The Money Trap
Money is perhaps one of the areas where we, as human beings, have most clearly trapped ourselves, and what is striking is that we have done so largely unconsciously, by collectively agreeing to treat money in a certain way and to accept certain rules about how it works, without ever really questioning them. At its core, money is simply a means, a tool, a system we created to facilitate exchange. And yet we give it a disproportionate value, far greater than anything it actually holds in itself. In reality, money is no more than anything else that exists in the world, but we assign it meaning, status, and emotional charge, and in that very moment it begins to shape how we think, how we feel, and how we live our lives.
I say this both as a human being and as an economist, because I have worked extensively with money in business, sales, and investments, and I have seen up close what money does to people, how thoughts about money shape decisions, behaviors, and identity. I have also lived through periods of having a lot of money and periods of having almost none, so I know both extremes, and what has become clear to me is that the actual amount of money matters far less than one’s relationship to it.
The more relaxed, neutral, and even generous I have become in my way of relating to money, the more freely it has begun to move. Today, I live with a sense of trust and flow, and from that place I have more money than I have ever had. It is no longer something I chase or try to control. It comes, often unexpectedly, and it tends to arrive at the right time, when it is needed.
What we tend to do is link money to happiness, freedom, and security. We believe that if we have money, we will be free, that if we have money, we will be happy. We tie money to dreams, possibilities, and the future, and in doing so we create a conditioning in which we start to believe that money is a prerequisite for living, for doing, for experiencing. We believe we need money to travel, money to change jobs, money to feel safe, money to be free.
Happiness is never found in money. It almost sounds like a cliché, but it remains entirely true. I have met many people with immense financial resources who are deeply unhappy, because money is never the source of well-being. The day you are able to feel joy without money, or independent of it, is often the same day money begins to move more easily in your life. At that point, money is no longer the main issue. It is also important to recognize that, from a conventional perspective, money can in fact be a pathway to freedom. It can create space, opportunity, and choice, which is why so many people strive for it. But what is often overlooked is that it is rarely money itself that one truly longs for, but rather the sense of freedom one believes money will provide.
And as long as that freedom is perceived to reside in money, the pursuit will continue. But when one begins to see that freedom, at its core, is an inner state, the relationship shifts. Money is no longer the source of freedom, but something that can move within it.
Money can also create new problems as it increases, if the relationship to it does not change. More money brings more responsibility, more decisions, more complexity. The trap is therefore never about the amount, but about consciousness. And the moment we accept certain conditions around money, those become the conditions we live by. This is a crucial point, because the rules we believe govern money often become our greatest limitations. If we believe money is hard to obtain, it becomes hard to obtain. If we believe money requires hard work, then it will require hard work. If we believe money is always limited, then we experience limitation. This does not mean that the world objectively works this way, but it does mean that we live according to the model we have accepted.
Most people do not dare to think differently, do not dare to try something else, and above all do not dare to live differently, because society itself is built on these same assumptions. But there are other ways of relating to money, and when you change your inner relationship to it, your experience of how money moves in your life changes as well.
For me, it has become clear that when I live in a sense of trust—that money exists, that it arrives when needed, that there is more than enough for what is meant—then that is exactly what happens. This is not a theory for me, but something I have experienced again and again. It does not mean that I do not use money or that I ignore practical aspects of finances, but that the underlying fear diminishes. This is also why my relationship to saving has changed over time. Saving is often seen as responsible and wise, and in many contexts it is, but behind it there is often a fear that money will run out or not be enough, or that one must constantly manage and restrain it.
That way of relating to money creates a limitation on how much money one allows into one’s life, because the underlying belief shapes the lived reality. If you believe you must conserve and control in order to survive, that is the reality you will live in. It is a trap, and it does not have to be that way. The difference lies in the inner stance, in belief and perception.
As the fear of scarcity diminishes, the entire relationship shifts. When money is experienced as something that moves, something that is always available in flow, the need to hold on begins to dissolve, and money can move to you and through you in a different way. What comes to you is closely tied to the fundamental feeling you carry about money. Feelings are energy, and the feeling of abundance creates abundance, while the feeling of lack, fear, and danger creates exactly that.
Money, at its core, is simply energy in motion, no different from other forms of energy. Within that lies another insight: that money itself has never truly been in real scarcity, but, like other forms of energy, exists in abundance. It is instead our beliefs, our systems, and our fear that create the experience of limitation.
