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Money is one of those topics that can make your chest tighten. For so many of us, the way we relate to money is tangled up with shame, silence, and stories that aren’t even ours. We’ve been told money is scarce. We’ve been told that wanting more is greedy. And as birth workers and caregivers, we’ve been told, over and over again, that charging what we’re worth is selfish. There is this idea that care work should be done for free, that it is built into the role of being a woman or queer care provider. There is a very complicated push/pull within the doula community about this.
In our recent Hot + Brave conversation with Jalisa Hardy, founder of the Healed Money Movement and proud graduate of our Maternal Support Practitioner (MSP) doula training, we dug deep into these wounds. Jalisa’s work sits at the intersection of healing and liberation. She helps women and queer folks step out of cycles of financial shame and scarcity and into a new way of relating to money.
“Money is just a tool,” Jalisa said. This reminder is important, but for so many of us, it’s become this marker of our worth. And when our worth has already been under attack, through racism, patriarchy, ableism, and all the systems stacked against us, the wounds cut even deeper.
Bianca asked Jalisa what we can do to heal our money wounds and fix our relationship with money… the answer was brilliant: “It doesn’t need to be fixed, it is something that needs to be developed” Jalisa emphasizes.
Where Our Money Stories Come From
When Jalisa talks about money wounds, she’s not talking about budgeting mistakes or credit card debt. She’s talking about inherited trauma.
She explained how our earliest lessons about money often come from watching our families. Maybe you saw parents stretching every dollar and learned that survival means self-sacrifice. Maybe you heard that artists, healers, or caregivers “don’t do it for the money” and internalized that you should give your gifts away for free.
“I grew up hearing that we don’t talk about money,” Jalisa shared. “That silence is a wound. When you can’t ask questions, when you can’t be curious, you inherit fear instead of knowledge.”
These stories don’t just live in our heads, they live in our nervous systems. They show up when you’re setting prices, when you’re negotiating a contract, when you hesitate before sending an invoice.
And as doulas, educators, and healers, those wounds are compounded by a system that already undervalues care work. A 2020 report from the International Labour Organization found that unpaid care and domestic work is worth 9% of global GDP, yet it is consistently devalued.
Healing Money Wounds
The Healed Money Movement began when Jalisa realized she wasn’t alone in these struggles. People in her community were carrying the same shame, the same silence, the same fear.
Jalisa wanted to create a space where we could be honest. Where we could say: yes, I want to make money. Yes, I want my work to be sustainable. And I don’t have to apologize for that. She talks about accountability being a really big part of the healing process. “One of my gifts that people tell me all the time is, ‘you’re such an amazing accountability partner’. But when it comes to accountability with me, it is going to take some vulnerability, it’s going to take some openness… I’m going to see certain things that you might want to try to hide and I’m going to be like, ‘hey, move your hand off that page.’”
Healing, she explained, doesn’t mean pretending money doesn’t matter. It means rewriting the story. It means understanding that scarcity is not a personal failing, it’s a system designed to keep people small. In our conversation, Jalisa spoke about the power of naming those systems. Once you see that scarcity is manufactured, you can stop blaming yourself. You can start imagining something different.
That shift is radical. Because when birth workers stop apologizing for their fees, when parents stop shrinking in shame, when communities start valuing care… everything changes.
What This Means for Doulas
If you’ve ever felt nervous to state your fee out loud, this episode is for you. If you’ve ever wondered whether you deserve to charge for your support, this episode is for you. If you’ve ever lowered your rates because you thought someone would think less of you otherwise, this episode is for you.
As Bianca reminded us, “Every time you undercharge, you reinforce the story that your work isn’t valuable. But your work is literally life-changing. It deserves to be resourced.”
That message matters deeply in the doula world. Research shows that doula support improves birth outcomes, lowers rates of interventions, and increases satisfaction for families. Yet many doulas struggle to sustain themselves financially. Too often, they burn out or leave the profession, not because they lack passion or skill, but because the money story feels impossible to rewrite.
At bebo mia, we know the fight for reproductive justice includes economic justice. Doulas can’t do this work if they can’t pay their bills. Parents can’t thrive if they’re drowning in shame and scarcity. Communities can’t heal if caregivers are running on empty.
This is exactly why our birth doula training and full spectrum doula training (includes our postpartum doula training) weave financial sustainability into the curriculum. We don’t just teach comfort measures and evidence-based care, we prepare doulas to build businesses that last, so their work can reach more families for years to come.
Imagining Liberation
The Healed Money Movement isn’t about quick fixes or financial hacks. It’s about imagining a liberated future.
Jalisa asked us to consider: “What would change if you believed money could love you back? What would shift if you believed abundance was your birthright?”
Those questions are uncomfortable for many of us, and that’s exactly the point. Healing money wounds requires us to feel the discomfort, to notice the shame, and to keep going anyway.
This is important healing work: with time the inside work will reflect on the outside experience. Jalisa tells us about the time recently that her credit card was stolen and she woke up to urgent texts from her bank alerting her to the fraud. “Usually that type of situation would have literally sent me into a spiral. I would have been freaking out. But instead I just said, ‘No, these aren’t my transactions,’ and went back to sleep. It was like — it’s going to work out.” She laughs after remembering that feeling. “That experience showed me that the work I’ve been doing is actually working. Sometimes you wonder, is it really making a difference? The finances don’t always respond right away, but it’s not about the external. It’s about the internal.”
It also requires community. Jalisa emphasized that we cannot heal these wounds alone. Scarcity thrives in isolation; abundance grows in connection.
At bebo mia, we believe this too. It’s why our doula training programs are built on community, mentorship, and shared knowledge. We know that when birth workers support each other, and when they charge sustainably for their care, families and communities thrive.
Stepping Into a New Story
If you’ve been wrestling with your money story, let Jalisa’s words be your invitation to step into something new.
“You don’t have to stay in the story you inherited,” she reminded us. “You can write a new one. And that new story doesn’t just heal you, it heals generations after you.”
This conversation is a reminder that money healing is part of birth justice, reproductive justice, and collective liberation. When doulas, parents, and communities take back their worth, they create ripples that change everything.
So here’s the question Jalisa leaves us with: What story do you want to write about money?
We want to run a program with Jalisa and we want to know what you would love to learn about. We suggested a few options in the podcast episode such as a financial life raft for the holidays, or an accountability session that would run monthly. We are open to whatever you would like to see! Email [email protected] to let us know!
👉 Listen to the full conversation with Jalisa Hardy on the Hot + Brave podcast, and learn more about her work at the Healed Money Movement.
And if you’re ready to follow in Jalisa’s footsteps and become a doula, check out our Maternal Support Practitioner training… the most comprehensive doula training available online.
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