Ed Coambs is the founder of Healthy Love and Money, a financial planner and marriage and family financial therapist. Ed shares his unique background, having transitioned from being a firefighter to a financial planner and becoming a therapist.

He was interested in how family dynamics and financial behaviors intertwine, and this led him to study therapy to understand these deeper connections. He discusses his own skepticism about therapy before experiencing its benefits personally and professionally. Over time, he embraced therapy because of its power to help people understand themselves and their behavior.

Everyone has a personal history and relationship with money, shaped by our lived experiences. Understanding this history is key in financial therapy, as it helps to understand seemingly irrational financial behaviors. We all have Emotional Connections to Money and sometimes Society Influences Spending and constant pressure to consume and compare fuels unhealthy financial behaviors, like impulse buying.

Ed has a specific Therapeutic Approach to Couples and Money and his view on Attachment Theory and Money is very interesting. Ed advocates for increasing awareness about the relationship with money and how this relationship was formed. One of Ed’s central beliefs is that empathy and curiosity can lead to meaningful change, whereas using shame as a motivator can have long-term negative consequences. In this episode, you will hear Practical Tools for Couples that will help build a more collaborative and positive financial relationship. Let’s stop the circle of fighting over money and build better habits.

Show notes:

👨‍🚒 Ed is a former firefighter: running into burning down relationships is harder. 02:01

💲 Financial intimacy: the intersection of love and money. 02:59

🚒 Ed's Journey from Firefighter to Financial Therapist. 03:38
👨‍⚕️ The Role of Therapy in Financial Intimacy: we all have our issues with money and it reflects our relationships with people. 10:21
🤩 You can’t be told what to do: your experiences are important for financial behavior.
15:27
⚡ Power of empathy and social media: what are your needs and emotions connected to money? 17:06
😎 Practical strategies for couples to develop financial intimacy: looking into all perspectives. 27:24
💰 The Role of Attachment Theory in Financial Therapy. 29:55
⏯️ Patterns of behaviors around money: fighting about money and going in circles. 36:28

Links:
Website: www.healthyloveandmoney.com

Book: www.amazon.com/dp/195355508X

Connect with Dr. Bonnie Wims: www.linkedin.com/in/drbonniewims

Book a free call with Dr. Bonnie Wims: calendly.com/bonnie-96

Willpower isn't real, it's just a myth. What's real is creating a healthy environment where habits can thrive.

Ethan Schiff is an Integrative Health Coach and the founder of Optimized Health. He has a passion for helping everyday people unlearn the harms caused by diet culture, achieve their health goals, and sustain results for life!

Ethan shares that, for the majority of his life, he has been on a diet. He shares that dieting began in his adolescence in a family where dieting was a regular part of life. He recalls a harmful cycle of yo-yo dieting that eventually resulted in him reaching a peak weight of 312 pounds. This precipitated a quest to unlearn everything he had been taught about nutrition, weight loss, and health, in order to create a new approach. Experimenting first on himself, he lost 130lbs, which transformed his entire life.

The key to achieving a healthy weight is building healthy habits gradually and focusing on your emotional well-being, including understanding stress eating, body image issues, and how mental health impacts our relationship with food and fitness. The hardest part isn't starting; it's staying consistent and not letting one off-day derail everything. Self-compassion is the key to consistency—no one is a failure because willpower didn’t show up today. It is essential to understand, deeply, that one moment doesn’t define you.

Show notes:
🏃‍♂️ Ethan helps people achieve their health goals: practical wellness for your real life. 02:31
😇 Ethan’s personal journey: the process of unlearning. 06:06
✌️ A two-pronged approach: habit development and understanding emotional health. 08:46
⭕ Diet culture feels like a battle with ourselves, but Ethan chose to reconnect with himself. 13:32
⚠️ When your self-worth is dependent on external factors, it attacks your identity and leads to a deep spiral. 16:23
🍀 Approaching it with intention: focus on developing one habit a month while making adjustments. 20:03
🔑 Willpower and consistency: Inspiring yourself instead of comparing yourself to external standards. 25:31
🦹‍♀️ Unrealistic expectation of waking up and feeling like a superhero every day. 30:07
🎯 The key to connecting with ourselves: I will check in with myself, not with others. 34:26
🤓 We need practical advice that fits into real life. 36:32
🤩 Ethan offers free consultations. 39:37

Links:

Website: www.optimizedhealthcoaching.com

Connect with Dr. Bonnie Wims:www.linkedin.com/in/drbonniewims

Book a free call with Dr. Bonnie Wims:calendly.com/bonnie-96

Mental health is rooted in emotional health.

Douglas Robbins is an authentic and creative person, a bestseller author of six books, and a podcast host. Douglas explores diverse genres—sci-fi, romance, and contemporary literature while focusing on characters undergoing personal growth, navigating life’s complexities, and embracing introspective narratives. In today’s deep exploration of childhood experiences, emotional intelligence and all the shortcomings in the educational system, Douglas and Bonnie address all things that affect our well-being.

Childhood upbringing leaves marks on us but society's mark is also strong, as Douglas shares his experience with his father’s father's stoicism and the societal pressure for men to suppress emotions that make it hard for them to cope leaving them in quiet desperation, while women can be socially and emotionally more adaptive it is not easy for them either.

It is very important to use all the tools we can -like journaling, meditation, and questioning negative beliefs - to help us in our emotional health journey. Healing childhood wounds is essential for us so that we can be healthy grown-up individuals. Self-reflection, connection to others, and therapy are likewise essential for overcoming emotional struggles and living a more fulfilling life.

Show Notes:
🧠 Having emotional intelligence: you have an intellect that's developing, but emotions need to develop in parallel. 02:41
⏪ You come out into the world as an adult, but you're undeveloped: much of your personality is probably still stuck in the past. 06:29
🧒 A child has no boundaries; problems with the education system. 09:46
👦 Douglas's experience with his parents and teachers.12:41
😇 We need tools to handle all this: forgiveness, awareness, and the truthfulness of our beliefs. 16:10
⚠️ Boys have even more problems; girls are more socially inclined. 19:48
🍀 Looking at life through the filter of a past event: the importance of interconnection. 24:26
💙 Intimate relationships: Bonnie's experiences in the past with love and relationships. 27:55
👉 Emotional beliefs are hurdles that get in the way of a better life. 33:06

Links:

Meet Douglas: www.douglasrobbinsauthor.com

Books: www.amazon.com/stores/author/B009CD4K3E

Connect with Dr. Bonnie Wims:www.linkedin.com/in/drbonniewims

Book a free call with Dr. Bonnie Wims:calendly.com/bonnie-96