The difference is that we, as humans, have chosen to assign greater value to certain things than to others. Gold, diamonds, and money are given high value, and because that value is perceived as high, we also experience them as harder to obtain. That is where the trap emerges. We create the rules, and then become trapped within them.
One of the strongest beliefs is that we must do something to receive money, that it must always be exchanged for work, time, or performance. The system is built this way, but that does not mean it is the only possible reality. It simply means that most people believe in that model. There are those who receive money through gifts, opportunities, investments, inheritance, collaborations, ideas, or entirely different paths than traditional work. Money can come in many ways, but if one is convinced it can only come through a single channel, one limits oneself to that channel. Abundance also exists in forms beyond money, but only those who live in a sense of abundance are able to perceive it.
We live in a society built on a relatively narrow view of money, where certain behaviors are encouraged and others are barely seen as possibilities. You are supposed to save for retirement, be responsible, work hard, and the more you struggle, the more you may eventually earn. At the same time, many people live with the feeling that money exists somewhere “out there,” distant and unattainable, something one might reach one day if only the right things are done long enough.
This is not about doing nothing in life, but about understanding that you do not have to limit how money is allowed to come. It is also about recognizing that you cannot receive money if, at a deeper level, you do not believe you can receive it, or do not feel worthy of it. Beliefs shape receptivity. The heavier and more charged money becomes, the more friction arises. The lighter your relationship to it, the more freely it moves. When money is allowed to flow in and out without fear, guilt, or control, more movement often arises, not less. Energy that is held tightly tends to stagnate, while energy that is allowed to circulate continues to move.
Another part of the trap is the perception that money exists outside of us, far away, something to be pursued. That perception creates distance. When money is instead experienced as something natural, as part of life rather than something separate, the relationship shifts again. Joy, ease, and gratitude in relation to money also change how we meet it. The more deeply one lets go of the logic of scarcity and begins to live in the experience that resources are not fundamentally limited, but that life holds an abundance we continuously block through fear, the more money begins to move differently toward us.
There is also a paradox here that many can recognize, even if they have not put it into words: money often begins to move more freely when we stop chasing it. When the need to secure it, to obtain it, to build our sense of safety around it no longer drives us, something opens. It is not about no longer using money, but about the release of that tight, almost desperate movement toward it. And in that release, something shifts. We are no longer standing in the way. We are no longer contracted or driven by fear and control, and money can begin to move in new ways, more freely, with less friction.
This is often misunderstood, because it is not about literally “not wanting money,” but about not being bound to it, not depending on it for one’s sense of worth or safety. It is an inner shift, but it creates an outer difference.
There is also a more modern version of this same trap, often hidden behind something that appears more conscious: the idea of manifesting money through techniques—thinking the right thoughts, visualizing, feeling in a certain way in order to make money appear. And again, there is truth in the idea that our inner state affects what we encounter. It does. But what often happens is that the underlying driver remains lack. One tries to manifest money because one feels one does not have it, because one seeks security, because one wants something perceived as missing.
And so the same movement continues.
It becomes a more subtle form of control, where one tries to manipulate reality through methods rather than transforming one’s relationship to it. As long as the underlying feeling is that something is missing, that experience will continue.
True flow does not arise from technique, but from state.
At the same time, there is another expression of the same trap that can appear as its opposite. This is when people build an identity around not wanting money, or see themselves as better for working for free, not charging, or avoiding financial compensation. It may look like generosity or freedom, but often it reflects an inability to receive. And this often comes down to worthiness.
If one does not truly feel worthy of receiving, it can manifest as avoiding money altogether or justifying it through moral reasoning—believing it is better not to charge, more right to give without receiving, that money itself is something to stand outside of. But this too is a form of attachment. Money is still in control, just from the opposite direction. To be truly free in relation to money, one must be able to both give and receive without charge, without turning it into identity, morality, or comparison.
And that is where worthiness enters again.
When one deeply feels worthy of receiving, without needing to prove anything, without needing to earn it through performance, the flow changes. There is no longer the same resistance to money coming in, nor the same fear of it disappearing. It becomes a different way of standing in relation to money, and that is where the trap begins to loosen.
Money stops being something to chase, protect, or define oneself through. It is no longer a problem to solve or a security to secure, but something that moves, just as so much else in life moves. And perhaps it is only there, when nothing needs to be proven and nothing needs to be held onto, that one can finally meet money without fear, and discover that the abundance was never absent.