taught and that people need to know in order to make good financial decisions for themselves.
Speaker D [00:16:05]:
Right.
Isha Vela [00:16:05]:
To be able to, when they work with a money coach, that when they stop working with the money coach, they can still be applying those practical steps to building generational wealth, for example.
Speaker D [00:16:17]:
Right.
Isha Vela [00:16:18]:
So I feel like that is, for me, the missing piece. And I realized that when I started doing my own investing, I was like, oh, my gosh. This is so empowering. I want everybody else to feel this way, to really feel like they take risks to make their money grow. Because what I felt when I started investing and I started just planning for retirement, I began to sleep better because I wasn't worried about like, oh, my God, what's going to happen? I was like, it's taken care of. I'm already doing the thing and it's taken care of because I took care of it. That's super empowering for me.
Diane Bell [00:16:57]:
Nobody else is coming along to like.
Isha Vela [00:16:59]:
Nobody'S here to rescue me, right? Like, I get it. I showed up for myself and every time I put money into that account, I'm showing up for myself. I'm loving on myself.
Diane Bell [00:17:12]:
What would you say for somebody who is in that position where the numbers are still scaring them? When you talked about that, you touched with that thing, that feeling of like, and I've actually been there. I've been that person you discuss where it would be like, it makes me feel sick to open my bank statement, so I'm just going to shove it to the side and pretend it didn't arrive. Of course, this is the day when you still got a paper bank statement going back a few years, but if someone's listening to this and is still in that place of really feeling the scarcity around money and the anxiety around their financial situation, what would your recommendation be?
Isha Vela [00:17:51]:
Yeah, for me, my first recommendation would be to just start in the smallest steps. Like, just be gentle with yourself, be kind to yourself and your nervous system by just make the smallest step, take the smallest step and commit to doing one step a day. Just a tiny thing, just to share a story about that. Like when I was working on my dissertation, my dissertation felt like a mountain that I just never wanted to touch or I just wanted to push it away. And I did push it away for like six or seven months until I was like, I need to just break the seal. I need to just open the document. Let's just start there. And I opened the document.
Isha Vela [00:18:29]:
It was open for about 5 seconds. And I was like, okay, that's good enough for today. And I closed it again. And then I started to work on it little by little. I said, I'm just going to work on it for ten minutes.
Speaker D [00:18:38]:
That's it.
Isha Vela [00:18:39]:
Just ten minutes. Just dedicate ten minutes. And sometimes it would be sitting there for ten minutes, just looking at it and reading. And sometimes I would actually be writing. So really going progressively increasing your capacity to hold the discomfort of looking at the account. Like breathing through it, letting yourself feel the anxiety and just kind of like, start to feel safe with numbers again. Just let your system know it's okay and that what you're actually doing is really courageous and that you're getting yourself to, like, you're in a practice of progressively getting more comfortable to make these decisions, to move money around, to play with money and to get creative with money. That is the outcome.
Isha Vela [00:19:26]:
The feeling of confidence and ease, of not feeling afraid of the numbers. So it's worth it. Just remind yourself that it's worth it. Maybe it starts by again opening the bank account or bank statements and just looking at it, maybe looking a little bit next time at, okay, this is the money that's going out and that's the money that's coming in. And then maybe the next time you say, well, I'm going to make a list of my expenses, all my expenses, okay, I'm not even going to add them up today. I'm going to add them up next week. And this is all the money that's coming in and sort of let's see where they match up. So just making little moves.
Diane Bell [00:20:05]:
I love this because I think for a lot of people it is overwhelming of where to get started and how to get started. And it's just something that's like, oh, my gosh, I'll stay away from it.
Isha Vela [00:20:17]:
And something that I haven't really spoken about publicly yet that I feel is really important for people to know is that people who are very sensitive, like, let's say intuitive people, mystics.
Speaker D [00:20:29]:
Right?
Isha Vela [00:20:29]:
Like magical folks. I've noticed that there's a lot of freezing around numbers. And I've been feeling lately that maybe in some place in our bodies, we know that money holds a lot of trauma because of the way it's been misused and abused. And so at some level we know that. And so we get scared just going there because we know that we're going to have to deal with that part, too.
Diane Bell [00:21:01]:
Can you go into that a little bit more? What do you mean by money holds a lot of trauma?
