Love Your Money, Love Yourself:
The Path to Financial Freedom
“Face your fears, watch them disappear.” This wise old saying rings true, but how do we do it? It’s not so easy to face our fears. It takes courage and support. If we are walking down a dark road in unfamiliar territory, we need a guide — someone who knows the path and can illuminate the darkness.
That’s what I learned from working with financial coach Jennifer Jost. She has guided me on the path toward financial freedom by helping me change how I think about money — and myself. This has brought a new confidence, prosperity, and joy to my life.
When I first showed up for one of Jennifer’s “Rock My Finances” financial workshops, I was a smoldering ball of anxiety and grief. A financial bomb had gone off in my life, and I felt charred inside.
It had been about a year since financial D-day, the day I picked up the phone at work to hear a frantic, mysterious voicemail left by my (now ex-) spouse: “Don’t use the bank account. Meet me in the parking lot at your work in an hour.”
I spent that hour in agony, and then had to face my worst fears: The IRS had taken everything from our bank account. My ex had gambled away our substantial savings and racked up $100,000 in credit card debt — kept secret from me. Some of the credit cards had 23% interest rates.
I felt like I’d lifted a rock in the garden to see horrible insects swarming around.
This all happened a couple of days after my birthday, and just a few days after the earnings from my new job had been direct deposited into our checking account. I’d spent ten years pouring time and energy into gaining the experience and credentials for that job, often working 70+ hours a week. And the person I called “my partner” had destroyed the fruits of my labor.
I spent more than a year swinging between grief, despair, and anger, scrambling to save our house and make it through each day while getting a move on separation and divorce. I enrolled in a grief workshop, where I learned about a financial expert named Jennifer Jost, who was offering a workshop for women experiencing loss or divorce. It was called “Rock My Finances.” The playful title lightened my spirits — humor is good medicine! — so I decided to give it a try.
I arrived at the workshop nervous, with a friend along for moral support, and embarrassingly late, since I’d mixed up the address. Walking in and apologizing for being so late, I noticed Jennifer beaming at my friend and me, as all the women in the room told us: “You’re gorgeous!” We laughed. Apparently, Jennifer had started out by giving the group an important ground rule: If someone makes a mistake, tell them, “You’re gorgeous!”
That’s Jennifer’s style. In my eyes, she’s not only a financial whiz but an emotional genius. She knows how to put people at ease, to make them feel accepted and welcomed, comfortable and encouraged.
Before I met Jennifer, I thought seeing a financial counselor would involve squirming in a chair while some highly successful know-it all (most likely a man) would scold, judge, and sneer as he told me all the ways I had failed financially. Jennifer didn’t do that. She gave us time and space to talk and learn in a playful, relaxed atmosphere. She connected with us. She respected our vulnerability by creating a space where we felt free to be honest and curious. She asked us questions. We played money games. By the end of the day, we’d learned a lot and had a lot of fun. We’d made vision boards. That process renewed my clarity about what I really want out of life, helping me tap into the deep motivation for changing how I approach money.
Oh, she knows her stuff — the ins and outs of finance, the complex questions that come up in complex situations. Her workshop was full of realistic, down-to-earth action steps and effective tools. At the same time, she understands that the energy to make good money habits stick comes from the heart, not the head.
Just that one workshop with Jennifer already started to shift my view of money 180 degrees. She helped me to see money differently: not as a problem to worry about, or an enemy to fear, but as an expression of our innate potential for growth, love, and joy. She made me see that money isn’t really about money. It’s about mindset: how we feel about ourselves, how we relate to the world. She told us repeatedly — loudly, with gusto — “I love money,” giving us permission to embrace money as a positive force we can use wisely to love ourselves and others well.
How did she learn to approach money as a balance between heart and head? She came by it the hard way, just like those of us enrolled in her workshop: through the reality of grief and suffering, which touches every human being. She had passed through the fire of an incomprehensible trauma. It changed her life, and it changed her way of helping her clients.
With the courage to be vulnerable, honest, and authentic in front of us all, she shared her worst life experience: the night her ex-husband kidnapped their two children. About being a couple houses down, where she stood helplessly as she heard gunshots. She had just heard him killing her two children and himself.
She told us about being flooded with terror and grief, as she drove her car to the two different hospitals where her daughter and son had been transported. Listening to Jennifer, seeing her eyes filling with tears, we could sense how she felt in that car. She told us, “When you’re in traffic, let’s remember: you never know what the person in the other car is going through.”
Somehow, from this incomprehensible loss, Jennifer’s heart produced immense compassion, like a phoenix rising from ashes.
Compassion, the hidden jewel in the swamp of grief, is what motivates her to do money coaching from the heart as well as the head. That’s why I knew I had to work with her. I had grown up with a mentally ill father, in a house that was not a home. There was violence. There was neglect. There were multiple forms of abuse. And there were always, always money problems. As a child, I had experienced homelessness and poverty. I could see that Jennifer was not just a financial coach, but a financial healer. And that I needed to work with her.
In just a few short months, working with Jennifer has changed my whole experience of money. My budget stopped being an enemy and became a friend. Jennifer taught me to have “Money Dates,” and how to make them fun. She taught me to transform my mind, and to trust myself.
I can tell you that I have more in my savings account right now than I ever thought possible. My debt keeps dropping, and my credit keeps rising. I feel more easeful and confident. Taking care of my money has positive ripple effects throughout my life. I said goodbye to my ex. I have a wonderful new place to live among a warm, supportive community. I am starting to date, and it’s more fun than scary. Most of all, I am taking my heart’s desires seriously, and making real progress manifesting them, step by step.
Carl Jung said, “One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious.” Jennifer’s approach to financial enlightenment gives us the courage to do that.
