Money, Energy, and Ancestral History
The vivacious Vangile Makwakwa is a Professional speaker focused on the link between Emotional Intelligence & Financial Behaviour. The Author of Heart, Mind & Money: Using Emotional Intelligence for Financial Success, she has her MBA and Finance Honors and an entrepreneurial background. More than that, she is a trailblazer in the field of money, mindset, trauma, energy, and ancestral history. Enjoy snippets of her in conversation with LDH over the coming months, and most of all, sisters, be prepared to shift as she unearths nuggets of wisdom that will be the starting point in the journey of healing your money trauma.
Having completed her finance degree at UCT, Vangile Makwakwa understood that education is important. She soon realised that you could be educated but still be broke and while people weren’t starving, there was no financial freedom, and no one was in control of their own time. She wanted her story to be different.
“The story I had seen so often is that education is non-negotiable. However, you could be educated and still be broke. My first paycheck was gone within the first week. As a student, I was working part-time jobs and never had enough money, but I put this down to the fact that these were part-time jobs. Until my third year, I was pretty self-sufficient, including paying for my place. Suddenly having a full-time job was worse than when I was studying. Even though I had an office job, I was still waitressing. I decided that earning in a different currency would solve my problems. I started traveling and working on a cruise ship. I had no expenses and still never had enough money.”
Vangile put it all down to witchcraft, and although we may laugh, she couldn’t understand how money was slipping through her fingers. She may have been traveling around the world and been in different countries, and the same pattern emerged. As soon as she completed her MBA in the USA, her panic attacks concerning money set in.
“I was physically getting sick because of money. Because of the severe anxiety, it took around nine years of somatic work to get my digestive system healthy again. Living in Boston gave me an advantage because I had access to great minds around trauma and money and asked poignant questions.I dove in and did the research. I was suicidal and deeply depressed. The outside world saw me happy and confident, but those closest to me saw a downward spiral. My friends took shifts to ensure I was not alone for long periods.”
New friends suggested Vispassana Meditation. Vangile had been in therapy throughout her teens for depression, yet it had returned with a vengeance. I had done the affirmations and visualising, and nothing seemed to help. To this day, I’m a vipassana meditator because it was completely transformative. Connecting with it instantly, Vangile undertook a journey that included 10 days of silence. I was taught how to go into my body, and that’s when I learned about the link between my body and my thoughts. For 10 days, I didn’t have to interact with money. All she thought about was money.
“I observed how these thoughts impacted my physical body. A friend suggested I study the root of who I am and understand African ancestry around money and integrate the different parts of me. I moved back home with $60 000 dollars in debt, and I observed. I listened to the talk about money. I got a life-coach and who started working on me. It was she who noticed the exercises that I was creating I could teach to others. Within three years, I had paid off my debt earning South African Rands.”
What was the link you observed concerning African women and money that showed you there was work to do here?
“Money is very different for black and brown people. When you’re born into a legacy of oppression, understand that oppression also leaves a destructive legacy around resources and finances. Our ancestors built things, but it was forcefully taken from us. That’s a trauma that left our ancestors entirely powerless. There’s this reality that “whatever I build will be taken away, so don’t build too big and just keep what you can. Keep yourself hidden.” So our ancestors had to be invisible and under the radar. As women in particular, women of colour. How do you stay safe…it’s to become invisible; we hide.
In South Africa, when you’re the only woman around men, you make yourself invisible, and that story of invisibility has been passed down from generation to generation. Here’s the crazy thing about wealth…wealth makes you VISIBLE. It’s completely opposite to what is in our DNA. It brings some kind of eyes to you. We have been taught that being visible means a lack of safety.
The brain and mind are not created to help us expand. The only role of the mind is safety and protection. So if the subconscious mind takes on the story that money makes you visible and unsafe, guess what? You’re going to get rid of it as quickly as possible!”
Check back in for part II next week. We’re only scratching the surface.