Isha Vela [00:21:06]:
Yeah, I mean, when you think about collect, let's just start with collective trauma, right? Or the debt system. The debt system is an exploitative system, right. At least in the US, right? Like you get a credit card in the mail and it's like, oh, zero APR for the first year. You don't pay any interest and you're like, oh, that's awesome. And then you maybe did a little bit of overindulging and then all of a sudden you're hit with 27, 28, 29% ApR. And now it's hard to get out, right? It's a little bit like a drug dealer saying like, hey, have a taste, it's free, right? And then you're hooked and then you're stuck, right? And then you're an addict. It has that energy to it, for me, the debt system. And then when you think about collective trauma, when you think about the ways that women, people of color, and in particular our country, formerly enslaved people, were marginalized from the economic system, where our whole economic system was built on their backs.
Isha Vela [00:22:15]:
And then when they were freed, we didn't let them participate and we made efforts, often violent efforts, to keep them from building wealth, generational wealth, owning land.
Speaker D [00:22:30]:
Right.
Isha Vela [00:22:31]:
So that's loaded. That is totally loaded. And again, even just with women in the 70s were able to own credit cards on their own without having to. Having their husbands co sign. I hope that we can appreciate the fact that wealth work is really like, it is not just about money, right. It is not just about the coin or the bill or the dollar. It is just so much more. Right.
Isha Vela [00:23:02]:
It's a whole embodiment of our true selves, of what we are capable of.
Speaker D [00:23:08]:
Yeah.
Isha Vela [00:23:08]:
It just feels like empowerment work sort of in this bigger, much bigger way of potential, of the potential that we truly have and of transforming the structures that have been exploitative.
Diane Bell [00:23:19]:
I think this is such an important conversation because I feel like a lot of people still carry this fear of money, that money is going to. That money is bad. Money is essentially like a force for bad in the world and that it's wrong to want too much or to want more of it. Some sort of fear, even if there's a little bit of that. On one hand, you want it because you want things that could buy you, but on the other hand, you don't want it because you see it as some sort of force of evil in the world.
Speaker D [00:23:50]:
Right.
Diane Bell [00:23:51]:
And there's like a sort of a trap there, because obviously, as long as you feel that, that it's evil and that you don't want it, you're not.
Isha Vela [00:23:57]:
Going to create it, you're not going to be in relationship to it, you're not going to want to be like, co creating with it. You're not going to co create with evil.
Diane Bell [00:24:09]:
No, exactly. And yet I see is that I work with a lot of artists, obviously, and I see that unless they can make friends with it on some level, their level of impact with their work is always going to be very limited.
Speaker D [00:24:27]:
Yes. Right.
Diane Bell [00:24:28]:
And there's a lot of artists trapped in that sort of area, but also, I would say women in general and also people of color and so forth.
Speaker D [00:24:35]:
Right.
Diane Bell [00:24:35]:
Where unless we're able to do the healing work around the money so that we can actually hold larger amounts and feel safe to hold larger amounts, we're never going to be able to create the change in the world that we would really love to see.
Speaker D [00:24:51]:
Yes.
Diane Bell [00:24:54]:
With people that you work with, is this something that you see as part of it? Because I suspect people who are attracted to work with you, and I'd love to hear about sort of like, what your work is like now, who you're working with and in what ways people can work with you.
Isha Vela [00:25:09]:
Yeah. Right now I have a three month, one on one container of six sessions, right. And each session sort of works in sort of a particular level of either individual or personal money identity or collective money identity. And there are somatic practices, rituals, and also practical steps like opening your bank account, looking at the statement. So each one of them has this series of things, sort of explorations that we go into and practices that you do on your own in between sessions. And what I've noticed for people is that because I work with a lot of people who either come from the activist community who have this distaste and disgust that I used to have for money, this repellent mixed with a desire to have more, a frustration and an anger and the shame around wanting more, the shame of wanting this thing that you find so distasteful and evil. Like, how could I want this thing? But I'm so frustrated. There's all these different emotions coming in at the same time, right, that are sort of like battling it out internally.
