Understanding Your Financial Triggers and Glimmers
Many people think of money and finances as pretty straightforward. It’s all about numbers right? Beyond Finance’s financial therapists don’t agree.
Dr. Erika Rasure and Nathan Astle recently let a client Financial Wellness session focused on financial “triggers and glimmers,” and shared that you can’t address money without addressing emotions. According to them, money is deeply emotional.
As Dr. Erika Rasure kicked off the session by sharing:
“How we can manage ourselves on this debt journey by recognizing both positive emotional responses linked to money and our more negative responses.”
These two sides — the triggers and the glimmers — reveal a lot about our relationship with money. Understanding them can help us begin to heal, grow, and forge a healthy path ahead.
What Are Financial Triggers?
The word trigger has roots in trauma language. Astle explained, “When we say the word trigger or having a financial trigger, it originally comes from language that we hear around PTSD… The trigger isn’t necessarily dangerous, but it still brings up all of the big feelings and thoughts and distress of the dangerous event.”
In financial life, triggers can appear out of nowhere — a phone call from a creditor, a letter in the mail, or a reminder of spending habits that have changed.
“You can be having a great day,” Astle said, “and then we see that a creditor is calling, and we start to panic and breathe fast. Or maybe you see sales for the holidays and remember that this year you can’t spend as much on your grandkids.”
He emphasized that trying to avoid triggers altogether isn’t realistic: “The best thing you can do isn’t try to avoid all triggers. The best thing you can do is try to be intentional about how you want to respond the next time you are triggered.”
Astle recommends “coping ahead” — in other words, making a plan before triggers appear. “The less decisions you have to make in the moment, the easier it’s going to be to move through the trigger.”
Planning Ahead for Emotional Safety
Dr. Rasure agreed that having a coping plan is key. “If we know we are going to encounter something with some degree of certainty, we can plan ahead for it.”
Even simple rituals can help create calm in moments of stress. “I really dislike doing taxes,” she shared. “So my ‘coping ahead’ plan is I go to the gas station, get a Diet Dr. Pepper and a box of Hot Tamales, and make a ritual out of it.”
These rituals aren’t trivial — they’re ways of caring for yourself during financial stress. As she put it, “Financial triggers really do help us identify those parts of ourselves that need a little more healing, a little more care, a little more attention.”
Discovering Financial Glimmers
After exploring triggers, Dr. Rasure shifted to the concept of ‘glimmers:’ “I like to best describe financial glimmers as these really small, sometimes tender moments of financial peace or empowerment that signal safety — alignment with your personal values and your goals.”
They may be harder to notice because, as she explained, “It’s so much easier to get into tunnel vision when you are feeling triggered… but you have to train yourself to get to the glimmer.”
What does that look like in real life? “A financial glimmer could be something as simple as going to the grocery store on a full belly… or checking your bank balance, no matter what the amount is — just that you were brave enough to check it.”
She shared that with each glimmer, you take one more step toward peace, gratitude, and even empowerment.
From Tunnel Vision to Growth
Astle helped connect these two ideas — triggers and glimmers — as parts of the same healing process. He said, “The easiest thing to notice when we’re triggered is tunnel vision… The problem is it doesn’t make as much sense when we’re trying to make financial decisions.”
His advice? “When you’re triggered, ask yourself — is there evidence to the contrary? Have there been times where I’ve done this well? Do I have more resources than I’m giving myself credit for?”
Looking for the glimmer within the trigger can shift the entire emotional experience. “Look for things that are going right,” he said. “If so, I can take the next step because I’ve done well with this before.”
He reminded everyone, “Getting triggered is going to happen. It’s not a fun experience, but you have support. Humans aren’t supposed to do hard things alone — including dealing with financial triggers.”
Journaling the Journey
To wrap up, Dr. Rasure encouraged a practice of writing down both triggers and glimmers: “When these two things come together, that’s where some magic really starts to happen, because triggers show us what needs to be healed — but glimmers make us feel what it’s like to be healed.”
According to her, this doesn’t need to be complicated. “Write a glimmer down on a grocery receipt on the floorboard of your car… It might not seem like a lot, but the more you start to notice these things and write them down, the more they show up.”
“Ultimately,” she said, “Triggers are beautiful reminders of what needs to be healed. And those glimmers get us to a place where we can feel what it is to be healed.”
Closing Thought
Together, Dr. Rasure and Astle offered a simple yet profound truth: Healing your relationship with money isn’t about perfection — it’s about awareness. It’s about noticing what hurts, and celebrating what helps.
Every financial journey has both triggers and glimmers. The goal isn’t to eliminate one or chase the other — it’s to see them both clearly and learn from each.