Trending
Why naming our feelings may be just as important as knowing our numbers
Most people come to a financial advisor expecting spreadsheets, projections, and strategies. And yes, those matter. But after decades of working with individuals, couples, and families, I have come to believe something else is just as critical to financial success and fulfillment:
Emotional literacy
Our ability to recognize, name, understand, and work with our emotions directly shapes how we earn, spend, save, invest, give, and relate to money. Without emotional literacy, even the most sophisticated financial plan can quietly unravel. With it, money becomes a powerful tool for alignment, resilience, and joy.
At Abaris, we talk about Authentic Wealth through the lens of the Five Levers: Finances, Mindset, Relationships, Health, and Time. Emotional literacy is not a standalone lever. It is the connective tissue that allows all five to move together.
What Is Emotional Literacy and Why Does It Matter?
Emotional literacy goes beyond being emotional or talking about feelings. It is the skill of noticing what is happening inside you, accurately labeling it, and responding with intention rather than reactivity.
Neuroscientist Lisa Feldman Barrett (https://lisafeldmanbarrett.com), author of How Emotions Are Made, shows us that emotions are not hardwired reactions. They are constructed by the brain based on past experience, context, and prediction. In other words, the more precise our emotional vocabulary, the better our brains become at regulating emotion and guiding decision making.
Similarly, Brené Brown (https://brenebrown.com) has spent decades researching vulnerability, shame, courage, and empathy. In Atlas of the Heart, she writes that language shapes experience. When we can name what we are feeling, whether grief, resentment, envy, fear, or hope, we are far more capable of responding in ways that align with our values.
This is not soft work. It is foundational work.
And nowhere is it more needed than in conversations about money.
Lever 1: Finances
Money Is Emotional Data
Money decisions are often framed as rational, but they are deeply emotional. Fear shows up as hoarding cash or avoiding the market. Shame appears as secrecy or procrastination. Anxiety drives overtrading, while envy fuels lifestyle creep.
When clients lack emotional literacy, money becomes something to control or avoid. When emotional literacy is present, money becomes information. It becomes a feedback system that helps us make conscious choices.
Being able to say, “I notice I am feeling anxious because uncertainty reminds me of past instability,” is radically different from, “I need to sell everything right now.”
Financial literacy tells us what to do. Emotional literacy helps us understand why we are tempted to do the opposite.
Lever 2: Mindset
From Reaction to Choice
Mindset is not about forced positivity. It is about awareness.
Without emotional literacy, mindset work often becomes bypassing. We tell ourselves everything is fine while our nervous system is clearly not fine. Emotional literacy invites us to slow down and get curious instead of judgmental.
Barrett’s research shows that naming emotions with greater specificity, such as saying “I am disappointed” instead of “I am stressed,” actually calms the nervous system. This matters because a regulated nervous system makes better financial decisions.
When we help clients build emotional awareness, they move from unconscious patterns to conscious choice. That is where real mindset shifts happen.
Lever 3: Relationships
Money Conversations Require Emotional Fluency
Money is one of the most emotionally charged topics in relationships. Couples argue about spending. Parents struggle with adult children. Siblings clash over inheritances.
These conflicts are rarely about dollars. They are about safety, power, fairness, belonging, and love.
Brené Brown reminds us that connection requires vulnerability, and vulnerability requires emotional language. Saying, “I feel scared we will not be okay,” opens a very different conversation than, “You are irresponsible with money.”
Emotional literacy allows financial conversations to become relationally strengthening rather than divisive. It helps families replace blame with understanding and control with collaboration.
Lever 4: Health
The Nervous System and Financial Stress
Chronic financial stress does not stay in the spreadsheet. It lives in the body.
Sleep issues, digestive problems, tension, burnout, and anxiety are often downstream effects of unresolved emotional strain around money. When emotions are ignored, they do not disappear. They show up physically.
Developing emotional literacy supports nervous system regulation, which in turn supports better health outcomes. Clients who can notice stress early are more likely to pause, ask for support, and make proactive decisions rather than reactive ones.
Health and wealth are not separate systems. They are deeply intertwined.
Lever 5: Time
Emotional Awareness Shapes How We Spend Our Lives
Time is our most precious, non renewable resource. Yet many people spend it reacting. They put out fires, stay busy, or avoid discomfort rather than intentionally designing their lives.
Emotional literacy helps us notice when we are saying yes out of guilt, staying stuck out of fear, or rushing because stillness feels unsafe. It allows us to align our time with what truly matters.
When clients build emotional awareness, they begin to make time decisions that reflect purpose rather than pressure.
Emotional Literacy as a Wealth Skill
At Abaris, we believe true wealth is not just financial independence. It is emotional resilience, relational depth, physical vitality, and time freedom.
Emotional literacy is not a nice to have. It is a wealth skill.
It helps us:
- Make calmer, wiser financial decisions
- Navigate market volatility with resilience
- Have braver conversations with loved ones
- Reduce stress and improve health
- Align money and time with our deepest values
In a world that moves fast and rewards certainty, emotional literacy invites something more powerful: presence, curiosity, and choice.
And that, ultimately, is what allows us to dream boldly, plan intentionally, and live abundantly.
Related: Inside a Radical Food Equity Model: Gaining Ground’s Mission With Jennifer Johnson