Isha Vela [00:26:29]:
And when we judge people, when we judge people based on how they spend their money, we're also judging ourselves for the wanting, the way that we want what we want to do with money. So that's the worthiness. The worthiness and the belonging, just like you said earlier. That is the core of it. That is the core of it. And of course, that's not done in six sessions, right? That is a lifetime of unwinding. Just like if you came from a family where there was a lot of emotion, emotional abuse or manipulation. For you to be able to have a healthy relationship, it's going to take you a while.
Isha Vela [00:27:13]:
You need to have some. It's going to take you a growth process, it may take you a lifetime, but to really be patient with ourselves about, like, we want the quick fix, right? We want the quick fix. And just as with any relationship and sort of like, yeah, healthy relationships take time, they take devotion, they take effort, they take practice.
Speaker D [00:27:39]:
Right.
Isha Vela [00:27:39]:
And so I urge people when they work with me or if they don't work with me, too, but to be in a place of, like, really think of it as a relationship. It is a relationship. And so you want to be showing up in that relationship with care and supporting money as your partner, as your co creative partner, and acts of love, acts of service. You want to promote the liberation of money.
Speaker D [00:28:11]:
Right.
Isha Vela [00:28:12]:
And with regard to people, confuse money with the money system.
Speaker D [00:28:18]:
Right.
Isha Vela [00:28:19]:
And I think, okay, well, for me, that's similar to blaming the victim of an abusive relationship. Money inside the money system is an abusive relationship. And money is pissed about that, too. They didn't want that. So the energy of money for me is like the energy of love. And just in the same way that the energy of love has been and is manipulated in relationships, so is the energy of money. It's been manipulated inside of a system.
Diane Bell [00:28:50]:
Oh, my God, this is so good. I'm just sitting here going, yes. I've never thought that money is the energy of love. Like, what? Turning on its head, like, everything that I believe when I was young. Right. Separating the system from the money itself.
Isha Vela [00:29:11]:
Yeah, Diane. Like, just thinking about my own process, I went from being like this with money to neutral. Like, you're there, it's cool, we're cool. And now I'm like, I love money. And that's been more, like, recent. Within the last year, I would say, yeah, year and a half. I'm like, I love money now. It feels so fun and funny to say it because I never identified as someone who wanted money and felt like, oh, I love it, it's so good.
Isha Vela [00:29:48]:
And I find myself thinking that and feeling that all the time now. And I was like, oh, what's going on?
Diane Bell [00:29:55]:
I love it. And I'm just, like, sitting here thinking what a world we would live in if more people felt that way, genuinely.
Speaker D [00:30:03]:
Yeah.
Diane Bell [00:30:03]:
When we think about how many people for whom money is, like, the biggest source of stress, the biggest source of anxiety, the biggest source of unhappiness on so many different levels, and how it could be changed, do you think it's possible to love it when you're experiencing not enough of.
Speaker D [00:30:25]:
It?
Isha Vela [00:30:26]:
I'm trying to think about my own experience. Yes. I can still experience love for money, even feeling like there's little. Because when I think about the word enough, I've always had enough. And I say that having to really be in tight situations where I had to eat lentils only or being in situations where our heat got cut off and I had, like, I had just given birth to my first child, and it was november, the weekend of thanksgiving, and no person was going to come out and refill our tank. So I've been in situations where it's definitely felt like not enough. But even in those moments, I felt like there was enough because there was enough of a lot of things. There was enough love, there was enough care, there was enough tenderness.
Isha Vela [00:31:19]:
I had enough support.
Speaker D [00:31:20]:
Right.
Isha Vela [00:31:21]:
Money was just one piece of it. And then it showed up just pretty soon thereafter. It was right there around the corner. So I don't think of those moments as being like, I don't have enough. And some people really do experience economic scarcity. Like, they really don't make enough money to cover their expenses. Food is expensive. Like, inflation is a real thing.
Isha Vela [00:31:44]:
We don't want to gaslight people's experiences because some people really don't experience enough.
Diane Bell [00:31:48]:
Exactly.
Isha Vela [00:31:49]:
Still, I think that we can still hold money as an energy in high regard and still acknowledge sort of what's happening in the economic climate. That's not great. It's not good, it's not healthy for its citizens and still feel care and love for the energy of money.
Diane Bell [00:32:11]:
Yeah, I love that. And I think, to me, it feels like there are people in this world who have so much and who still don't love money and who still don't feel ease about money, who still feel scarcity. People, as I'm sure you have, who have massive bank accounts and who are still all bunched up.
Speaker D [00:32:29]:
Yeah. Tight.
Diane Bell [00:32:30]:
And then I think it's possible, I do think it's possible to feel abundant, even with little money in your bank account.
Speaker D [00:32:37]:
Yeah.
Isha Vela [00:32:38]:
And that's been my experience. I think that in 2021, I started exploring polyamory.
Speaker D [00:32:47]:
Right.
Isha Vela [00:32:47]:
And this is something that I had when I did relationship counseling as a therapist, as a psychologist, I often counseled people who were in non monogamous relationships. And so I wasn't in a non monogamous relationship, but I was counseling people. From the feedback I got, I felt I was doing it quite well. And then I started to explore it after my divorce, earnestly in 2021. And I realized that I felt so full. I used to be that person that felt scarce at sometimes and resentful of other people who had money and who had the things that I wanted.
Speaker D [00:33:23]:
Right.
Isha Vela [00:33:24]:
Like, I used to feel that jealousy very intensely. And then when I was exploring polyamory, and I felt so full relationally I felt so satisfied in my relationships, I just stopped feeling scarcity. And I realized in that moment that the scarcity that I was feeling around money had nothing to do with money.
Diane Bell [00:33:46]:
Oh, my God.
Isha Vela [00:33:48]:
It wasn't about money. It was really about other places where I felt unfulfilled. That was a big aha moment for me.
Diane Bell [00:33:59]:
Yes. Because I think this is it. It's so fascinating that you've brought that up, because I have a sense that we're obviously whole people, that it's not like one thing is over here, right? All connected is all interconnected in these very profound ways. I'm just like, yeah, absolutely. That's incredible.
Speaker D [00:34:22]:
Yeah.
Isha Vela [00:34:24]:
I feel like one of the other lessons I learned in polyamory that ties into money was that in having multiple relationships and maybe investing in a relationship over here and maybe not getting exactly what I needed from my partner, it felt suddenly okay because I was getting it over here. It's not that the person wasn't ever available for me, but they weren't available. Maybe in that moment where I was giving a lot and that love that I was investing over here would come back around over here, and I was like, oh, that's the energy of love. Let's see if that works with money. And I would sort of like, okay, so I'm going to put money over here. I'm going to donate $50 a month to this school that I love.
Speaker D [00:35:15]:
Right?
Isha Vela [00:35:16]:
And then I would watch it come back around in this different way. And I was like, oh, the same rules apply. Let's try that again. And I would do little experiments around giving money away and doing it in a way that felt like not from a place of like, oh, I don't have a lot, but I'm going to give you these $20. But really from a sense of, like, I have more than enough here, have it, take it. And really putting it in a place that felt good. And then watching it, like, I would get, like, a checks from somewhere else. I'm just like, wow, this works.
Isha Vela [00:35:47]:
This is, like, the magic. This is energy. And I realized that money wants to move. Money wants to be free. Money wants to be, like, it wants to circulate. It doesn't want to be hoarded, stuck in a bank account. Like, it wants to feel free. And so that part of my stewardship is when I get it, it's not that I spend it, but that I really look at playing with it, moving it, really using it in ways that support collective healing, support wealth redistribution, or fund projects that I believe in.
Isha Vela [00:36:27]:
Part of me wanting fuck you money is to invest it in projects that are going to be, like, revolutionary, that are going to technology or anything that's really going to make an impact. I want to make an impact in that way.
Diane Bell [00:36:43]:
I love that because I feel like this is why it seems so important to me that more good people do the work, build their money stuff, and allow more money into their lives so they can do more good things. Because obviously, the more that you have, the more that you have to give. And that is the new paradigm of money right there. A shift of, like, instead of me trying to hoard it here to keep it away from, because, like, just getting into this whole flow where it's like, I don't need to hoard it, there will always be enough. There's always more than enough. I can let it flow through.
Isha Vela [00:37:16]:
Exactly. And I think that there's this when a lot of people fear making more money and how other people will feel about them making more money and how they might not be, let's say, relatable.
Speaker D [00:37:31]:
Right.
Isha Vela [00:37:32]:
They're not going to be able to connect with their friends in the same way because they're not sharing the same lived experiences as their friends.
Speaker D [00:37:39]:
Right.
Isha Vela [00:37:39]:
Like, let's be real. It's in the shared experiences where you really have those connections and bonds, and when you don't have those, it's like, I guess we don't experience the same things. We can't talk about the same things. So there's this fear around. Can I trust myself to steward the money in a way that feels responsible? And there's also the fear of losing connection to the communities that we have now. And that's sort of money identity work of, like, I remember when I was getting educated and I was getting my phd, I was surpassing my parents in terms of their education, and I felt myself separating from them. And that was scary. I felt like I was losing them in a way.
Isha Vela [00:38:23]:
I was, because I was, like, going into a whole different experience they were never going to be able to relate to. Yeah. It doesn't mean I lost their love, of course, but, yeah, it did create, like, a little bit of a split in experience. So those fears are real.
Speaker D [00:38:40]:
Yeah.
Diane Bell [00:38:40]:
And they will hold you back because I always have that thing. If you think it's not safe for you to achieve something, you're going to find a way to sabotage it by having more money. It's going to alienate people or it's going to let you lose people you love.
Isha Vela [00:38:55]:
Yeah, we don't want to lose connection we don't want to lose connection.
Diane Bell [00:38:58]:
Yeah, I know, but it's this thing, isn't it, about reprogramming ourselves to see together we rise?
Isha Vela [00:39:04]:
Yes, exactly.
Diane Bell [00:39:06]:
That's one of my favorite phrases. I use it all the time. I'm like, together we rise. It's like if you can rise, then you can bring other people up with you.
Isha Vela [00:39:14]:
Exactly.
Diane Bell [00:39:15]:
And maybe there are some people that will get left behind in some way, but the people who are ready for it are going to rise with you.
Isha Vela [00:39:22]:
Yeah.
Diane Bell [00:39:23]:
And it's beautiful. Can I ask you, what do you think is your purpose? Do you feel purpose driven? And does that correlate in any way to you creating more opportunities, like when you feel more in alignment with your purpose? Yeah, I feel like the first part, and then sort of like, do you think being in your purpose matters in a sense, for actually attracting wealth, for growing your impact and so forth?
Isha Vela [00:40:02]:
I wouldn't say that. I know exactly what my purpose is in a very succinct way. I know that helping people have a strong connection to their knowing, to themselves, as they are in relationship with things, people. That, for me, is intimacy, work. And that is the core, right? I'm an animist. You can have a relationship to God. You can have a relationship to your phone. You can have a relationship to money, to land.
Isha Vela [00:40:31]:
For me, that is like embodiment, self connection, feeling emotionally available.
Speaker D [00:40:39]:
Right?
Isha Vela [00:40:40]:
So I feel like that is sort of like, again, the core of my work. It's not to make people rich, necessarily, but for them to feel like they can trust themselves. They're safe in their own bodies. They trust their emotions, their intuition. They are able to be guided. Right, spirit.
Speaker D [00:41:01]:
Right.
Isha Vela [00:41:02]:
And having a purpose, I think, is enormously important. Purpose is what gets you up in the morning. Purpose is what is exciting. And purpose changes. Sometimes it shifts. Sometimes it takes you by surprise. If you told me ten years ago that I would be helping people make more money in their businesses, I would have laughed. I'm like, oh, my God, who am I to do that? And it shifts.
Isha Vela [00:41:23]:
It grows. The next step always reveals itself, right? Spirit always lets you know, like, oh, we're going here now? And you're like, are you sure? Are we doing that? Okay. And then you shift, and then you move, right? You're sort of like uncovering or letting the path unfold before you. But my purpose is I want to be in it. I want to be on the path. And I'm just kind of, like, waiting for instructions from spirit. Like, I don't know where I'm going, I'm just available for the co creation. I'm just like, I'm here.
Isha Vela [00:41:54]:
Send me your messages. I will do your bidding kind of thing.
Diane Bell [00:41:59]:
I love that.
Isha Vela [00:42:00]:
Yeah, I love it.
Diane Bell [00:42:01]:
You mentioned that you said you never thought you'd be helping people make more money in their business. So I'm like, wait, so let's get some headlines on this. How do you help people make more money in their business? Is that just through financial advice and planning, or is that, do you actually coach people on business? Yes.
Isha Vela [00:42:21]:
That's inner work. That's inner confidence. That's like messaging. Really put, like, the energetics of business is really putting your energy behind saying the truth. If you post online really telling people how you feel, what are your truest opinions? How do you feel about these issues? How do you feel about the work that you do? What is it that people need to hear today? Oftentimes, we hold back our power, right? We sort of shrink back. We're like, oh, my God. So and so from high school is going to be looking at that post and thinking like, who does she think she is? And I'm not going to subject myself to that judgment. There's so many ways that we keep ourselves small.
Isha Vela [00:43:01]:
So I like to empower people to sort of bring out their bold self in their message, to be transparent leaders, to get behind their offers and really sell the shit out of them and do it in a way where the human is always centered in the work yourself. Like you, as the business owner.
Speaker D [00:43:28]:
You.
Isha Vela [00:43:28]:
Are centering your own needs, your preferences in your business.
Speaker D [00:43:34]:
Right.
Isha Vela [00:43:34]:
Doing business in a way that feels good to you, feels an integrity to you and your physical, spiritual, mental, emotional body, but then also selling from a place where, like, yeah, okay, so you say you can't afford my program. So is it okay that we get a little bit deeper into that? Is it okay that we explore that?
Diane Bell [00:43:52]:
Or.
Isha Vela [00:43:52]:
I know I'm noticing you have some hesitation about jumping into the container. Do you feel like you understand the value that you are able to get out of it, to really have deeper conversations with people? We know whether you do sales in the dms or you do sales in person, to really get into the minds and bodies of people and do it in a heart centered way, I feel like that's really what's more needed right now. After businesses blew up in 2020, 2021, that stuff happened, and people are not. They're much more choosy about the way that they buy. And I think that we really need to shift our business practices in a way that reflects more of the world that we want to live in.
Speaker D [00:44:39]:
Right.
Isha Vela [00:44:40]:
Because I think the vehicle is a business for creating a whole new society. So that's basically part of what I do. I want entrepreneurs, like spiritual entrepreneurs, to thrive. I really want them to thrive.
Diane Bell [00:44:56]:
Me too.
Isha Vela [00:44:57]:
Yeah. No more broke witches. No more broke witches.
Diane Bell [00:45:01]:
No, we want the witches to have all the money because that would be a good thing. That would be a better world. Because I'm going to wrap this up shortly. But if you had one thing that you could teach everybody, everybody's going to get this thing, what would it be?
Speaker D [00:45:26]:
Wow.
Isha Vela [00:45:26]:
That's it.
Diane Bell [00:45:27]:
Just one? Just one. Not ten.
Isha Vela [00:45:30]:
Making me choose.
Diane Bell [00:45:32]:
I know. It's like having a wish almost.
Isha Vela [00:45:36]:
Yeah. I feel like the thing that I love, that I feel is most profound for people, that when people work with me, they're like, oh, shit, I get it now. Is body listening is really tuning into the body. All the answers are there. And when people sit and listen, the answers are there. It's like they don't have to look for it over here. And with this person or even with me, it's all here. Like cellular knowledge, ancestral wisdom.
Speaker D [00:46:11]:
Right?
Isha Vela [00:46:11]:
It's all here. That's what I would love. There's one thing, that's what I want to teach people.
Diane Bell [00:46:19]:
Oh, my gosh, I love that so much. And I'm just imagining a world where people actually got that look. Like if people had so much faith and trust in their own wisdom and their own intuition and their body and what it can share with them.
Speaker D [00:46:35]:
Yeah.
Diane Bell [00:46:36]:
And they actually allowed themselves to be guided by it.
Speaker D [00:46:39]:
Right.
Isha Vela [00:46:40]:
You wouldn't be able to overwork yourself because your body would be screaming at you way too loud to stop.
Speaker D [00:46:47]:
Right.
Isha Vela [00:46:47]:
You wouldn't harm yourself by overeating because you would be out of integrity with your digestive system, for example.
Speaker D [00:46:55]:
Right.
Isha Vela [00:46:56]:
For me, that is revolutionary.
Diane Bell [00:46:58]:
That is revolutionary. I think I taught yoga for many years, and I think when I was teaching yoga, I was like, your body is constantly giving you feedback. It's constantly whispering to you. And yes, in our society, you've been taught just to ignore it. Ignore it, ignore it. Override. Take an aspirin for your ibuprofen if it's bothering you in some way and ignore it. And then freak out when you have some chronic illness or ailment.
Diane Bell [00:47:27]:
Like, where did that come from exactly? It has been telling you that it's on the way for the last three years.
Isha Vela [00:47:33]:
Yes. And you didn't listen.
Diane Bell [00:47:35]:
And you didn't listen because you didn't know how we know.
Isha Vela [00:47:39]:
And then we just keep ignoring it. We keep sweeping it, because there are other things that are, like, grabbing our attention more.
Diane Bell [00:47:46]:
Yeah. And I think when we get into that, listening to our bodies, we're so conditioned into avoiding what's not comfortable for us.
Isha Vela [00:47:54]:
Yes.
Diane Bell [00:47:55]:
Like, a fear of discomfort. It feels to me a fear that we can't handle being uncomfortable, so we'd rather just pretend it's not there or distract ourselves from it or buffer it or whatever.
Speaker D [00:48:10]:
Yes.
Isha Vela [00:48:10]:
It's like this. We're afraid of the sensation of discomfort. We're afraid of. Like, I think a lot of times we're afraid of overwhelm. We avoid overwhelm because at some point in our lives, we experienced overwhelm, and there wasn't anybody to hold us. There wasn't anybody to support us. And it just kind of, like, our system just kind of went into shock. And so I think that there's a way that our bodies protect us from going into overwhelm by going into numbness or avoidance.
Isha Vela [00:48:40]:
But we don't need to do that now. Like, now we're adults and we are able to handle the discomfort, but our nervous systems are still going on high alert, saying, you're going to be overwhelmed. Shut it down. Shut it down. But that's not the reality that we live in now. So we have to teach our bodies to progressively, right, little by little, just experience more discomfort and that it's okay and that we're not going to die. World's not going to collapse. Like, we can do this.
Diane Bell [00:49:07]:
So powerful. So, just to wrap this up, can you tell our listeners where they can find you? If there's any sort of programs you've got going on in particular that would be of interest, I'm sure, the next few weeks.
Speaker D [00:49:19]:
Okay.
Isha Vela [00:49:20]:
Yeah. My website is vela.com, ishavela.com. You can find me on Instagram at IShA, underscore Vela, or on Facebook. I have a Facebook group for healers who want to make more money in their business.
Speaker D [00:49:36]:
Right.
Isha Vela [00:49:37]:
And the program that I'm running right now, and it's sort of an evergreen program, it's not like time limited, anything like that, but it's the three month package of six individual one on one sessions. And if you live in the United States, you also get a financial needs analysis. Like, this is for us citizens, where I look at the numbers with you and do a comprehensive financial strategy for you for your business. And then I also do, like, one on one business coaching. I'm going to be opening up my holistic business accelerator in the spring again, it's a six month container, sort of an intimate group. Yeah. So those are the things I'm promoting right now. I think that I'm also going to be partnering with a friend of mine who's a hypnotherapist, and we're going to be doing a group container around wealth.
Isha Vela [00:50:27]:
Around wealth. Embodiment, prosperity, mindset, heart set, passion set, all of the sets, we're going to be doing that probably in February. So if somebody's interested in that, they should definitely follow. I'm also on YouTube and they'll get notified of all the things that are coming down the pipeline.
Diane Bell [00:50:45]:
Well, we will get all the links for those things and make sure that they are in the show notes. But I just want to thank you so much for being here. I love your energy. I love what you're like. I just love you. I think you're amazing. And I'm so grateful to you for coming and chatting with me today.
Isha Vela [00:51:00]:
Yeah, thank you, Diane.
Diane Bell [00:51:02]:
Thank you, Isha.
Diane Bell [00:51:05]:
Thank you so much for listening to this podcast today. If you enjoyed it, could you do me a favor? Please leave it a little review wherever you're listening to it or screenshot it and share on your social media and tag me so I can see it. I would be so appreciative. Thanks so much. I love you and I'll see you soon. Bye.
